blogger interrupted

The entire reasoning behind John McCain’s Iraq policy rests on his assertion that American troops have spent decades in Japan, Korea, and Germany.  These three places have literally nothing in common with Iraq, and to make the comparison really shows just how out of touch John McCain is with his own core justification for his candidacy.

McCain’s dishonesty rests largely on one key problem - unconditional surrender.  Let’s take them one at a time.

Japan.

In 1945, the Allies defeated Japan to such a degree that much of the country itself was literally burnt to the ground.  After two atomic bombs, and months of firebombing, the Japanese leadership signed a document of unconditional surrender on the USS Missouri.  That meant many things.  

The US wrote Japan’s new constitution.  American troops were required to keep order and rebuild the country.  Americans had spent more than 3 years rationing their food and fuel, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, to make sure Japan unconditionally surrendered.  There was never any question of Japanese insurgency in resistance.  It was over, because Japan wanted it to be over.

The intervening 63 years have required American troop presence in Japan to support American interests in the region, including protecting our ally Japan, at the invitation of the Japanese government.  It is impossible to imagine that any Iraqi government would invite American troops to be in Iraq for that long, and equally impossible to believe that there would be no insurgency in resistance during such a period.

Germany

Again, Germany was completely destroyed in 1945, and had unconditionally surrendered.  It was already occupied, not by a mere 135,000 American troops (as is Iraq right now), but by millions of soldiers, millions, from the entire Allied command.  Gemany had been completely defeated.  It ended because Germany wanted it to end.  Badly.

Further, the Cold War itself had begun even before Germany was defeated.  The millions, repeat, millions of Soviet troops also occupying Germany, and the rest of Eastern Europe were already stitching together the Iron Curtain when American troops fired their last shots.  

Thus, in the intervening 63 years, those American troops were there at the invitation of West Germany and the rest of Western Europe long term, to stand across the Iron Curtain from Soviet troops who were in East Germany on no invitation other than their own.  And second, those American troops remain there today, after the Cold War, as part of the NATO alliance, at the invitation of a unified Germany.  Under no circumstance will such a situation ever present itself in Iraq.

Korea

The Korean War came to a negotiated cease fire in 1953.  That war has never been brought to an official close.  It was not unconditional surrender, but the current stats quo rests entirely on the voluntary truce of both sides.  It ended because both sides wanted it to end.

With whom will such a voluntary truce be negotiated in Iraq?  To get to this point, McCain would have to first acknowledge that there isn’t such a truce, and that someone needs to be negotiated with who will voluntarily stop shooting at us.  He doesn’t.  McCain claims we’re “winning,” that the surge has “succeeded.”  For Iraq to be like Korea, the shooting first has to stop, as it has for 55 years in Korea.

The troops currently in Korea are there on UN mandate to enforce that truce. There is no imaginable circumstance in which the UN somehow manages to craft a resolution with whoever is still shooting at us in Iraq, and turn that into a 55 year enforcable truce.  To even suggest this lacks any real understanding of what is going on in Iraq.

Conclusion

Folks, when John McCain supporters tell you that this 100 year commitment is just like Germany, Japan, and Korea, remind them of history.  These three comparisons are utterly without intellectual honesty, they are phony, and they are in fact dangerous miscalculations based on a fundamental misreading of military and foreign policy history.  Argue the point.  

Popularity: 3% [?]