He didn't let it slip at a Washington cocktail party, he talked about on last night's 60 Minutes. And if the above title is designed to get this diary read, his comments were designed to sell his book, The War Within, which is excerptedin several articles in the Washington Post.
Obama's vote against the surge, and the drastic lessening of violence that occurred after it, has put Obama on the defensive. While Bush always says that he follows the requests of the top commanders on the ground, this book, based on over 150 interviews, including eleven hours with the President, gives the lie to these words. It was Obama's rejection of the surge that was consistent with the strong opinion of the top Generals in the field.
The decrease in violence in Iraq was a result of many factors, only one being the increase in troops. While Woodwards description of the secret weapon used against the insurgency leaders was vague, he classified it as in the league of introduction of tanks and airplanes in transforming warfare. It will only be a matter of time before the details of this is leaked.
Woodward also wrote about what I can only describe as an adolescent type of war game thinking of our President, who demanded to know the body count of the "enemies" to contrast with the known loss of Americans. Of course he didn't care too much if those bodies were actually insurgents or perhaps those who just were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So, while most of us scratch our head at the idea of victory in Iraq, Bush saw victory as the final score. If we kill more of the enemy then we "won." Of course the enemy's ideology makes dying for their cause something to be desired, and martyrism is the equivalent of gaining the ultimate "medal of honor," but he never seemed care about that.
Our President, never having even seen the results human beings mutilated beyond recognition has an R rated view of war. It's excitement, it's adventure, it's a type of high tech extreme sport, all done to the sound of martial patriotic music.
Is John McCain just like Bush? No way. Is he enough like Bush that he too glorifies war, that he gets just a bit too much pleasure out of engagement with the enemy, who by definition is always unambiguously evil and worthy of destruction. There is abundant evidence, from his "bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" to his wanting to attack several countries after 9-11, to his current reaction to the South Osettia conflict to see this pattern clearly.
Bob Woodward has provided a unique service to his country. His series of books on the Bush presidency, incredibly with full access and cooperation, yet written with a reporters integrity, is unique in history. Now, this final book clearly describes a mentality of an individual and a political Republican culture.
It is time to defeat all that this represents. While a military capability is necessary, when it becomes revered, when it replaces responsible thinking about international complexities, it becomes toxic, and fatal to this country.
Defeating this mentality of simplistic militarism is what this election must be about.