A Democratic line is emerging about Sen. John McCain that is voiced daily by Sen. Obama (and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton) in the presidential campaign. "Senator McCain said the other day that we might be mired for 100 years in Iraq," Obama says, "which is reason enough not to give him four years in the White House." Or more directly, as Obama told a Houston audience, McCain "says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq."
I'm not saying here if I'm agreeing with McCain (however, I am a man of logic and sense), but about what the author of this opinion points out. Almost daily, and surely even more often as the general election closes in, we will hear Clinton (hopefully) or Obama (God help us) take what McCain said out of context. And, the problem is, in the case of Obama, people just seem to listen to him like he's a prophet and eat up whatever he says. If he said he likes eating shit burritos, Taco Bell would be serving them tomorrow, and the line of sheep would round the corner (I'm no Obama fan.. again.. logic and sense. Neither of which tell me he'd be a good President in the current state of the world and his wet-behind-the-ear track record).
Anyways, what McCain really said was:
On Jan. 3 in Derry, N.H., a voter prefaced a question to McCain by saying, "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years ..." Here, McCain cut him off, interjecting, "Make it a hundred."
The voter tried to continue his question, but McCain pressed on: "We've been in ... Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It's fine with me, I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day."
McCain is NOT talking about having a WAR IN IRAQ for 100 years. He's talking about a presence there. Just as we have in other countries for the same reason we'd have one there. So, what Obama repeats over and over is simply not true. McCain doesn't want the war to go on for 100 years like Obama wants you to believe (and people do). And, he isn't crying for us to leave South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy and other countries which we stayed at after the wars.
And, he's also right about (most) Americans not caring how long we are there, as long as Americans aren't being harmed or injured. You know you don't care. If you did, you'd be able to name every country we have troops in, and you know you can't. Why? Because if nobody is being hurt, you don't care.
What everyone does care about is Americans (or anyone) being injured in Iraq, right now. But, that's a different topic on policy.