Senator McCain and his war position
Posted by Little Ms Purple at 1/26/2008 9:38 AM 
Categories: 2008 Election, All Posts, Hints about ME
Categories: 2008 Election, All Posts, Hints about ME
Having worked on Senator McCain's presidential campaign back in 2000, I want to start the post off by saying that I have great respect for the Senator, his independent bent and that I agree with many of his positions on many issues, HOWEVER...
... I could not disagree more with him on how he characterizes the Democrats' (read Clinton's) position on the war. Watching the debate two nights ago when McCain defended his war stance, I couldn't believe how many of his "facts" that I disagreed with.
First off, Al Queda isn't our number one enemy in Iraq. We're dealing with three distinct sects that have a long history of conflict between each other. Granted, Al Queda is able to disrupt and influence the fighting between these groups but Al Queda only accounts for about 10% of our problem in Iraq. To use Al Queda, as Senator McCain does, as the excuse to stay in Iraq is the exact WRONG way to look at our occupation of Iraq.
Second, Al Queda IS winning in Afghanistan... the forgotten war. We should follow the recommendation coming out of the Marine corps about shifting their focus from Iraq to Afghanistan where their effort is needed.
Third, I don't find McCain's statement that if we begin to re-deploy our troops, we're waving the white flag of surrender. We already won the war in Iraq militarily back in the summer of '03. The presence of our military in Iraq is the best recruiting tool for Al Queda or any other middle eastern group that hates America and so when McCain talks about staying there for the next 100 years, I find great fault in that logic. Sure, if the U.S. casualties go down, the American public MIGHT be able to put up with being there for the next 100 years BUT over on the other side of the world, Muslims won't share the same viewpoint thus enraging the next generation of American hatred. And I don't believe we should "nuke 'em all" as some on the far right suggest.
Having watched the Neocons switch to their position of using unilateral military force to promote democracy in the middle east in the mid to late 90's, I still believe, as I did in the run up to the war in Iraq, that 9/11 served as the excuse to implement the Neocon's plan instead of realizing that we are dealing with a completely new kind of enemy in Al Queda that Bush 2.0 had never even thought about.
The war in Iraq is distracting us from the Al Queda cells that are in over sixty countries around the world who really are planning on making it to our shores again for another attack.
So the big question is... what do we do?
First, we begin to redeploy our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Please note that I am a realist and I don't see our troop numbers dropping below 70,000 in Iraq before 2010. Second, we double up on our funding for the CIA, who will go out and find the Al Queda cells around the world combined with the doubling of our Special Forces, who will go out and kill those Al Queda cells. Third, we never let ideology dictate a foreign policy decision out of fear and realize that we can't force a country to become democratic at the point of a gun. The British tried to control us way back when and look how that turned out. Fourth, we hold ourselves to a higher standard and lead by example when it comes to holding and trying in a court of law enemy detainees along with protecting our own civil liberties. And lastly, Senator McCain, we don't accuse a political opponent of waving the white flag of surrender when such is not the case nor should we use the Iraq war as a political football and follow in the tradition of Bush 2.0.
... I could not disagree more with him on how he characterizes the Democrats' (read Clinton's) position on the war. Watching the debate two nights ago when McCain defended his war stance, I couldn't believe how many of his "facts" that I disagreed with.
First off, Al Queda isn't our number one enemy in Iraq. We're dealing with three distinct sects that have a long history of conflict between each other. Granted, Al Queda is able to disrupt and influence the fighting between these groups but Al Queda only accounts for about 10% of our problem in Iraq. To use Al Queda, as Senator McCain does, as the excuse to stay in Iraq is the exact WRONG way to look at our occupation of Iraq.
Second, Al Queda IS winning in Afghanistan... the forgotten war. We should follow the recommendation coming out of the Marine corps about shifting their focus from Iraq to Afghanistan where their effort is needed.
Third, I don't find McCain's statement that if we begin to re-deploy our troops, we're waving the white flag of surrender. We already won the war in Iraq militarily back in the summer of '03. The presence of our military in Iraq is the best recruiting tool for Al Queda or any other middle eastern group that hates America and so when McCain talks about staying there for the next 100 years, I find great fault in that logic. Sure, if the U.S. casualties go down, the American public MIGHT be able to put up with being there for the next 100 years BUT over on the other side of the world, Muslims won't share the same viewpoint thus enraging the next generation of American hatred. And I don't believe we should "nuke 'em all" as some on the far right suggest.
Having watched the Neocons switch to their position of using unilateral military force to promote democracy in the middle east in the mid to late 90's, I still believe, as I did in the run up to the war in Iraq, that 9/11 served as the excuse to implement the Neocon's plan instead of realizing that we are dealing with a completely new kind of enemy in Al Queda that Bush 2.0 had never even thought about.
The war in Iraq is distracting us from the Al Queda cells that are in over sixty countries around the world who really are planning on making it to our shores again for another attack.
So the big question is... what do we do?
First, we begin to redeploy our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Please note that I am a realist and I don't see our troop numbers dropping below 70,000 in Iraq before 2010. Second, we double up on our funding for the CIA, who will go out and find the Al Queda cells around the world combined with the doubling of our Special Forces, who will go out and kill those Al Queda cells. Third, we never let ideology dictate a foreign policy decision out of fear and realize that we can't force a country to become democratic at the point of a gun. The British tried to control us way back when and look how that turned out. Fourth, we hold ourselves to a higher standard and lead by example when it comes to holding and trying in a court of law enemy detainees along with protecting our own civil liberties. And lastly, Senator McCain, we don't accuse a political opponent of waving the white flag of surrender when such is not the case nor should we use the Iraq war as a political football and follow in the tradition of Bush 2.0.
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