Post #151

Subject: John McCain and his 99-year war

It is not important that John McCain will keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years if they are not taking casualties. What is important is how many years McCain will keep our troops there if they are taking casualties. Five years? 10? 20? 50? 99?

We are involved in the decisive ideological struggle of our time. The War on Terror is a race against time – we need to convince those who want to do us harm that there is a better way BEFORE they do us harm. The Iraq War is NOT the War on Terror.

How long will McCain continue to squander blood and treasure for no strategic gain? Indeed, the Iraq War is a drain on and a diversion from the War on Terror and making us less secure. The Iraq War itself is giving aid and comfort to the enemy – we are losing the ability to respond militarily to other threats and have provided Al-Qaeda with a recruiting poster.

Do not look for an answer from “Mr. Straight-Talk” BEYOND “we’ll be there as long as it takes to get the job done.” He will not define “job” in a way that applies to a military mission – a favorite tactic of George W. Bush.

To do so, to define the “job” as something the military can do – such as ‘getting’ Saddam, hunting down and destroying terrorist training camps and toppling governments that harbor ‘em, would be to acknowledge that the “job” is perpetual war. And that is fighting terrorism how?

Osama bin Laden, in a videotape released on the eve of the ‘04 election, said that his intention was to bankrupt America. Bin Laden cited the example of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan where a guerrilla war of 10 years forced a bankrupt Soviet Union to withdraw and collapse. How much closer are we to achieving the goal of bin Laden?

McCain warns about the consequences of leaving, but what about the consequences of staying? At what point will McCain say “enough is enough?” How many more lives will be sacrificed? How many more billions? Will it take a terrorist attack here at home for McCain to realize that Iraq is not the place he needs to hang tough?

My fear is that we’ll end up like Russia, a second-rate power with a lot of nuclear weapons we can’t afford to secure.