Conventional Wisdom Surging
Two highly suspect yet seemingly unkillable narratives continue to swirl through the presidential election largely unchallenged: The supposedly undeniable success of "The Surge" in Iraq as touted by Senator John McCain, and the related matter of McCain's reputation as a proven military leader who, in his running mate Sarah Palin's words, "knows how to win a war."
In both cases, this conventional wisdom, echoed in the press and on the campaign trail, are contradicted by actual evidence -- readily available but almost never discussed. We should all be asking how that can be.
So let's compare image with reality, beginning with the surge. The surge in troops that brought an extra 20,000 soldiers to Iraq last year did indeed coincide with a decrease of violence there. But how do we know there is a real cause and effect relationship? One key factor is almost always omitted in discussions of the surge's presumed effects: At the same time the violence declined, the U.S. started paying $30 million in bribes every month to the terrorists.
We are, in short, paying the bad guys not to kill us, as New York Times war correspondent Dexter Filkins' recently explained to a shocked audience during a stop in Los Angeles to discuss his new book, The Forever War.
That's right, our tax dollars have been used to give $300 monthly bribes -- a fortune in Iraq -- to each of more than 100,000 insurgents and militiamen. That's the other surge: a surge in the terrorists' bank accounts. For obvious reasons, McCain and Palin never mention this costly ransom written into the fine print of the surge, although its hard to fathom why Barrack Obama isn't shouting about it every day of the week.
Then there is the matter of McCain's military leadership qualities. I earlier documented how his claimed support for the troops was not born out by his actual votes in the Senate, where he has consistently failed to back legislation and funding for servicemen that veterans groups consider vital, most recently Senator Jim Webb's much-needed revamping of the GI Bill.
Now, given the claim by Palin during the vice presidential debate that McCain knows how to win wars, why isn't the media demanding some evidence to support this crucial claim? What war has he won? It was McCain, after all, who predicted the Iraq war would be over in a matter of months, that American troops would be greeted as liberators, and that he was "right" about the surge (in troops, that is, not bribes).
What does McCain's military career tell us in support of this claim? It begins as George W. Bush's career began at Yale University -- as a silver-spoon legacy admission, thanks to the fact that McCain's father and grandfather were highly respected admirals. John McCain's career, however, was undistinguished at best, marred by three peacetime aircraft crashes that suggest he was either a very unlucky pilot, or a very ungifted one: He lost one plane in training, one by colliding with power lines during a peacetime deployment to Spain, and one while flying to an Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. McCain went on to fly 23 missions over Vietnam, about twenty hours of combat, before his A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bomber was shot down and he was captured.
He served with honor and courage in the years that followed while facing detention and torture as a prisoner of war - the defining time of his military career if not his entire life. But with all due respect: Being shot down and captured by an inferior enemy force is not evidence that McCain knows how to win wars or how to lead the entire U.S. military. Yet his status as POW hero seems to be the main basis for this conventional wisdom both he and Palin constantly promote.
The major media organizations have been busily fact-checking all sorts of minutiae during the campaign (and, embarrassingly for a few of them, mocking Joe Biden for correctly using the word, "Bosniak" during his debate with Palin), yet these two central claims of the McCain candidacy, about his skills as a war leader and the effects of the surge -- matters on which he has staked his bid for president -- have gone unchallenged until now. I'd like to know why.
Follow Edward Humes on Twitter: www.twitter.com/edhumes
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You are absolutely right in your article -- Thank you for such a well-written piece. What can we do as concerned citizens to bring more attention to this?
In addition to the vast amounts of money we have spent, a diaspora of enormous proportions has taken place. Over 4 million Iraqi citizens have moved to different regions of the country or left the country completely. The majority of these people are from Baghdad and the surrounding region. Top Army officials are now admitting that this movement of population has more to do with the decreased violence than with the surge.
FROM NYT: Correction: October 4, 2008
An earlier version of this column misspelled an ethnic term for Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and incorrectly claimed that Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. had made a mistake in using it. The correct spelling is Bosniak, not Bosniac, and Mr. Biden's usage was correct.
McOpportunist is a war survivor, not a hero. Surviving captivity and torture doesn't make a person a hero. Real heroes will always deny they are heroes. McCain isn't worth licking the boots of any real heroes.
For all the talk of Mr. Obama being an empty suit, it is apparent that the ticket of John McCain is the ticket of slogans without substance, assertions without facts, desire for leadership without capability, and political attack without basis of truth or decency.
There is a third unchallenged assertion of this election, and that is that the entire corporate media is in the tank for Obama, that the aggregate media apparatus is left leaning or liberal sympathetic. We know that FOX is not, and certain CNN journalist are not, and certain MSNBC journalist are not, and we definitely know that George and Charlie are not on ABC, and Brokaw on NBC; not quite sure what to make of Couric since I do not watch her. As for the journalist who do choose to report the truth they are labeled as in the tank for Obama when they are actually in the tank for fairness and decency and independence in journalism.
It is this third issue that answers the first two. Brokaw has become a joke and fallen from any pedestal he may have been on when he retired. Personally, I liked Peter Jennings and never watched Brokaw; I thought he was too constipated in his delivery of the news. The media allows John McCain to paint himself as a hero and the media allows the surge lie to continue.
The bottom line on the surge for me is that you cannot surge success in that which was illegal to begin with. No one seems to want to say this including the Obama camp. As for POW McCain, he was a flyboy riding daddies and granddaddies' coattails. He was a ne'er-do-well, who in the fantasy pursuit of fortune and fame had to deal unexpectedly with real life. Now he wants the welfare of sympathy. He wants Affirmative Action of a handout of accolades for doing what many did and received nothing but time served and pain realized.
John McCain is an empty man driven by unworthy ambition; whose is seeing time run out on his flawed ambitions. It should come as no surprise that such a character slithers and squirms. It is no surprise that such a character would stoop lower than the gutter to realize his long denied dreams of greatness lusted after.
What about Bob Woodward saying that the surge should not be given credit for the decrese in violence. He was on Bill Maher talking about his new book. He says that new tactics, which sound to me like assassinations, are the real reason for the decrease in violence in Iraq. And what about the Sunni awakening that has also been given credit for the decrease in violence?
As far as I am concerned Obama should be hitting these points all of the time. He should not let John get away with his BS about I was a POW so I know how to win a war. Try to write a paper with that thesis and see how far you get.
I was going to answer this article with what you bring up about Bob Woodward's new book and appearance on Maher - it wasn't more boots on the ground, it was the black-ops (as Maher put it, after Woodward said he was sworn not to reveal the new tactics, "exploding fruit baskets"). Anyone reading the GAO report as well would see that as far as the entire objectives the surge sought, it has been a C- at best, and much more is still not accomplished or we would already be leaving the country to the Iraqis.
Why is everyone from the media to Obama/Biden afraid to call them on the constant embellishments, even outright lies? Palin, during the debate (a memorized speech of all her programmed talking points) and now in her subsequent rallies, is spewing this nonsense.
Call them on it -
-FACTS about the surge.
-FACTS about John McCain and the "wars he won"..and his self-described "life of honor"
http://www
-FACTS about Sarah Palin and what really went on during her Mayor of Wasilla/Go
"But with all due respect: Being shot down and captured by an inferior enemy force is not evidence that McCain knows how to win wars or how to lead the entire U.S. military. Yet his status as POW hero seems to be the main basis for this conventional wisdom both he and Palin constantly promote."
WORTH REPEATING A 1000 TIMES!!!!!!
What wars has McCain won? He spent 5 1/2 years as a POW in a disasterous war - causing him to be (sadly) MIA durng some of the most transformational years in our history. While this makes him a bonafide "war hero" - it hardly qualifies him to be considered a "foreign policy expert" or even a genuine leader. Yet dispite his years and years of "experience" in government, it is he who has been consistently wrong about the Iraq War.
As for the myth of the "success of the Surge" (like the "myth of McCains foreign policy qualifications,) it's based on the (unfortunately often effective) theory/tactic that if you repeat something often enough, it will finally morph into "the truth" - at least in most people's minds. (As a nation we suffer from severe Attention Deficit Disorder.)
Depending on how you DEFINE just about anything, however limited, to be a "success." This success did not accomplish it's original (stated) mission (like the invasion/war itself.) So we redefine the mission, and voila! Success! I'm pretty sure that it if we planted several armed law enforcement officers at every corner, crrime in THIS country would come to a virtual halt. But how long could we sustain this "solution?" By it's very definition, a "surge" cannot last forever, and meanwhile, we have neglected to address any of the root causes of the problems.
Here is my question to McCain/Palin. If we are winning the war, who are we defeating in this war. The surge was for a rise in sectarian violence. So, we won the war agianst the same people we liberated by removing Saddam? I wasn't aware we declared war on citizens of Iraq. Who are we going to sign a peace treaty with, the citizens of Iraq?? The whole problem with this, Barrack is right... We never should have been there in the first place. How can you have any success in an utterly incorrect decision. You can only minimize the mistake, not change it.
Yes Edward, I had the same reaction when I heard Sarah shout out at the debate, "McCain knows how to win wars".
I shouted back at the TV, what are you talking about, what war has Big Bad John ever won, Vietnam, Iraq, the War of 1812??
This is disgusting how they just make things up and no one really calls them on it.
But the AZ senator, Wiley Coyote, with his unscrupulous style of trickster politics in the end is no match for our Road Runner Barack Obama.
Me,too. The man was a hero by default -- he did not choose to be captured. He survived and for that I am pleased. But I doubt that the other 599 POWs at the Hanoi HIlton did any less.
Nor that they would concede that their experiences there entitled them to own our nation.
Former POW says McCain is "not cut out to be President"
http://www
The voice of a Medal of Honor recipient.
http://www
Another veteran for Obama/Biden
What is really want to know is "Did McCain ever drop napalm?"
Spain! That's it! He probably thinks they still hold a grudge about those power-lines.
Too funny!
McCain is no hero. Read this from Rolling Stone
http://www
Thank you for posting this link. IMHO, it tells us all exactly who and what Sen. John McCain is in his heart of hearts. It is a pitiful and terrifying story.
http://www
Sometime ago I sent a blog to the Huffington Post outlining in detail the same arguments you've raised in this article, but although my comment fitted all the criteria of the Huffington Post - by the way, I'm not only an experienced academic with, among other academic qualifications from world renowned British and EU universities, a PHD in English, which I've lectured in for years and, additionally, also an international award winning journalist - it wasn't published. And it's curious why this was the case, just as it is why no one has bothered to fact-check and draw full public attention to the ludicrous claims of John MCain that he's a war hero who knows how to win wars. And the only conclusion I can draw is that even publications like the Huffington Post are so emotionally caught up in the need for heroes that you can't distinguish fact from fiction. As a Brit I can't understand the American obsession with always defining your president as Commander in Chief and not as the country's CEO; perhaps if you did you won't be in the financial mess you currently are in. But it's hard for leopards to change their spots and, essentially, the USA is a warmongering country. Finally, the leaders of the Shias, Sunnis and other insurgents of Iraq, who you currently bribe not to fight you, are on record as saying that as soon as the money dries up they'll start killing you again.
Professor Dr. Stanley Collymore
London,
Funny how on point this is, and yet it to is not a "HuffPost pick"...
We all know that the violence has been reduced by payoffs (actually any of us who haven't bought the fairy tale). I thought just the other day how we need someone who isn't just some "war hero"/commander in chief. What we really need is someone who is able to run all facets of this country as if it was a company with it's many departments. (Then again, seeing the current flock of CEO's and the results of most of their management, that may not be such a good analogy).
I myself was guilty in my younger years of buying the fiction as obviously there were far fewer ways to attain practically instantaneous validation or confirmation of information, but now? It takes two minutes tops to find that John McCain did not win one war, and there is plenty of information that clearly points to his being unfit to command.
perhaps your unfortunate lack of publication is due to long, boring, run-on sentences? alternatively, your criticism of our country could easily be construed as hate-mongering and utterly biased.
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