McCain just doesn't get it
Today, John McCain essentially reiterated the "100 years in Iraq" comment he made during the Republican primary. Here's the key part of the interview:
Q: If [the surge is] working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
McCAIN: No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. [Think Progress]
This comment is significant because it reiterates what McCain had said about how he wouldn't mind troops being Iraq for another 100 years. The "100 years" line has already been the subject of an attack ad, and Republican pundits tried to accuse the ad of distorting what McCain had said. The GOP argument against the ad has been that McCain did not mean 100 years of war, but was just talking about having a military presence in Iraq - like the presence the US has maintained in Germany and Japan since World War II.
But anyone who thought that drawing a distinction between war and occupation would make the "100 years" debacle go away just doesn't get how most Americans view the situation in Iraq. Those of us who have been against the war from the start, and those who were for the war, but now realize that we were misled, don't want American troops in Iraq much longer - in any way, shape, or form. If John McCain loses in November, pundits will look back and say that his biggest mistakes were thinking that the surge would 1) somehow negate all the flawed/false arguments that led us into the Iraq War in the first place, and 2) somehow restore faith in the irrational neoconservative foreign policy that hastily created those arguments.
As I have written before, though I was not a big supporter of the surge, if it actually improves the long-term situation in Iraq, I am definitely willing to admit that it has worked. But there is absolutely nothing that could ever convince me that the decision to invade Iraq was a good one, or that we should apply an outdated post-World War II foreign policy approach to Iraq, and keep an expensive military presence there for another fifty or sixty years. McCain already faces a hurdle to his candidacy in the form of his advanced age; his advisers should try to steer him away from sounding like he's stuck in 1945.
"McCain on When Troops Can Come Home From Iraq" [Think Progress]
Q: If [the surge is] working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
McCAIN: No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. [Think Progress]
This comment is significant because it reiterates what McCain had said about how he wouldn't mind troops being Iraq for another 100 years. The "100 years" line has already been the subject of an attack ad, and Republican pundits tried to accuse the ad of distorting what McCain had said. The GOP argument against the ad has been that McCain did not mean 100 years of war, but was just talking about having a military presence in Iraq - like the presence the US has maintained in Germany and Japan since World War II.
But anyone who thought that drawing a distinction between war and occupation would make the "100 years" debacle go away just doesn't get how most Americans view the situation in Iraq. Those of us who have been against the war from the start, and those who were for the war, but now realize that we were misled, don't want American troops in Iraq much longer - in any way, shape, or form. If John McCain loses in November, pundits will look back and say that his biggest mistakes were thinking that the surge would 1) somehow negate all the flawed/false arguments that led us into the Iraq War in the first place, and 2) somehow restore faith in the irrational neoconservative foreign policy that hastily created those arguments.
As I have written before, though I was not a big supporter of the surge, if it actually improves the long-term situation in Iraq, I am definitely willing to admit that it has worked. But there is absolutely nothing that could ever convince me that the decision to invade Iraq was a good one, or that we should apply an outdated post-World War II foreign policy approach to Iraq, and keep an expensive military presence there for another fifty or sixty years. McCain already faces a hurdle to his candidacy in the form of his advanced age; his advisers should try to steer him away from sounding like he's stuck in 1945.
"McCain on When Troops Can Come Home From Iraq" [Think Progress]
posted at 11:03:00 PM | permalink
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