McCain, Iraq and other foreign places

Perhaps you read of McCain's condemnation of Barack Obama's foreign policy knowledge and experience. On Memorial Day, McCain said of Obama that "He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time."

Besides being not true, this statement is clearly a vicious slam. Senator Obama has never said a word about "surrender." To state that Obama wants to "surrender" in Iraq is not only irresponsible, but reprehensible! It is also typically McCain who wants us to believe that because he was a shot-down Navy pilot and in a POW camp, he is an expert on just about everything. McCain is taking the low road!


Because Mr. McCain continues the pretense of being a foreign policy expert, and offers to "educate" Senator Obama about Iraq, it would behoove us to consider his understanding of the country of Iraq. You will recall that not so long ago he claimed neighborhoods in Baghdad to be safe, which was proven palpably false.

You will also recall he made this "admittedly false claim -- which he made repeatedly -- that Iranian operatives are 'taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

The first time he committed that grave error was on March 18 in Amman, Jordan, a day after he made a similar claim on a radio show. Senator Joe Lieberman had to whisper the correct information in McCain's ear who then said "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

On March 26, just before McCain headed to Iraq for another "fact-finding" tour, he told Bill Bennett that "[t]here are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today." When questioned the following day by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, McCain said "General [David] Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee."

On April 8, McCain, then in Iraq, admitted that "There is no unarmored Humvees. Obviously, that's the case. ... Of course I'm going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions, and I probably will in the future."

Not only so, but it turns out that McCain was surrounded by security when he was walking through those so-called "safe" neighborhoods in Baghdad! This security included "10 armored humvees, soldiers with rifles, and two Apache attack helicopters circling overhead."

The merchants of Baghdad were incredulous at McCain's claim that "the new security plan for the city was working." An article in The New York Times pointed out that "Shorja, the city's oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer. At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb."

Reuters reported that "[t]he crack of shots fired by unseen snipers echoed on Monday through Baghdad's wholesale Shorja market, a day after U.S. Senator John McCain held up his visit there as one sign of improving security in Baghdad." (My emphasis)

So much for McCain's vaunted "knowledge" and foreign policy experience. Maybe he thought he was in a country other than Iraq.


On Memorial Day, in spite of a story in the Washington Post claiming that "Neither candidate used the solemn day to launch political attacks...", McCain not only attacked Obama's "knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq, as noted above, but also his support of the new G.I. bill."

Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, said that Obama would not be responding directly to McCain: "Senator Obama thinks Memorial Day is a day to honor our nation's veterans, not a day for political posturing."


Perhaps Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, put it best. According to Bob Herbert, columnist for The New York Times, Biden "defended Obama against the searing attacks by the Bush administration, John McCain and Joe Lieberman [by saying]:

"I refuse to sit back like we did in 2000 and 2004. This administration is the worst administration in American foreign policy in modern history -- maybe ever. The idea that they are competent to continue to conduct our foreign policy, to make us more secure and make Israel secure, is preposterous. ... Every single thing they've touched has been a near-disaster."


Finally, some words from Senator Obama (from Eric Alterman's book, Why We're Liberals):

"It's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job."


Americans have an important choice to make this fall. We can choose to sound tough and act dumb as we've done for the past almost eight years, or we can try to stand tough and be smart, which is harder but is the only way to redeem this "land of the free and home of the brave."