Greg Sargent is right that:
The inescapable fact is this: On the biggest and most consequential decision, Obama got it right, and McCain got it wrong.
But it is actually more than this. When contrasting Obama and McCain -- it is not the same as contrasting say Hillary Clinton and John Edwards with Obama. Clinton, Edwards, etc. voted and supported the war, but they weren't advocates for it. In other words, it wasn't their idea, and there is little question that if president neither Edwards, nor Clinton, nor Biden, would have invaded Iraq.
But this is not the case with John McCain. While he presents himself as a war critic and a reluctant war supporter, the fact is that if McCain were president there is no doubt we would have invaded Iraq.
McCain was not just a supporter of the war, but was perhaps the most vocal advocate of invading Iraq in the congress. He was a sponsor of the 1998 Iraq liberation act, he called repeatedly for invading Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and, as this remarkable Economist piece noted, invading Iraq and the concept of the axis of evil were ideas inspired from John McCain's rogue state rollback foreign policy in 2000. For John McCain there was no decision to invade Iraq because it was his idea in the first place.
But he did not just agree with the principle of taking out Saddam, he was a supporter and advocate of the entire Bush administration approach toward Iraq. From linking bin Laden to Saddam, to disregarding allies and the UN in favor of a "coalition of the willing," to supporting Rumsfeld's military approach that relied on high tech weaponry in favor of boots on the ground, to believing that Chalabi could simply be installed as Iraq's leader allowing U.S. troops to come home (or begin targeting others) almost immediately.
This doesn't simply represent bad judgment. It represents someone who possessed a completely bankrupt view of the world.
See more evidence below:
On Supporting Rumsfeld's Military Approach:
"I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past... I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991." [CBS, Face the Nation, 9/15/02]
When asked if he thought the draft might be reinstated, Senator McCain answered: "...I believe that the kind of technology and the kind of military that we have today doesn't require massive numbers of troops. You might have noticed the conflict in Afghanistan, we had a few soldiers on the ground and used very incredibly accurate air power." [MSNBC, Hardball, 10/16/02]
"We're much improved. They have never restored their military capability that they had at that time. Our technology, particularly air-to-ground technology is vastly improved. I don't think you're going to have to see the scale of numbers of troops that we saw, nor the length of the buildup, obviously, that we had back in 1991." [CNN, Larry King Live, 12/09/02]
Calling for Attacking Iraq right after 9/11:
"That's where the tough part of this whole scenario is going to begin. And that is that, after the Taliban are overthrown -- which I believe they will be -- I have very little doubt in my mind -- after bin Laden is either taken prisoner or killed and his network is destroyed, then what's next? Obviously, Iraq is still bent on -- Saddam Hussein is still bent on developing weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, the Iranians are still supporting terrorist organizations, as are the Syrians. That's where the tough choices and decisions are going to be made." [MSNBC, Hardball, 10/3/01]
"There are other nations that are sheltering terrorists assisting terrorist organizations and, in the case of Saddam Hussein, developing weapons of mass destruction as quickly as he can. We need to take care of bin Laden and the terrorist network in Afghanistan, and then we have to move on and address other countries." [Fox News, Hannity and Colmes, 11/9/01]
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Oh, I hope video clips of these statements are going to show up in upcoming ads.
One interesting place to look for how McCain was connected to the Iraq invasion is the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which he and Joe Lieberman co-chaired in 2002. The membership list of that committee included most of the prominent neocons who led us inexorably into the Iraq war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_Iraq
I just wanted to add that Randy Scheunemann, who was Executive Director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq under McCain and a former director of the Project for a New American Century is now a senior McCain foreign policy advisor. The neocons are in full control of McCain and will use him to advance their expansionist view of the United States' role in the world.
McCain would be even more dangerous as president than Bush. Bush was not a true neocon; he only used them to further his own goals. McCain is fully on board with the program and will not hesitate to interfere militarily in any country which he sees as a potential problem.
I realize now that I have very poor judgment too. I never thought that Bush would become president int he first place, I was hundert per cent sure he would not get elected twice. I cannot imagine that the citizens of the U.S. would be stupid enough to elect McCain. Well, I was wrong before, but now I am stuck. I am not able to sell my house and if it would sell, it is not worth anything, the dollar is not worth anything anymore, I simply cannot afford to leave the country. I do not think I survive another warmonger as president. McCain is running all these ads that he hates war, what part of war does he hate? Please can somebody explain that to me.
While I am writing this I am watching an ad from McCain telling us that greencardholders are proud to serve in the military because they love this country. Get real McCain, they cannot get a decent job because if you are an immigrant you are thrown all in the same pot: illegal. You are being exploited, underpaid and only get jobs without benefits and health insurance. Like many of the Americans who live in areas without decent jobs it is desperation that they join the military, not out of love for the country. Who want to get killed, maimed and come home with mental problems?
Well said, prochange.
Given the things you bashing youself with, it doesn't look like you are the one with poor judgment...
The problem with McCain has always been his kneejerk reaction to world events. He wants to "confront" Russia and China. Why? How? Simplistic jingoistic sloganeering denotes a intellectually lazy approach that mirrors George Bush's "vision." It would be nice if our people in Congress were a bit more thoughtful than to support such nonsense.
exactly
For the average American voter who gave us Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2, getting it "right" is no qualification for president.
The need to have a leader who reflects their own stupidity and fear apparently trumps facts.
We chose destruction openly. The reasons why should be left to the psychologists.
So sad but yet so true. I fear that once again we will make the wrong decision which result in the draft and more death.
Well stated. Yesterday John McCain said that he knows how to win war. The obvious and immediate question was brought up-just what war has McCain won? He won his personal war with his Vietcong captors by surviving over five years as a POW-no mean feat. But, as Wesley Clark correctly noted, being shot down and imprisoned does not automatically make a person a viable candidate for the presidency. Just as being a war hero did not make John Kerry"s presidential bid a sure thing.
The McCain campaign is naturally emphasizing its candidate"s experience. But as we"ve seen with the current administration, the many years of experience accumulated by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Powell et al, did not prevent them from having major roles in creating the most incompetent and counter productive administration in U.S. history.
Just like the neo-cons of the Bush Administration, John McCain is an imperialist war monger and will, if given the chance, continue their failed policies without pause.
And my question is, if McClone knows how to win a war, why hasn't Bush let him go win Iraq for us after six years? WTF is he waiting for? Christmas? Let Papa John at them terrists! There won't be none of 'em left by mornin' and then our boys and girls can come home.
This post touches on the intractable divide we are left with IN THIS COUNTRY.
In other countries, through more direct experience with the effects of wars and invasions, there is more skepticism the military aggression can bring about positive results. Those that believe in it however suffer the consequences, and in regional conflicts time usually sorts things out.
Republicans and martial proponents like McCain, the neo-cons, NRA types etc. continue and will continue to believe that the macho, confrontational posture gets results, not realizing that violence breed violence.
They view the world to be as it always been throughout history - a violent place with the spoils going to the victor.
Unfortunately, the world is NOT like this - it is much more complex and therefore they see only the outlines and proceed on shallow and false assumptions disconnected with the reality of a situation.
As this post correctly says, such view sare morally bankrupt because they fails to consider the sovreignty of other cultures and nations and differences between cultures.
The fallacy of this approach can be seen in our personal relationships when we try to impose our point of view and emotions without respecting those of others.
This division is fairly intractable - those who believe good can come out of a more considered approach believe more in patience and lack assumptions of omniscience when dealing with crises. Others, like McCain and Bush find this approach naive and alien to their emotional makeup.
This is a really superb comment. It provides some basic understanding of why these people are acting as they are, without calling them stupid or evil. And to move beyond our current divide in America, we need to reach out to them, because they are about half of us.
Unfortunately, their half has been in charge for most of the past three decades, And they've exempt themselves from most of the cost of their poor policies and passed it along to us.
I often wonder how it's possible that these people will gobble up a silly slogan, like 'the surge is working,' when it is failing all of their own benchmarks. But values and beliefs are not rational. And people aren't looking at the scorecard, because the mainstream media isn't shoving it into their face. So, IMHO, the biggest mistake that we are making is to fail to properly publicize the scorecard of Bush accomplishments.
Most Americans still believe that Israel won the war in Lebanon, despite the Winograd Commission.
The majority of American believe the surge is working.
Very few understand that we are losing in Afghanistan.
And almost everyone has ignored the national intelligence assessments, which say that terrorist groups are stronger than ever.
Seems like we are not getting the 'facts' seen or heard, doesn't it? So, who's fault is that?
A simple question to Mr. McCain about this statement "We need to take care of bin Laden and the terrorist network in Afghanistan, and then we have to move on and address other countries." [Fox News, Hannity and Colmes, 11/9/01]"
Then why did the adminstration, with your support, move your troops to Iraq(another country) before bin Laden was captured and the terrosrist network was taken care of?
The US invasion of Iraq was one of the most decisive and clear and cleanest military victories in the history of the world. So everything that McCain said about the number of troops necessary to prosecute the war was 100% correct. But due to mistakes made by Bremer and Rumsfeld and ultimately Bush in handling the post-invasion occupation, we needed many more troops than was originally envisioned.
But just like Afghanistan today, almost 7 years after the invasion, we're still trying to learn as we go. The primary thing lacking in Afghanistan isn't "boots on the ground", it's police and people who can train police. Marines aren't policemen, and they never will be. Putting in more Marines when you need police is just another ineffective blunder.
So, for you to suggest that going into Iraq we needed hundreds of thousands of troops is not accurate. We didn't need more troops, we needed effective governance and more peacekeepers to keep the country stable. After we bungled that, we got into an inflamed situation where more troops were actually needed, who never would have been otherwise.
And don't forget that McCain was one of the most vocal critics in either party of the post-invasion bungling by the White House, and Rumsfeld in particular, at a time when it was extremely politically inconvenient for him to be.
"clear and cleanest military victories "
BWAHAHAHAHA! Which comedian did you pick this off of?
5 years later, and we still cannot identify the ENEMY! Clear??
They ... withdrew.
When faced with an overwhelming conventional-military turkey shoot, a certain number of conventional-military Republican Guards got summarily toasted. But the rest of the country "observed."
The Americans came and went. Gen. Schwartzy wrote his memoirs (not a bad book, actually) and promptly retired. The K-street think-tanks drunk large quantities of champagne.
But the war wasn't over. In fact, it had not even begun...
When you look at "the Middle East today," the FIRST thing that you need to bear in mind is that "the present lines in the sand" were drawn in the early 1920's, after the fading-fast Ottoman Empire made the unfortunate mistake of picking the wrong side in WW1. Even then, "it was all about the oil."
The second thing you need to bear in mind is... this is one of the ancient civilizations on this planet. When you read, say, your Bible, you're reading about these people's great-great-XXX-grandparents. They've "been around," in other words, "a very long time." And they picked some incredibly-nasty deserts as their homelands. And thrived there.
For THOUSANDS of years.
The Russians came first, and eleven years later they left...
This is like arguing that the German invasion of Russia was the most successful military action in history, based on the swift movement of German forces to the outskirts of Moscow in the initial phase of the war.
Eventually, things changed after Stalingrad. Well, if they'd only had more troops, or attacked earlier, blah, blah, blah.
One can only judge the success of such an effort by its outcome, and the outcome of the Iraq invasion, even considering the "surge" ( helped a lot by Sadr's decision not to fight us, but wait) has been a strategic disaster. Attempting to occupy this country has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, inflamed Muslim extremists and distracted from our only valid military counter-terrorist war Afghanistan.
It's not over.
The Iraqi government is now calling for a withdrawal timetable, and we need the troops in Afghanistan, which would have been long pacified by 150,000 American troops. George Bush's removal of Saddam will go down as the single most important contribution to Iran's regional rise, as well as the best global advertising boost al Quaeda ever dreamed of, they both should declare a national holidays in his name.
McCain backed all of this.
the war was based on lies and deception.
how sad it is in america today that masses of people think like you do.
just watched hitler on tv.
we americans have a lot in common with the german people of the 30's
make no mistake we will lose both wars as we did in nam
the end is near for american dominance in the world
economic decline will shut our imperialism down finally
the world will be safer for this
I agree that our dominance will be short-lived.
It will end in any case because of the rise of other powers such as China and Russia, but we are accelerating things with these idiotic wars. China is already ignoring us on Darfur (tragically, what little influence we have for good is being shredded) They are coming up and we are mangling ourselves.
If we attack Iran, there will almost certainly be an economic collapse here and in much of the rest of the world when gasoline hits astronomical prices . The resulting chaos, starvation and disruption will unite much of the world against us and Israel. We will be the two most hated nations on the planet. Even European poodles like the UK and Germany will be forced by rioting people to change their policies.
Without the American economic engine, we won't be able to afford our military excesses and runaway spending. We'll get a big chastening from the powers we've aroused. I don't say this with any joy, rather with deep sorrow at what we've inflicted and what will be inflicted on us if we keep on this course.
OBAMA'S BANKRUPT VIEWS ON SADDAM
Bankrupt world view? And what do you call Obama's opposition to the war in 2002 based on the fallacy that Saddam Hussein could be contained as if we were still in the cold war era fighting the Soviets? 600,000 captured Iraqi intell documents, with 400,000 still to be translated, paints an horrific picture of the dictator as massively involved in the training, arming and funding of terrorists from Al Qaida to Hamas inside and outside the Middle East. It shows a picture of Saddam as a major sponsor of international terrorism, a gathering menace to the world community and anything but containable.
Almost as horrific as the picture painted by Cheney's 'Special Projects Group'. Let's see... that was headed by -- uh, um, er -- Scooter Libby.
What ever happened to him, anyway?
Thing about the Internet is, if you look hard enough, you can find 'support' for virtually any narrative, no matter how delusional.
Five years and counting... not a trace, not a smidge of the entrenched network you fancify.
Must be buried, along with all those WMD, in the ten square feet of Iraqi sand that hasn't been spaded by U.S. troops.
Happy trails, dead-ender.
Links please.
Point me to the information on this so I can become as enlightened as you. This is great stuff if it can be backed up with facts. Of course the documents are being translated by agencies of the same government that lies and extols rhetoric and little fact to back up their assertions.
The facts tell a different story than your talking point. There were no WMD's, terrorists nor Al-Qaida in Iraq. But I suppose secret government documents that can never be read are far more compelling evidence than real evidence that you can see or read.
Go google Pentagon's Harmony Documents also called the Harmony Database as it includes tape recordings of Saddam and his Baathist henchmen
These Iraqi gov't documents and tape recordings overwhelmingly confirm the Clinton administration's intell that Saddam and Al Qaida had operational ties
As for WMD: Kay and Duffler uncovered a clandestine network of WMD labs in Iraq that could go into production on short notice. Saddam's massive ongoing funding training and arming of terror groups made him an uncontainable engine of mass destruction that needed to be removed.
Still waiting for someone -- anyone -- to explain precisely WHAT in McCain's portfolio better qualifies him as CIC (a delusion shared by a modest majority according to polls), especially in the light of his sweaty cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq.
Was it that ill-fated flight over North Vietnam?
I rode a merry-go-round as a small child. Does that make me an expert on centrifugal force?
Good one! Likewise, I served four years in the Navy during Vietnam. I therefore demand to be named Secretary of Defense or Chief of Naval Operations.
His skin color.
Many of the same folks who pleasantly looked upon George Bush and saw a decent guy who keeps his word are the same ones stuck in the era of Tyrone Power, Hop-Along Cassidy and John Wayne. Folks are expressing their fondness for the propaganda they now come to embrace as the truth. Obama, for them, can never be such a person, for all of the same reasons; but in reverse, and it is why the many accusations have taken such root across the web and beyond.
With some, Obama has little or no threshold to be wrong.
Basically, McCain's handlers aren't dumb, rather they are inept at putting together a clear strategy, and they realize that McCain has a natural advantage over Obama; and they realize he will be given the 'benefit of the doubt' even when he stumbles and fumbles. The question however, is (are) there more folks who think like this, than ones who do not?
Here's where the election will be won or lost!
"it is not the same as contrasting say Hillary Clinton and John Edwards with Obama. Clinton, Edwards, etc. voted and supported the war, but they weren't advocates for it."
What the hell? If you don't advocate it you don't vote for it.
By the way war is clearly declared in the Constitution. We are not at war, we are on a hundred year drive by on the world.
Toadicux said:
...War is clearly declared in the Constitution. We are not at war, we are on a hundred year drive by on the world.
I want that on a t-shirt!
There is a difference between advocacy and acquiescence. Each is turned into a vote, because we face an either/or decision. There is a difference in degree and the writer is correct to point out the difference. The difference speaks to the direction of leadership. McCain will lead the country to more confrontation and wars, to victory?<
Posted July 15, 2008 | 03:27 PM (EST)