For reference (via Newsbusters), what Barack Obama has said about the surge, the troops, and the war.
--I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.
--Given the deteriorating situation, it is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve.
--Finally, in 2006-2007 we started to see that even after an election George Bush continued to want to pursue a course that didn't withdraw troops from Iraq but actually doubled up and initiated the search. To not see improvements but could actually worsen the potential situation.
--We can send 15,00 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops. I don't know any expert on the region, or any military officer that I've spoken to privately, that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.
Keep in mind that Obama apologist Joe Klein is trying to castigate John McCain for pointing out the obvious: Barack Obama was wrong about the surge but now wants to take credit for wanting to withdraw troops. Here's what McCain said:
This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.
What Klein is hyperventilating about is that McCain pointed out that the Obama emperor has no clothes. Ann Althouse notes that it is Klein who is scurrilous and sad.
Klein is trying to generate a big outrage to distract us from McCain's solid point. McCain said we had to win the war, he pushed for the surge, the surge worked, and now we will have that victory that he would not give up on. Obama said the war was hopeless, we'd have to accept loss, and the surge would only waste more lives.
That is a huge, huge difference. And that is what McCain was referring to. It could have been put even more sharply.
If Klein wants to get all outraged about something, he should get outraged retrospectively about how Obama and many Democrats were ready and even eager to embrace defeat. If Klein wants to worry about who is unsuited for the presidency, he ought to recognize that if Obama had been President two years ago, we would have suffered a humiliating defeat in Iraq that would have repercussions for decades.
John McCain is right to hit Obama on this. His judgment is lacking as demonstrated by his positions on the war. If he was wrong in 2005 and 2006, we can't trust him to make the right decisions in 2010.
Here's the video:
Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.
UPDATE: As usual, Echidne works hard to miss the point of McCain's remark.
Now try to understand what McCain is saying. It's fun. First, he'd rather lose a political campaign than a war and Obama would rather lose a war than a political campaign. OK. But do you see what's so wonderfully weird about that? If McCain decides to lose the political campaign in order to win the war, who's gonna be the president, eh?
Right! Obama. And he will then lose the war, according to McCain. So McCain's noble promise to step aside makes no difference. Which means that he's every bit as campaign-focused as Obama.
Of course, McCain's point was nothing like this. It was that Obama opposed the surge, the strategy that has brought us victory. If McCain loses in November because too many stupid people vote for Obama, that's a small price to pay for having been right about the surge in the first place. The war is too close to victory even for Obama to mess it up now. Get it, Echidne?
|