Senator John McCain: Any War Will Do

"If it wasn’t Iraq, it’d be Afghanistan." Senator John McCain, 26 September 2006.

The Republican argument for war took a bizarre turn when Senator John McCain, America’s premier warlord and the man who would be emperor, suggested that it did not matter where we fought the "terrorists" – if not Iraq, he reasoned, they would have gathered in Afghanistan.

Put yourself in Iraqi shoes. Your occupier finally confesses: We just wanted a war, any war would do. You just happened to draw the short end of the stick.

If we just needed a war, why not choose Sudan? We could have prevented genocide and retained the moral high ground but I guess Sudan did not have enough oil for the neocons. I guess it was not close enough to the Saudis and Iran. I guess we did not have enough footage of the Janjaweed atrocities. We had Saddam. It was in the bag – a cakewalk.

How do we imagine that other nations feel about hosting our wars on "terrorism"?

When the White House claims success because Al Qaeda has not struck on our soil, how should the people of Madrid, London, Karachi, Mombassa, Riyadh, Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, Casa Blanca and Bali feel?

Senator McCain’s incisive analysis would make him a logical successor to Donald Rumsfeld if his ambition was not more lofty that Secretary of Defense.

It is Afghanistan, Senator. It is Afghanistan and Iraq. It is the fact that we and our western allies are occupying two Islamic nations. It is the fact that we are still there years after the invasion. It is the fact that we have built fortresses the size of cities and show no inclination whatsoever to give them up. It is the fact that we are no longer focused on the terrorists that attacked us. It is the fact that we have lumped all Islamic organizations who bear arms and oppose our policies under the same banner as Al Qaeda.

Of course we have created a new generation of enemies. What did we expect? We are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Do we believe as General William Westmoreland believed of Asians in Vietnam, that Arabs do not value life as we do?

We have seen how America responded to three thousand of our citizens killed: Horrific, terrifying, unconscionable. Imagine one hundred thousand.

The way out of this nightmare (a long and difficult road) is not to continue perpetrating the crime but to cease and desist.

The proposition that any war will do is an insult to every civilized nation on earth. The assertion that Iraq and Afghanistan are morally indistinguishable to potential jihadis is patently absurd.

When we began the war in Afghanistan, we had reason and motive. We might have handled it better (what has this White House handled well?) but our reasons and motives did not require a propaganda campaign of deception and lies. We had the compassion and empathy of the world. We had a moral foundation.

When we engaged the warlords as allies and lost our focus on Al Qaeda (the Taliban was brutally oppressive but they did not attack us) that foundation began to slip. Now, the longer the occupation continues, the greater the slippage and the more both wars contribute to the militant causes that oppose us.

We cannot correct the dire errors of the past but we can and must hold those responsible to account. We have done great harm to the nations we have invaded. We have done great harm, as well, to our allies and ourselves.

The only path to repairing that harm and ending the disasters in both Iraq and Afghanistan is negotiated settlement of political conflicts, clearing the way for all parties to unite in eliminating a common enemy: Al Qaeda.

Imagine that: It comes down to the most fundamental proposition of all: We forgot who our enemy was.

No, Senator McCain, any war will not do. We are a nation bound by the code of honor and the rule of law. We are a nation that prides itself on its values and moral dignity. We do not use and abuse other nations by inviting our enemies onto their land and transforming them into our battlefields.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, THE ALBION MONITOR, BUZZLE, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE AND COUNTERPUNCH.