SEN. McCAIN'S CONFUSION?

Bush-Mac have made leaving Iraq synonymous
with losing there. Ergo: we can't leave, or we're
losers. Sen. Obama's whole aim (and most Ameri-
can's heartfelt desire) is to get our people out of
there ASAP. Bush-Mac's aim is to stay perma-
nently. That's why we've built a $1 billion em-
bassy, and seven permanent bases. (More on
the embassy later.)

Never mind that Sen. McCain sometimes gets
his geography confused, as to which nations
border which, and sometimes confuses Shia
with Sunnis, and mixes up timelines on the
surge, the more serious problem with him is
his mix-up over winning and losing in Iraq.
McCain has bought Bush's oft repeated non-
sense that leaving equals losing. The N. Y.
Times rightly refused an op-ed from McCain
when he refused to define "winning" for them.
He wouldn't define it because he would have
had to admit that for him, winning means
staying on, as we have in Germany and S. Korea.
Bush-mac have in the past stated that as our
intent. That's winning: having permanent
bases there from which to dominate the Middle
East. Anything less is defeat, for them. (If you
think I'm making this up, see Charles Kraut-
hammer's column today in The Washington Post.)

Mr. Bush's objective for Iraq has always been
U. S. hegemony in the region, whether that
meant a democratic Iraq or not. Noam Chomsky
(in several books) has identified and documented
Mr. B.'s long term intent, even before 9/11. It is
the reason Bush has been so stubborn about
hanging on there, come hell or high water. It's
why Bush is so confident that history will vindi-
cate him.

Further evidence of our determination to stay
and rule from Iraq, besides the seven huge
permanent bases we have built there, is the new
U. S. embassy we are now moving into. It is the
biggest U. S. embassy in the world. Bigger than
any of our embassies in Europe or elsewhere.
Iraq has (had) 25 million people. China has
over 1 billion, and India almost a billion. Their
embassies are tiny, compared to this one. It
houses 5,000 people in 22 buildings, and covers
104 acres. Most of our embassies are on less
than 1o acres. It is six times larger than the U. N.
compound in New York! It's on the scale of
Vatican City! Why would we spend almost a
billion dollars on this gigantic facility if our plan
is to leave as soon as the shooting stops? It
doesn't compute!

Mr. McCain may or may not be confused about
winning and losing. But he certainly is talking
nonsense when he claims repeatedly that we
were losing in Iraq before the surge. In fact, the
turning point came a year earlier with the Awa-
kening in al Anbar province, which had nothing
to do with the surge. If you are losing a war,
you are being driven from the field of battle.
That didn't happen and couldn't happen in Iraq.
We haven't lost a battle there. We have always
had over-whelming military superiority. Our
problem has been, and remains, that no
military solution is possible.

So we were never losing at any time before the
surge, as McCain is now claiming. But we were
treading water. And we were paying a terrible
price for staying, and the majority of Americans
wanted us out. They still do. Obama wants to
get us out. This enrages McCain because for
him it means we lost. (Remember, staying is
"winning.") That's why he is now openly saying
that Obama is willing to lose in Iraq in order to
gain political advantage. How craven that would
be if true!

He puts this in two ways: 1) either Obama is too
dumb to understand what's at stake, or 2) he's
a traitor willing to put political success ahead of
his country's safety and welfare. Think about it:
Obama edited the law review his senior year at
Harvard and went on to teach Constitutional
law at the Univ. of Chicago. He's stupid? He's
probably up there with Jefferson and Lincoln
for intellect, among the brightest to ever run for
that office. Secondly, how dumb would he have
to be to think he can gain politically by losing a
war? Any war? It doesn't compute. So that
leaves us with who's dumb enough to push
such nonsense in serious debate? Three guesses.

Let me know what you think.
jgoodwin004@centurytel.net