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:

COOPER: Also, for accuracy’s sake, I just want to point out Senator McCain was talking about 100-year involvement in the same way as the U.S. being involved in South Korea, not at the current situation that it is now.

Janet Hook, you have another question on foreign policy for Governor Huckabee.

HOOK: I have another one for you, Governor Huckabee.

MCCAIN: You’re not going to let me address the quote that you attributed to me?

COOPER: All right, fine, if you could briefly.

MCCAIN: Thank you. It’s a false argument. It’s a false argument. We are going to be there for some period of time, but it’s American casualties, not American presence.

We’ve got troops right next door in Kuwait. We’ll probably have them there for a long time. We have troops in Bosnia. We’ve had troops in South Korea for some 50 years. By the way, President Eisenhower didn’t bail us out of Korea.

But the point is that we need to protect America’s national security interest. It’s not a matter of presence. It’s a matter of casualties.

We are succeeding. We are succeeding. And I unequivocally put my career and my political fortunes on the line and unequivocally said we’re going to support this surge. We’re not going to talk about timetables or anything else; we’re going to talk about winning and what’s necessary to win.

And I’m the only one that said that Rumsfeld had to go and the Petraeus strategy is the one that can succeed. That’s because I have the experience, the knowledge, and the judgment.

And I believe that Americans will come home with honor. And the fact is — and the fact is that it’s not American presence, because America, as the world’s superpower, is going to have to be a lot of places in the world. It’s how they come home.

And as president, I will follow in this tradition of sticking to my principles no matter what and bring our troops home with honor.

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?