Distorting McCain on "100 years" in Iraq

The constant distortions of what John McCain said about staying in Iraq for 100 years make me want to start Spinsanity back up. Liberals are tying themselves in knots trying to provide justifications for why it's not being taken out of context. Sorry, but it is.

Here's what McCain actually said:

QUESTIONER: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years --

McCAIN: Maybe a hundred.

QUESTIONER: Is that -- is that --

McCAIN: We've been in South Korea -- we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That'd be fine with me as long as Americans --

QUESTIONER: So that's your policy?

McCAIN: -- As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then 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 Qaeda is training, recruiting, and equipping and motivating people every single day.

Leading Democratic politicians turned that statement into a claim that McCain wants to keep fighting a war like the one we're in today for 100 years in Iraq -- something he expressly ruled out.

Bob Somerby has a nice summary of why this interpretation is wrong:

McCain didn’t say that he wanted a hundred-year war. He expressly said something different.

Therefore:

If you claim that he said he wanted a hundred-year war, you’re misstating what he said.

Beyond that:

You may believe it’s absurd to think that Iraq could be like Japan or Germany. Have at it! But let’s be honest: Because that’s a fairly dry point, Obama and Clinton both went out and misstated what McCain really said.

As Somerby notes, both Democratic presidential candidates are distorting McCain's remarks. For instance, Obama recently said that "John McCain wants to continue a war in Iraq perhaps as long as 100 years" while Hillary Clinton said that "McCain's willing to keep this war going for 100 years - you can count on him to do that."

Now leading Democratic bloggers and fact-checkers are offering bogus, ideologically-grounded rationales for claiming that this interpretation is correct. The leader, as Somerby notes, has been Josh Marshall, who suggests that Democratic politicians say the following:

Why doesn't every Democrat, when saying anything about the presidential race, start their remarks by saying: John McCain says he'd be happy to see our troops in Iraq for another hundred years. I just can't agree with that.

That's really all you need to say. Keep it simple.

This formulation falsely suggests McCain was advocating 100 more years of US troops fighting and dying at the current rate. Again, Marshall has every right to disagree with McCain's premise that Iraq can become like Japan or South Korea, but not to take his remarks out of context in this way.

Marshall also praised the latest misleading attack on McCain from Hillary Clinton, who said this during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania:

At a speech at Hopewell High School in Aliquippa, Pa., Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. McCain, but then added that the Senator “has said that it would be alright with him if we kept troops in Iraq for up to 100 years and again yesterday, he basically reiterated his commitment to the course that we are on in Iraq. Well, I don’t agree with that.”

Clinton's spin here is especially slick (and dishonest). She strings together the 100 years comment with McCain's support for the troop surge to suggest that McCain wants to continue US involvement at its current intensity for 100 years. Marshall's headline? "Good for her."

Marshall clearly recognizes what McCain's comments actually meant (at one point he referred to "the fantasy that Iraqis will be happy having us occupy their country forever and that the place will become like Finland"). When he came closest to acknowledging McCain's intended meaning, he resorted to the fallback strategy of demanding answers to a series of additional questions:

Now McCain and his handlers are trying to say he wasn't talking about 'war' in Iraq or even an 'occupation' but only a 'presence' in which no US military personnel are killed and seemingly one which doesn't cost anything either.

If reporters who've bought into McCain's explanation actually think this is true, then the logical follow-up is to ask: if he is only happy continuing the 'presence' in Iraq for a century under his fantasy conditions, how long is he willing to continue it with a price tage of $100 billion and hundreds of US military fatalities a year? Or how about $50 billion and only 500 fatalities a year. If he really wants to run away from the bold commitments he made as a primary season candidate, reporters really need to do some due diligence gaming out just what he means.

Note how the first paragraph quoted above uses scare quotes and a skeptical tone to call into question the obvious meaning of McCain's comments. Of course McCain didn't mean a war or occupation! He was using the analogy of Japan and South Korea -- are we at war with those countries? No. Are we occuping them? No.

Another offender is Media Matters. While the group does excellent work on conservative spin, its analysis of this issue has fallen into the standard ideological watchdog pathology of pushing an agenda under the guise of media criticism.

For instance, one MM article follows the same strategy as Marshall, demanding answers to followup questions rather than conceding that McCain's original remarks were mischaracterized:

A Washington Post "Fact Checker" item accused Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of "twist[ing]" Sen. John McCain's "words by claiming that he 'wants' to fight a 100-year war." But the "fact check" did not note that, during the same event, McCain repeatedly avoided directly answering how many years he would be willing to fight a war in Iraq if Americans are "being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

Somerby also notes a Jamison Foser column on Media Matters that engages in an even more tortured defense of McCain's remarks:

In effect, McCain is having it both ways—he refuses to set a date by which the United States will stop fighting in Iraq, but when critics accuse him of being willing to continue fighting in Iraq for 100 years, he and his campaign reject that. Well, which is it? If he refuses to set a date by which we will stop fighting, then it is fair to say he's willing to keep fighting for 100 years. And if he isn't willing to keep fighting for 100 years, then he doesn't really refuse to set a date by which we must stop fighting. But neither the Times nor the Post explore that tension in their articles about McCain's 100-years comments.

Logic like that would get you thrown out of an intro to philosophy class. But sadly it's par for the course in this depressing debate.

Comments

[Dave]

There's disingenuousness flying all around here. McCain never said he'd be fine with 100 years of combat or war (though he hasn't yet said how many years of combat and war he is comfortable with).

At the same time, he did say he'd be fine with US troops remaining in the country for 100 to 10,000 years. He can explain that by pointing to North Korea and Japan (though the Dems can counter, pretty effectively, that those situations are in no way comparable to Iraq and the Mid-East). But trying to deny that McCain never said anything about a 100 year US troop presence in Iraq (as Mitch McConell is now trying to do) is just as misleading.

Once the dust settles and the Dems stop using the misleading interpretation of McCain's remarks, I think McCain is actually in a worse position; what he actually said is pretty bad policy and politics in and of itself, and now, via this pushback, he's absolutely married to it. The Dems don't need to stretch the comment, it works on its own.

[Ben]

I tend to agree with Dave. McCain clearly meant that he wants to keep a large troop presence in Iraq for many decades -- hopefully peaceful decades, with few-to-no US casualties -- for the purposes of protecting our interests in the region.

Note also what McCain does not say. He has never suggested that we can leave Iraq once it has a stable functioning government, or once the IEDs and gunfights drop to zero. Independent of the conditions in Iraq, he wants a long-lasting relationship between our two countries that would afford us forward operating bases with which to strike at terrorist targets and rogue regimes.

Marshall's quote is very cleanly worded (and 100% factually correct, BTW), and relies upon the reader's personal feelings for the implication.

If one thinks a peaceful Iraq with a huge US presence is _not_possible_, then 100 years reads as 100 years of dying. This is my sense of it and based on the tone of the piece you quoted, it sounds like JMM's as well.

If one believes Iraq will eventually be a peaceful host for our military power, a la Saudi Arabia, Marshall's quote reads fine. This is clearly the position of the hawks.

Dave is right though, McCain is now married to the idea of 'whatever it takes'. He could have just as easily said, "Look, we will get out completely one day, but I don't know if that's 5 or 20 or 100 years from now. We will leave when Iraq has a stable government." But he won't say that, because he does not want to leave.

[Jinchi]

... call into question the obvious meaning of McCain's comments.

Of course McCain didn't mean a war or occupation!

I think you're confusing the term "literal" with the term "obvious".

The literal meaning of John McCain's comments are that we will stay in Iraq forever in a post-WWII like alliance with a friendly Iraqi government.

The obvious meaning is that we aren't going to leave Iraq if McCain is elected president. His reference to 100, 1000, even 1 million years isn't meant to be taken literally and the comparison with Germany and Japan can't be either. You can't argue that it's obvious that he doesn't mean war or occupation, because that's the only question that truly faces him. There's no end in sight to the violence and no indication that the Iraqis will become more friendly to the US over time.

Ask him the question: Will we ever leave Iraq as long as the violence continues?

His answer would almost certainly be "No".

[David]

McCain isn't the only candidate who hasn't said how many years of combat and war he is comfortable with. Obama has said that he could send US troops back into Iraq under certain circumstances. In March ABC News reported:

[Obama] has advocated keeping a residual force in Iraq to strike against al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to protect diplomats and others in Iraq. If Iraqi politicians fail to reach a political resolution, he advocates pulling out of the training of Iraqi forces. Obama has also suggested the United States could reintervene in Iraq with "the international community" should civil war and genocide break out in Iraq and advocates closing Guantanamo Bay.

AFAIK Obama has not put limits on his potential reintervention in Iraq.

If you folks believe what you are putting here, let's get those troops home from Germany and South Korea ! Your pants are on fire.

[John McCain wants 100 years more in Iraq]

John McCain's call for a 100 year war or occupation of Iraq shows a basic lack of understanding of the conflict in Iraq. He compares it to Japan or Korea, where there was no local insurgency to counter. It is clearly much closer to Vietnam in scope, and just like Vietnam, the longer we stay, the more stuck we get.