John McCain comes across as generally measured and thoughtful. We could use someone like that. Analytical. But he only goes so far he doesn't follow through. He does well on the torture issue. It makes sense that torture extracts not just valid but false information clouding the waters. It encourages reciprocity putting one's own troops in danger. It's disastrous for the national image -- and that really matters. It violates international law. It's immoral. He doesn't go so far as to say that but on torture he does pretty well. He takes a stand and it's the right stand. On Iraq he doesn't make any sense. The facts are there. Some he doesn't acknowledge, others he doesn't follow to their obvious conclusions. He maintains Iraq is different from Vietnam he says "With Vietnam if you lost they weren't going to come after you." That of course is not at all how it was presented back in the day. The official view was always the Domino Theory if Vietnam fell so would the rest of SE Asia the implication being world communism. (This by the way may yet happen but it won't be as was foreseen.) That's what was believed and especially that's what they wanted believed. Along with this McCain advances the view that if we lose in Iraq they'll come after us. While I agree fundamentalists are nuts I'm convinced what's going on in Islam is a primarily a local (i.e. "local" with the breadth of the Islamic world) sociopolitical not a religious phenomenon and we're not really the agent that's likely to make things much better by being over there. Then there's the issue of staying versus getting out. McCain's long been an advocate of more troops. At the same time he acknowledges that more troops just aren't going to happen. The political, capital, human funds just aren't there. Yet he maintains we should stay in Iraq. So what he's saying is we don't have the resources to do the job but we should just stay there anyway taking losses. I guess you could call this a faith based initiative or a wish based initiative like they talk about in the Onion. They talk about Iraqi troops taking over. This is baloney. They're divided against themselves. Kurds Shiites Sunnis. In Vietnam they only had two factions here you've got three. The parallel with Vietnam is really too glaring not to be blinding. Maybe that's what's happend to McCain. They always said we lost in Vietnam because we didn't fully commit ourselves and it's true we could have leveled the place killed every last person just to make sure and put up retirement condos for wealthy Americans wanting warm weather. We can do the same thing in Iraq and put up a concrete wall to keep the neighbors out to boot like they do around Israel. But guess what. The will and the resources are just not there so here we are again stalled, mired down taking useless losses under the burden of a job too big to handle. And as John Kerry said in his better days how do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a lost cause. In truth of course the Vietnam War was a complete waste the Communists won and Vietnam is a dynamic evolving place. Things took care of themselves. You didn't need to kill all those people. If I could corner McCain as a test of his worth I'd ask him "What would you have done differently in Vietnam and when would you have done it?" But I don't have to corner him and I don't have to ask him this question. Because I hear what he's saying about Iraq and it doesn't make any sense.
Just like in Viet Nam, there is NO WAY of "winning" in Iraq. There are people there who will NEVER stop killing the invaders and those who enable the invaders. And that's not just my opinion but the opinion of the U.S. military in Iraq. Btw, props to Mr. McCain for failing to back down on the torture amendment.
Yeah, the mccain-fenigold act is totally unconstitutional. I mean, a lot of what the act does makes sense, but that doesnt change the fact that it acts in opposition to the 1st amendment.
I like that. The constitution comes before the happiness of citizens. Hey maybe we could get this constitution adopted in Iraq so they can be unhappy too. Maybe we could ammend the existing constitution to make people even unhappier. This opens a world of possibilities. Slutter let's work together.
