McCain said some silly things today:
We left Vietnam. It was over. We just had to heal the wounds of war. We leave this place, chaos in the region, and they’ll follow us home. . . . [I]t’s not the end when American troops leave. The battleground shifts, and we’ll be fighting them again. You read Zarqawi, and you read bin Laden. . . . It’s not just Iraq that they’re interested in. It’s the region, and then us.
He starts by saying that leaving Vietnam was ok, because it was over, but leaving Iraq would not be ok, because the bad guys will follow us home. You might remember that it was essential for the US to fight in Vietnam because of the Domino Theory – if we didn’t stop the communist invasion in Vietnam, then other nations would fall and we would eventually be fighting those godless communists in Omaha, Nebraska. God Save Omaha! And God Save Vietnam! So, we left Vietnam and the hawks were sure that we would be fighting a war by 1976. Oops, they were wrong. And so is McCain when he says, “We just had to heal the wounds of war.” No, many Americans thought it was wrong to leave Vietnam because the communists would follow us home. The comparison to Vietnam is apt – leaving there did NOT cause communists to invade here. Leaving Iraq will not necessarily cause terrorists to attack here.
Which leads us to his second mistake. When he says “they’ll follows us home,” who is “they”? Who is fighting in Iraq? Who is doing the killing? Who is attacking US troops? The Bush administration tried to tell us that everyone is foreign fighters, but that idea is silly. It is locals that are fighting this civil war. Americans are targeted because we are basically on the Shiite side of the civil war. If the Sunnis can get us to withdraw or reduce our troop levels, then they get a strategic advantage. If we withdraw tomorrow, why would the Sunnis attack us here? That would be a major strategic mistake. First, they would need to focus on winning their civil war. Second, if they upset the Americans, then we will perform air strikes. McCain and Bush act like the insurgents in Iraq and anti-American terrorists are the same group. There is probably some overlap, but they are not the same.
Which leads us to the next mistake. He seems to be agreeing with Bush that if we fight the insurgency in Iraq, then we don’t have to worry about terrorists attacking America as much. If that is true, then why did we ban liquids on airplanes? Foreign terrorists didn’t attack America until 1993 (WTC), and the second attack didn’t happen for another 8 years. Maybe there has not been an attack because the terrorists are still planning. Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter, because there were terrorists before the Iraq war, and there will be terrorists after the Iraq war – even if we win. Furthermore, why are basing our policy on what Zarqawi and bin Laden say? Our “strategery” should be based on sound policy and fairness, not on what bin Laden wants.
There are two real options for Iraq. If you want a stable country, then you have to put one million soldiers on the ground. (Look at the section called The Military Alternative.) If you don’t mind a major civil war in Iraq that could lead to the division of the country, then bring the troops home. Status quo is not a real option. And doing the same thing we have been doing, but calling it by a different name, is not a real option.
Hunter, you and I are often on the same side of the coin when it comes to views on the world. I feel very differently about this than you do. We are fighting some locals in Iraq, funded, supported, and reinforced through Iran and Syria. I think that the ramifications of a pullout would be disastrous, and that our troops are currently making considerably more progress than the media is giving credit. I can’t make these points as elequently as Orson Scott Card does so why try. Here:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-10-29-1.html