This morning on the Imus radio show, John McCain made some comments regarding the progress of the Iraq war. McCain emphatically believes that the occupation should continue, because the US has made such a mess of Iraq, that it is now the America’s responsibility to clean that mess up. The one way McCain suggested that this goal could be accomplished was to train brigades of Iraqi police officers. McCain didn’t mention anything else specifically, but did use the words “win” and “winning” when describing the goal of the war. Thus, McCain has now become the 7489th consecutive US politician/commentator to call for victory without;
A) Being asked to define victory, or;
B) Offering an unsolicited definition of victory, thus insuring that;
C) The war can continue for as long as the US government wants, for any reasons it chooses to specify. A + B = C.
On the other hand, while suggesting that the training of the Iraqi police force was ‘making progress’, McCain admitted that the military now says that only one brigade is trained, where it previously had claimed three. Progress, in the wrong direction.
McCain’s original premise, unhindered by his shaky qualifications, is seductive. Why shouldn’t the one who caused the mess clean it up? That’s a good definition of justice, isn’t it? In fact, I agree with McCain on that point. McCain seems to think, however, that the situation would somehow be worse if the US military were to evacuate while there are still some people alive over there. The insurgency that McCain’s police force needs to be in place to neutralize is being caused by the US invasion and subsequent occupation. All that needs to be done to correct that problem is to remove the occupying forces. The training of a ‘police force’ is impossible. It will inevitably fail, and fail miserably. The Iraqis being trained have no loyalty to the US, and no desire to face a seething civilian population on the side of the occupation. Thus, infiltration by ‘the enemy’ is unavoidable. If McCain knows this, then he’s simply making excuses for the continuation of a war he knows is wrong. If not, then he’s too big an idiot to take seriously anymore. I think the former is true. McCain mentioned the recruiting problem, and Imus suggested that the way to meet recruiting goals was to “stop involving troops in these stupid wars”, while McCain giggled nonchalantly.
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