McCain Wants To Keep American Troops In Iraq Indefinitely
For at least the second time in this campaign, John McCain has had a YouTube-moment in which he accidentally tells the truth about his position on Iraq :
Every time he gets caught advocating a permanent American presence in Iraq, the same exchange seems to happen :
Democrats : John McCain wants to stay in Iraq forever.McCain : I never said I was for endless war.
Democrats : Neither did we. We want to bring the troops home. You, apparently, do not.
McCain : As long as casualties are down, it’s okay. We’ve got troops in Germany and Korea…
Democrats : Ummm…yeah, but we’re against that too.
In short, John McCain’s strategy is to distract people from his moment of inadvertent candor by claiming he was being misinterpreted or taken out of context, but it’s pretty obvious where he stands. John McCain favors having a permanent presence in Iraq, similar to what we have in other parts of the world. In Korea, our presence is there to enforce the stalemate, while our bases in Germany and Japan are remnants of WW2 intended to keep those countries from getting any ideas. And that’s the whole point of the McCain/Bush plan for occupying the Middle East. They want a permanent presence in the region as a launching ground for other wars.
Needless to say, the reason John McCain continues to downplay this position and try to use diversionary tactics every time it’s brought up is because Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to permanent occupation of Iraq :
“From what you know about the U.S. involvement in Iraq, how much longer would you be willing to have large numbers of U.S. troops remain in Iraq: less than a year, one to two years, two to five years, five to ten years, or as long as it takes?”Less than a year 42%
One to two years 21%
Two to five years 9%
Five to ten years 1%
As long as it takes 20%
Should leave now (vol.) 3%
Unsure 4%
That’s only 1 in 5 who would support McCain’s hypothetical 100-year occupation of Iraq. To put things in perspective, the centerpiece of John McCain’s plan for Iraq, an issue in which he apparently excels, has a lower approval rating than Dick Cheney (“Hell Yeah!“).
Is it any wonder why John McCain keeps trying to change the subject every time his plans for Iraq pop up? If he was truly candid, he’d lose the election in a landslide.
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I don’t see that having troops in Germany and South Korea is particularly useful, but apart from perhaps being a waste of taxpayers’ money, I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Even when considering wastefulness one could make an argument that it’s useful for them to train with other nation’s armies or in different environments. That is, though, to neglect the question of what the purpose of the military is: a force for conquest, one or several of the various kinds intervention or purely for defense against invasion. It probably needs to be addressed: the lack of clarity on that question is part of what allowed the Iraq adventure to happen.
The crucial question for McCain is how long and how many troops need to continue to die in Iraq before we leave, as you say. If he’s opposed to leaving and won’t put limits on it, he de facto stands for indefinite occupation and unlimited casualties. Couldn’t he state an upper bound, even? 100,000 dead US troops over 5 years would be too many, surely?
Comment by me — June 17, 2008 @ 2:02 am
By too many, I mean too many for us to stay in Iraq, obviously. One dead person is too many, whoever they are.
Comment by me — June 17, 2008 @ 2:04 am
How can we get out of Iraq? Be honest with your answer….. We need the oil so we will be in Iraq until we don’t need the oil. Vote for lower gas prices here:
http://www.AmericansForJobsAndEnergy.org/
Then vote for Drill Here/Drill Now:
http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659
Afterwards you can at least know you tried to increase our domestic oil production so we can leave Iraq…..someday.
Comment by ChimChim — June 17, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
Drilling for oil is short sighted and does not provide a permanent solution, there is a finite amount of fossil based oil, the largest amounts being in the muddled east, some in Asia and some in the Americas, would you still support drill here drill new if your front yard is the sight of an oil derrick? I don’t want one in mine. Honda recently released a car that uses no gas, and GM and Ford can’t sell their gasaholic trucks and SUVs, what does that tell you? it tells me the answer is not drilling for more oil, but a different energy source, like sun or wind, or something equally renewable, several ethanol discussions have come up, but the concept of growing your own sugar-rich plants to make your own ethanol does not come up, why are we dependant on massive companies that are more interested in profit than utilizing resources? Because it’s easy, and we are lazy. If you can, protest gas prices, walk, ride a bike, if it doesn’t impose on your own moral values use your imagination and protest another way. we are slaves to oil and big business, boycott mass produced processed food, it not good for us and the energy consumed sourcing ingredients from around the globe is an insult to the local farmers who live less than 100 miles from you. Support your local farmers and farmers markets, buy produce from ‘pick it yourself’ farms… when Diebold machines across the land mysteriously inform us we all voted for McCain and he won by an un-natural disaster we will need the farmers and local markets because the federal government will be useless for at least 4 years.. About drilling off US shores for oil? look to the Gulf of Mexico for an example, canals are dug into wetlands, destroying the natural defense against a storm like Katrina, apparently the Army Corps of Engineers did a shitty job of building levees in the economic boom when they were built the first time, and we don’t have post WW2 money to build levees and dams around cities.. Wonder what Florida will be like when it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Disney-Exxon Conglomerate, if it’s not all under water
if it’s not total crap send it to andrew.millet@live.com
Comment by Andrew Millet — June 24, 2008 @ 11:07 am