McCain: Ending This War with Honor

Yesterday, while viewing a speaking engagement of the Senator from my former home state, Arizona, John McCain, the 'presumptive' Republican nominee, and some of his statements and positions on Iraq and his continuing support for the war, there was an interesting segway which he made in order to justify his position on the conflict (who also has now done a 'Bush' indicating that the 'threat' of a nuclear Iran cannot be allowed to happen, when no one has ever definitively proved that Iran has such a weapon, or is even close to developing one, nor with the military might to even launch it). Mr. McCain indicated that it was imperative to end the Iraq War and bring the troops home 'with honor,' so as not to experience the ramifications many of the soldiers of the Vietnam conflict experienced. Leaving the fact that one of those 'veterans', Senator McCain, has not fared so poorly for his service in that he is now one of the contenders for the White House alone and has built his political career around it, let's compare the similarities and differences of those two conflicts at just a few levels.

1. The majority of the servicemen who served in Vietnam were actually drafted, and did not 'volunteer,' but faced either the costs of crossing the border into Canada if they disagreed with that conflict, or incarceration as 'traitors' to their country. They were pressed into military service, whether they agreed with the war or not under threat. The abuse and contempt they suffered were doubly hurtful because a great many of those men, wounded and sprayed with Agent Orange in that unpopular war, would not have served if there had been any 'legal' way to avoid their mandatory service.

2. It was well known at the time, both 'enemy combatants' were not just members of the military, but also used civilians, women and children, to fight in these conflicts. The American troops had never been faced with being forced to kill women and children 'civilians' the military was using in order to serve their country, and many came back emotionally scared from the experience.

3. Neither country is or was any true 'threat' to the U.S. or it's interests, militarily or economically, to the U.S. Vietnam had no nuclear weapons or any other 'weapons of mass destruction' nor does Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran. Today, due to the Reagan 'Star Wars' program, we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the entire world, with some left over. Such was not the situation during the Vietnam conflict, but we were still had the greatest military arsenal at that time in the world, far greater than the Soviet Union or China combined.

4. Vietnam was the true beginning of these 'first strike' agressive, rather than defensive wars, with the actual provisions of the Constitution and the founder's intent with respect to foreign wars and intervention all but lost, in restricting such actions to 'defensive' wars in order to protect both America and Americans from needless and endless wars.

It would be interesting to further question Senator McCain on just what parameters he would place on the timing of troop withdrawal in order to protect our servicemen and women's 'honor,' some of whom are on their third and fourth tour of duty at the present time, many of whom initially joined because they were lead to believe that they would be 'searching and destroying' Osama bin Laden, the claimed mastermind of the 9/11 civilian deaths. Instead, they are now in a Middle Eastern conflict that even President Reagan realized was against an enemy the likes of which this country had never seen, with martyrdom for 'the cause' the highest honor. Aren't we actually 'honoring' their beliefs with each and every al Qaeda member we destroy, and giving them exactly what they want, their place in heaven? With such a skewed belief system, just when will we be able to bring those troops home honorably? Wouldn't it be better to bring them back alive and out of harm's way? If this 'surge' works and we prop up a puppet government, just how long does Senator McCain think it will last, now that we have actually provided al Qaeda with the greatest recruiting tool ever, our continued and resented presence in that region?

While Senator McCain poses for the cameras with his Navy baseball cap, I do think the 'straight talk' express is headed for a collision.....