A myth is growing in this presidential campaign that gives credit to John McCain for being right about the War. So the story goes: McCain pushed for the surge and, in doing so, we are turning defeat into victory in Iraq. The surge has become the underpinning of McCain’s campaign. He has so much of his ego invested in the surge he practically accuses opponents of treason. When Mitt Romney had the temerity to label the surge an "apparent" success, McCain went bonkers. (Nobody does bonkers like John McCain.) It is a success, McCain shouted during a recent debate, not an "apparent" success. There is only one true believer in the Iraq War these days and it is not George W. Bush; it is John McCain.
McCain has wrapped himself in a cocoon of illusions about this war. The first indication was, when wearing a flak jacket and flanked by guards, he walked through an Iraqi market and declared it "safe." The Iraqi business community that lives in fear of the market being bombed (it was attacked soon after McCain left) were dumbfounded at his naivet�.
Everyone but McCain seems to understand the American occupation of Iraq must be temporary due to the huge drain on our military capacity and the strain it places on the federal budget. Yet, he grandly talks of a 100-year occupation in Iraq as if this is part of his famous "straight talk." This isn’t straight talk, it’s plain crazy. What even Bush saw as a holding strategy to pass the Iraq problem off to his successor, McCain sees as permanent policy.
McCain argues we have had long-standing armies in places like Korea and Western Europe without Americans complaining. The reason, according to McCain, is our soldiers are keeping the peace in those far-flung areas without being targets. If McCain believes there is no difference between Iraq and Korea or Germany, he is more delusional than wrong. Just about every military expert knows our soldiers will forever be the target of terrorists as long as they sit in the middle of the Arabian peninsula.
There are other good reasons why America should not be preparing to spend the next 100 years in Iraq. Our military forces are stretched dangerously thin. National Guard troops whose mission is to defend our homeland are nowhere to be found. They are in Iraq. Afghanistan, not Iraq, was the original breeding ground for terrorists. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating while the bulk of our forces are preoccupied with Iraq. Not one Republican supporter of victory in Iraq — not the president, not John McCain — support a draft to fight this war upon which civilization supposedly hangs in the balance. That leaves us no choice but to prepare for an orderly withdrawal.
The president has hidden the costs of this war from the public. It has already cost $1 trillion with no end in sight. Meanwhile, in trying to maintain the illusion the federal budget can be balanced by 2012 (if only we cut enough domestic programs), Mr. Bush leaves the cost of the war out of the budget presented to Congress. The president recently asked for $70 billion for the war just for the first quarter of ’09. In case you’re counting, that would mean about $280 billion to fund the Iraq War for one year. McCain — that guardian of our budget — never mentions the cost.
There also is a horrific human cost on the Iraqis, the people we are supposedly helping. By some estimates, about 4.5 to 5 million people have fled Iraq. The brain drain is incalculable. Many who had the money to flee are scientists, engineers and other professionals who are desperately needed for Iraq to be able to govern itself. That’s the fruits of your surge, the surge McCain supports in the hope of saving us from another defeat like the one we suffered in Vietnam. "The surge is working" is not a slogan, it’s a profanity meant to ease the egos of old soldiers.
That’s what this seems to be about. McCain is re-fighting the Vietnam War and this time, by God, he is going to win. Well, Vietnam seems to be doing really well these days. The tourist trade is picking up and the Vietnamese people really seem to like us. It all happened in spite of United States’ power, not because of it.
John McCain apparently just doesn’t get it.
