Sometimes, it really takes a Republican to put things into perspective. While the Democratic presidential candidates have been arguing about whether to get America out of Iraq in a year, or within four years, or soon but without a specific timeline, John McCain appeared up in New Hampshire and told a crowd of people that, when considering the Bush White House’s plan to keep American soldiers in Iraq for 50 years, his reaction is to “make it a hundred”. A hundred years.
American soldiers occupying Iraq for a hundred years. That’s not a war. That’s not even an occupation. That’s colonization.
Consider that, by the time John McCain’s plan for a hundred years of Americans controlling Iraq would be over, almost one-third of United States history would have been spent with American soldiers in Iraq. Our children’s children’s children’s children would be fighting in Iraq.
What for? For what purpose does John McCain think that Iraq would need American soldiers for a hundred years? It wouldn’t be to defeat Osama Bin Laden, that’s for sure. Does McCain really expect us to believe that it would take one hundred years to establish democracy and security in Iraq? No, I think it has something more to do with oil.
Well it’s easy for a 71 year-old man to propose committing American soldiers to fighting halfway around the world for one hundred years. Under McCain’s plan, he would be 171 years old before American soldiers came home from Iraq. John McCain sure won’t be around that long, but my children just might be. We can do better for them. We have to do better for them.
No one who proposes committing the American military for an operation that lasts one hundred years is fit to be Commander-In-Chief. For the sake of the current generation of young Americans, and the next four generations, America needs to say no to McCain’s plan for a hundred year war.
Channelling Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger:
If you saw the path we’re on,
then you’d know this can’t be won,
It was never worth the blood we spilled at war.
But John McCain says that we’ll stay,
and not just another day,
but one hundred more years before we’re done.
100 years, 100 years, 100 years, 100 years, 100 years.
McCain wants us in Iraq 100 years.
The podcast version.
Once again Senator McCain shows his lack of awareness as to the state of mind of the average American.
Some years ago I observed on this site, that Mr McCain-a man who has never done physical work in his life- suggested that “American workers are lazy”.
It is not such a great leap to believe that someone who has never soiled his hands in honest labor, should subject the sons and daughters of those who do, to an unending occupation of a hostile nation.
It is easy to commit our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to conflict which will only allow people like McCain to live in reasonable comfort.
His gallant service and imprisonment in Vietnam is a credit to his sense of honor and duty. What he failed to learn from the experience is that although he and others faught with galantry and were wounded, died or were imprisoned, the USA withdrew defeated from that conflict and the Vietnamese live their own lives without the interference or influence of the USA.
So perhaps if we had adopted Mr. McCains theory then, would we have sufficient troops to occupy Vietnam AND Iraq?
By the way, what happened to the domino theory?
McCain still believes in it… and yet, somehow, Thailand and Malaysia and Indonesia did not go Communist. Hmm…
Yeah, and although China remains communist, it’s becoming more capitalistic each year.
He may be called a hero but 60,000 lost their lives fighting the spread of Communism in Viet Nam. Today we are handing Viet Nam and China our jobs, industry and future. McCain and this government turned their backs on those brave soldiers. Would they have fought if they knew that in a few years this would happen ? How about IRAQ ? Would you fight if you knew Osama Bin Laden was going to have a clothing line at Macy’s in a few yiears ?
That one hundred years thing with McCain didn’t look right to me, so I checked.
Looking back at the transcript of the Republican debate, the moderator tried to say McCain was just talking about military bases. We have troops in South Korea, Bosnia, Kuwait. Does anyone really realistically think we can be at war for 100 years? Surely he meant something else. But parsing what he actually said about it, it sure does look like that’s what McCain meant. McCain’s “it’s American casualties, not American presence” statement, which he repeated, is a bit scary. McCain has a rather muddled way of expressing himself, but it does look like he’s talking about one hundred years of war and not military bases. He wants to surge-surge-surge until we win-win-win. However you define winning.
It’s so easy to fling numbers around… “a billion here, a billion there”..thanks for slowing down the rhetoric and putting this Iraqi timeline into human perspective.
Here’s McCain’s statement:
Darebrit-
While I’m not a McCain fan or a Republican, your comment about him being “a man who has never done physical work in his life,” is a major tell into your class and character. Try becoming an US Air Force pilot, then spend 5 1/2 years in in a third-world prison being tortured and THEN tell us about hard work. Peon…
My new T-shirt idea: MCCAIN: Not in a HUNDRED YEARS!
Peace!
Actually, he said ten thousand years would be okay with him too. Nice video.