{"id":15034,"date":"2008-03-27T17:00:22","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T21:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15034.html"},"modified":"2008-03-27T17:00:22","modified_gmt":"2008-03-27T21:00:22","slug":"ok-how-anti-war-is-he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ok-how-anti-war-is-he\/","title":{"rendered":"OK, how anti-war is he?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listening to John McCain’s big speech<\/a> on foreign policy yesterday, it was hard not to notice the extent to which he emphasized how much he’s against military confrontations. On the first go-through, I thought it was just insincere rhetoric — like when a war-monger says he doesn’t want<\/i> to send U.S. troops into battle, but thinks we have<\/i> to, as much as possible.<\/p>\n

But there’s a little more to this. McCain’s pitch was actually even more disingenuous than it appeared at first blush.<\/p>\n

Kevin Drum summarized<\/a> just how far McCain went to convince his audience of his peaceful intentions.<\/p>\n

“I detest war…. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war….the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone….mutual respect and trust….America must be a model citizen….good stewards of our planet…. We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal. The United States should lead a global effort at nuclear disarmament…. Our goal must be to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the vast majority of moderate Muslims….scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs…. For decades in the greater Middle East, we had a strategy of relying on autocrats to provide order and stability…. It was a toxic and explosive mixture…. We must help expand the power and reach of freedom, using all our many strengths as a free people…. I run because I believe, as strongly as I ever have, that it is within our power to make in our time another, better world than we inherited.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After putting together a neo-con friendly cabinet of foreign policy advisors, singing about his desire to “bomb Iran,” and endorsing a century-long presence for U.S. troops in Iraq, I took this to be a doth-protest-too-much pitch. Indeed, given that the McCain campaign is almost certainly aware of the political consequences of McCain’s “100 years” comment, he has to go the extra mile to convince people that he’s not Dick Cheney. The result is McCain describing armed conflict as “wretched beyond all description.”<\/p>\n

But if McCain really<\/i> “detests war,” he has a funny way of showing it.
\n
\nYglesias noted<\/a> McCain’s approach to confronting North Korea, for example.<\/p>\n

[N]othing about the fact that John McCain (allegedly) “hates war” should blind us to the fact that McCain loves advocating for the initiation of wars<\/i>. McCain has a healthy understanding of what war means — healthier than my own or than George W. Bush’s — but also a radically unsound understanding of how international relations works. To most people, war is horrible but sometimes necessary. To McCain, war is horrible but frequently<\/i> necessary. We do ourselves a disservice if we focus on McCain’s understanding of the horror of war to the exclusion of his belief in its frequent necessity. […]<\/p>\n

His view [in 1999] was that Bill Clinton should have started a war with North Korea in 1994. Not because he doesn’t hate war (“not without paying a terrible price”) but because in his view, war with North Korea was inevitable so better sooner than later. Five additional years of non-war didn’t change his mind. Indeed, in January of 2003 he was accusing George W. Bush of being too soft on Pyongyang. And there’s every reason to believe that five years after that he still believes what he believed in 1994 — namely that we should engage in brinksmanship and quite possibly war with North Korea not reluctantly, but at the soonest possible opportunity<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Ezra described<\/a> the problems with McCain’s worldview in general.<\/p>\n

He supported the grievously misguided war in Iraq, continually advocates its escalation, and professes comfort with a literally endless occupation. He wanted ground troops in Kosovo and an attack on North Korea. And however much he proclaims his hatred of war, his dip into song — “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran…” — certainly wasn’t a somber treatment of life’s most detestable outcome. At a moment of high tensions with Iran, asked whether he would support a catastrophic war with a major Middle Eastern nation based on fearmongering about their nuclear ambitions that turned out to be false<\/i>, McCain not only agreed that he would, but he broke into song over the idea.<\/p>\n

McCain may say he “hates” war. But that’s different than having an aversion, or even a reluctance, to go to war. As it is, what McCain has is a statesman’s political persona and crazed hawk’s policy positions. And that’s, if anything, more dangerous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, please don’t let the “detest war” talk fool you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listening to John McCain’s big speech on foreign policy yesterday, it was hard not to notice the extent to which he emphasized how much he’s against military confrontations. On the first go-through, I thought it was just insincere rhetoric — like when a war-monger says he doesn’t want to send U.S. troops into battle, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}