I still don't have that feeling yet, that inscrutable chemical transfer in my brain that tells my mouth it's time to say, "I know what will happen." I'm not there yet, but I can say that, if Barack Obama is alive on November 4th, he will absolutely humiliate John McCain in the presidential election.
I just had an epiphany today of how unappealing Senator McCain is as a speaker, a thinker, and a leader. The tripwire was his comment about when American soldiers may begin withdrawing from Iraq. Senator McCain intoned that "it doesn't matter". What matters, he said, is that Americans stop being killed.
But if you tug at the strand trailing this thought, at its unspoken interpretation, it is quite striking how quickly it unravels into a pathetic iteration of circular logic in which every inch of the circle is glistening with blood.
Firstly, voters must understand that John McCain is an imperialist through and through. He has absolutely no intention of withdrawing American soldiers from Iraq. He views permanent military bases in this oil-soaked cauldron as the rightful American spoils of war.
This is evidenced by the fact that McCain routinely asserts that Americans would accept a Korea-like, Germany-like, or Japan-like American imperial outpost in Iraq, just as long as the locals stayed friendly.
Personally, I think the American presence in Korea, Japan, and Germany is absolutely something we should be debating. One of the reasons we find ourselves at this God-forsaken crossroads is precisely because we have never actively questioned the premise of American military garrisons in a large majority of the world's 200 "sovereign" nations.
That aside, who among us really thinks that the Iraqis will ever look at us as the Germans or Japanese do, which is to say with contempt, but not the sort that expresses itself via RPG or IED?
Since the occupation of Germany and Japan began in 1945, no American soldiers have been killed by local insurgent groups. The same can be said for South Korea, where Americans have been since 1953. During the 5-year occupation of Iraq, 4,000 Americans have been killed by local insurgents. If an equivalently lethal insurgency had taken hold in Germany or Japan in 1945, we would now have approximately 58,000 dead Americans on our hands.
And, speaking of 58,00 American dead, where on earth has American militarism been violently driven back? Vietnam. No American bases in Vietnam. Why? Because Americans were killed for the sin of being there. Just as in Iraq. When the locals kill our soldiers every day for years, the message is that the cost of permanent bases is losing soldiers every day for years. Simple, right?
McCain has not learned this lesson, however. His circular view holds that the only burden imposed on anybody by this war is the violent death of American soldiers, every 10 hours, every day, every week, every month, for the last 5 years. Consider for a moment how many ofter burdens this view excludes. Dead Arabs, for example? McCain is truly looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
If the only problem is the American dead, McCain holds, the solution is simply to stay there, doing essentially the same thing, until Americans stop dying. At that point, the war will be won, and American soldiers can come home. They can simultaneously stay in Iraq permanently since, with the lack of violent deaths, there would be no reason not to.
So, one day the insurgents will roll out of bed and decided to stop killing Americans. Then, the Americans can both come home in victory and also stay in their permanent bases, which the insurgents have suddenly agreed to live with. Exactly how many laws of physics and logic does this defy?
We can't leave because they're killing us. We can only leave when we've won, which is to say, after they've stopped killing us. But, when they stop killing us, there will be no reason to leave. This lobotomized drivel, of course, leaves insurgent groups in Iraq with absolutely no incentive to negotiate, since Mr. McCain has informed them that a cease-fire will lead to a permanent American occupation.
So, the insurgents are driven to attempt what the Vietnamese achieved. Kill Americans every day for years, induce them to hemorrhage their wealth, their credibility, and their domestic tranquility, and they will have no choice but to withdraw.
I have no illusions that this single manifestation of idiocy means that McCain can not be elected. Far less intelligent and selfless men have been, and are currently, president. But McCain has a perfect storm of unappealing qualities.
He's old, he's creepy, he has a painfully awkward sense of humor, he says "my friends" so often that you just know he doesn't have many friends, he says "straight talk" so often that you just know he's full of shit and, on top of all that, he just doesn't get it about Iraq.
So what does he have going for him? He was a POW. That's it. Speaking candidly, I am in awe of the fortitude of any person who survived what he did. But we must separate empathy from endorsement. John McCain's anguish 40 years ago does not make him qualified to lead our country. If personal deprivation a president makes, then how exactly did Boy George best McCain in 2000?
I have serious trepidations about Barack Obama, but I feel that America's primary priority in the short term is to avoid further expansion of imperial wars. And I simply cannot imagine a McCain presidency without a new war.
McCain's drawn lessons from Vietnam and Iraq is that there wasn't enough war. With a man so constitutionally incapable of learning lessons from old wars, we are guaranteed new ones.
I just had an epiphany today of how unappealing Senator McCain is as a speaker, a thinker, and a leader. The tripwire was his comment about when American soldiers may begin withdrawing from Iraq. Senator McCain intoned that "it doesn't matter". What matters, he said, is that Americans stop being killed.
But if you tug at the strand trailing this thought, at its unspoken interpretation, it is quite striking how quickly it unravels into a pathetic iteration of circular logic in which every inch of the circle is glistening with blood.
Firstly, voters must understand that John McCain is an imperialist through and through. He has absolutely no intention of withdrawing American soldiers from Iraq. He views permanent military bases in this oil-soaked cauldron as the rightful American spoils of war.
This is evidenced by the fact that McCain routinely asserts that Americans would accept a Korea-like, Germany-like, or Japan-like American imperial outpost in Iraq, just as long as the locals stayed friendly.
Personally, I think the American presence in Korea, Japan, and Germany is absolutely something we should be debating. One of the reasons we find ourselves at this God-forsaken crossroads is precisely because we have never actively questioned the premise of American military garrisons in a large majority of the world's 200 "sovereign" nations.
That aside, who among us really thinks that the Iraqis will ever look at us as the Germans or Japanese do, which is to say with contempt, but not the sort that expresses itself via RPG or IED?
Since the occupation of Germany and Japan began in 1945, no American soldiers have been killed by local insurgent groups. The same can be said for South Korea, where Americans have been since 1953. During the 5-year occupation of Iraq, 4,000 Americans have been killed by local insurgents. If an equivalently lethal insurgency had taken hold in Germany or Japan in 1945, we would now have approximately 58,000 dead Americans on our hands.
And, speaking of 58,00 American dead, where on earth has American militarism been violently driven back? Vietnam. No American bases in Vietnam. Why? Because Americans were killed for the sin of being there. Just as in Iraq. When the locals kill our soldiers every day for years, the message is that the cost of permanent bases is losing soldiers every day for years. Simple, right?
McCain has not learned this lesson, however. His circular view holds that the only burden imposed on anybody by this war is the violent death of American soldiers, every 10 hours, every day, every week, every month, for the last 5 years. Consider for a moment how many ofter burdens this view excludes. Dead Arabs, for example? McCain is truly looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
If the only problem is the American dead, McCain holds, the solution is simply to stay there, doing essentially the same thing, until Americans stop dying. At that point, the war will be won, and American soldiers can come home. They can simultaneously stay in Iraq permanently since, with the lack of violent deaths, there would be no reason not to.
So, one day the insurgents will roll out of bed and decided to stop killing Americans. Then, the Americans can both come home in victory and also stay in their permanent bases, which the insurgents have suddenly agreed to live with. Exactly how many laws of physics and logic does this defy?
We can't leave because they're killing us. We can only leave when we've won, which is to say, after they've stopped killing us. But, when they stop killing us, there will be no reason to leave. This lobotomized drivel, of course, leaves insurgent groups in Iraq with absolutely no incentive to negotiate, since Mr. McCain has informed them that a cease-fire will lead to a permanent American occupation.
So, the insurgents are driven to attempt what the Vietnamese achieved. Kill Americans every day for years, induce them to hemorrhage their wealth, their credibility, and their domestic tranquility, and they will have no choice but to withdraw.
I have no illusions that this single manifestation of idiocy means that McCain can not be elected. Far less intelligent and selfless men have been, and are currently, president. But McCain has a perfect storm of unappealing qualities.
He's old, he's creepy, he has a painfully awkward sense of humor, he says "my friends" so often that you just know he doesn't have many friends, he says "straight talk" so often that you just know he's full of shit and, on top of all that, he just doesn't get it about Iraq.
So what does he have going for him? He was a POW. That's it. Speaking candidly, I am in awe of the fortitude of any person who survived what he did. But we must separate empathy from endorsement. John McCain's anguish 40 years ago does not make him qualified to lead our country. If personal deprivation a president makes, then how exactly did Boy George best McCain in 2000?
I have serious trepidations about Barack Obama, but I feel that America's primary priority in the short term is to avoid further expansion of imperial wars. And I simply cannot imagine a McCain presidency without a new war.
McCain's drawn lessons from Vietnam and Iraq is that there wasn't enough war. With a man so constitutionally incapable of learning lessons from old wars, we are guaranteed new ones.
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