True North

The Free Sarah Palin strategy has already begun to pay dividends.  Palin returned to the traditional running-mate role of attack dog, reminding voters of Barack Obama’s accusation that American troops had a strategy in Afghanistan of “air-raiding villages and bombing civilians”.  Palin considers that a disqualifying event for a person seeking the position of Commander in Chief:

Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Sarah Palin indicated for the first time that she does not consider Barack Obama qualified to be commander in chief and sharply criticized him for saying last year that U.S. troops in Afghanistan are “just air raiding villages and killing civilians.”

Calling Obama “reckless,” Palin said that where she comes from Obama’s remarks “disqualify someone from consideration for the next commander-in-chief.”

“Some of his comments that he’s made about the war, that I think, in my world disqualify someone from consideration for the next commander-in-chief,” said Palin. “Some of the comments he’s made about Afghanistan, what we are doing there, ‘just air raiding villages and killing civilians.’ That’s reckless.”

Those comments came in August 2007, when Obama tried criticizing the Bush administration’s military strategy in Afghanistan.  Here’s the video:

We’ve gotta get the job done there,and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

For some, that recalled the accusations made against the military during the Vietnam War. The NATO effort in Afghanistan doesn’t involve “just air-raiding villages and bombing civilians”, certainly not as a strategy. Obama essentially accused the US and its allies of committing war crimes, although he appeared completely ignorant of the implications of his own accusation.

Interestingly, Adam Gadahn has just resurfaced in a 30-minute video, and he makes the same accusations. “Azzam al-Amriki” talks about “carpet bombing” at about the 6-minute mark. Gadahn, thought to be dead, appears to have lost a lot of weight. Maybe he was on the Al-Qaeda Fat Farm for the last few months.

Palin does a good job in bringing this back to the forefront. Either Obama meant to smear the military leadership in Afghanistan, including that of our allies, or he didn’t have the first clue what he was saying. Neither commends itself for someone who would command our military during this war, especially the fact that Obama made that accusation without ever having traveled to Afghanistan to see the situation for himself.

Cross-posted at Hot Air.