The Myth of McCain's Impeccable National Security Credentials

by Walter C. Uhler | March 5, 2008
from Smirking Chimp

Now that John McCain is the presumptive Republican candidate for President, Americans should insist that the mainstream news media cease its fawning coverage of the so-called straight talking maverick and produce unbiased reporting on the inside-the-beltway elitist from "third generation Navy royalty," whose "impeccable" national security credentials consist of little more than militarism and a willingness, indeed eagerness, to impose America's "exceptional" values on the rest of the world.

In his new book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq former CIA Osama bin Laden expert, Michael Scheuer, decries the price average Americans pay for their lack of interest in foreign affairs: "The most dangerous aspect of the division between the domestic focus of Americans and the international fixation of their elite…lies in the elite's easy willingness to sacrifice the lives of the former's sons and daughters in wars meant to install freedom and democracy in the Islamic world. These men and women have consciously made the decision that they will steadily spend the lives of our children to bring democracy, women's rights, parliamentary governments, human rights, and secularism to those who want no part of any of them in the Westernized form that is offered." [p. 253]

The elite's easy willingness to meddle in the Middle East is especially harmful to U.S. national security, because "Muslim hatred is motivated by U.S. interventionism more than any other factor." According the Mr. Scheuer, "The debate over which candidate is experienced enough to be commander in chief is farcial." Why? Because each of the three remaining "Clueless Candidates" is "an interventionist and will simply abide by the dogma kept in place by America's political class for 30-plus years."

Although he's certainly correct, he should have noted that Senator Obama did oppose Bush's military intervention in Iraq. Speaking in 2002, Mr. Obama noted: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." (Witness the needless American and Iraqi deaths, the insurgency, the civil war, Iran's regional ascendance, Turkey's recent invasion and the economic cost; 50-60 times more than Bush's people estimated and a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis, according to Joseph Stiglitz.) Moreover, during his campaign, Obama has asserted: "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." (It's a promising assertion that places his candidacy in stark contrast with Senator McCain's.)

(snip)

In January 2003, the Arizona Senator with the supposedly impeccable national security credentials asserted: "I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks." In April, McCain claimed, "It's clear that the end is very much in sight." And in May 2003, a cheerleading McCain proclaimed, "the war in Iraq succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations." That was almost five years ago!

(snip)

According to Mr. Scheuer, we've already lost in Iraq (and Afghanistan) because our invasion transformed "bin Laden and al-Qaeda from a man and an organization into a philosophy and a world-wide movement." [p. 123]

"The unwinnable insurgencies we now face in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rock-solid hatred of U.S. foreign policy among a huge majority of Muslims and many non-Muslims as well, the flood of heroin entering the West from Southwest Asia, the rising tide of militancy across the Islamic world, surely none of these were the intentions or expectations of U.S. policymakers. Only madmen and perhaps a few neoconservatives and Israel-firsters would have sought these consequences, but anyone with an average knowledge of history could have foreseen most of them." [Ibid, p. xv]

(The entire piece is here.)