General George S. Patton:
Never let the enemy pick the battle site.
Senator John S. McCain (March 24):
General Petraeus is correct when he says that the central battle ground in the struggle against Al Qaeda is Iraq and Osama Bin Laden just confirmed that. So General Petraeus and I and Osama Bin Laden are in agreement. It is hard to understand why Senator Clinton and Senator Obama do not understand that. I don’t know if its naïveté or what the problem is, but it’s obvious that they are dead wrong.
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Here's a new video I put together on McCain and bin Laden's trap:
Here's the Digg link for the video (thanks barath!).
After Teflon John McCain uttered these words, you'd think the headlines would have screamed that the GOP presidential nominee had just attacked Democrats for disagreeing with America's number one enemy. But no, the mainstream media largely buried McCain's attack, and most of those who did cover it conveyed his attack with no hint of irony.
Still, despite the media's complicity, John McCain's utterance is not one we can afford to forget.
Indeed, it was a gaffe -- one that exposes the central flaw in his foreign policy vision.
Instead of taking the conflict directly to Osama bin Laden, John McCain has allowed Osama bin Laden to choose the field of battle.
Now we are fighting a war with no end, a war that leaves Osama bin Laden safe and sound and sleeping easy. A war that has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars. A war that has cost us 4,000 lives and growing.
A war that has proven to be the greatest recruiting bonanza terrorist extremists have ever experienced.
John McCain has committed a tremendous -- and defining -- strategic error. Instead of seeking to transform the world, he has sought to bludgeon it. Instead of engaging peacefully with the Muslim world, he has attacked it.
John McCain once said he would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell. But he has fallen into bin Laden's trap, and he's trying to take us along with him.
Now, it's up to us to end this war -- because John McCain never will.
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Also posted on on my blog.