McCain: It’s ‘Immaterial’ Whether Al Qaeda Was In Iraq Before U.S. Invasion
McCain: It’s ‘Immaterial’ Whether Al Qaeda Was In Iraq Before U.S. Invasion
In his major foreign policy address today, McCain promised to listen to the “wisdom and knowledge” of others when making foreign policy decisions. To underscore his point, he quoted the Declaration of Independence’s statement of “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Watch it:
Interestingly, it seems that, at least as far as McCain was concerned, this “respect” did not extend to overwhelming worldwide opinion in 2003, which was strongly against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (Nor does it apparently extend now to the opinions of McCain’s fellow Americans, a majority of whom oppose the Iraq war and believe it should never have been fought.)
During a press conference call today after the speech, McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann was asked about disconnect between the “respect to the opinions of mankind” and McCain’s heedless support for the invasion of Iraq. Scheunemann simply replied that McCain was “interested in looking forward, not backward.”
McCain expressed similar sentiment in the speech, in reference to the fact that Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before the U.S. invaded and occupied the country:
Whether they [Al Qaeda] were there [in Iraq] before is immaterial, al Qaeda is in Iraq now, as it is in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Somalia, and in Indonesia. If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq will survive, proclaim victory and continue to provoke sectarian tensions that, while they have been subdued by the success of the surge, still exist, as various factions of Sunni and Shi’a have yet to move beyond their ancient hatreds, and are ripe for provocation by al Qaeda. Civil war in Iraq could easily descend into genocide, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions. I believe a reckless and premature withdrawal would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values.
It’s understandable that this is a conversation that McCain does not want to have, but it is certainly not immaterial whether al Qaeda was in Iraq before the U.S. invaded. On the contrary, it is essential to understanding why the Iraq invasion was a bad foreign policy decision born of poor judgment and a lack of real knowledge and understanding of the region.
Almost all of the things that McCain predicts will result from a U.S. withdrawal have, in fact, occurred as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq: Al Qaeda survived in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and then entered Iraq to provoke sectarian tensions), and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in a civil war in which Iraq’s neighbors have come to the aid of their favored factions.
The reckless and ill-considered invasion of Iraq has turned out to be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values, and much of the next president’s term will be concerned with trying to clean up that mess. John McCain doesn’t really seem to grasp how that mess was made, or that the mess even exists.
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6 Responses to “McCain: It’s ‘Immaterial’ Whether Al Qaeda Was In Iraq Before U.S. Invasion”
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now, correct me if i’m wrong, but the sunnis in anbar were the ones we said were helping us root out al-qaeda there, right? and granted, they did it for money, but do you think, if al qaeda in iraq just materialized there to stir tension up for the purpose of making things difficult for *us*, maybe they’d leave if we did?
March 26th, 2008 at 5:32 pmLMAO WTF is this now ?
An American, whose public overwhelmingly supported the invasion, citing the failure of US politicians to ignore US public opinion in favour of world opinion in regard to foreign policy decisions.
What is this place, like a satire version of TP ?
March 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pmGreat material, you should do stand up.
Kilo, your comment literally makes no sense. An American is a single person. A single person does not have a “public”. As to Americans overwhelmingly supporting the invasion, I guess you missed all the war protests. There has been considerable opposition to this war from the start in this country. I can’t even parse your sentence about opinions so I’ll just leave it.
In McCain’s foreign policy speech he pledges that as President he will listen to world opinion. However, back in 2003 when we invaded Iraq he openly mocked our allies who were against the invasion. As is so often the case with McCain, the promises he makes in his speeches are never backed up by the reality of his actions.
I think it is important to cast our gaze back into the very recent past and evaluate the decisions that our prospective President’s made then. We have in our rear view mirror a great case study of their decision making powers. Were McCain’s predictions about Iraq accurate? If not, why should we think his actions as President will be any better?
March 26th, 2008 at 11:41 pmWhat was that ? You pretending what I said was completely beyond you I guess. Did you think it looked convincing ?
Whoa, whoa, whao. Who said anything about US public opinion about the invasion ?
Sure I used all those words in a single sentence, then followed it up with several more implying this is what I said. But it makes no sense that this is what I was actually talking about.
Were we discussing “considerable” minority opinion or overwhelming public opinion poll results supporting the war in the context of what presidents should be beholden to ?
If you disagree that the polls showed what they showed then make up a lie and claim it isn’t true. But this fake disagreement isn’t gonna cut it.
Of course you will. What other option do you have other than to agree with it.
Terrific. Now all you need to do is explain what a US president should do when US public opinion is contradicted by world public opinion.
Did I say that in french or do you think if you take some time you’ll be able to comprehend that sentence and answer it as though you’re not intellectually dishonest ?
March 27th, 2008 at 1:20 amMcCain misses the whole point of learning from history. Bin Laden learned that a large super power occupying an Arab country will incite armed opposition. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan proved this point. Bin Laden learned the value of defeating an enemy through asymmetrical warfare.
McCain has learned little.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:50 amI will define al Qaeda as Islamic terrorists loyal to bin Laden since they don’t exactly carry membership cards.
On that note, there were indeed members of the al Qaeda movement in Iraq long before invasion if you listen to what members of both al Qaeda and Saddam’s regime have said in testimony and recovered documents. What is disputed is to what extent they cooperated and how many al Qaeda members were there.
Saif al Adel has written on al Qaeda message boards that Zarqawi and what he described as other al Qaeda members went to Sunni areas of Iraq (notice not Kurdish) in 2002. TIME magazine has written about al Qaeda documents they recovered disussing the groups activity in Baghdad in 2002 and many al Qaeda detainees have discussed their prewar presence. Here is video of two.
Here
and Here
The new Pentagon report also has copies of internal Iraqi documents (volume 5, linked to at http://www.regimeofterror.com) that discuss the regime’s awareness of bin Laden’s men being in Iraq and here a former Iraqi police officer talked of the regime’s knowledge of al Qaeda’s prewar presence.
I have said this on this board repeatedly and will keep saying it. There is a solid case to be made against the invasion without this sort of overreach on the Saddam/terror thing. There is the immense cost and immense loss of life. Why overreach and wind up excusing the real problems Hussein was causing? Everything is not Bush’s fault and everything the administration said wasn’t a lie.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:15 pm