'Their blood is on your hands': Air Force veteran confronts Joe Biden for enabling Iraq war
Former vice president Joe Biden had a fantastic comeback to the presidential race on Super Tuesday, March 3, when he bagged as many as 10 states that went to primaries/caucuses. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who was considered the favorite to clinch the day, had to be content with only four states, including his own. Biden's victories were made easier by the series of endorsements he got after the big victory in South Carolina on February 29.
Biden, however, lost California — the biggest prize on the day — which kept Sanders' hopes alive. The former No. 2 at the White House faced an embarrassing experience during a campaign stopover in the Golden State on Super Tuesday. In a video that caught the episode, an Air Force veteran confronted the 77-year-old to say he was among those who had enabled the Iraq War (2003) and hurt civilians.
The veteran, identified as Michael Thurman, faced Biden and his staff members at a crowded Buttercup Diner at Oakland and asked: "Why we should vote for someone who voted for a war and enabled a war that killed thousands of our brothers and sister and countless Iraqi civilians?"
Thurman, who is also a conscientious objector, was identified by About Face: Veterans Against the War, an anti-war veterans’ body.
An animated Thurman further slammed Biden saying the latter not only enabled the war but also awarded the "man who caused the war". His target was former president George W Bush who Biden had honored with the Liberty Medal on the Veterans Day ceremony of 2018. The honor was for the former president's "support of veterans", according to About Face.
The veteran even went to the extent of accusing Biden of having blood on his hands and sought his disqualification. "Their blood is on your hands. You are disqualified sir," Thurman, who was accompanied by an Army veteran, said. "My friends are dead because of your policies," he added.
Biden, who had a number of confrontations with voters and mediapersons during his campaign trail this year, responded by saying that his late son Beau had also served in Iraq. Beau, who died in 2015 at the age of 46 after battling brain cancer, had served in the Middle Eastern country for a year in 2008 when the Bush administration was in its last leg. Biden told his critic that people’s deaths in the Iraq War mattered to him as well.
The man did not relent at that and said he was not going after Biden’s son but the former vice president was escorted away. Before moving out, Biden told the man with a pointed finger: "You better not" after Thurman said he was not targeting his son.
"My brothers and sisters died in Iraq and Afghanistan," the man said and added, "No way he can be president. They are dead. Millions are dead in Iraq. He will not be allowed to be President. Trump is more anti-war than Joe Biden."
"We actually fought in your damn wars," the man further yelled at Biden who by now had walked down a distance. "You sent us to hurt civilians," he said.
Biden had voted in favor of invading Iraq in 2002, a point over which Sanders has often targeted him in this election cycle.