Obama '08?

"It's not a matter of how long we're in Iraq, it's if we succeed or not," McCain said to CNN's Larry King.

"And both Sen. Obama and Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal -- that means chaos, that means genocide, that means undoing all the success we've achieved and al Qaeda tells the world they defeated the United States of America.

"I won't let that happen."

Last month, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a crowd member asked McCain about a Bush statement that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years.

"Maybe 100," McCain replied. "As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."

My own view is that McCain's comment, in its most benign formulation, misses the key element here: Islam. One reader helpfully pointed out that occupied Japan also had a fiercely proud populace revolted by foreign troops. Sure: but it had been defeated as a unitary state and its Emperor (which we wisely retained) gave the occcupiers sanction. No such unitary state exists in Iraq; and Islam forbids the rule of infidels in its own heartlands - and Iraq has central religious importance for its various shrines and religious centers in the Muslim mind. Secularism has been in decline for a couple of decades. There is no way an Arab Muslim country will tolerate Western troops permanently based on their land - without constant war and threat of war. To believe otherwise is to engage in a "holiday from reality." We've done enough of that.

The future of a permanently occupied Iraq is less likely to be Japan than the West Bank. And the deeper we are stuck there, the more our predicament will become the awful, morally corrosive, soul-sapping experience of the occupying Israelis.

Revel
Where have you been the last 130 years. This has been and is government policy. Look at South America and the Philippines. How do you think we aquired Hawaii.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

McGentrix wrote:

Quote:

John McCain wants to continue George Bush's war in Iraq indefinitely;

This is a flat out lie and it will bite Obama in the ass later. People don't want another liar in office. They had the Clinton experience once.

I look forward to the next Obama gaffe. Shouldn't be long.

Oh really?

McCain plans on staying 'as long as it takes.' What's the operational difference between that, and 'indefinitely?'

It is very literally true; Indefinitely perfectly describes McCain's position. There has been no definition of an end date by him.

Cycloptichorn

Good Lord stop trying to shove your partisan sh*te into a package for regular consumption.

How tough is it to concieve that someone is not irrational for not wanting to declare to our enemy the date upon which we will withdraw our forces?

If you're all for someone who will do so, fine, but either accept that it's fair to judge your position as insane and defeatist or stop trying to cast the opposing position in the same dim light.

And the American people don't want to hear that crap.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And the American people don't want to hear that crap.

No ... the left wing of the Democratic party doesn't want to hear "that crap." The left wing of the Democratic party wants to tuck tail and run.

And the left wing of the Democratic party does not speak for the American people.

My above post was in response to this post by McG.

McGentrix wrote:

Quote:

John McCain wants to continue George Bush's war in Iraq indefinitely;

This is a flat out lie and it will bite Obama in the ass later. People don't want another liar in office. They had the Clinton experience once.

I look forward to the next Obama gaffe. Shouldn't be long.

Who's the liar here?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And the American people don't want to hear that crap.

No ... the left wing of the Democratic party doesn't want to hear "that crap." The left wing of the Democratic party wants to tuck tail and run.

And the left wing of the Democratic party does not speak for the American people.

Rest assured Ms. Clinton is consulting her lawyers, and ?

Interesting, Obama finally quits the church. Just a thought, was this latest stupidity by the guest preacher a setup to give him an excuse or cover to quit the church, so Wright doesn't get blamed, and so on? I have not heard this at all, and this is only a thought of mine after seeing the announcement on the web, and no opinions at all. Only a person of questionable intelligence, or perhaps a motive?----- would say what was said to stimulate the events following.

So people like this are screaming obcenities and hatred about Bush, Clinton, and other chosen targets as part of practicing their religion each week, ci? I think we are in big trouble if these towering examples of virtue are the norm.

At any rate, I am calling it a day, and will check in tomorrow or the next day to see what other people think. I don't really care what Roxi thinks anyway, I guess it it not much more than "wow," whatever that means.

They didn't lie, they didn't make anything up -- they went ahead and drew the press' attention to stuff from third parties (Olbermann). This is substantially different from Hillary's mailers re: his "present" votes on abortion issues in the Illinois State Senate, for example. (Mailers -- he's anti-abortion. Reality -- many of the "present" votes were strategic, and he did so at the request of abortion-rights groups.)