John McCain is an avid reader and is known for rereading many works of his favorite authors. The favorite author of John McCain is Herman Wouk who has written The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and the Caine Mutiny. Wouk served as an executive Naval officer aboard a minesweeper during War War II and used that experience in forming the character of Captain Queeg in the Caine Mutiny. Victor Henry the main character in Winds of War and War and Remembrance was a naval officer who became a confidant both to FDR and Harry Truman. FDR and Harry Truman went outside the normal channels of military command and relied on Victor Henry for straight talk advice on how to approach Russia and Germany and Japan prior and during World War II. John McCain sees himself as the Victor Henry character who was a realist in foreign policy and understood the nuances of war and foreign policy better than anyone. John McCain is a realist and more knowledgeable about foreign policy than either Joe Biden or Barack Obama due to his experiences and also just growing up as the son and grandson of Navy admirals. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have no military background between them and do not even have the background to know who to connect with to get straight back channel information. Barack Obama and Joe Biden lack the knowledge to even ask the right questions even if they could line up a current day Pug Henry commander to give them the straight scoop. It is totally inaccurate to argue that John McCain is somehow dogmatic in his approach and understanding of foreign affairs. Herman Wouk wove history into his novels. There is saying that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat history. John McCain knows history and has lived it and will use that knowledge to guide the United States through the tough challenges that we face in the war on terror, radical Islam and dealing with a resurgent Russia.
THE WORLD FROM WASHINGTON
Michael Hirsh
A Grim Anniversary
Seven years later, Al Qaeda still lives—and its new host is a nuclear-weapons state.
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Let's take stock: How well have we done against Al Qaeda?
Here's one measure. Seven years ago today, on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri—two men who have dedicated their lives to killing as many Americans as they can—were living in Afghanistan. Their hosts, the Taliban, possessed only primitive weapons and rode around in Toyota pickup trucks.
Today, bin Laden and Zawahiri are almost certainly living in Pakistan. Their hosts, the Pakistanis, have an arsenal of nuclear bombs and missiles with which to fire them. And the Pakistanis, including many in the military and ISI (its intel service) are becoming more anti-American as the Bush administration embraces their mortal enemy, India, with a technology-rich new strategic partnership. Under this deal, Washington will forgive India's decision to go nuclear and not even require that it abandon nuclear testing. And we will inadvertently send a message to every other major would-be nuclear power in the world (like Iran): You too can rejoin the international community if you wait long enough! So keep at it.
After 9/11, Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that the nation's No. 1 strategic challenge was to prevent Al Qaeda suicidists from getting hold of a nuclear bomb. Now the Al Qaeda suicidists live closer to a bomb. And our policies are creating enough angry Pakistanis to increase the likelihood that Al Qaeda-linked groups will gain access to the knowhow, material and technology that could deliver to our shores, some years hence, our worst national nightmare—far worse than anything we saw on September 11.
Why, you might ask, are we doing this India deal at a time when Pakistan has become so dangerous and unstable? When its fragile civilian government and military are at loggerheads and we have been forced to launch unilateral strikes inside Pakistan's borders? The seeming strategic reason is to contain a "rising China," a stable, nonterrorist nation that the Bush administration, in other forums, is trying to make a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, including nuclear nonproliferation. A country that has remained a relatively small nuclear power until the present but which now—with trillions of surplus trade dollars to spend—has both the means and motive to dramatically build its deterrent, possibly setting off a nuclear arms race in Asia.
New Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, the controversial widower of Benazir Bhutto who is profoundly mistrusted by the Pakistani military, is desperately in need of shoring up by Washington. Instead, we're undercutting him and ensuring that Pakistan's military chiefs sign even more deals with jihadists (whom the Pakistanis see as a strategic asset against India), giving the bad guys more carte blanche to attack NATO across the border in Afghanistan. And as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, acknowledged in testimony on Wednesday, we're no longer "winning it in Afghanistan." U.S. military experts say that victory won't be achievable as long as Al Qaeda has a safe haven in Pakistan.
There is currently no policy in place to destroy that safe haven. Our most urgent challenge in recent years has been to win the hearts and minds of the Muslims in Pakistan, but our response has been to enrage them by making friends with the Hindus in India. Last I checked, we weren't threatened by Hindu terrorists. This latest distraction from the real enemy comes five years after we launched a draining, $2 trillion war a thousand miles away from where Al Qaeda was actually hiding after 9/11.
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