I'm writing this diary to vent about one of the memes that John McCain pushed recently, and that the Republican establishment media as a whole have been pushing as conventional wisdom for quite a while now:
But in his 27-minute address, McCain said those who advocate ending America's involvement in Iraq are in reality calling for a new policy of withdrawal and "re-invade."
Source: The Kansas City Star
That statement is such a hideous denial of truth that I don't know where to start refuting it. But that's not important. We know that St. John McCain is a liar, and we know that the media will lap up and "explain" his lies as something he has to do or something that the Mean Old Democrats should stop distorting. What matters is that John McCain is basing this entire argument on the same premise that got us into this war in the first place - that whenever anything is wrong, it's a job for Team America's rich chickenhawks to hurl it's military in every direction possible and save the day.
Glenn Greenwald sums up the mentality shared by John McCain, and unfortunately, many Democrats, in a way I could never:
She still thinks we can fix other countries by controlling and ruling over them, that we're going to spread human rights around the world like magic fairy dust by occupying and bombing them with our military, that wise and magnanimous American political leaders are both able and eager to navigate complex, foreign ethnic and religious conflicts and impose our will on other countries in order to bring Good to the world.
Those are the same rotted premises that led them to support the invasion in the first place. Why would any rational person even consider listening to them now as they insist that they're the ones best qualified to fix the mess they unleashed -- through the same exact religious faith in war and military occupation that drove them five years ago?
Diarist's Note: The "she" in this quote refers to Anne-Marie Slaughter, who supported the Iraq war. This is included because Greenwald summed up the pro-invasion mentality very well.
The slander that says that America should re-invade Iraq, should there be conflict when we leave, represents nothing different from the reasons given by people who said that we would be greeted by liberators. I've got some news for Democrats and Republicans alike: if we go into Iraq again, it will be no different.
You want some straight talk, John McCain? Iraq was craptastic before we went in, it was craptastic as we went in, it is craptastic now, and it will be craptastic for a long time after we leave. People are going to die with or without the presence of American soldiers; witness the last five years - 4,000 Americans dead, 30,000 wounded, probably over 1 million Iraqis killed, 5 million Iraqis displaced, even more scattered throughout the globe. Your war sealed the fate of thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis for years to come. And that's not even including the strain on our allies.
John McCain is either stupid or willfully ignorant, evidenced by his rhetoric in the same speech:
"There is no doubt about the basic reality in Iraq," he said, pounding his fingers on the podium. "We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success."
McCain said little about the recent fighting in southern Iraq where government security forces struggled.
As always, Republican rhetoric is conspicuous in what it leaves out - you know, the facts.
If someone, even in passing, mentions to you that we'll have to invade Iraq anyway if we withdraw, give them a good box around the ears, 'coz it's complete hogwash.