Democracy for Vancouver

At least the Founders cared whether the slaves lived or died.

For McCain, the only thing in Iraq that matters is that our soldiers aren’t getting killed. The Iraqis can kill each other just as much as they like. On This Week (4/20/08):

STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve defined success in Iraq as a “generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state.” That is a very, very tall order. And we’ve seen how much difficulty the Iraqi leaders have had coming together.

Doesn’t that mean that U.S. troops are being held hostage to decisions of Iraqi leaders, under your standard?

MCCAIN: No, I don’t think so at all. And I’m very pleased at the overall progress that’s been made since we started the surge.

I know Americans are frustrated and saddened by the sacrifice that’s been made…

This new strategy, the tactic and the surge is working. The Maliki government has made progress. A lot more needs to be done…

In Basra, the bad news is that they’ve had very big problems in Basra. They have regained control of the Port of Basra.

Look, there’s Shiite militias in southern Iraq that are still very, very tough. Sadr’s people, in parts of Baghdad and Sadr City are very tough. But, the Sunni…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: He’s ready to declare war, again, he said, on the Maliki government today.

MCCAIN: Pardon me?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Sadr said he’s ready to declare war on the Maliki government again today.

MCCAIN: Well, Mr. Sadr has been told that, unless his militia put down their arms, they will not take part in free and fair elections. And that’s a unanimous view of the Maliki government, Sunni and Shia alike.

Perhaps because the Maliki Shia are aligned with Iran, and along with the Sunnis they’d be pleased as punch to exclude Sadr’s nationalistic Shia wherever possible?

So we’ll see what happens. But it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough. But American causalities are down, overall, although there has been a very bad spike.

And this is very, very long and hard and tough. If we succeed in Iraq, you will see a stable part of a very important part of the world. And you will see a longstanding…

It’s hard work.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How long will that take?

MCCAIN: To what — get…

STEPHANOPOULOS: To get this success you’re talking about?
…
MCCAIN: How long? It’s not a matter of time. It’s a matter of casualties. If we can eliminate American casualties, that’s the key to the success. Because Americans are grieved by the loss of these brave — of our most — sacrifice of our most precious treasure.

And if we can keep these casualties down, which means the Iraqis are taking the lead, which, to a large degree, they are, in the battle of Mosul, which is taking place now, then we can look back with pride and say, look, we were able to give the Iraqi people a far, far better life than they ever would have had under Saddam Hussein.

Let’s eliminate U.S. casualties by bringing our soldiers home, okay? Seventy percent of Iraqis want us gone - it’s only our puppets who want us to stay in perpetuity.

This is not Korea, Senator McCain: there is no 38th parallel for 30,000 soldiers to hold indefinitely, and no homogeneous population to accept our occupation. Significantly, South Korea also has no oil wealth to fight over.

Iraq is a heterogeneous population of recently dethroned Sunnies, Iran-aligned Shia, Iraqi-Nationalist Shia, Kurdistan-National Kurds, and a few scattered Christians, all with land, water, oil, religion and blackmarkets to protect and fight for - violently, and with the very weapons and explosives we failed to secure when “winning” this war 5 years ago.

The U.S. wrenched open this can of worms, and watched them run amok. We are a huge part of the problem. And until we get out, U.S. casualties will continue to “frustrate and sadden” Americans - just as Iraqi casualties “frustrate and sadden” their families.

[emphasis added.]