Is John McCain Totally Off the Rails?
We wake up this morning to a sunny forecast in Iraq, from none other than John “I Misspoke” McCain. Even as a 60 Minutes interview prepares to air this evening in which McCain reportedly backpedals on his upbeat assessment of the continuing quagmire, he pens an op-ed for the Washington Post that shows his [...]
We wake up this morning to a sunny forecast in Iraq, from none other than John “I Misspoke” McCain. Even as a 60 Minutes interview prepares to air this evening in which McCain reportedly backpedals on his upbeat assessment of the continuing quagmire, he pens an op-ed for the Washington Post that shows his rose colored glasses are still firmly welded to his face.
The only explanation I can come up with is that he’s desperately courting the GOP presidential nomination endorsement of the Bush / Cheney regime. With the approval of the war (and George Bush and Dick Cheney) hovering at or below 30%, one would think that a campaign strategy which requires McCain to keep his lips firmly planted to the butt cheeks of the current regime would be a loser. For whatever reason, though, he apparently doesn’t think so.
In his WaPo op-ed, John McCain takes the media to the woodshed for not reporting the good news out of Iraq, and lists some examples. This is almost too easy - but let’s examine the claims, one by one:
McCain’s claim:
Sunni sheikhs in Anbar are now fighting al-Qaeda. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, to meet with Sunni tribal leaders. The newly proposed de-Baathification legislation grew out of that meeting. Police recruitment in Ramadi has increased dramatically over the past four months.
Surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards, al-Maliki also visited Iraqi security forces after he was flown to the U.S. base in a Black Hawk helicopter with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The two exited from different sides of the helicopter and Petraeus took part in a separate troop visit before they met again for the ride back to Baghdad.
Al-Maliki discussed security issues and the need to restore infrastructure in the battered city during the meeting with Gov. Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani and his provincial council, according to state television. That was followed by a meeting with powerful Sunni tribal sheiks from across the province, which stretches west from Baghdad to the border with Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The meetings took place on the U.S. base in a Saddam Hussein-era palace on the western outskirts of Ramadi, the provincial capital, and al-Maliki did not venture into the center of the city, said Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. military spokesman.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric [Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani] opposes a draft law that would allow members of former leader Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, including those in the feared security and paramilitary forces, to resume government positions, Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the committee dealing with former party members, said on Sunday.
Nothing - absolutely nothing - happens politically in Iraq without al-Sistani’s approval. Which means that Saddam’s former loyalists are not going to be returning to government positions of power any time soon. And what’s up with that, anyway? Didn’t McCain originally support getting rid of Saddam and his loyalists? Isn’t that what over 3200 American men and women allegedly died for? Sigh.
4/6/2007: Iraqi officials say a suicide bomber has detonated a truck filled with explosives and chlorine gas near the western Iraqi city of Ramadi. At least 27 people were killed and dozens more injured and sickened…
McCain’s Claim:
More than 50 joint U.S.-Iraqi stations have been established in Baghdad. Regular patrols establish connections with the surrounding neighborhood, resulting in a significant increase in security and actionable intelligence.
(Screenshot courtesy of icasualties.org). By my rough count, 13 American soldiers have died in Baghdad city proper over the past week. Many more have been wounded in attacks. April, 2007 is on pace to be the deadliest month in Iraq since April, 2004. Spring is just busting out all over.
McCain’s Claim:
Extremist Shiite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, his followers are not contesting American forces, sectarian violence has dropped in Baghdad and we are working with the Shiite mayor of Sadr City.
BAGHDAD - U.S. warplanes blasted a militia team firing rocket-propelled grenades Saturday, the second day of heavy fighting in a major offensive to drive Shiite Mahdi Army militiamen out of Diwaniyah, a farm-belt city south of Baghdad…
And again…
BAGHDAD - The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate their attacks on American troops rather than Iraqis, according to a statement issued Sunday.
McCain’s Claim:
Iraqi army and police forces are increasingly fighting on their own and with American forces, and their size and capability are growing. Iraqi army and police casualties have increased because they are fighting more.
BAGHDAD — The U.S. military death toll in March, the first full month of the security crackdown, was nearly twice that of the Iraqi army, which American and Iraqi officials say is taking the leading role in the latest attempt to curb violence in the capital, surrounding cities and Anbar province, according to figures compiled on Saturday…
Reality:
No Iraqi army, police, or security forces were involved in McCain’s shopping experience last week. Now, why would that be? And why would it be that no readiness assessment of Iraqi security forces has been publicly released by the Bush regime since 2005? In fact, last year, congressional testimony indicates that readiness levels of Iraqi forces are “classified”. So once again, there’s no way to countermand or verify McCain’s claims. But the fact that no Iraqi army, police, or security forces accompanied him on his stroll through the market should tell you everything you need to know. My guess is that Iraqi security forces weren’t even informed of his pending venture out into the market, lest word spread through the co-opted Iraq army command.
In summary, John McCain continues to prop up the strawman that, all evidence to the contrary, the escalation in Iraq is working. He continues to trot out the tired old canard that the mainstream media just isn’t reporting the good news. I haven’t the time nor the energy to even begin to address his core argument - because the news headlines speak for themselves.
Update - I hate to even bring this up, but it looks like this Easter Sunday is particularly active in Iraq. Check out the headlines at icasualties.org - four five more American soldiers killed since I last checked a few hours ago, and the entire day seems particularly violent, even by Iraq standards. Nice and peaceful, huh, Senator McCain?
i really would like a law that campaigning can’t start until the actual year of the election.
here we have someone who will be totally irrelevant by next year, but he gets all this attention as he spouts inanity after inanity. and i would really prefer hillary and obama and joe to be spending more time actually working at their senatorial duties than campaigning and fundraising. and the media, well i know it’s too much to ask, but maybe just maybe they could pay some more attention to the actual news and issues of the day instead of the personality issues and dirt digging they focus on in the campaign.
just think how much more effective this democratic congress could be if they were focused on lawmaking and not their fucking images.
“Misspoke” = My name is John McCain and I lied.