New McCain Ad: He Gave Us The Surge
John McCain has a new ad in New Hampshire, detailing how he called for the surge in Iraq early on, which is now "a remarkable success," and how he didn't back down from criticism:
"One man does what's best for America," the announcers says, "not what's easy."
Comments (14)
M wrote on December 19, 2007 1:42 PM:Great. When I get called up for my third tour off of Inactive Ready Reserve, I now know who to send the brown paper bag of dogshit to.
bridoc wrote on December 19, 2007 1:48 PM:Funny, he didn't mention how the surge only appears to be effective because the major militias have declared a 6 month siesta before starting up again...I believe we have about 2 or 3 more months of that left. Oh yeah, and the fact that violence in neighborhoods is down a bit because most of them have been successfully ethnic cleansed...but I guess if that is your measure of success then that is just super John. Oh yeah, and when the 4.5 million Iraqi refugees come back looking for their houses, and realize they are occupied by members of the opposite religious group who terrorized them and chased them off in the first place, I'm sure they'll just get along fine! Water under the bridge right? Oh yeah, they don't have running water...or really much electricity for that matter...hm, oh well, Mission Accomplished! Where's your flight suit McCain??
Vicki Hampton wrote on December 19, 2007 2:22 PM:You know what you can do with your brownpaper bag you can put that in the suitcase that you use to run away from the battlefield that is if you have ever been near one. As for the remarks about the people being ethnically cleansed I think that sooner or later those people are going to have to start picking up their own slack and taking credit for their problems that was there way before we ever got there so don't even try playing that "it's our fault because we invaded" card. So let's put credit where it is due, John McCain inherited this mess(let us keep that in mind). This mess can be claimed by Bush,Rumsfeld and Cheney any time they man up and take responsibility. All John McCain is responsible for is trying to clean it up. So keep your facts straight before you either start jumping down people's throat or in your case prefers the other route. Oh and FYI my did 2 tours in Viet Nam and transported nuclear missles off Paris Island. He served 36 years how much time have you got under your belt. I prefer his wisdom over yours anyday.
Matthew Bartholomaus wrote on December 19, 2007 2:34 PM:VH,
I served. Google my name, then apologize.
M wrote on December 19, 2007 2:40 PM:Scratch that. Looks like the articles are down. Makes sense, since I was in Iraq over two years ago. Been there yet yerself?
bridoc wrote on December 19, 2007 2:57 PM:Um, Vicki, with all due respect, I don't give a shit if you were in Vietnam, it doesn't mean you know about policy issues or history. I'm sure you had very intense experiences there, but you don't actually have to be in war to understand macro level issues. You may want to check your facts. Saddam was a tyrant (and we helped create that tyrant), but before we invaded the quality of life was much better than it is now, they actually had security. There wasn't civil war and mass ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods before we showed up. If you want to blame the Iraqis for everything, fine, you are ignorant, but that is your right. If you could get off your high horse for a second you'd realize that my point here was that the “surge” has not been the success that McCain claims it has been. He claims a marginal increase in troop levels was the cause of the recent downturn in violence, which is disingenuous at best. I simply pointed out the often overlooked fact (at least by the Republicans) that the insurgency isn't beaten, it is on an announced break to regroup so they can come back in a few months and continue the bloodshed. Also, whether you want to pick your head out of your ass and understand it or not, there has been mass ethnic cleansing of both Sunni and Shia neighborhoods, and the result is 4.5 refugees, who around 2/3 of have no home to return to because they have either been destroyed or taken over by rival sects. These are the facts. This is why the violence is decreasing, not because we are beating the militias and death squads, but because the militias and death squads have largely accomplished their goals under our noses, and now they don't need to kill as much. Oh, but I'm sure you know allllll about Iraq just because you were in Vietnam, because that someone qualifies you to understand human rights and international relations. And I don't care how much experience Petraeus or McCain have because they both have a political stake in deceiving the public about the conditions on the ground. They have both lied about it before, and they will continue to lie about it because their careers depend on it. If you had learned ANYTHING from Vietnam it should have been that what the politicians and commanders tell you is often nothing but bullshit lies to further their own agendas. Don't be naïve. I know the primary blame is on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld but it also rests on the Republicans (and those like Lieberman) who have supported the war this whole time. And now that we have a giant mess, I would just like it if McCain wouldn't try to turn this bloodbath into a goddamn campaign booster. THAT is dishonest and pathetic.
So how about you stick with what you know, moving missiles or whatever, and I'll stick with what I know, history, current events, politics and human rights.
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Matthew, Vicki won't apologize. For Republican shills, serving your country only counts if you are a Republican and/or if you don't speak out about abuses of your government. Republicans hate the Constitution, with the possible exception of Article II, which they want to expand so that it becomes the entire Constitution. But the First Amendment? Forget it. Dissent = treason, which is one of Naomi Klein's ten steps on the way to fascism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.
Vicki's reading comprehension is obviously lacking, since she apparently doesn't understand the meaning of "when I get called up for my third tour off of Inactive Ready Reserve". But again, facts don't matter to Republicans.
That said, McCain is cleverly exploiting a possibly fatal weakness in the mainstream Democratic response to Bush's illegal, immoral invasion. "Mainstream" Democrats, the Pelosis and Reids and DLCs of the world, have contented themselves with whining about how poorly the Iraq invasion was managed and how it wasn't "working". They did the same thing about the "surge." Now the White House, together with a dutiful corporate press corps, has managed to spin the story that "the surge is working," partly by moving the goalposts, partly by taking credit for developments they had nothing to do with, and partly because the additional troops -- gasp -- might actually have managed to impose just enough control on the population to bring down the level of violence perpetrated by Iraqis on each other. And the "mainstream" Dems have no answer for that.
Instead, the "mainstream" Dems could have mounted a principled opposition to the invasion, both before it began and consistently throughout the occupation. They could have aggressively pursued Bush, Cheney and Powell's lies about Saddam Hussein's purported possession of WMD. They could have pointed out that the invasion was illegal, immoral, based on geopolitics and primarily for control of a strategic natural resource -- oil, for the benefit of the Administration's extremely close friends in the petroleum industry.
That's just for starters. But they didn't. Because that would have required principle. And as we've seen from "Democrats" like Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Mary Landrieu, and others, principle is something sorely lacking in today's mainstream Democratic Party.
Anonymous wrote on December 19, 2007 3:31 PM:Note that the "remarkable success" comes from WaPo, possibly from an editorial?
Utopia wrote on December 19, 2007 4:29 PM:What remarkable success? The "surge" was intended to be merely a means to an end. So deaths in Baghdad are down. And what has come of it? Nothing. The Iraqi government is just as intransigent as it has ever been. It's patently clear that the security of Baghdad or Iraq has nothing to do with the government resolving the issues that divide the country.
Put bluntly, there is no success until the Iraqis stop killing each other and US troops as well.
U
McCain gave us the surge and all Huckleberry gave us was an ex-chubby.
acf wrote on December 19, 2007 6:54 PM:'Remarkable Success?" It doesn't matter to me what he tries to spin the surge as. In the 2006 elections, the voters made the statement, by tossing the Republicans out of Congress, that the Bush invasion was based on lies, and had to come to an end, not expanded. I can understand that more forces pointedly applied can exert more control over Iraq, but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that this was a fight we shouldn't have undertaken, and more doesn't change that.
ChrisO wrote on December 19, 2007 9:47 PM:If you read Vicki Hampton's garbled post a little more closely, it appears her father served in Nam ("FYI my did 2 tours in Viet Nam and transported nuclear missles off Paris Island. He served 36 years") In other words, she gets to question the courage of someone who has served in Iraq, based on what her father did. Hey Vicki, you have no more standing to question soldiers than any of the rest of us civilians, you loudmouth poser.
And McCain didn't "inherit" any mess. You do know that he's still just a Senator, right? And that he voted for the invasion? He's as responsible as any of the other Republican enablers who didn't dare criticize the war until it was way too late. And just a reminder, the reason for the surge was so the Iraqis could get their act together. It doesn't matter how much casualty figures are up or down. The surge wasn't intended to end the war. It was intended to buy time for the Iraqis to get their shit together. It's a miserable failure.
AxelDC wrote on December 20, 2007 7:55 AM:That's brilliant! He is campaigning on the very thing that destroyed is candidacy.
Who needs attack ads when you submarine yourself? Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani should all send McCain thank you cards for saving them money. Then again, McCain has become so irrelevant these days, why would they bother?
