John McCain's Iraq War: The Five-Year Annniversary

Today, March 20, 2008, is the fifth anniversary of the commencement of George W. Bush's war of choice to execute his plan for regime change in Iraq under the guise of an operation to seek out and destroy weapons of mass destruction ostensibly stored by the late dictator Saddam Hussein - all done, again ostensibly, as just and proper retaliation for the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington by an asserted alliance between the deposed Saddam Hussein regime and Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

Reuters provides a brief multimedia retrospective.

This is an appropriate time to reflect on the sacrifices of U.S. troops and to think of ways to offer some comforts to those who remain deployed in the war zone.

Hans Blix is a name all Americans should know as well as the name of Ronald Reagan by November 1, 2008. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have a heavy task before them to correct the damage of misinformation worked by televised media in the 2002-2004 period. That period may well be remembered as the nadir for the profession of journalism in the United States. Writing in a British newspaper, the international jurist and former Swedish diplomat authors an important retrospective - A War of Utter Folly: Responsibility for this spectacular tragedy must lie with those who ignored the facts five years ago - in which he reminds the world and voters in Texas of the declared goal of the invasion of Iraq: elimination of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix reminds us of the crucial relevance of dates in the assessment of any chronology by recalling the contrasting state of actual knowledge regarding the WMD situation in 2002 versus March of 2003. Those who ordered and authorized the invasion achieved a colossally costly miscalculation in the annals of history. Hans Blix summarizes each of the three major objectives:

They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could
they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they
were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants. A third declared
aim was to bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully becoming an example for the
region. Let us hope for the future; but five years of occupation has clearly
brought more anarchy than democracy.

Along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mr. Blix helpfully reminds us of the purpose of international law whose purpose and authority the presidency of George W. Bush repeatedly sought to disparage and undermine: "Bush ridiculed any idea that the US would need to ask for a 'permission slip' before taking military action against a 'growing threat'." As one of George W. Bush's leading acolytes of that critical period of poor stewardship of the American national security and diplomatic portfolios, we will likely hear similar arguments concerning competence in diplomacy and international law from Senator McCain once the general election season begins.

Who ''ignored the facts five years ago" in assessing the existence and location of threats justifying the deployment of U.S. forces at such enormous cost in lives and taxpayer dollars in defiance of realism and in contempt of the truth and the facts? This is the central question facing the nation as we select a new commander-in-chief and president with any serious chance of extricating us with skill from this bungled enterprise.

It is strange that it is a foreigner to the U.S. political system who implicitly suggests to us that elections are about accountability for the record of those who wield power. In Washington, there are many who do not endorse such accountability. Senator John Cornyn will face an accountability moment this November at the polls against Rick Noriega. A similar contest is currently occurring in the Democratic campaign for the nomination. John McCain will face accountability for his advocacy for this enterprise in November. The television news services are at a crossroads as to whether or not they prioritize reporting of important facts over fiction and prominently featured fluff. Accurate and informative journalism is especially necessary concerning the situaton in the Middle East during this year.

All who are concerned with the importance of disseminating facts in the marketplace of ideas by journalists will be interested in supporting Free Press.

In an example of problematic inattention to critical facts by a major televised media outlet, we are treated to this recent interview between Kyra Phillips and General David Petraeus in which Phillips insistently displays her radical confusion about the principal players involved in the conflict in the Middle East and mispronounces Al Qaeda. In her defense, too many foreign policy “experts” in Washington are guilty of similar confusion.

More importantly, the current Republican nominee for the presidency suffers from similarly lethal confusion. Josh Marshall of TPM is in agreement with AR's assessment that John McCain is not fit to serve as commander-in-chief in the midst of a complex war that he helped to authorize following his stunning and repeated insistence in rolling into one tidy ball of wax both Sunni Arab Wahabbists conspiring through the stateless Al Qaeda network and the Persian Shi'a government of Iran. This convenient conflation of two unrelated forces is comparable to saying that Terry Francona of the Boston Red Sox secretly supports the New York Yankees because he has been observed more than once traveling on the same Delta Shuttle between Boston and New York as Joe Girardi of the Yankees. Senator McCain's misunderstanding of national security and international relations realities is no small matter, and it is doubtful that a few short trips to the Middle East under heavy guard and with phalanxes of photographers trailing his movements will cure that deficit of vision. It is noteworthy that Senator McCain's recent trip to the Middle East did not include a visit to forgotten Afghanistan, where the Taleban once ruled and harbored the mastermind of the attacks of September 11th. As noted recently by Joseph Cirincione, the foremost national security threat facing the United States overseas is the possible collapse of forgotten Afghanistan which could in turn trigger the destabilization or collapse of Pakistan where Usama bin Laden is believed to be harbored in a nation where the nuclear weapons infrastructure is highly vulnerable to potential Al Qaeda operations.

Thankfully, those with expertise in this area of complex transnational problems have been working on solutions. The report of the Princeton Project on National Security remains an important body of work. Unsurprisingly, many of its recommendations have been ignored by the current administration and appear to be disfavored by too many of Senator McCain's national security and foreign policy advisors.

More recently, several military experts and candidates for the United States House of Representatives have made a very important progressive national security proposal to end the Iraq nation building experiment responsibly. It is worth considering by all Americans.

What is clear on this important anniversary is that the Iraq nation building experiment which Senators McCain and Cornyn authorized and continue to champion is profoundly weakening United States national security and the U.S. economy simultaneously. Those past approaches simply will not do with Usama bin Laden still on the loose and with the massive costs these approaches have incurred and will continue to incur for our deployed troops and for the U.S. taxpayer. It is time for our leaders in politics and journalism to get serious about national security and our overseas commitments.

Yesterday, Senator Barack Obama delivered an address at Fayetteville Technical Community College near Fort Bragg (North Carolina) which offers us that seriousness.