Only Moment Alone

John McCain has been saying so many crazy things lately and reversing himself on almost every political position he held from 2000 up to this current campaign, but sadly, little is usually said about it.

Furthermore, John McCain has staked his entire campaign on his supposed foreign policy expertise and military credentials, and even on that point he has been FAILING MISERABLY.

Most people heard about his erroneous claims that Al-Qaeda was getting assistance from Iran that he repeated back in March:

“[It's] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

Unfortunately for McCain, Iran is a predominately Shiite country and al-Qaeda is a mostly Sunni extremist group, so that assertion is blatantly FALSE. But don’t worry, Americans don’t care if their possible next president knows the difference between Sunni and Shiite, they just want to bomb them all, right? After all, John McCain likes to joke about killing Iranians, oh and sing about bombing them too. He must be a popular guy. What a joke-ster!

Well, continuing along those lines of not knowing what in the world he is talking about, on Monday he informed Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America:

“We have a lot of work to do and I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq / Pakistan border,”

Again unfortunate for John McCain, but Iraq and Pakistan don’t even share a border– they have that huge country in between, what is it called? Oh yeah, IRAN. That and about 1000 miles separate Iraq from Pakistan. Ok, so he doesn’t understand the extremist groups in the region, he doesn’t understand the geography of the region, what about the tactics we are taking in the region? Well, just read on.

Recently McCain has been criticizing Barack Obama about his stance on the surge of 2007, and his opinions on the state of Iraq. However, John McCain himself does not even understand the essence and timetable of the surge and the Anbar Awakening! He told Katie Couric yesterday:

“[The surge] began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”

Except that, well, it didn’t and it clearly isn’t. The surge happened after the Anbar Awakening.

I know it’s just so much trouble to click links, but please, please read this article posted by hilzoy over at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish and this article written by Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arenal. Spencer Ackerman says:

“For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.”

Goldenberg sums it up well also:

“This is not controversial history. It is history that anyone trying out for Commander and Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq. It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG. Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain’s inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems. If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.

This is just incredibly disturbing. I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq.”

John McCain claims that he has the experience on all these issues (that he is royally botching) because he has been to Iraq some 8 times or so and that he has seen the situation on the ground many times. He also criticized Barack Obama for announcing his foreign policy plans without having been to Iraq.

However, just last week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proposed that the U.S. initiate a timetable for withdrawal of the troops, which is EXACTLY what Barack Obama has been saying. John McCain said it was just political posturing by al-Maliki. The other more rational take on the issue came:

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, “We’re f**ked.”

No matter, McCain (maybe trying to take focus away from the fact that al-Maliki agrees with Obama) has been traveling around the country saying repeatedly that we have succeeded in Iraq. He said on his bus:

“I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq — not we are succeeding — we have succeeded in Iraq.”

So, first of all who decided out of the blue that the Iraq war was over was succeeding? Was it McCain himself? I mean, I’m all for the war ending, but I knew that things would get awkward as soon as anyone announced victory in Iraq. Oh really, we won? Awesome! What happened? Did we reach a satisfactory violence level? Are people 80% content with the country as it stands? Are we certain that extremists won’t come in and destablilize the region? Whatever. We won! It’s over! Maybe?

Also, a lot of people were under the impression that success would look a whole lot more successful than this.

So if we “have succeeded,” McCain should support a timetable for withdrawal, right? Well, no– WRONG. McCain says:

“The success that we have achieved is still fragile and could be reversed.”

He says that Barack Obama and al-Maliki’s timetable plan would be certain defeat. But I thought we had succeeded John? Apparently if we reduce troops without a timetable like McCain wants, then the war is a victory. If we set a timetable like Obama wants, then the war is a defeat. Are you as confused as I am?

Anyway, back in 2004 at the Council of Foreign Relations, John McCain actually said that if the Iraqi’s told us to leave, we would be forced to leave. Here is the question and his answer:

Question: “What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?”

McCain’s Answer: “Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.”

So, just a refresher– John McCain blasted Barack Obama for not having visited Iraq while touting his own experience in having been there a bunch of times. Yet, John McCain has proven to know little about what he is talking about and Barack Obama has shown he has the proper judgment on the issues, regardless of how many times he has been to Iraq. (By the way, how many times had John McCain been to Iraq in 2002, before he started advocating on the Senate floor for preemtive war with Iraq?)

Here is Obama defending his judgment before this much anticipated and highly reported foreign trip:

“Before we went into Iraq, I knew the difference between Shia and Sunni. Before we went into Iraq, I said that this is going to be an extraordinarily costly endeavor,” Obama said. “Before we went into Iraq, I said that we would be bogged down, that it would cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and that it would fan anti-American sentiment and that it would distract us from the war against Afghanistan.”

I guess it leaves you with two choices:

Vote for the old, crazy guy, who though “experienced” and though he is a former P.O.W. has NO FREAKING CLUE of what is going on.

Or vote for the young, not-crazy guy, who despite a “lack of experince” has consistently shown solid, superior judgment.

Man, this is tough…