Well, whaddaya know. Old John McCain (remember him? Caribou Barbie's sidekick from last season's show) is on a tour of Afghanistan, and he's offering his one-sided, warmongering advice on how to proceed in the most intractable of our two current intractable occupations.
It will surprise no one that he advocates sending more troops into harm's way. After all, McCain never met a problem more soldiers couldn't solve. What might surprise is that until July of 2008, in the heat of the campaign, McCain had not advocated such a move.
Detail of the cravenness of this flipflop, and why nobody should care what Grandpa Screams At Clouds has to say below the fold...
Andrea Mitchell brings us the breathless news that, once again, John McCain is on a "tour" of a "war zone", but apparently feels that Afghanistan is not quite as safe as a down-home country fair, despite a recent bunch of hooey clearly implying the opposite.
Now, what's the problem with a little flipflopping from the guy who insisted the economy was peachy until suspending his campaign to "deal" with the massive, urgent economic crisis? An examination of context, timing, and motive shows that this is not as random as the ravings of a bitter old man, but designed to embarrass and hurt the president politically.
Forget the whole "politics ends at the water's edge" rule of bygone days. That rule has been rendered inoperative and quaint by the Republicans.
First, McCain still speaks for the Republican party on foreign affairs, despite his bungling and groping during the Russia/Georgia crisis last summer, and despite "bomb, bomb Iran". Those failings only helped him fail upward in Republicana, anyway. But the plan here is to force Obama's hand. Several news agencies are reporting that Gen McChrystal is leaning toward asking for more troops in our almost-nine-year-old occupation, and McCain's piling on here sets up the whole "commanders on the ground" meme for Republicans to exploit. Either Obama ponies up more of our young men and women, perpetuating the endless violence they endure (and alienating the progressive community that wants to GTFOY), or he doesn't, and "is soft on Terra". They dearly miss their usurpation of the claim of National Defenders that dubya wrecked for them, and McCain is doing his level best to wrench it back.
Second, this realization comes awfully late for the super duper military expert we are supposed to believe this legacy hire embodies. For the first seven years and eight months of the occupation, McCain didn't suggest any such troop increases. Apparently ninety-two months is when Mr McCain's patience runs out. But in July of 2008, as his poll numbers lagged consistently behind Obama's, he suddenly got religion on the problem of Afghanistan's stubborn refusal to be Indiana (or whatever we're trying to do over there.)
Afghanistan is due to hold elections on Thursday. I would imagine (and have been told by teh Nooze) that our troops, as well as the Afghan military, are kinda busy right now, and I'm sure they have better, more life-saving things to do than parade McCain's ego around a few public markets (complete with air support, motorcade, etc).
So, given that this lamprey-like opportunist is as predictable on military matters as he is boneheadedly wrong, given that the American people heard his ideas, saw his judgment on display, and ran screaming into the arms of a Racist Black Socialist Grandma Killer, given all that, why is he listened to by anybody but the teabag stains??
Parenthetically, any troop increase in either Theater of Unending Occupation will have the happy (for Republicans, anyway) side effect of increasing the funding commitment for these boondoggles of mayhem, effectively shrinking the pool of money available for everything else (like health care!) I look forward to the tsk tsking of our fiscally responsible cadre of Republicans over the increasing, unsustainable costs of serial warmaking.
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