The Failed Pacifist

McCain's 100 Year War

When asked if he would keep troops in Iraq for another 50 years, John McCain interrupted the questioner to say "Make it a hundred". When David Corn asked the Senator about this, McCain started talking about millennia.

After the event ended, I asked McCain about his "hundred years" comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," as far as he was concerned. The key matter, he explained, was whether they were being killed or not: "It's not American presence; it's American casualties." U.S. troops, he continued, are stationed in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Bosnia, and elsewhere as part of a "generally accepted policy of America's multilateralism." There's nothing wrong with Iraq being part of that policy, providing the government in Baghdad does not object.

posted by Doran @ 8:08 AM