The Mind of John McCain

The Washington Post runs a story today about the personal impact of John McCain's call for more troops in Iraq. On John McCain. His son recently graduated from Marine boot camp and will begin infantry training. The article suggests that the son will see duty in Iraq if more troops are sent. That is somewhat misleading. As a Marine infantryman, young McCain WILL see Iraq duty unless the US begins withdrawing forces. That's not likely to happen any time soon, despite the overwhelming desire of both the American and Iraq peoples. I don't know how the Marines work their rotation schedules, but even without a troop increase, McCain the younger will likely go to Iraq within six months or so.

John McCain is no chickenhawk. He served. His son and another son at the US Naval Academy now serve. I don't question McCain's willingness to serve but I do question his judgment when I see a quote like this,

McCain has been one of the few and among the most vocal politicians pressing for more troops in Iraq. "We left Vietnam, it was over, we just had to heal the wounds of war. We leave this place . . . and they'll follow us home," he said on a news show recently. "So there's a great deal more at stake."

Um...no, John, they will not follow us home from Iraq. Most Iraqis just want us out. Islamic and other anti-American groups will seek to attack us wherever we present an attractive target, further military action and occupation in Iraq will do little to stop those terrorist attacks. In fact our actions may even create pretexts and grievances that extremists can use to attract and inspire recruits. And remember, folks, this is the exact same argument made against withdrawing from Vietnam.

On the same day I find the McCain quote, Juan Cole presents the Top 10 Myths About Iraq 2006. Number 9 speaks directly to McCain and the "there vs here" crowd:

"The Sunni Arab guerrillas in places like Ramadi will follow the US home to the American mainland and commit terrorism if we leave Iraq." This assertion is just a variation on the invalid domino theory. People in Ramadi only have one beef with the United States. Its troops are going through their wives' underwear in the course of house searches every day. They don't want the US troops in their town or their homes, dictating to them that they must live under a government of Shiite clerics and Kurdish warlords (as they think of them). If the US withdrew and let the Iraqis work out a way to live with one another, people in Ramadi will be happy. They are not going to start taking flight lessons and trying to get visas to the US. This argument about following us, if it were true, would have prevented us from ever withdrawing from anyplace once we entered a war there. We'd be forever stuck in the Philippines for fear that Filipino terrorists would follow us back home. Or Korea (we moved 15,000 US troops out of South Korea not so long ago. Was that unwise? Are the thereby liberated Koreans now gunning for us?) Or how about the Dominican Republic? Haiti? Grenada? France? The argument is a crock

Terrorists are a danger, John, but the US occupation of Iraq only increases the danger. Ending the occupation won't end all terrorism but it will stop a lot of killing and lance one of the festering grievances that leads to terrorist acts. I recommend the entire Juan Cole article. Professor Cole does a good job of stating reality.

Farther along in the Post article is a quote from McCain's family memoir, "Faith of "My Fathers":

"No one who goes to war believes once he is there that it is worth the terrible cost of war to fight it by half measures,... War is too horrible a thing to drag out unnecessarily. It was a shameful waste to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through awful afflictions and heartaches, for a cause that half the country didn't believe in and our leaders weren't committed to winning."

As one of many who went to war in Vietnam, I couldn't agree with John McCain more on this point. War is such a failure of the human spirit, the abandonment of any semblance of humanity, that it should never be undertaken except in the most extreme situations. Once started, the only real imperative to war is to survive (for the individual) and to end it (for the community at large). Unlike McCain, however, I don't accept that winning--as in subduing an enemy--is the only option, especially when the mission is based on distortions, deception and lies. Unlike McCain, I believe that the failure of the US occupation in Iraq is the result of incredibly unwise and ill-informed decision making at the highest levels of American government, even more so in Iraq than in Vietnam. THAT is what robs our military mission in Iraq of purpose and legitimacy.

John McCain seems to think we can "win" in Iraq. He's dead wrong (see Professor Cole's Myth Number 1). Most Americans no longer believe in the Iraq war (McCain's first requirement) and will not support the increased escalation (McCain's second requirement), with even more death and carnage, that would surpress resistance to American occupation to anything remotely suggesting "victory". America's prospsects in Iraq are severely limited and "winning" in terms of creating a stable, democratic ally is not among them. That goal is a political one that will not be facilitated by sending more US troops.

John McCain and I both served in Vietnam but we seem to have learned vastly differenct lessons.