Having to keep US Troops deployed in Iraq until the Sunnis and Shiites get along (aka eternity) is not “winning”.
Ideally what would be best for US interests is for Iraq to have a strongman leader presiding who kept the tribal factions from tearing the nation apart with endless civil war, kept al Qaeda from having any influence in the country and kept the Iraqi state from becoming an extreme fundamentalist Shiite theocracy that’s sympathetic with Iran.
Hmm… if only such a person existed.
So true!! All this talk about we should have stayed seems to forget the most salient point. The Iraqis told us: GET OUT NOW!!
I guess the position of McCain, et al is that the United States should have forcefully occupied this country in the Middle East. Yeah, that would have worked. Suicide bombings, anyone?
John McCain’s epitaph will be, he never met a conflict that he didn’t like.
What am I missing here? Why do Republicans think it’s AT ALL a good idea to try to relitigate a grossly unpopular war? I just can’t fathom why they’d think the American people have the slightest desire to go back into Iraq. Not only that, but it’s a terribly losing position for them to remind people of all the lies Republicans told in the run up to the war. Why would they think it would be remotely helpful to them in November to be arguing in favor of going back to Iraq? I guess they’ve become so consumed with hate for Obama that they’d rather lose an election than hold their tongues.
Hey, remember when Bush got the puppet he installed to agree to leaving a ‘residual force’ in Iraq?? Yeah, me neither.
Shhh…Give 'em enough rope.
Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine, countries the U.S. would have troops on the ground if John McCain had his way.
"but the president wanted out and now we are paying a very heavy price.”
Are we really, John? I can’t see that the US is paying any price as a result of some fighting in the Middle East that is nothing to do with America.
“all of those sacrifices will have been made in vain.”
I’ve got news for you John. All of those sacrifices always were in vain, and they are entirely on you and your party.
Plucky I think you are missing one factor here. Your question assumes that there would be some penalty for doing so, but from where would it come? Look at Mika’s response - pretty lukewarm and that’s the best you’re going to get out of our “liberal” media. The Repukes are just going to yell “incompetence” all day long (in-between Bengahzi’s of course). Since when do they need any logic to what they are saying? Since when is anything President Obama does not grounds for impeachment?
Don’t forget Georgia…We are all Georgians now! And Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Afghans, Syrians, Ukranians, etc
At the very end of the video I heard Sen. McCain say that if we pulled residual troops out of Korea or Bosnia, and the “situation destabilized” there, then “all of the sacrifices would have been made in vain.”
I’m sure he criticized Harry Reid for making a similar comment about sacrificing in vain around the 2007 surge, but that may well have been a meta-conversation for the two of them, sending signals to their respective parties.
The implications of both comments, if Reid’s comment holds, are interesting when taken along with the fact that we did remove a residual force from Iraq (at least in the large and regimented sense, unlike, say, Seoul): Harry Reid and John McCain agree that, at this point, casualties of war in Iraq were in vain. They only disagree on when.
But I’m sure we won’t hear about that consensus when the next round of budgetary austerity continues to avoid the Pentagon.
And he will not say how we will pay for such a troop presence.
John McCain, the OLD-war-monger, would also have America bomb Iran. This OLD man would have us believe that we had the right to bomb a country (Iraq) which had NOTHING to do with 9/11. The day George Bush ordered the bombing of Iraq was the day we lost. John McCain would have us occupy the world. No other country is doing this, why are we and WHY should we? America is tired of WAR. Thank God this man was not elected as our President, thank GOD he’ll never be our President.
Actually I think he dreams of is never ending war where he sends our troops to die for…well…to die.
With tax cuts for the wealthy of course!
Typo: “foreign policy plunders”…nailhead, meet hammer.
Iran is now our ally against Al Qaeda. We were always at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia.
I’m sorry but Mika is still an airhead. All she had to do is mention the SOFA in Iraq signed by GWB in 2008. I know a lot of people tend to forget this for some unknown reason but here it is…
From Wikipedia:
The U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (official name: Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq) was a status of forces agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the United States, signed by President George W. Bush in 2008. It established that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and all U.S. forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. The pact required criminal charges for holding prisoners over 24 hours, and required a warrant for searches of homes and buildings that were not related to combat. U.S. contractors working for U.S. forces would have been subject to Iraqi criminal law, while contractors working for the State Department and other U.S. agencies would retain their immunity. If U.S. forces committed still undecided “major premeditated felonies” while off-duty and off-base, they would have been subjected to an undecided procedures laid out by a joint U.S.-Iraq committee if the U.S. certified the forces were off-duty.
…And so we left that shithole for a lot of very good reasons. Maybe next time Mika can bring up those facts. As far as I’m concerned she’s still an idiot for having left out the most salient points.
Ah, yes, McGrumpy, the guy who only saw a war from 30,000 feet and POW hole in Viet Nam and thinks he is a military strategist. Please. We have no business putting more boots on the ground in countries where they don’t want us or tanks onto which our troops stencil Christian bible quotes in a Muslim country. Iraq is having a religious civil war (which, by the way, Sadaam Hussein always managed to keep quashed). It would not have mattered had we stayed there 100 years. We can no longer be policeman of the world. McCain doesn’t care if more of other people’s children die, most of whom come from the ranks of the poor. From the day you picked that dimwit Palin as your running made, you showed us what kind of judgment you have and now it is time for you to just shut up and fade into the sunset.
In his mind we had it “won” – when in reality, there is no way that was true.