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McCain, judgment, and a response to the attacks of 9/11

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The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick has a very strong piece today on John McCain’s foreign policy worldview, his embrace of neoconservatism, and his response to the attacks of 9/11. It applies a little more scrutiny than McCain is probably accustomed to receiving.

[By the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

Just to clarify, by October 2001, McCain was already a cheerleader for invading Iraq. This was his reflexive response to the terrorism perpetrated by al Qaeda.

It’s an anecdote that reminds us of so many questions surrounding McCain, including his temperament, his judgment, and his “hothead” personality.

“He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you, you want to strike out,” said retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter of Mr. McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war. “Just like the American people, his reaction was: show me somebody to hit.”

And while that may strike some as appealing, the problem with McCain’s approach is its indiscriminate attitude — he looks for somebody to hit before he actually thinks about the merit and/or consequences.

Looking back at this period also reminds us of just how wrong McCain has been.

While pushing to take on Saddam Hussein, Mr. McCain also made arguments and statements that he may no longer wish to recall. He lauded the war planners he would later criticize, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. McCain even volunteered that he would have given the same job to Mr. Cheney.) He urged support for the later-discredited Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi’s opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, and echoed some of its suspect accusations in the national media. And he advanced misleading assertions not only about Mr. Hussein’s supposed weapons programs but also about his possible ties to international terrorists, Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks. […]

[A]fter Mr. Bush declared he would hold responsible any country condoning terrorism, Mr. McCain called his leadership “magnificent” and his national security team the strongest “that has ever been assembled.” A few weeks later, Larry King of CNN asked whether he would have named Mr. Rumsfeld and Colin L. Powell to a McCain cabinet. “Oh, yes, and Cheney,” Mr. McCain answered, saying he, too, would have offered Mr. Cheney the vice presidency.

Even during the heat of the war in Afghanistan, Mr. McCain kept an eye on Iraq. To Jay Leno in mid-September, Mr. McCain said he believed “some other countries” had assisted Osama bin Laden, going on to suggest Iraq, Syria and Iran as potential suspects. In October 2001

, when an Op-Ed page column in The New York Times speculated that Iraq, Russia or some other country might bear responsibility for that month’s anthrax mailings, Mr. McCain interrupted a question about Afghanistan from David Letterman on that night’s “Late Show.” “The second phase is Iraq,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “Some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” […]

[W]hen the Czech government said that before the attacks, one of the 9/11 hijackers had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official, Mr. McCain seized the report as something close to a smoking gun. “The evidence is very clear,” he said three days later, in an Oct. 29 television interview. (Intelligence agencies quickly cast doubt on the meeting.)

On Friday, McCain told the NYT, “I believe voters elect their leaders based on their experience and judgment — their ability to make hard calls, for instance, on matters of war and peace. It’s important to get them right.”

That would sound more compelling if McCain hadn’t been so wrong for so long.

Comments

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    So how did all three towers (the third, WT7, not even having been hit) collapse so quickly and so perfectly? Wouldn’t that give pause to any leader with experience and judgment making hard calls on matters of war and peace?

  • doubtful

    says:

    McCain said last night that Petraeus and bin Laden were in agreement that Iraq is the central front to fight al Qaeda, basically admitting that we’re allowing bin Laden to dictate our current military policy and McCain plans to continue this absurdity.

    I know if I were the US’s number one enemy, I’d try to convince them to fight somewhere else.

    Of course he also repeated the lunacy that only he knows how to get bin Laden and he’ll reveal that bit of information to us if only we elect him.

  • Miss Landers

    says:

    This post reminds me of something McCain said at the Saddlebrook forum last night–something to the effect that he follow would Osama bin Laden through the gates of hell if that’s what it would take to kill him (remniscient of the bellicosity of a certain George W. Bush).

    Ironically, based on the information above, McCain is, in large part, responsible for the fact that bin Landen is still at large.

  • Bruno

    says:

    Goldilocks @ 1 is insinuating some conspiracy theories related the building collapses. However I do not see where McCain would fit into that picture.

    Let us not get distracted by rehashing the mystery of the WT7 building. McCain would not like anything more than some fringe liberals bringing up this idea of the ‘government having been involved in the attacks’.

    There are a LOT more important issues to consider when educating the low information voters about McCain’s shortcomings. WT7 isn’t one of them.

    —

    As doubtful pointed out… I”m surprised the MSM hasn’t questioned McCain about his ‘secret plan’ to route Bin Laden. Having information about how to capture/kill Bin Laden and not sharing it with the appropriate authorities, is tantamount to treason. Talk about an ‘un-patriotic’ act, if there is any.

  • Gil

    says:

    Mccain said that he knows how to get Bin Laden but we will have to wait till he is in office to get him.. Well that sure is keeping America first..

  • JS

    says:

    A growing number of people have studied the Saddleback affair and are convinced that John McCain had the questions beforehand, or had a cell phone in his quiet room, he answered some questions almost before they were asked and seemed to have been rehearsed beforehand, even Andrea Mitchell has been quoted as saying McCain could not have done this without prior information. On another blog I find it interesting that McCain’s ‘cross in the dirt story’ was from a book by Solzhenitsyn’ also did anyone notice his references to alternative energy were exact phrases from Slim Pickens ad?

  • Goldilocks

    says:

    Stand corrected, Bruno, at least as far as ‘educating the low information voters about McCain’s shortcomings’ is concerned.

    In my own quiet room, where I’ll try to keep it, I’m still very suspicious of what was done on that day and known beforehand. Maybe we’ll never get the whole truth of the matter, and it will slip unanswered into the mists of history. But what remains in my memory of the BushCo response, so enthusiastically endorsed and embellish by McCain, is that it was war for war’s sake. There was the reflexive ‘show me someone to hit’ response of an immature, inexperienced, ill-judging, belligerent hothead, with little more diplomatic, foreign policy or national security sensitivity than a schoolyard bully. The world has had quite enough of such types. There is no need for an even crazier one to be elevated to such awesome position of power.

  • Michael W

    says:

    tAiO (#2)

    What about Saudi Arabia?

    I was thinking that, too. Of course the Bush crime family has close ties to the Saudi royal family, so we can’t criticize them.

  • joey

    says:

    His first response to everything is attack. George Custer has nothing on him. Looking at his “war” experience he’s not even any good at that and would likely get us all killed or captured. He doesn’t even have the temperament for being a war time commander. There are no family Admirals to get the country out of the mess he’d get us into.

    OBL is dead and has been for years so all this rhetoric of killing him is deceitfully empty. McCain and Bush both know this. We only ever hear from his #2 as manufacturing OBL is extremely difficult to get by the censors believably.

    After this Georgian affair it shuld be obvious that…McCAIN WOULD START A WAR IN ORDER NOT TO LOSE AN ELECTION. The man would plunge the world into war in his attempt to prove how tough he is. It’s the McCain ego…pictures of him in front of his plane holding a rifle and wearing a pistol sums it up pretty clearly…he wants to convince us he is a “bad ass”. Courageous brave people don’t have to “pose” as brave courageous people. McCain is a phony…that anyone would trust the judgment of this man to lead our nation is astonishing. It’s why his campaign site advertises for supporters and offers bribes to post his messages at target sites.

    McCain’s image is tarnished by the truth and his constant national exposure is showing the real McCain character and it’s frightening hypocrisy and ignorance. Mad dog McCain is a good analogy…he needs to be kept on a short leash.

  • Charliet

    says:

    McCain’s every position has been held as firmly as his next poll indicates it will resonate with his base. If he’s rolled it up the flagpole and nobody salutes, rest assured his handlers are denying it was ever said and it’s the polar opposite of the views he dearly and deeply holds. He’s as disingenuous, dishonest and disgraceful a politician after the 2000 elections as I’ve ever imagined. Why he’s been affored even the slightest credibility just blows me away. What a horrible person!

  • libra

    says:

    […] the problem with McCain’s approach is its indiscriminate attitude — he looks for somebody to hit before he actually thinks about the merit and/or consequences. — CB

    Maybe, with th advent of McCain as his party’s standard bearer, it’s time for that party to change its symbol: from an elephant to a rhinoceros.

  • DK

    says:

    The tough guy (Clint Eastwood / Arnold Schwartzenegger) approach to diplomacy has been a hallmark of the republican party for some time. It’s purpose is to appear tough, so you can paint any democratic challenger as weak and thus win elections.

    Personally, I prefer Kung Fu movies to Schwartzenegger or 1970s Eastwood movies. The best Kung Fu masters only fought when they have to.

    The question I have, is this.

    Have Americans had enough of the shoot first and ask questions later style of diplomacy?

  • 2Manchu

    says:

    “By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: ‘Next up, Baghdad!'”

    So that was in January of 2002?

    A month after bin Laden had escaped from Tora Bora?

  • Adequate Lord

    says:

    That would sound more compelling if McCain hadn’t been so wrong for so long.

    A good slogan for Obama:

    McCain – So Wrong For So Long.

  • Diogenes

    says:

    I remember Sept. 11. And I remember that immediately afterward, my thought was that we should treat it like a crime. That’s what it was. It was a criminal conspiracy to commit mass-murder and destruction of property. It required an investigation and a law enforcement approach. In that brief moment, we had very nearly the entire world eager to help us. We should have used it to capture and prosecute the terrorists. Instead, we betrayed our ideals as a nation of laws, and we chose to go and hit someone, and McCain eagerly screamed for blood. That violation of the basic values of our country is exactly why John McCain is unfit for office.