McCain’s campaign ads on television spend a great deal of time talking about his experience. Things such as getting shot down in Viet Nam, being bayoneted and tortured, and then spending 5 years in a POW camp seem to rank very high on McCain’s list of what he believes are his qualifications for being president. Setting aside the (unanswered) question of how being bayoneted or tortured, or sitting out the Viet Nam war in a POW camp, teaches skills necessary for being the U.S. President, my own problem with McCain’s argument stems from the fact that his war experience from Viet Nam has no obvious relationship to the wars the U.S. is currently waging.
Compared to the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the so-called “global war on terror,” the Viet Nam war was fought against a completely different enemy, in a completely different region of the world, using completely different weapons, with completely different strategies and tactics. How does fighting communist leftists in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the mid-20th-century (a war that America lost) provide McCain with experience that is relevant to the problem of fighting Islamic reactionaries in the deserts of the Middle East in the early 21st-century? Sure, we might be tempted to conclude that “war is war,” but we all know that the current occupation of Iraq differs significantly from every other war in world history, including even the first Gulf War between the U.S. and Iraq. So, why should we believe McCain’s argument?
Indeed, shouldn’t we turn the question around and ask ourselves the following: to the extent that McCain argues that his Viet Nam experience relates to the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, isn’t he demonstrating that he is remarkably ignorant about the nature of war? Isn’t he demonstrating that his experience might actually be a weakness — that he is making profoundly invalid assumptions about the value of his past experience and, thus, over-estimating his abilities and potentially (if he is elected) exposing our troops to unnecessary risks? Experience is a strength only if it is relevant; otherwise, it can be a serious weakness.
Indeed, consider the example of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Here’s a guy who was arguably one of the most experienced military experts in the world, in a job that gave him access to the best military information in the world, yet virtually every decision he made about the so-called “war on terrorism,” including the invasion of Iraq, turned out to be disastrous. In fact, tens of thousands of American troops, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, are now dead or maimed because of his miscalculations and arrogant belief that his experience made him infallible. Judging by the Republican campaign ads I’ve seen, McCain is headed down the same road: tremendous emphasis is placed on McCain’s war experience, yet none is placed on its relevance to America’s current conflicts.
Even more troubling is seeing how McCain responds to questions about the future of U.S. forces in Iraq. McCain rejects the notion of a timetable and, instead, declares that the withdrawal of U.S. forces “must depend upon conditions on the ground.” That sounds good, but have you noticed that McCain never discusses what those “conditions on the ground” might be? When asked about what conditions would justify a reduction in U.S. forces, McCain consistently dodges the question by deferring all such matters to General David Petraeus. According to McCain, Petraeus will tell us when conditions on the ground justify a reduction of U.S. troops. Is this all that McCain’s vast military experience gives him — the ability to avoid leadership by giving key decisions to someone else?
Bottom line: McCain wants us to believe his past military experience would automatically make him a better Commander-in-Chief than Obama, yet nowhere do we see evidence to support this assertion. All we do see is evidence that McCain oversimplifies the situation in Iraq (i.e., he incorrectly equates it with his experience in Viet Nam) and ducks questions about how to lead our military going forward (much as Bush did with Rumsfeld). Do we really want another four years of such nonsense?
Grumpy,
You hit the nail right on the head. Being in a situation where you are tortured and faced with the very real possibility of slow and painful death for your country does not build the kind of courage or character that would be useful in any sense to a future President of the United States and leader of the free world. Nor would it instill any appreciation for said country. Of course McCain was a complete idiot to turn down an early release from that North Vietnamese hell hole, so I guess that makes McCain a masochistic idiot.
Your "Time Table" argument is equally brilliant. I do recall FDR's famous address to Congress on Dec 8, 1941, where he said "We will defeat the forces of fascism, imperialism and tyranny, and withdraw our troops by the spring of '43, so this is to put the French and English on notice that they should be prepared to pick up the slack as of May of '43". Come to think of it, Aren't U.S. Forces STILL based in Germany and Japan, SIXTY THREE YEARS after the end of the war?
I guess that is the reason despite JFK's experience in WW II he screwed up Viet Nam by sending in troops, and trying to apply the lessons of WW II. So I guess instead of insulting John McCain's service to his country, you would be better served pointing your magic finger of logic towards JFK, or his lackey, LBJ.
As far as lessons of war, it seems to me that John McCain was a supporter of the Surge before most. If you deny that the Surge has been a success, there is no need to continue the discussion. Interviewed on TV during his recent overseas vacation, Obama admitted the Surge was successful, but when asked if he would have supported the Surge had he known of its success, he said NO. This is sheer lunacy.
I guess the thing that kills me the most is when folks knock McCain's truly heroic service to his country, and his experience, they seem to convieniently seem to omit what experience their fellow brings to the table. Of course I guess we should recall the credo of the Community Organizer in Chicago: "The only easy day was yesterday." So McCain should just get over the compound fractures, bamboo under the fingernails, and quit his whining (oops! I forgot, it is the other guy who has the propensity for whining).
Electric Tambourine: I'll step up and admit that their is no evidence that the surge is "working," because those who claim it is "working" haven't set forth any metric of "success." It's the same bogus claim made by those who have been saying all along that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is "working." Again, what is the metric? If it's "working," why are we still there?
Sure, piling more soldiers into a small area tends to diminish violence in that area (as long as the soldiers are there). Is that success, to occupy Iraq for 2 or 3 $Billion each week? It's bankrupting our country and it is doing nothing long term for Iraq, except to make it look like Iraq is safe until our oil companies finish fleecing Iraq of its precious natural resource.