Originally Posted By: whomod
Yesterday, McCain got confused over the most basic facts about who is doing what in Iraq and Iran. Very basic stuff..What if Clinton or Obama had made this mistake?



Obama Gaffes on Iraq and Afghanistan

  • Obama posited -- incorrectly -- that Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan -- forgetting, momentarily, that Afghans don't speak Arabic.

    "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan," Obama said.

    The vast majority of military translators in both war zones are drawn from the local population.
    Naturally they speak the local language. In Iraq, that's Arabic or Kurdish. In Afghanistan, it's any of a half dozen other languages -- including Pashtu, Dari, and Farsi.

    ...he immediately made another [mistake].

    "We need agricultural specialists in Afghanistan, people who can help them develop other crops than heroin poppies, because the drug trade in Afghanistan is what is driving and financing these terrorist networks. So we need agricultural specialists," he said.

    So far, so good.

    "But if we are sending them to Baghdad, they're not in Afghanistan," Obama said.

    Iraq has many problems, but encouraging farmers to grow food instead of opium poppies isn't one of them. In Iraq, oil fields not poppy fields are a major source of U.S. technical assistance.