Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Sacrifice This: \’The McCain Doctrine\’

What\’s about to happen in Iraq is now \”The McCain Doctrine.\” Senator
John Edwards proclaimed it so on \”This Week,\” giving John McCain a
serious political body blow that has the potential to stick.
Here\’s the video (about 3:35 into it), with Edwards calling the coming Iraq
escalation what it is: The. McCain. Doctrine.

The escalation crowd, led by Mr. Bush who is ready to hand it off to John McCain,
has simply lost all contact with reality. Keith Olbermann laid it out last night
and Messrs. Bush, McCain and Lieberman along with it.

It is time to change what we\’re doing in Iraq. It is our duty. If not, what
will we tell our troops as they continue to sacrifice?

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more? This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush’s “new Iraq strategy,” and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and “sacrifice.” The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group. He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them. If the BBC is right — and we can only pray it is not — he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for “sacrifice.” Sacrifice! More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked. More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended. More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable —”sacrifice” — sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever. And more Americans — more even than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more — will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he’s doing — and that other Americans will have to die for that reason. It must now be branded as propaganda — for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone “the decider.” But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklaszewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called “surge and accelerate” — as many as 20,000 additional troops —f or “political purposes” … This, in line with what we had previously heard, that this will be proclaimed a short-term measure, for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order. This is palpable nonsense, Mr. Bush. … … (snip) And to the Democrats now yoked to the helm of this sinking ship, you proceed at your own peril, as well. President Bush may not be very good at reality, but he and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rove are still gifted at letting American troops be killed, and then turning their deaths to their own political advantage. The equation is simple. This country does not want more troops in Iraq. It wants fewer. Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work. Yet you Democrats must assume that even if you take the most obvious of courses, and cut off funding for the war, Mr. Bush will ignore you as long as possible, or will find the money elsewhere, or will spend the money meant to protect the troops, and re-purpose it to keep as many troops there as long as he can keep them there. Because that’s what this is all about, is it not, Mr. Bush? That is what this “sacrifice” has been for. To continue this senseless, endless war. … … Keith Olbermann