Saturday, January 26, 2008

The albatross of Iraq around McCain's neck

cross posted at TennesseeFree.com

He just doesn't get it.

First, look at the most recent polls (all Jan '08) - very consistent:

  • LA Times/Bloomberg: 63% say bring the troops home within a year or right away, 31% say stay as longs it takes.

  • CNN/Opinion Research: 63% oppose the war, 34% favor

  • ABC News/Washington Post: 69% disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq, 30% favor
John McCain says it would be fine with him to stay in Iraq 100 years and that Clinton would surrender to al Qaeda. This is bogus and here's why:

Four major problems for McCain:

  1. Al Qaeda, whose presence in Iraq didn't exist before Bush invaded, remains tiny and they are hated by Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites. Iraqis have vowed to fight al Qaeda to the death, and they hugely out number them. The Iraqis will eventually crush al Qaeda, and further, al Qaeda in Iraq remains no threat to the US.

  2. McCain says we can sustain our presence in Iraq 100 years. Gen. Casey says the Army needs 3 or 4 years and substantial resources to recover from Iraq and that the “current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply.”

  3. The American people by a margin of 2 to 1 want the US out of Iraq.

  4. Lastly, John McCain is a hypocrite. During Clinton's presidency, he argued vehemently to bring the troops home from Haiti and Somalia - regardless of the consequences.

1994 “The right course of action is to make preparations as quickly as possible to bring our people home. It does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti, it doesn’t mean as soon as Democracy is flourishing in Haiti, it doesn’t mean as soon as we’ve established a viable nation in Haiti, as soon as possible means as soon as we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives.”

1993 — “Date certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What’s the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we don’t do that, and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured, because we stayed too long, longer than necessary, then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home as quickly and safely as possible. ... the argument that somehow the United States would suffer a loss to our prestige and our viability, as far as the No. 1 superpower in the world, I think, is baloney.”

These videos of McCain arguing to bring the troops home are going to be great for the Dems in the campaign if he gets the nomination.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

William:

But, don't you know that John "Straightjacket Talk Express" McCain was for continued killing of others before he was against it?

I know it's just cynicism on my part but I don't believe he had it any tougher than a lot of other POW's who have simply gone back to being normal human beings.

I think a McCain presidency might, finally, allow the US to have a victory against the Vietnamese.

On a local note:

a dem is running for a soon to be vacated state senate seat held by a reptilican. His opponent waited almost a week before running a negative ad against him. The dem, current state rep, Darrell Aubertine backed Eliot Spitzer's plan to get driver's licences into the hands of illegal aliens. It is being portrayed as his being wrong on the issues. The subtext is he's soft on islamofacism and might just be an Al Queda sleeper himself. What tripe.

democommie

Anonymous said...

William:

Now McCain has two albatrosses (albatrice) around his neck. Rudy Giuliwhiny just signed on to his campaign, after losing in Florida.

democommie

Anonymous said...

McCain's comments are what from the 90's? I'm pretty sure 9/11 happened in 2001 which changed our nation for ever. Way to forget about posting that moron.

William said...

Who's the dumbfuck moron? McCain's comments were from Jan 3 2008, idiot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7HYoh9YMM

Anonymous said...

William:

It is impolite to address that commenter as "dumbfuck". You don't know that they have sex, intelligent or otherwise.

McCain is the exemplar of a pissed off guy who's still trying to get even for what happened to him at the hands of others. He needs therapy a lot more than he needs the presidency. I would hope he gets the former and work against his getting the latter.

democommie