Say Anything Blog

my opinion is that if any of you live in this country and have eyes, ears, etc. and those things work, you’d be fooling yourself to think that anybody but mccain could win the republican primary. the others, frankly, all sucked. there’s about as much charisma in the field as I leave on my pillow when i go to work… a whiff. did any of you honestly think that you’d get away with another ‘conservative’ (if that’s what you call Bush)… you’re silly. it doesn’t matter what kind of spin or false histories you guys come up with when you sit on this blog and talk to each other. in the real world groceries is getting expensive, Bush is a liar (even now lying about the Argentine bombing in ‘94), he can’t win in Afghanistan still (let alone in Mesopotamia), people don’t like hypocrite pederasts, and so on. smell the JAVA bitches! and now, thanks to the aforementioned shenanigans, we will have one of three poor choices. spin that. how is it the tree huggers fault? isn’t it funny that the conservatives are so independent and all, but when it comes time to be responsible for your independence, the accusations range back to FDR? and when poor words are said about Ike’s financial decisions in Indochina, for example, well… we must make allowances. We must look at things like that through the cold war lens. Nothing like a little relativism - a nice band-aid for history. Nothing but a bunch of slithering, excuse-making BS. I love it. You guys are so moral and all. And the Dems are no different.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

The idea that he’s a huge hawk is misleading at best.

Oh get real.  One of the architects of the surge and the strongest and most vocal supporter for the Iraq war… not a hawk.

You guys are just absurd.

Oh get real.  One of the architects of the surge and the strongest and most vocal supporter for the Iraq war… not a hawk.

He’s one of the “architects for the surge” if you consider that he said we needed more troops over there to be designing the surge. But in that definition I AM one of the architects for the surge. He didn’t plan strategy, decide where the troops would be stationed, plan the areas of attack...etc.

He had about as much to do with the surge as you or I did.

Nor is he the most vocal supporter of the war. McCain has always been highly critical of the war, ranging from the way we fight it...to the way we process detainees. McCain has been a leading opponent of waterboarding, Gitmo, military tribunals, etc. He was even the author of a “shape up or else” non-binding resolution to the Iraqis.

Both of your claims are pure fantasy.

For the first time in my adult life, I am ashamed of my country.

Kenny:

He had about as much to do with the surge as you or I did.

No.  That’s not historically accurate.

On the surge:

[The] loudest voice for a change in Iraq was Senator John McCain of Arizona. He and his sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, traveled repeatedly to Iraq. McCain badgered Bush and Hadley with phone calls urging more troops and a different strategy. Together, McCain, Keane, Petraeus, the network of Army officers, and Kagan provided a supportive backdrop for adopting a new strategy.

Just because you’re critical of a failed strategy, doesn’t mean that you’re not in it to win.  I would rather have an independent thinker in the White House than somebody who is just a robot.

I grant you I haven’t agreed with all of McCain’s independent decisions in the past, but I’m a little more willing to cut people slack I guess.  I figure the decision making is only as good as the advise, and he would have much better access to better advice in Washington than he did in New Mexico.

There are a lot of things I don’t like about McCain, but his military leadership and foreign policy have always seemed up to snuff for me.

In fact, I’ve always thought McCain would have made a good Sec. of Defense.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Carrick,

In fairness to those actually involved, I find it difficult to see McCain as an “author” of the “surge.” To paraphrase, just because you’re critical of a failed strategy does not necessarily mean you’ve suggested a more winning one.

The “surge” is about far, far more than simply adding boots on the ground.  Its easy to overlook the fact that in late 2001 and early 2002, John McCain was calling for 500,000 to 600,000 troops on the ground… in Afghanistan.

I certainly don’t disparage his efforts in either theater, or his determination that the US should WIN, not turn tail and run away as has been suggested by quite nearly every Democrat that breathes.  But if the Left is consistently overboard in it’s “doom and gloom” assessment of events in either theater, those of us on/in the Right should not be Pollyannas in our enthusiasm either.

John McCain finds it convenient to campaign against former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.  But the Rumsfeld approach to Afghanistan was far more effective than the Soviet era strategy proposed at the time by John McCain.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Bat One, the historical record shows a degree of involvement of McCain in the planning and decision making phase of the new strategy that went far beyond simply being a critique of the prior status quo.

I did not come into this debate with any predetermination that McCain was some great Leader, in fact I was expecting to be much less impressed than I was.

I disagree with you about Rumsfeld, as you probably know.  I was negative on Rumsfeld’s performance a long time before McCain had any role in the Iraq War.  I agree the initial strategy in Afghanistan was highly effective, but the main credit I give Rumsfeld there is listening to his commanders in that one case.

This is something he obviously didn’t do after the Iraq War, going even to the extent of removing Gardner, when he failed to obey Rumsfeld’s ill-thoughtout order to disband the Iraqi Army.  That is also a historical fact that is pretty hard to argue with.  A lot of the problems we have today are based solely on Rumsfeld’s arrogance and his ignoring the advice of the military.  arrogance

...the historical record shows a degree of involvement of McCain in the planning and decision making phase of the new strategy that went far beyond simply being a critique of the prior status quo.

Carrick,

Perhaps you could provide some more substantive sourcing for your theory on the role of John McCain in the “planning and decision making phase of the new strategy.”

As for Don Rumsfeld, the true history of his tenure as SecDef in the Bush administration has yet to be written, and almost surely will not be accurate when it is.  Originally, his role was to bring the military, kicking and screaming as it happened, into the 21st century after the abject neglect of the Clinton years.  The events of 9-11-01 put him in the position of playing from behind in both endeavors.

Incidentally, I still maintain that had Colin Powell done his job, securing passage for the Army’s 4th Div from the Turks, things would have been considerably different in Iraq.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

[The] loudest voice for a change in Iraq was Senator John McCain of Arizona. He and his sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, traveled repeatedly to Iraq. McCain badgered Bush and Hadley with phone calls urging more troops and a different strategy. Together, McCain, Keane, Petraeus, the network of Army officers, and Kagan provided a supportive backdrop for adopting a new strategy.

As I said, McCain didn’t like the current strategy. He wanted a new one, and his idea was nothing more than “add more troops”. It’s good that he supported the strategy, and even that he was part of a cacophony of voices that convinced the President to try Petraes’ strategy...but McCain is. not. an. author. of. the. surge.

Let’s remember that Democrats across the board were saying that we were losing in Iraq because we didn’t have enough troops. And let’s remember that we had an earlier surge that also showed great success until we drew back forces.

I’ll give him one thing, which is that he’s been consistant on Iraq. He complained about needing more troops like all the Democrats, but then when we added more troops, he didn’t join their ranks about needing to draw back forces.

He has even criticized the surge of which he was supposedly an author:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1412606.ece

Although he is closely identified with the war, and repeatedly insists that fighting in Iraq is necessary to prevent terrorism from reaching America’s borders, Mr McCain has chosen careful differences with the Bush Administration: recently he criticised Mr Bush’s latest plan for a “surge” of 21,500 troops, saying that the increase is too small.

Could we do worse than McCain on war policy? Well, yeah. We could vote in Ron Paul. But we have the two leading candidates for the Dems who have said that they “probably won’t be able to withdraw any forces.”

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/09/27/democrat-candidates-wont-commit-to-a-surrender-date-certain/

People are SERIOUSLY overstating the differences between McCain and his liberal counterparts.

For the first time in my adult life, I am ashamed of my country.

Bat One, If you don’t find my source authoritative enough, that’s fair enough, but since you’ve not indicated what level of source you would find sufficiently authoritative, I’m not sure we have anything other than a moving goal post situation here.  I’m not going to get into what would amount to circular argument here over McCain, that gets tiresome in a hurry.

Rumsfeld’s role in transforming the military is indicative of a particular form of conceit:  That is, he as a non-expert believed he knew more than the people who do the job professionally.

This may have served him in the transformation of the military, though I’m somewhat skeptical about this personally.  They already had modernized concepts like the National Training Center and Battle Lab before Rumsfeld took the office of SOD.  The invasion of Afghanistan was based on a transformation of military doctrine that occurred before Rumfeld’s tenure, even the invasion plan was a modification of a standing contingency plan.

Perhaps you could be a little more descriptive about where Rumsfeld “kicking and screaming as it happened, into the 21st century”.  Other than his “invasion lite” doctrine, I’m not sure where his contribution is.

Where Rumsfeld failed, in my opinion, was in his ignoring of all the post-war planning.  Many of the moves he made, the disbandment of the Iraqi Army, the purge of the Ba’athists, and the initial exclusion of Iraqis from the provisional government, were all mistakes that had been warned about, and which he duly ignored.

Clearly, this is all part of the historical record.  I personally think that when the history books get written, they will accurately reflect Rumsfeld’s arrogance and the role this played in the ultimate failure of his post-war policies in Iraq.

Carrick,

The question isn’t one of “authoritative” so much as it is “substantive.” Fred Barnes’ article doesn’t identify McCain as an “author” or “architect” of the surge… merely as someone who “badgered Bush and Hadley” for more troops and a “different strategy.”

That’s certainly no knock on McCain.  Ultimately, one of his selling points, perhaps even his strongest, with the GOP base has to be his determination to win at war and defeat our enemies...although I still believe that where Gitmo and waterboarding are concerned, we would all be better off if McCain recused himself, president or not.

Kenny’s description of McCain as part of the “cacaphony of voices” urging a new approach to winning in Iraq, perhaps even the loudest and most supportive such voice, strikes me as about right.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”