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Surrender—Reality or Perception
by James Glaser May 28, 2008 John McCain somehow believes if a Democratic President removes our troops from Iraq, he or she will be surrendering to our enemies. That makes me ask two questions. First, who are would we be surrendering to, and second, what would we be surrendering? I was always under the impression that the Iraqi people still own their country, and if I remember correctly, with our blessing, they have formed their own government and have created their own constitution. Therefore, how can we surrender someone else's country? Who could we surrender to except the Iraqi people, and we have already admitted that Iraq is theirs. John McCain was a career military officer and America lost "his war" in Vietnam, but we have to remember no one ever called that a surrender. We took our troops home and no more Americans were killed or maimed in Vietnam. The same will happen when we remove our troops from Iraq. If there are no American troops in Iraq, there will be no more American troops killed or wounded there. As an added bonus, we can stop borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to keep our troops there. McCain, like so many Vietnam veterans, finds it hard to admit we lost that war. Another thing many of those veterans find hard is to admit is that we started the Vietnam War. Vietnam, like Iraq never attacked us, nor did either country have the ability to attack us. In both wars, we were the aggressor. I'm a Vietnam veteran too, and I find those two things hard to live with, but the fact is they are both true. John McCain has a lot of pride, and that pride would have served him well in a 19th or 20th century American military, but this is the 21st century. We can no longer get away with attacking whomever we want and take over the country after we install our puppet government. The United States of America does have the most powerful military in the world, but that no longer serves us as it did years ago. In the last seven years, we have attacked two of the most pitiful countries on the globe (Iraq and Afghanistan), and we can defeat neither. The world knows that no country can take ownership of another country, and if a population continues to fight, they can bleed even the United States of blood and money long enough to make them leave. John McCain is still suffering from what he perceives as his personal defeat in Vietnam, and his sense of pride will not allow him to walk away from another war, even an ill-conceived war like George Bush's War in Iraq. McCain still talks of victory where no victory is possible. We accomplished two things in Iraq: we proved that there are no weapons of mass destruction there, and we facilitated regime change. Yes, we did get rid of Saddam Hussein, but most Americans believe that the loss of over 4,000 troops, the wounding of over 30,000 more, and the trillions of dollars this war will end up costing us was too high a price to pay for one old man. John McCain cannot see this, and he has already said if we elect him, American troops will remain in Iraq throughout his term. Misplaced pride will make John McCain spend more blood and treasure in the hope of stopping another perceived defeat. No, we can't surrender by bringing our troops home, and no matter how long McCain would have us stay there, we can never claim victory because we will never win this war. We can only lose more, and more, and more. There can never be a victory when you are the most powerful and you attack weak. |
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