Not a great line to try and carry when there is yet another rape case going on, this time involving a child and a US service man.
> What has this got to do with McCain?
The main difference is that the bases in Germany and Japan aren’t still fighting the people of the area. Those are places where the civilian government needed to be propped up for a couple of years and then was able to stand on its own. We're still fighting in Iraq though, April was the deadliest month since September of 2007. Iraq isn’t standing on its own, in fact it's barely standing at all. It hasn’t been standing on its own and while we keep our hand in as deeply as we have it might not be able to stand on its own.
> If you voted for us to leave before the work is completed, could you live with the blood on your hands?
And McCain’s criteria for when we’ll leave is just plain confusing. I have to go to a quote by Rick Hertzberg to define how he seems to feel.
"McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal--that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
> Or we can go directly to McCain:
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McCain, town hall meeting, Jan. 3:
Maybe a hundred. ... We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world.
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All in all, attacking a sovereign nation that never actually attacked us in any way hasn't proved to be the best idea anyone has ever had ever. And it seems that McCain stating he wants to stay there forever and ever isn’t the best political statement, which is why he’s backpedaling so damn hard.
> I think his position was clear, he's not backpedalling, but responding to something taken out of context. And Iraq was invaded for several legitimate reasons. It's only in retrospect that we know there were no WMDs. Iraq didn't attach the US directly, but they sure attacked Kuwait, and they loved to kick out the inspectors whos finding may have saved Saddam's rear.
While I might not be ready for a total and complete pull out to be completed by February 1st 2009, I sure as hell am not ready to still be hearing about the fighting going on forever.
> It will end at some point. And Iraq isn't THAT unstable.
For context on McCain's statement:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/dnc_vs_mccain.html