John McCain on Sunday's Meet the Press:
SEN. McCAIN: Well, the rationale for war is to break the enemy's will. That's the whole rationale for war. Do you break the enemy's will by saying, "We're going to be there," or send a message we're going to be there for a year and a half or so and then we're going to begin to leave, no matter what the circumstances are? Or do you tell them, "We're going to win and we're going to break your will, and then we're going to leave"? That's, that's, that's a huge factor in the conduct of war...
Well, hmm. I've heard rationales for war given that include resources, religion, territory, self-defense, preemptive self-defense, morality, ideology, and manifest destiny, but I don't think I'm familiar with the school of thought that argues "because we want to see you cry" as being the "whole rationale" for war.
Presumably he meant "strategy." Even then, I'm not quite following the logic; one could ask what the difference is between "we're going to be there, then we're going to leave" and "we're going to be there, we're going to break your will, then we'll leave." Unless I'm missing something, both ways end up with us leaving and the people we're fighting staying.
I suppose one involves more bragging rights than the other, which is easily worth the lives of several thousand people John McCain doesn't personally know. That's the whole, um, rationale for war, after all.