Subscribe by RSSDems attack McCain over Iraq quote, McCain camp responds
Democrats wasted no time in jumping on a McCain quote in line the the famed “100 years” statement he made a while ago. This time McCain was speaking about Iraq with Matt Lauer on the Today Show when he said the following:
The story from The Politico:
The Obama campaign and Democratic leaders accused Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of being confused and heartless after he told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday that it’s “not too important” when U.S. troops return from Iraq.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said on a quickly organized Obama conference call that McCain’s comment was “unbelievably out of touch with the needs and concerns of most Americans,” saying that to families of troops in harm’s way, “To them, it’s the most important thing in the world.”
Kerry claimed “an enormous, fundamental flaw in his candidacy for the presidency, which supposedly has hung on his strength as commander in chief and his understanding of foreign policy.”
Susan Rice, an Obama foreign-policy adviser, accused McCain of “a real disturbing, even disconcerting, pattern of confusing the basic facts and reality that pertain to Iraq.”
The “Today” show statement, which McCain went on to explain, is damaging because Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has pledged to immediately begin withdrawing combat troops.
McCain, trying to mitigate the fallout from his January remarks that U.S. troops might be in Iraq for 100 years, predicted last month that “most” troops would be home by the end of his first term.
The video posted above came straight from the McCain campaign which took a preemptive offensive strategy on this statement.
The full quote:
McCain replied: “No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq, Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw; we will be able to withdraw. General [David] Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are.
“But the key to it is that we don’t want any more Americans in harm’s way. That way, they will be safe, and serve our country and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama’s proposal would have done. I’m proud of them. And they’re doing a great job. And we are succeeding and it’s fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn’t realize that.”
Taken a bit out of context, similarly to the “100 years” quote. Especially since McCain went on to state that casualties are more important than a withdrawal date.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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McCain has said repeatedly that he “knows what’s best for the American people” and that he “does not agree with what the majority of the American people want”. This is actually more reminiscant of Dick Cheney than of George Bush. Clearly McCain has no plans to give the people any more voice than they have had since 2000.
Nice post, Josh!
I’m not going to harp too much on this statement because frankly, this isn’t McCain at his worst. After he stated that it’s “not too important” for troops to come home, he quickly inserted the words reminiscent to the 100 years statement, saying that there are troops in Japan, Korea, etc. and his concern is mainly about casualities decreasing rather than troop levels.
My ongoing concern is that I do not believe our occupation will ever be 100% peaceful, thus our occupation is not necessary for us or the Iraqi people. The best way to ensure peace in Iraq is to focus on Afghanistan and the Al Queada core.
Correct, Michelle.
Here’s what no one seems to understand about this war, in relation to Korea, as well as others. When we went to war with Korea, we went to war against their government, their military. We did not declare war upon a segment of Korea’s population. When the war was over, the Korean government ordered their troops to stand down, to stop attacking the Americans, and that order remains in effect today.
THERE IS NO END-GAME TO THE IRAQ WAR! The terrorist organizations will never “order” their followers to stand-down as long as we are in country, so no matter what we do with regards to the Iraq government, the Iraqi Police, or anything else, these groups will continue to attack our troops. A hundred years in Iraq will be a hundred years of war, that should be obvious! That is not a price our nation should be willing to pay, it is not a price the vast majority of the American people are willing to pay, and neither should we have to because some war-monger and his buddies in the oil business want to make a legacy and some extra billions respectively.
How about withdrawing from the war because it was wrong to begin with. The majority of us want out and all this news is coming out about how the administration lied to us and pushed towards war but we’re sitting here discussing whether to continue a unjust war based on casualties. How did we get to this point? We’re not “Surrendering” or coming home to “Defeat”, we should be ending a unnecessary war and should be applying pressure to areas that count.
Josh, your terminology is a bit more upfront then I tend to use, but I do agree with your words. In my own curiosity, I read the book “Out of Iraq” by George McGovern. The book covered the history of Iraq, as well as the cost of the war on the Iraqi people as well as America. The book is an astounding read, I recommend it if you haven’t picked it up yet. The bottom line is we are consistent with the standard that any country we go to war with and occupy must concede to our standards of post-war dealings. Basically, we want it to be like Germany and Japan: you lost, so now we run your country. But it will never be that way with Iraq because when we went to war and removed Saddam from power, we also removed the only official form of government the country had ever had.
When we won the Revolutionary War, we were in the same boat. The only way of government we had ever known was rejected, and it took many years for it to be built from the ground up. However, British occupation was not peaceful and British loyalists were not welcome. It’s the same with Iraq – the only way I can come up with to protect all parties’ involved it to exit with a treaty intact with surrounding countries.
Jared, your point is actually one of the reasons we are “stuck” in Iraq. To ask the administration to admit they are wrong is the tallest of orders. Thus, despite the fact that other areas demand our attention, the administration continues to support its decision to invade and occupy Iraq to save face. However, saving face is by no means a good enough reason to continually stay in an extremely country and ineffective war, thus the more talked about point is that Iraq will be vulnerable to occupation by anti-American forces in nearby Iran. This throws Iran into the picture, which is more dangerous to our country than Iraq ever was in the first place.
Why would abandoning a country that we have literally tore to pieces be good for all parties Michelle? How in any terms would that be a logically sound strategy? If we did that, we would have a repeat of Afghanistan, as we did the exact same thing to them by leaving a broken country to it’s own devices, which if I remember correctly, gave Osama power to recruit individuals from that country by the truck loads. So, what happened with Afghanistan? We had to go back and spend the lives of Americans and government $$’S. Something in which we will inevitably have to do with Iraq (except in a bigger scale) if we simply pull out completely.
I was no supporter of the Iraq war when the idea first came about. In fact, I thought we should have kept to Afghanistan and completed all of our tasks there before we even thought about doing anything else, but we didn’t, and we are in the position that we are in. We need to do the right thing and finish what we came to do which is stabalize a torn country.
Now, do I think we are going about it in the right way? No, we as a country need to cast away our pride, say we did wrong, and ask for international help to get us out of the bind we are in. Get the UN involved and work with them to get this issue resolved.
In the end, you all need to ask yourselves what you would rather do. Take care of the issue that the United States/we have created, or irresponsibly leave it to our children and grandchildren to resolve.
Jeremy,
Americas presence there is the fundamental problem so staying there can never be the solution.
Question: The Global Poverty Act sponsored by Obama, did you agree with it?
“The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.”
And if you did, what is the difference in spending $845 billion over and above on foreign aid to supporting an effort in Iraq to rebuild itself? Are we supposed to feed every country in the world, but not help Iraq pick up the pieces of what we broke? What’s the difference here? We can drop ship food, but we actually have to make a physical commitment to Iraq? Why help one and turn our backs on the other?
Yes, I will agree with part of that. Will you agree with a more precise statement, that our overwhelming presence and leadership role there is the fundamental problem?
Whatever the fundamental problem is though, we simply cannot leave. There has to be some type of US involvement put into place that will ensure that the country will be repaired since we were the main fuel in destroying it.
Wether that be staying in with full force until we can work a plan out with the UN and then have the majority of the force pull out while we work with the international community to repair the country, or whatever. I really do not know, but I do know that simply pulling out of the country without a plan to repair the country is irresponsible and even more destructive to that country, the surrounding coutries, and the US. History has proven this!
All I am trying to say is that we should not be talking about pulling all of our troops out like some want and one of our presidential candidates are doing. We should be having a dialogue with the international community about what is the best action for Iraq and then helping with that plan.
Frank, that’s a very good point if your premise is correct - but you haven’t given any backing to the claim that America’s presence there is part of the fundamental problem. What we do know is that if Iraq’s broken, it’s because we broke it. Not to say that it was in lovely conditions under Saddam, but he provided a certain amount of stability in his own tyrannical way.
So if we just shrug our shoulders and leave the citizenry to work things out for themselves in the aftermath, we ought to have a better reason than “You know, we’ve thought it over and decided this whole thing was just a bad idea from the start”. I mean what sort of an idea is that? Honestly, are we kids playing Pretend Soldier, to come home to bed at the end of the night when we tire of the game? And many of the same people speaking sentiments like this have been criticizing Bush’s approach to foreign policy all along!
The only justification we can possibly have for ending this war is if victory either cannot be achieved, or if we are so far from achieving it that we’re not even entirely sure what victory means, let alone how best to go about achieving it, when it is likely to be achieved, or at what cost. I believe that’s where America is today. But I really hate hearing people who speak as if war is like Microsoft Word, and we can vote to Undo. That’s not how it works - these mistakes may be paid for in suffering and blood for generations to come, no matter what America’s course of action from here on out.
“Frank, that’s a very good point if your premise is correct - but you haven’t given any backing to the claim that America’s presence there is part of the fundamental problem. What we do know is that if Iraq’s broken, it’s because we broke it. Not to say that it was in lovely conditions under Saddam, but he provided a certain amount of stability in his own tyrannical way. ”
Iraq is broken beceause several interests are fighting over power. Power in Iraq means control over the oil, and whoever controls the oil…..well you get my point.
Lets say the US leaves. What possible bad things can happen?
- Iran takes over? No way, Iran and Iraq have fought many wars and many iraqis wont accept an occupying force like Iran. (just as many iraqis dont like an occupying force like the US)
- The will follow you home? Of course not. You really think that terrorists who now simply drive to the Iraqi border and can pick wich ’sitting duck/american soldier’ they want to shoot can easily do the same in the US?
Obama wont cancell the FBI, the CIA and he will do his utmost best to make sure the terrorists stay away.
The chances that Obama succeeds will be bigger then with McCain since John wants to keep overstretching the security forces and by declining every dialog will breed more hatred in the world.
“The only justification we can possibly have for ending this war is if victory either cannot be achieved”
Well, Bush and McCain havent even defined what victory means. If they would they would see that it cant be achieved and then their argument of ‘we need to win’ cant be used anymore.
“, or if we are so far from achieving it that we’re not even entirely sure what victory means, let alone how best to go about achieving it, when it is likely to be achieved, or at what cost. I believe that’s where America is today.”
So you agree the US should leave?
“these mistakes may be paid for in suffering and blood for generations to come, no matter what America’s course of action from here on out.”
And this is moraly unacceptable. Thats also why i dont understand people who support this foreign policy
Jeremy:
I get where you are coming from and I actually do agree that we should seek help from other countries. I am not saying we should abandon Iraq; a responsible withdrawal can be done. We’ve been there quite a while and ever since we have occupied Iraq, things have gotten worse. There are ways to take care of this situation without sending more of my friends and relatives to a country we are occupying with no purpose and no exit strategy.
When the Democratic debates were on and you had Edwards, Richardson, Biden, Gravel, Dodd, Kucinich, Obama and Clinton trying to outdo each other on who would get the troops out of Iraq the quickest, it was sickening to watch, because all they were doing is playing one-upmanship with each other and not coming up with a solid viable solution to the problem.
I believe a full and immediate withdrawal in Iraq would be a disaster. A gradual withdrawal forcing the Iraqi’s take on more of their own security problems is the way to go. At the same time, more stability needs to be made in that region and the only way that’s going to happen is through talking with the leaders of Iraqs surrounding countries.
Obama has said many tims that he wants a carefull withdrawal. So nothging hasty about that.
sorry for my bad spelling
For sure you are not talking about Obama’s proposed 16 month withdrawal to have all troops out of Iraq immediately after he gains office. Considering the situation, that is very hasty and will do nothing to improve the situation in Iraq.
I am a CWO3 with the U.S. Army and I am about to leave for my 2nd tour in Iraq. As far as this war is concerned, there really is no way to win. This is not a war for oil or land, this is a religious war, where we are fighting the ideals of radical Islam. Oil and freedom of oppressed people is just a cover up so that our government can seem more “politically correct”. I do not agree with politcal correctness at all, a heart is a heart and a spade is a spade, lets call people what they are and quit dancing around the truth all the time. Just to let you know, in case you have forgotten, every part of radical Islam wants America and everything we stand for to be destroyed. If we dont fight this idea on their soil…guess what, we will have a 9/11 as often as terrorists can manage. As far as this war is concerned, if we leave now things will only be worse…and if we stay for the next 10 years things might get a little better but in the end we cant fight an idea or the radical beliefs of a truly unfounded religion. With regards to other countries helping us to get out of this mess, well Britain and Israel are probably our only REAL friends, everyone else is so consumed with Islamic sympathy to do anything of value.
Until the majority of people in this country realize that there are thousands of men, woman, and children who have been seduced by the evil of a false religion on the other side of the world that have only two goals:
-To spread evil and hate to the rest of the world
-To destroy hope and freedom (America in a nutshell)
So wake up America. Just FYI, I am more than happy and more than willing to return to that nasty waste of earth to protect everyone here at home in the greatest nation on earth.
*STANDING ON MY CHAIR TO SALUTE YOU AND CHEER FOR YOU, EVER SO GRATEFUL FOR YOU AND ALL THE OTHER SOLDIERS LIKE YOU WHO “GET IT”*
:) 
THANK YOU DAN. YOU ARE A GREAT AMERICAN!
WOW DAN!!! There is not a job in this world I respect more than that of a Soldier. It is b/c of you and other brave men and women who serve this great country that I can continue my education and live my American dream. My sincerest THANK YOU. If there is anything you need while serving in the sand box please let Nate (the creator of this site) or myself know and we would be elated to adopt you as our Soldier. The Soldier that we adopted is now coming home from his tour and I need to continue sending care packages to some brave Soldier