McCain on Surrender

John McCain said the followng:

“I guarantee you this: If we had announced a date for withdrawal from Iraq and withdrawn troops the way that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to do, Al Qaeda would be celebrating that they had defeated the United States of America and that we surrendered,”

My rejoinder would be:

“I guarantee you this: If we had not invaded Iraq the way that Senator McCain and President Bush wanted to do, 4000 more American soldiers and several hundred thousand more Iraqi civilians would be alive today”

In truth, Al Qaeda is already celebrating the defeat of America because invading Iraq and getting us bogged down while they could train their next generation of jihadists is exactly what they wanted.

Back when I was an Economist for Dean one of the things I really wanted to see was the Democrats consistently savage Bush on national security from the right, it pained me that the outsourcing of troops at Tora Bora that allowed Bin Laden to escape was never seized upon. Kerry eventually brought it up --but it needed to be pounded on day in and day out the way the Repubs talk about taxes.

Obama has to cut through the militaristic rhetoric of Bush-McCain-Romney and has to emphatically and forcefully insist upon the facts of what actually makes us safe.