What McCain wants -- and what will be the result of a McCain presidency -- is a U.S. posture which re-assumes the adversarial attitudes which marked America's Cold War maneuvering and completely disregards all of the lessons about the limits of American power and influence abroad and the consequences of treating the nations of the world as mere pawns in whatever dominating scheme he U.S. presidency aspires to.
In the most intractable and counter-productive military blunder by America in this century, in Iraq, McCain is convinced that the territory the U.S. military has seized and now occupies is enough of a validation of the escalation of force he advocated and supported to justify continuing and perpetuating that recklessness for a century or more, no matter what those sovereign nations in the way of his heavy-hand might proscribe for their own citizens.
Moreover, the manner in which McCain has committed our military and our nation to his plan of military aggression in his proposals and in the attacks on his Democratic rival in this campaign and made that aggression the only qualifier of his claim of 'experience and judgment' makes a mockery of the nationalistic theme of his convention act. McCain needs to tell Americans who (and what) he intends to sacrifice to defend our nation and our interests as the world, predictably, responds to his aggression and manipulation with force and initiative of their own.
Iraqis are devastated from the consequences of Bush's nation-building scheme, promoted and prosecuted under the ruse of "spreading democracy." Apart from a privileged few in power and authority in Iraq, there is none of the desire or ambition among the countrymen there for any lasting U.S. presence, or any of the military meddling and manipulations McCain is selling in this campaign. Certainly, there isn't any overarching national security interest in Iraq which would justify any permanent military presence that McCain insists we need and should support.
In response to the Obama campaign's criticisms today, the McCain camp complained about their advocating withdrawing from Iraq "before victory in Iraq, even now with victory in sight."
Without defining, in any concrete terms for Americans, what "victory" would look like through McCain's myopic lens which sees military aggression and escalation as the end all, beat all. Bush and McCain have taken every advantage (of Iraqis and Americans, as well) as they've prosecuted their Iraq coup behind the sacrifices of lives, limbs, and livelihoods of our nation's defenders.
From their theft and manipulation of Iraq's oil revenue and assets -- to their insistence that Iraq should be their battleground against the specter of the original 9-11 terror suspects they've let run free in Afghanistan -- Bush and McCain have demonstrated a reckless disregard of those who they expect to prosecute their opportunistic agenda, and of those who they claim to be defending with their unbridled and reflexive militarism. That is a character and attitude which beleaguered and shell-shocked Americans should not enable into office again.
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