McCain Asks: If We Lost the War, Who Won?

Last night on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, Senator John McCain apparently felt he was in a marathon-talking contest. Perhaps his intent was to jabber with no pause and at breakneck speed in order to run out the clock so that Jon Stewart would not have the chance to rebut. If that was his plan, it failed of course. Stewart, who seems to sincerely like McCain, slammed him unmercifully on his Iraq war stance. When a Stewart observation was applauded by the audience McCain said, “It’s obvious whose side they are on.” Stewart said, “They are on the side of the American people.” In any case, McCain was his usual patently charming and wrongheaded self. McCain mentioned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) statement that the US had lost the war in Iraq and he asked, “If we lost, who won?” And there you have in a soundbite what is wrong with John McCain. He does not understand that there will never be a winner in the war in Iraq. McCain will formally launch his run for president today. But his campaign actually started last night when Jon Stewart asked, “Are you running for president?” And McCain said, “Yes. Yes I am.” McCain then embarked on his hyper and frenetic defense of George W. Bush’s so-called new strategy in Iraq, stating that although mistakes and miscalculations have been made for four years, now the US military can win. No, Mr. McCain, the US military cannot win in Iraq. No one can win in Iraq. The US never could have come out a winner in Iraq. The Bush administration lied in order to get its legislature and its people to back the war in Iraq. The US attacked a weak nation for no reason except to further the aims of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons for gaining control of oil in the Middle East. Even if the war had gone well in 2003, there would have been no winner. There only would have been an oppressor and the oppressed. At this point, the US might gain military bases in Iraq if the war is prolonged and extended ad infinitum, but there never will be a winner in Iraq. There cannot be a winner in the sorry situation the Bush administration has brought on Iraq. And try though he might, John McCain cannot change the outcome of the US involvement in Vietnam by committing more atrocities in Iraq and calling them just and righteous.