It didn't work, as we all know by now, on its own utopian terms. It did help us get out with less humiliation. But McCain still insists he was right about everything from the get-go:
McCain to Hagel: Please tell me I was right about Iraq
McCain desperately seeks vindication
The good news is that we almost got a real debate on this question. Not exactly, because describing the "surge" as a p.r. exercize to disguise the complete failure of the Iraq War is not something Washington can yet cop to - just as it has great difficulty copping to the fact that the last president was and is a war criminal, under the strictest legal definition of that term.
But Hagel is right: without the switch in Anbar and the exhaustion of ethnic segregation and warfare, those extra troops could have been there indefinitely - and, if McCain had won in 2008, would be there still most likely. What's striking to me is not McCain's fury or douchiness (what's new?) - but his complete assumption that he couldn't possibly be wrong, his insistence that this debate is already over, and his refusal to allow for the notion that this question may only eventually be resolved by a more distant historical judgment.
After Iraq and Afghanistan, McCain's views on military intervention have not changed. Hagel's have. Somehow, I think Hagel is closer to where the country actually is.
Probably. And McCain is most definitely not and hasn't been for a long time on foreign policy. It's rockin' chair time, Gramps.
3 comments:
wkmaier
said...
Gramps may be the least competent, biggest attention whore (yes, for the Senate, that's saying something!) currently in the US Senate, where democracy and progress go to die.
I agree that McCain is a douche, somewhat dumb, and very very wrong. My impression is that he is now in a state of desperation. The country rejected him for president and that has made him feel disgraced. Hell, the country rejected him and Wasilla Barbie in favor of a young black guy. That's gotta hurt.
However, Chuck Schumer is the biggest attention whore in DC, or so I have heard from members of Congress who shall remain nameless. I was told that the most dangerous place in DC is between Chuck Schumer and a camera.
If it wasn't for the fact that continued obstructionism from Gramps and his thuggee pals keeps the country locked up, I'd sit back and watch them "eat their own"....I mean, really, Rethuglicans bitching this much about a Republican selection.
I swear, I think they just want to say no to anything Obama does.
3 comments:
Gramps may be the least competent, biggest attention whore (yes, for the Senate, that's saying something!) currently in the US Senate, where democracy and progress go to die.
I agree that McCain is a douche, somewhat dumb, and very very wrong. My impression is that he is now in a state of desperation. The country rejected him for president and that has made him feel disgraced. Hell, the country rejected him and Wasilla Barbie in favor of a young black guy. That's gotta hurt.
However, Chuck Schumer is the biggest attention whore in DC, or so I have heard from members of Congress who shall remain nameless. I was told that the most dangerous place in DC is between Chuck Schumer and a camera.
If it wasn't for the fact that continued obstructionism from Gramps and his thuggee pals keeps the country locked up, I'd sit back and watch them "eat their own"....I mean, really, Rethuglicans bitching this much about a Republican selection.
I swear, I think they just want to say no to anything Obama does.
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