http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45518/"Straight talking" John McCain's call for thousands more troops in Iraq is just a pathetic ploy to seem like a patriot for the presidential elections.
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"I understand the polls show only 18 percent of the American people support my position. But I have to do what's right... In war, my dear friends, there's no such thing as compromise. You either win or you lose." -- Senator John McCain
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So John McCain has joined Bush in throwing a shit fit over the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. What's bothering him? Well, it's certainly not the fact that no one who participated in the ISG had the foresight to oppose the war in the first place. McCain yelled at Baker and Hamilton last week because they didn't like his proposal to increase troop strength in Iraq by a number somewhere between 20 and 40 thousand. But the real bone in McCain's increasingly freakish craw? If the ISG recommendations are followed -- an unlikely event considering Bush's classic "whatever" dismissal -- US combat troops will be out of Iraq before McCain has a chance to get his election on.
While McCain's insistence on "re-invading" Iraq and holding out for a miracle has been assailed as unrealistic except by diehard hawks and Bush loyalists, it has also been absurdly misinterpreted as the brave, bold stance of a man who puts the welfare of his nation above his own presidential aspirations. The common take is that McCain is "jeopardizing" his electability by continuing to support an unpopular war. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said McCain is "swimming against the tide." CNN's Wolf Blitzer gushed that it was "a Profiles in Courage kind of statement." Even the UK press got in on the act, with the Times of London's Bronwen Maddox arguing the report "damages" McCain, making him look "like the nation's maverick, not the next president." Anatol Lieven wrote on the Guardian's website that McCain "seems to have committed himself to a course which could very well cost him the presidency in 2008."
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I'm sick of all these hallucinating politicians who want to escalate a disaster to new disastrous heights. What kind of crack are they smoking? Will no amount of dead people satiate their erect, swollen patriotism?