John McCain hasn’t spent much time talking about Afghanistan during the presidential campaign, but now that “other” war is deteriorating, the Republican candidate has discovered his new-found interest in the conflict.
Republican John McCain said Tuesday he knows “how to win wars” and that the strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan. […]
McCain has described Obama’s call for withdrawal from Iraq as tantamount to declaring defeat and points to the lower levels of violence in Iraq as evidence that sending additional U.S. troops there has been a successful strategy.
“Sen. Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards,” McCain told a town hall meeting. “It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.”
In other words, McCain’s new policy on Afghanistan — I say “new” because up until now, he hasn’t actually articulated a policy on Afghanistan — can be summarized this way: “Just do what we’ve been doing in Iraq.” Seriously. That’s the policy.
This, of course, doesn’t make any sense. The wars are entirely different. The causes of violence are completely different. The competing factions are completely different. Oh, and by the way, Iraq hasn’t gone especially well.
McCain seemed particularly fond of this line from his speech: “I know how to win wars.” Now, with all due respect to the senator’s military service, what is it, exactly, that leads McCain to think he has this knowledge? McCain hasn’t, you know, actually won any wars.
My suspicion is, McCain means he endorsed the surge, the surge led to victory in Iraq, and if he can just bring more surges to more countries, American would keep winning. In other words, when McCain says he knows “how to win wars,” he means he’s concluded, “Surges = Victories.”
It simply never occurred to me that the Republican Party would nominate another presidential candidate as sophomoric and confused as George W. Bush. It just didn’t seem possible.
And yet, here we are.
McCain also argued today, “Just as we have worked over the past 18 months to stabilize Iraq by bringing together its neighbors, this kind of diplomacy is just as important for Afghanistan.”
I hope someone can help me out with this one. I like to think I keep up fairly well on current events, but I don’t quite recall the period in which we “brought together” Iraq’s neighbors. For that matter, I’m still looking for this “stabilized” Iraq.
The fall-out-of-the-chair moment, however, came when McCain insisted, Obama “has no strategy…. All he has done is say we need more troops.”
I see. So, what’s McCain’s strategy? We need more troops — and an Afghanistan czar.
There was also this gem:
“[U]nderstand this, when I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run and nowhere they can hide,” he said.
Unless, of course, the terrorists hide in Pakistan. In that case, McCain even talking about possibly pursuing terrorists is reckless and irresponsible. And it’s not as if there are any terrorists hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, right?
Patrick Barry summarized the situation nicely.
John McCain fancies himself an expert on national security, but looking at his policy for Afghanistan … I just don’t understand how he can still make that claim with a straight face. It should be clear to anyone who follows this issue or cares about the threat that instability in Afghanistan poses to Americans, that John McCain’s policy is an absolute sham.
As is McCain’s reputation for competence.
Filed Under: Barack Obama, Election 08, John McCain, Middle East
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What experience does he have winning a war? what a crock. oh, FRIST
Win Wars? He doesn’t even know how to evade capture.
Maybe we need to know which war he won. The last one he was in, he spent the whole period in a POW camp.
This, coming from a shell-of-a-man that surrendered to the enemy after bombing civilians.
So says Songbird ~ JibJab ‘Campaignin’ Video References Charges That POW ‘Songbird’ McCain Cooperated with His Captors
McEscalate
i’m sure, though, that like the deceptive claim that the “surge worked”, the msm will treat this GOP talking point as inerrant.
OK, how does participating in Super-Iraq (Vietnam) and getting shot down qualify as winning wars? The guy must be senile or not know what he’s saying. He wants a surge in Afghanistan, never mind that the greater part of the reason the Surge worked is paying the guys formerly shooting at us to shoot at somebody else, something not likely to work with the Taliban, and something likely to make enemies of the Afghans themselves (Afghans are typically Hanafi with a strong Sufi mystical bent, the Taliban are a different sort of Hanafi bearing Indian and Hanbali influence and strongly opposed to Sufism) if it did work with the Taliban. Either McPapen is senile or he misspoke for the hundredth time.
The man with a plan to win an un-winnable war. Do tell?
actually, it seems pretty damned amazing that there could ever BE “another presidential candidate as sophomoric and confused as George W. Bush”.
The sum of John McCain’s knowledge of How to Win Wars:
Or a thousand…or ten thousand. Lucky for us he doesn’t know How to Win Presidential Elections.
John McCain - NOPE!
The surge is only working in and around The Green Zone. Shift them to Afghanistan and it will collapse in Iraq. Shift them back to Iraq and it will collapse in Afghanistan. Repeat, rinse…
Wesley Clark asked the same question — after citing McCain as one of his personal heroes for his service and sacrifice: does getting shot down in combat translate to executive leadership, to command leadership? His answer: no. And the media — stupid, mean, niggling, and dishonest — jumped on Clark for suggesting that getting shot down doesn’t necessarily qualify you to be president.
So, naturally, Obama spinelessly and cynically joined in on the attack and threw General Clark under the bus. Getting shot down does not qualify you to be president. But does sucking up to the media qualify Obama?
(Oh, I’ll vote for the dude in November. But the way he tossed Clark aside just gnaws at me, and makes it really hard to be enthusiastic for a guy who claims he’s going to change the way things are done.)
They haven’t nominated him yet, but it won’t really matter, he is just the stooge of the puppet masters.
Madison Avenue can sell anything. The Americans will sit in front of their teevees and be manipulated as they always are.
Oh yeah…I forgot. McCain won the Viet Nam War single handed (with a little lelp from Rambo)….
“I know how to win wars–by starting more of them.”
Umm…he was in Vietnam
He no remember this?
http://www.pickens.k12.sc.us/d.....street.jpg
Please. The only thing Jowls McCain knows how to do is crash planes and get caught.
“Fish Rots from the Head”————-The Republican “trickle down theory”at its most corrupting.
thepoetryman @ 11:
Not necessarily, the collapse in Iraq. Iraq has an increasingly similar system of power-distribution to how Saddam kept control of it, and would likely regain more stability in that manner if we would just leave. Whereas in Afghanistan, the guys fighting us are neither speaking local languages or based on the local religion the way many Iraqi insurgents that stopped shooting were, they follow a stricter interpretation of Hanafi Islam with a strong Hanbali influence, as opposed to a more liberal interpretation with a strong Sufi influence like predominates in Afghanistan. Many of the circumstances that have led to the (even if only temporary) cessation of much violence in Iraq, and I think it was temporary and will be picking up in a bit due to insurgents refining their tactics and due eventually to lack of funds to pay the guys that were once shooting at us, don’t exist at all in Afghanistan.
When did mccain start channeling Nixon?
ummm yah maybe grandpa simpson knows something all those other countries/empires didn’t know that tried to conquer the afgans
“I know how to win wars,” says McClown. So why has he been keeping these fantastic war-winning skills to himself all this time?
“Just as we have worked over the past 18 months to stabilize Iraq by bringing together its neighbors…” …like Iran, for example?
Know what is truly scary? This a** actually has a chance to be elected President of the US of A! He’s made it to a place where the opportunity exists! He is influencing people who are strangely open to his insanity. How can this be? Is America completely out of it’s mind? Are we all so delusional to give an iota of consideration to this fool for our President? How much evidence needs to be presented before this blowhard is exposed for what he is?
Beyond anything sane or intellectually responsible.
If this nut can possibly be elected someone needs to run a write-in election because any nutjob can be President if this buffoon can do it.
Yes, someone please tell me what experience this doddering old idiot have winning wars?
This is exactly why the right wing knuckle draggers got all pissy when General Clark called McGramps out on running on his war record. He is untried and untested. Clark should hold a press conference and say it again.
How many planes did McCain crash during non combat situations?
And much like last time when it’s over we’ll all be standing around wondering how a sick, senile old gop moron stole the white house again. And we’ll be right back to business as usual.
McCain knows how to win them wars:
He is going to challenge those pesky terrorists to a bamboo cage match winner take all
So is McCain saying we’ve now won in Iraq? Does that mean all the troops can go home?
Juliana @ 17:
he was bombing civilians when he got flamed. you women and children were in his bomb sights.
i wonder what actual war it was that he won?
“It simply never occurred to me that the Republican Party would nominate another presidential candidate as sophomoric and confused as George W. Bush. It just didn’t seem possible.”
C’mon, how many bad candidates and bad appointments do you need to witness to have it “occur” to you that the Republican party is ALL ABOUT bad nominations? What “doesn’t seem possible” is that the Republicans will EVER nominate a person qualified for whatever post they are attempting to fill. Their quest is to make government non-functional — and they are geniuses at that.
Any idiot - past service notwithstanding - who thinks they can field a viable force for 100+ years most clearly lacks even the rudimentary knowledge of strategy. The open-ended ‘we’ll stay till we win’ mentality of the Bush/McCain crowd isn’t even practical in terms of ‘industrial war’ (i.e., nation states and massive armies, such as World War II).
It doesn’t matter who they nominate. They intend to cheat, that is what they do. They will steal the election, spin to cover it, and the media will spread the lies as fact.
Yeah right McCain knows how win wars. The one he was in, the USA lost.
McCain is an Idiot
We need a president who knows how to win peace…
Enough of wars and spending on wars…
The Middle East have seen war after war since end of WWII…and we have our good share of wars we got ourselves involved in too.
Besides such claim is stupid…that McCain knows how to win wars…
How can someone make such claim?!!
Nobody , even experienced military generals ,can tell you with full confidence that a war can be won as planned, and when that war will end.
Enough of this war mentality…
Our Treasury is drained because of these wars, while we need every dollar spent at home on infrastructure,education,health, science and many other beneficial projects to Americans; and here we have a candidate who tells us..that he knows how to win wars…!!!
Where did McCwar learn how to win wars….?
And if he got so much experience about winning wars..why didn’t he reveal it to the military since he is friend of Bush and member of the Armed Service Committee in the Senate?!!
.
Apparently failing his mission and getting captured by the enemy in Vietnam is part of some long term war winning strategy.
Boy! Are we all going to look foolish when we finally beat charlie!
McCain has no idea what he is talking about and apparently can’t count either. There simply isn’t enough ground troops available to perform any meaningful “surge” in Afghanistan while maintaining the “surge” in Iraq at the same time. The only way you could pull that off is if you extend the rotations of troops while speeding up the training and reducing the down time of the troops currently back in the United States. I’m hearing that the Taliban control large portions of Afghanistan and operate at company and battalion strength now. They have the experience and numbers to force U.S. troops to withdraw from bases as we saw earlier. This is no rag-tag bunch but apparently McCain thinks they are.
Besides, if enough troops are reduced in Iraq we might see another flare up there just as we are now seeing it happen in Afghanistan.
If John Kerry had graduated at the bottom of his class and then got shot down the Swifties would be claiming he wasn’t qualified to fly which is why he crashed. I won’t go quite as far as the Swiftboaters but I will say I don’t think graduating at the bottom of your Naval Academy class and getting shot down means you know how to win a war.
Did anyone here happen to read the report yesterday that American forces will for the first time be training for S&R missions ALONGSIDE Communist Chinese military forces? Does anyone here realize that Vietnam will in all likelihood become a new manufacturing and export hub now that it is becoming more expensive to manufacture in China? Connect the dots.
Win Wars? He doesn’t even know how to evade capture.
Or fly a plane. He crashed five of them
Surrendering to the enemy and then cooperating shows you the knowledge to win wars?
Only stupid republicans would believe that garbage.
it doesn’t matter what you say as the republican nominee. you have the entire mass media at your disposal, ready to repeat whatever you say, whether it’s right or wrong, to the masses. the same people who bring you the news are the same people who build the bombs. now, what do you think they’re going to say?
They aren’t wars. These are occupations. You cannot “win” an occupation.
Everyone knows getting your ass shot out of the sky qualifies you to be an expert on anything.
He is slick though. He’s going to hold up is mil service as credentials then relax as the MSM crushes anyone who actually scrutinizes them.
if he knows how to win wars, why has he kept these secrets to himself for so long? Seems treasonous.
General_Rennenkampf @ 7:
In all seriousness I am Ignorent as to the differing religous factions. Could you give me a source to read about that?
Let’s just declare victory and get the frack out of there.
I really don’t think he has a chance at winning, every Republican that I know (very ignorant people my husband works with) can’t even stand him. The Chelsea Clinton remark (calling her UGLY) should turn off all mothers from voting for him. Calling his wife a C*NT in front of staffers should also be observed. He butchers the english language almost as bad as Bush “Drugs Is A Big, Big problem in America” Saying that he can win a war that is unwinnable shows his ignorance. He has no experience so far in that field. This man, when you hear him speak, is like watching a really bad actor and it makes people cringe. It is really hard for him to articulate. He is just a puppet shell of a man who is trying to win the highest office in the world to allow his handlers to continue the Bush Agenda while pretending to care about important issues. His solutions to the big issues of the day don’t even make any sense to the half witts.
Maybe McCain should consider that it is not only the Taliban that are U.S. enemies but former U.S. allies as well. Seeing how it is McCain though, I doubt he can keep who is who straight. Here is just another example of “blowback” that the right wing thinks is non-existent:
Afghan Warlords, Formerly Backed By the CIA, Now Turn Their Guns On U.S. Troops
They defeated the Soviets with Washington’s help, but now they attack Americans as the new occupiers
“Ironically, these two warlords—currently at the top of America’s list of most wanted men in Afghanistan—were once among America’s most valued allies. In the 1980s, the CIA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition to help them battle the Soviet Army during its occupation of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar, then widely considered by Washington to be a reliable anti-Soviet rebel, was even flown to the United States by the CIA in 1985.”
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runew....._8350.html
Town Hall meetings? These are not Town Hall meetings. They are staged infomercials, some with laugh tracks and phony applause.