John McCain says the United States could stay "100 years... 1,000... 1 million years" in Iraq. But what does he mean?
The liberal group MoveOn.org began airing ads Wednesday against Republican John McCain, citing his claim that the U.S.
Haven't we been listening to talk of "100 years" of war in Iraq for 100 years now? It certainly feels that way. But this favorite talking point of the two Democrats presidential candidates is bogus.
"Instead of offering an exit strategy for Iraq, (Sen. John McCain is) offering us a 100-year occupation," Sen. Barack Obama said on the fifth anniversary of the coalition’s move on the then-oppressed Iraq. But it could have been any day; Obama uses the sound bite often enough.
What the "100 years" talk refers to is something McCain rightly said in response to a question during a New Hampshire townhall meeting in January. The question regarded Bush’s statement that we could be in Iraq for 50 more years. McCain sensibly responded: "Make it 100. 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 are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’s fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."
When asked to clarify, he would go on to say that it could be 1,000 years, or even a million years. These are the lines that try Democrats’ souls. But McCain was right about the long war. It was a sensible answer. And though it doesn’t sound like the most attractive answer -- who wants 100 years in Iraq? -- it was straight talk from a senator who has a better track record on Iraq than most. And it may not hurt his campaign, either.
John McCain has been insisting that his 100 years in Iraq comment is being taken out of context. That in fact what he meant is that American troops can stay in Iraq for fifty or 100 years if American troops are no longer being attacked. This assertion leads to a whole new set of questions that reflect McCain's lack of understanding of what is going on inside Iraq.
First of all, how exactly does Senator McCain envision getting to a point where there are no American casualties in Iraq? The idea of a large American troop presence in Iraq that does not draw any fire is farfetched. What we have in Iraq today is some odd and complicated mix of numerous sectarian conflicts with Americans stuck in the middle. This isn’t Korea. There will be no armistice or Demilitarized Zone. Senator McCain has not laid out any kind of a roadmap or strategy for how we get to this idealized scenario where American forces are no longer being fired upon.
Second, how long does he think it will take to get to this end state that he envisions? Will it take 10 years? Will it take 20? 30? When under his plan do American troops stop taking casualties? It would be good to know.
Finally, there is the question of a permanent presence in Iraq and the strategic costs to the United States. One of the Bush Administration’s premises for the war in Iraq, was the idea that we needed to eliminate Al Qaeda. But one of the major inspirations for Al Qaeda, was the American presence in Saudi Arabia. In a similar way, creating a large permanent troop presence in Iraq would act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and draw anger and suspicion from all over the Arab World.
Even prisoners pray.
Iowa officials are ending a Bible-based treatment program at a state prison that has been the focus of a five-year federal court battle over the role of religion in government services. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled in December that the program by Virginia-based Prison Fellowship advanced religion at government expense and that taxpayer money could not be used to finance the program.
I am convinced that what I saw in the punishment cell at Humaita Prison explains why its recidivism rate remains at 4 percent, while in the rest of Brazil it is a staggering 75 percent. The moral and spiritual approach to crime does work. The lesson for us here in America is that we cannot build our way out of the crime problem. We will stem the surging tide of crime only by a rehabilitation of the soul.
InnerChange also offers substance-abuse treatment and free computer training, hot commodities in a time of budgetary woes. This year, the GED program Ellsworth offers regular prisoners was cut in half, the substance-abuse program eliminated.
General-population inmates are still offered a computer class through the local community college, but as it costs $150, and men who are lucky enough to land a prison job make an average of 60 cents a day, the general population's six computers sit under dust covers most days. As Issac Jarowitz, an Ellsworth inmate who isn't in InnerChange, noted grudgingly, "The Christians do lots of stuff the state used to do, like vocational programs, but now they're only for believers."
"I tell them this is their ticket," Raymond said, gesturing to the InnerChange ID card that inmates wear on a "What Would Jesus Do?" neck chain, "to everything they need."
Romney finally got his gold. Now what?
Mitt Romney is back.
The man whose father was once governor of Michigan won that state's primary, giving him a much-needed win in the race for the GOP nomination. And his aides are proclaiming his "Mitt-mentum."
Mitt Romney’s victory in Michigan is a testament to his remarkable elasticity. Having spent two years running as a social conservative, which he is not, he decided a week ago to run as a businessman reformer. It didn’t carry him over the threshold there, but it evidently has in Michigan — where, among other things, the Republican candidate seems to have made wildly un-Republican promises to use the powers of the federal government to restore, through some mystical spell, automotive-industry jobs to the suffering state.
Romney may not have won in Michigan so much as McCain lost it.
Now Romney is once again moving on from Michigan, just as he did when he left the state for school, a career, a family; for life, basically. By beating McCain here, he kept himself in the race and kept the field wide open. Three different candidates have won the first three contests.
To hear him tell it, Romney won in Michigan because voters are finally sick of a broken Washington. He's the candidate of the future, he says, not the pessimism of the past. But if his path to the White House is going to stretch longer than his father's did, Romney needs to prove he can keep winning -- even when the race moves to states where no one keeps the family's old memorabilia lying around.
Hillary Clinton on the trail.
Young women at Hillary Clinton's alma mater, Wellesley, are torn: Do you vote for a woman to shatter the glass ceiling and further the cause? Or do you make an empowered, individual decision that is not confined by gender?
An unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House? Ahem... Gloria? Can you say anything about the feminist issues entailed in a woman running for the presidency on her husband's accomplishments? If not, you're speaking as a Clinton partisan and not as someone who wants to seriously engage with feminism.
I don't have a feminist obligation to vote for Hillary Clinton, or donate money to her campaign, or show up at her rallies. My obligation is to support her right to compete on an equal playing field. To decry the disgusting amount of sexism she faces every day. And then to vote for another candidate if I feel he would make a better president. That, too, is a feminist act.
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