An Anti-War Advocate From 2003 Comments On Why The McCain Doctrine Is Good Policy In A Terrible Situation

Here we go. Tomorrow night President Bush will announce that he is putting more American troops into Iraq. Along with the troop increase, Bush is expected to unveil new diplomatic and economic efforts in the Middle East.

Chattering Classes start your engines.

I hate the Iraq War. My vocal opposition to the war before the conflict started cost me a good job with the Central Intelligence Agency. The debt load that this country is taking on to fight this war will cost my children even more.

I’m one of the lucky ones. In America, we generally all tend to be. For all intents and purposes, this war has cost us little.

And when I say “us” I’m referring to the people who spend their weekends wandering through the mall, closely monitoring Paris Hilton’s latest relationships and complaining, loudly, when gasoline prices at the pump jump 50 cents as their SUVs only get 15 miles to the gallon. Us Americans.

Life is good for us, which is why we went along with this war in the first place without asking too many questions. That, and we were (or is the word I’m looking for “are”?) stupid and lazy.

It’s true - 5% of the world’s population lackadaisically consuming 25% of the world’s resources on a daily basis doesn’t make you smart and active.

Which is why the Republican majority went along with Bush’s insane plans to invade Iraq. Which is also why the Democratic minority went along with it, and the mainstream media to (I’m looking right at you Judith Miller, you coy little fox, playing up your freedom of the press jail time in the vain hope that we would forget that you allowed yourself to be spoon-fed news about Iraq by Cheney’s office. Naughty.).

Anyway, I got my tax cuts, didn’t you? Let’s all have another doughnut.

Now I’m not saying that this war has been cheap, good heavens no! Just because this war didn’t cost us much doesn’t mean that it didn’t cost someone else quite a lot.

Several hundred billion dollars spent, several thousand American troops killed, thirty thousand American troops injured and a quarter-million of Iraqis killed is not “cheap”.

The true cost of the conflict increases exponentially when you consider that starting this war in the first place was never in our national security interests. In fact, it was on this very point that the CIA and I parted ways (I exacerbated the break by snottily depositing Brent Scowcroft’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed saying the exact same thing on my case worker’s desk).

Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11, no connection to non-state actor terrorist organizations, no weapons of mass destruction and, believe it or not, was actually a stabilizing force in the Middle East in terms of keeping pumps to the world’s largest oil patch on and flowing.

And keeping those pumps on is in fat America’s national security interest.

Iraq was not our problem until we made it our problem.

And then our insane invasion made Iraq our problem.

So here we are.

We have three options about what we as a country are going to do to move forward in Iraq (even after Senator Biden holds hearings we are still only going to have these same three options).

Option one is to stay the course and continue to do what we have been doing in Iraq.

Option two is to re-deploy all of our troops immediately. It will take about 6 months and must be facilitated by the Congress cutting off funding for the war, which they can do.

Option three is to put in more troops. A lot more troops. This is the McCain option. It is the only option.

Senator McCain's recent editorial on sending more troops to Iraq:

“There is no guarantee of success in Iraq. We have made many mistakes since 2003, and these will not be easily reversed. But from everything I have recently witnessed, I believe that success is still possible.

Even greater than the costs incurred thus far and in the future are the catastrophic consequences that would ensue from our failure in Iraq. By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed. Our national security, and that of our friends and allies, compels us to make our best effort to prevail, and to do it immediately.”

Senator McCain’s full editorial may be found here:

McCain is right. The man is a patriot who is an expert on national security.

And, no one said maintaining an empire was easy. Or pretty. Still want another fast food hamburger to chow down in your SUV fat boy?

America asked for this carnage and now we have it. There is nothing left to do but cry. And kill.