WILL THE REAL JOHN McCAIN PLEASE STAND DOWN
by Robert Scheer
DON’T BE FOOLED: THIS ADMIRAL’S SON BELIEVES WARS AND GOVERNMENTS ARE BETTER WHEN BIGGER.
There are two John McCains. One is the rebellious moderate who claims to oppose torture and wasteful military spending, who argues we should shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The other—the dominant and really, really dangerous one—thinks it would be fine if we spent “100 years in Iraq,” as long as we have enough “boots on the ground.”
That latter McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, never met a problem he didn’t think the U.S. government and its military power couldn’t solve.
If you elect him President, make him commander in chief and put him at the seat of power, which of the two McCains do you think you’ll get?
Another four years of expensive bloodshed, according to Matt Welch, author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. The libertarian journalist, whose book offers an insightful examination of the “Arizona senator’s largely unexamined philosophy about the proper role of the U.S. government,” credits Bush’s decision to end his Presidency with a significant expansion of troop levels in Iraq as pure McCain.
“Like almost every past McCain crusade,” Welch wrote in Reason magazine, “the [troop] surge involved an increase in the power of the federal government, particularly in the executive branch. Like many of his reform measures— identifying weapons pork, eliminating Congressional airport perks, even banning torture— the escalation had as much to do with appearances (in this case, the appearance of continuing to project U.S. military strength rather than accept ‘defeat’) as it did with reality. And like the reputation-making actions of his heroes—including his father, his grandfather and his political idol, Teddy Roosevelt—the new Iraq strategy required yet another expansion of American military power to address what is, at least in part, a nonmilitary problem.”
In fact, while McCain has savaged the current President in thinly veiled critiques of his handling of Iraq—and further nurturing the senator’s “maverick” image—he is even more enamored than Dubya with the dual neoconservative theorems that war is a solver of problems and that being the President of the United States is an invitation to become planet Earth’s neo-imperial ruler as well.
Of course, McCain wants that rule to be somewhat benevolent. For example, he doesn’t envision a hypothetical century in Iraq to be senselessly bloody or rude. It should all be in line with supporting democracy, prosperity, etc. Don’t call it an occupation! As long as we are not losing any of our “most precious asset… American blood,” he believes Americans will go along with enforcing a Pax Americana.
Never mind that after seven years of such an approach it should be clear that empire doesn’t come without death, terrorism, the discrediting of democracy and any number of other terrible costs we should be informed of before the bill comes due. McCain campaign wonks like to talk about the terrible “consequences of failure,” but what about the consequences of “success”?
Was betting on the creation of a U.S.-friendly democracy worth the over 4,000 American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives that have already been lost? How about bringing home a generation of mentally and physically wounded combat veterans? And what about the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending on the war, or the soaring price of gasoline here at home? Aren’t cheap resources supposed to be the reward for building an empire?
McCain optimistically says we “will win the war in Iraq and win it fairly soon,” but in any case he makes it clear no cost in lives or treasure is too dear to do so. If he’s said it once, he’s said it a thousand times:We need “more boots on the ground,” as many as we can spare.
Once all those “boots” finally stamp out all this Iraqi mischief, a few tens of thousands of them should—in McCain’s vision—remain posted there for ten or more decades to ensure that Iraq stays in our orbit as a loyal satellite. And if the Iraqis end up prosperous and vaguely democratic along the way, why should they begrudge us a few mega-bases shimmering outside town in the desert heat, as well as some sweetheart deals with Western oil corporations?
“No American argues against our military presence in Korea or Japan or Germany or Kuwait or other places, or Turkey, because America is not receiving casualties,” McCain declared at Rice University at the end of February 2008. “I think, generally speaking, we have a more secure world thanks to American presence, particularly in Asia, by the way, as we see the rising influence of China.”
In other words, what McCain supports— and it is one of the few political opinions he hasn’t flipped and flopped about—is a never-ending expansion of America’s military role in the world. This November you’ll get to decide if you agree.
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Before serving 30 years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer spent the late 1960s as Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. Now editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer has written such hard-hitting books as Thinking Tuna Fish, Playing President: My Close Encounters With Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan and Clinton—And How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush and his latest, The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.
Tags: John McCain, Robert Scheer
December 17th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I am hoping for our troops in Afghanistan are given the necessary tools to do their jobs and complete their mission. The House has to approve the funding necessary to buy the ballistic helments and other supplies required to bring stability to the region.
January 11th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
John McCain might have been a good US President but the people in the US does not need another Republican, that is why he lost in the election. Obama perfectly states the need of the people in his campaign slogan and that is “change we can”.