The Many Faces of John McCain
by Ken Wikle
Posted on 2008-08-07 11:31:12
John McCain proclaims himself to be the candidate who knows how to win wars. A hard look at the record reveals that his capabilities in this regard are more on a par with another former Navy pilot, Donald Rumsfeld.
Our former Secretary of Defense was the guy who, along with his neoconservative advisors not to mention the President and Vice President of the United States, was conned into invading Iraq by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. The American forces would be greeted as liberators, Chalabi claimed; Saddam Hussein would be deposed and a western-style democracy both pro-American and friendly to Israel would quickly take charge. Bells would ring, flowers would bedeck the streets, and little American flags would wave everywhere.
Not everyone believed this. Army Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki, for one, understood that if our forces employed the fast-moving and hard-hitting tactics Shinseki himself had devised, they would quickly defeat the Iraqi army. But he also knew something about the history of that part of the world and knew that the “greet us as liberators” notion was nonsense. He therefore appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a committee John McCain was on, and testified that several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to occupy postwar Iraq. He was rewarded for that by being slandered by Rumsfeld and his wonder-boy Paul Wolfowitz, and then fired. Rumsfeld thereupon charged into Iraq, steadfastly believing that the flags and flowers would be there.
Where were today’s presidential candidates when all this was going on? Barak Obama was expressing his opposition to invading Iraq, and was on record as saying Shinseki had it right. As for John McCain, it depends upon whether you believe what he says now or what he said then.
McCain’s current story came to light late last year when he was asked by a CNN interviewer whether he’d been unfairly “…painted as being a huge supporter of the president’s Iraq strategy.”
His response: “…I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, ‘This is going to fail.’ We’ve got to change the strategy to the one we’re using now. But life isn’t fair.”
Here’s what he said back then:
“But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.” [NBC, 3/20/03]
“It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.” [ABC, 4/9/03]
“There’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias. So I think they can probably get along.” [MSNBC, 4/23/03]
“This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.” [This Week, ABC, 12/14/03]
“I’m confident we’re on the right course.” [ABC News, 3/7/04]
“I think the initial phases of it were so spectacularly successful that it took us all by surprise.” [CBS, 10/31/04]
“I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.” [The Hill, 12/8/05]
McCain now argues that because of the surge we are now “winning” the war by force of arms, that we should maintain a long term military presence in Iraq, and that Obama seeks to “surrender.”
How we militarily “win” an occupation where multiple diverse groups are fighting us and each other is an interesting question, but Obama points out that whereas the surge forces may have been a factor in the improved situation in Iraq, the change resulted largely from the Sunnis in Anbar Province turning on al Qaeda and seeking and obtaining US help in driving them out (the “Anbar Awakening”), plus the successes of the Iraqi army fighting the Shia militias.
McCain contends that the surge defeated al Qaeda and that Obama is a dirty lowdown skunk for saying otherwise and denigrating the bravery of our hard-fighting troops. If he really believes that, it demonstrates an appalling ignorance of what’s happening on the ground: the Anbar Awakening began unfolding in 2006 before the surge was even announced, and was an accomplished fact before the surge began. On the other hand he may be deliberately disingenuous and taking a page from the Karl Rove playbook, knowing that Rush Limbaugh and the other blithering gasbags of Radio Naziland will broadcast it as true (historical revisionism in the cause of winning is no sin).
McCain certainly has no qualms misrepresenting Obama’s position on withdrawing from Iraq, claiming that he would precipitously withdraw no matter what the consequences. Obama has said on many occasions that just because we were foolish in going into Iraq doesn’t mean we should be foolish about getting out. We caused irreparable damage to ourselves and everyone else by invading Iraq, but, says Obama, that does not mean we should cause further irreparable damage by facilitating murderous chaos.
Finally, if McCain believes a largely Christian country can maintain a long-term military presence in a largely Arab Muslim state without there being nasty repercussions, he is demonstrating a lack of street smarts comparable to that of our current leadership.
Ken Wikle writes for The Russian River Times, www.russianrivertimes.com
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