Dickey: McCain Is Wrong on Iraq | Newsweek Voices - Christopher Dickey

McCain is running on 'success' in Iraq, but as the Pentagon warns, and a new study makes clear, it's not nearly that simple.

Feb 26, 2008 | Updated: 4:36 p.m. ET Feb 26, 2008

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A staunch Republican relative of mine looked across a plate of oysters the other night in a Paris brasserie and said confidently, "The Iraq thing, that's over, right?"

"You would think so," I said with as much diplomatic ambiguity as I could muster. I squeezed a little lemon over the shellfish. A couple of the oysters cringed.

I was, yes, avoiding a fight. People believe what they want to believe. When you see a look of defiant expectation in their eyes, there's only so much you can sensibly say or do, especially in a presidential election year, and especially if they're relatives.

But when I heard Sen. John McCain talking this morning about the "success" of the war in Iraq, I was the one cringing. Admittedly, I live across the Atlantic, but I had to wonder: has the whole country gone as crazy as my contentious relation, Mr. Republican?

Let's hope not. And I think not. But one senses in the GOP a hint of furor and fantasy akin to 2003, when authoritative and experienced men like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, the walrus and the carpenter of American policy, persuaded the president, the public and Congress that embracing war was the best way to bring peace to the Middle East. Supine as oysters, the vast majority gave their assent.

Now McCain would have us believe that more war, and then still more war—"bomb, bomb Iran" to the Beach Boys' melody—remains the best course to follow. "We will never surrender," he likes to say, "and they [meaning Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] will."
A more realistic appraisal: McCain will never come to his senses.

"My friends, the war will be over soon … for all intents and purposes—although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years," McCain said yesterday, trying to explain why he said in January that it would be "fine with me" if American troops stayed there for 100 years. "It'll be handled by the Iraqis, not by us," McCain said. So … why will we be there? As spectators? Cheerleaders? Perhaps as bettors?

Fortunately, some of the same sane and responsible voices that warned about the dangers of invading and occupying Iraq before the disastrous fact have just come out with a fresh appraisal of the "New Middle East" that has been created by five gruesome years of Republican policy. The report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is refreshingly if brutally accurate:

"Despite the presence of over 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of 2007 and an improvement in the security situation, Iraq remains an unstable, violent, and deeply divided country, indeed a failed state," write the authors, five respected experts on Iran and the Arab world. "The balance of power between Iran and Iraq has been broken, increasing the influence of Tehran in the Gulf and beyond," while "Iran continues its uranium enrichment program undeterred by United Nations Security Council resolutions or the threat of U.S military action."

Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.

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Posted By: Double-L @ 10/17/2008 12:25:24 AM

I wasn't going to add anything until I read Jim Johnson's screamingly funny remark about how 'coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system." Lord, has he ever read a history book, ANY history book? Coercion and fraud are almost PRIME-MOVERS in a free-market system. And the winners are " those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined and efficient?" Really? So everyone who lost their life savings in the Enron collapse, or the current mess is 'shiftless, lazy, etc.,etc." By the way, Jimbo, I'm successful...and I'm voting for Obama.
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Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 7:32:50 PM

Dickey,

You are showing your ignorance and your support for Obama! McCain said nothing about a hundred years war. You are a total jerk!
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Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 7:31:20 PM

Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.