During an election year, it helps to prepare yourself for comments from candidates that are so remarkably out of step with the voters that you shudder to think that they truly mean what they say.
That honor falls to Senator John McCain who's presidential campaign has seen new life after the Iowa Caucus.
During an interview with Tim Russert, Senator McCain was asked this question, “...if you had known then, if the intelligence came out and said, We know that Saddam Hussein does not have biological…, or chemical or a nuclear program..., would you still have voted to authorize the war?”
Seantor McCain responded by saying,” …The problem in Iraq, my friend, was not whether we went in or not, it’s the way it was mishandled after the initial invasion.”
Tim Russert followed by asking, “but, Senator, it’s an important question because President Bush... President Bush has said... ...”Even if I knew he did not have biological, chemical or nuclear program...” I still would go into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.” Would you have?
Senator McCain responded with,” I—yes, but the point is that if we had done it right, it’s been well chronicled in many, in many books, you and I wouldn’t be even discussing that now. The mishandling after the war. Look, I met with a high-ranking former al-Qaeda operative in Iraq recently. And I asked him, “How did you succeed?” He said, “The lawlessness after the initial invasion and Abu Ghraib.” And so they were able to recruit people because of the disorder and the mishandling. So you would not be asking me if it hadn’t been mishandled, you would’ve said because we succeeded in an established and stable Iraq, you would’ve said, aren’t you glad we went in? Because Saddam Hussein, one of the most brutal, most terrible dictators in history, who fought in several wars, used weapons of mass destruction, invaded his neighbor, is now gone from the world scene. That’s what you’d be saying.”
Pressing forward, Russert says, “But I think there’d be a real debate with the, with the—amongst the American people if we were told he did not have biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.”
Senator McCain said, “If frogs had wings—look, Tim, we can talk about lots of hypotheticals. Would we have, would we have stopped Saddam Hussein from going into Kuwait back in ‘91 when, when he went in? Would we have, would we have said that the Chinese aren’t going to cross—would we have known—if we had known that the Chinese were going to cross the Yalu in the Korean War, would we have done it differently? I’d love to get into thousands of historical hypotheticals with us, but what we knew at the time and the information we had at the time that every single intelligence agency in the world believed he had weapons of mass destruction. So...”
Finally Tim put the question to the Senator in plain language, “So bottom line, the war was not a mistake?”
And Senator McCain plainly responded with, “The war, the invasion was not a mistake. The handling of the war was a terrible mistake.
What troubles me most is the seemingly cavilier way Senator McCain, a man who not only fought in a war, but was a POW for years, dismisses the realities of the effect the war has had on the lives of Americans and Iraqis because we (Americans) were so wrong in our assessment of the need to go to war. Now we are asked to forget about the original rationale, and be upset about the fact that the war was mismanaged. Both realities, the initial invasion and the mismanagement of the war are not only upsetting but are morally indefensible.
The rationale for our invasion of Iraq centered around the imminent threat Iraq and their stockpile of weapons of mass destruction posed to the American people. Setting aside the changing rationale for the war for a moment, I have a few questions.
Why is Senator McCain, the President, and the politicians that have endorsed that point of view so cavalier about the lives of American troops? If you knew Iraq had no weapons but you still would go to war, what would be the new reason? If the reason to push forward anyway is because he (Saddam) ran a brutal dictatorship, what about the other brutal regimes in parts of the world where America has no economic interest? If it didn't matter whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or not, were we lied too? Why is the “real issue” the mishandling of the war, and not the fact that American and Iraqi troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died and/or been terribly maimed, and our leaders would have still put us through all of that even if they discovered that the original rationale for the war was no longer true?
What does it mean when our leaders can rationalize their inabillity to be humble in the face of their mistakes, mistakes that have led to the deaths of soldiers and civilains by asserting that even though the rationale for war was incorrect, we still did the right thing because he (Saddam) was so bad? I concede that Saddam was a brutal dictator and a danger to his people, but should two natinos have gone to war over it? What about the other brutal regimes? Are they next? And what does that mean for the stability of the world or the stability of our economy for that fact? Are we comfortable knowing that the next time our leaders take us to war, that they may not be disclosing their true motives? Should people die for that?
Senator McCain does not understand that this generation will no longer tolerate open war, war without end, or war that is not just. There is a time for peace and a time for war. But the time to be honest, humble and compassionate are always before us.
