I hadn’t really paid much attention to the "filibuster" going on last night, because I’ve been extremely busy (Mike called in sick today, so I’m doing all our production today again on top of my regular job, which doesn’t have anything to do with blogging, either), and because, well — they didn’t do it for me.
They did it as a show for all those really, really emotional people out there who want to see them trying really hard to magically make the Iraq war go away. They don’t intend to make the war go away, of course, because they don’t have the slightest idea how to do that, because it’s not possible to get a 60-vote majority together to do it (David Brooks, to whom I can’t link because he’s New York Times, so sorry, spelled out the senatorial math on that a few days ago), and, I suspect, because some of them are smart enough to realize it would be crazy to pull out, they’re just not about to say so out loud.
OK, I was really guessing on that last reason, so if it’s not true, sorry again.
Anyway, John McCain is a U.S. senator and doesn’t have the luxury of not paying attention to the histrionics. If I were in his position — forced to deal with such theater as though it were a real thing going on in the real world (like the war itself) — I’d probably say something like what he said on the Senate floor this morning:
Mr. President, we have nearly finished this little exhibition, which was staged, I assume, for the benefit of a briefly amused press corps and in deference to political activists opposed to the war who have come to expect from Congress such gestures, empty though they may be, as proof that the majority in the Senate has heard their demands for action to end the war in Iraq. The outcome of this debate, the vote we are about to take, has never been in doubt to a single member of this body. And to state the obvious, nothing we have done for the last twenty-four hours will have changed any facts on the ground in Iraq or made the outcome of the war any more or less important to the security of our country. The stakes in this war remain as high today as they were yesterday; the consequences of an American defeat are just as grave; the costs of success just as dear. No battle will have been won or lost, no enemy will have been captured or killed, no ground will have been taken or surrendered, no soldier will have survived or been wounded, died or come home because we spent an entire night delivering our poll-tested message points, spinning our soundbites, arguing with each other, and substituting our amateur theatrics for statesmanship. All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue. Tomorrow the press will move on to other things and we will be better rested. But nothing else will have changed.
In Iraq, American soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are still fighting bravely and tenaciously in battles that are as dangerous, difficult and consequential as the great battles of our armed forces’ storied past. Our enemies will still be intent on defeating us, and using our defeat to encourage their followers in the jihad they wage against us, a war which will become a greater threat to us should we quit the central battlefield in defeat. The Middle East will still be a tinderbox, which our defeat could ignite in a regional war that will imperil our vital interests at risk there and draw us into a longer and far more costly war. The prospect of genocide in Iraq, in which we will be morally complicit, is still as real a consequence of our withdrawal today as it was yesterday.
During our extended debate over the last few days, I have heard senators repeat certain arguments over and over again. My friends on the other side of this argument accuse those of us who oppose this amendment with advocating "staying the course," which is intended to suggest that we are intent on continuing the mistakes that have put the outcome of the war in doubt. Yet we all know that with the arrival of General Petraeus we have changed course. We are now fighting a counterinsurgency strategy, which some of us have argued we should have been following from the beginning, and which makes the most effective use of our strength and does not strengthen the tactics of our enemy. This new battle plan is succeeding where our previous tactics have failed, although the outcome remains far from certain. The tactics proposed in the amendment offered by my friends, Senators Levin and Reed a smaller force, confined to bases distant from the battlefield, from where they will launch occasional search and destroy missions and train the Iraqi military are precisely the tactics employed for most of this war and which have, by anyone’s account, failed miserably. Now, that, Mr. President, is staying the course, and it is a course that inevitably leads to our defeat and the catastrophic consequences for Iraq, the region and the security of the United States our defeat would entail.
Yes, we have heard quite a lot about the folly of "staying the course," though the real outcome should this amendment prevail and be signed into law, would be to deny our generals and the Americans they have the honor to command the ability to try, in this late hour, to address the calamity these tried and failed tactics produced, and salvage from the wreckage of our previous failures a measure of stability for Iraq and the Middle East, and a more secure future for the American people.
I have also listened to my colleagues on the other side repeatedly remind us that the American people have spoken in the last election. They have demanded we withdraw from Iraq, and it is our responsibility to do, as quickly as possible, what they have bid us to do. But is that our primary responsibility? Really, Mr. President, is that how we construe our role: to follow without question popular opinion even if we believe it to be in error, and likely to endanger the security of the country we have sworn to defend? Surely, we must be responsive to the people who have elected us to office, and who, if it is their wish, will remove us when they become unsatisfied with our failure to heed their demands. I understand that, of course. And I understand why so many Americans have become sick and tired of this war, given the many, many mistakes made by civilian and military leaders in its prosecution. I, too, have been made sick at heart by these mistakes and the terrible price we have paid for them. But I cannot react to these mistakes by embracing a course of action that I know will be an even greater mistake, a mistake of colossal historical proportions, which will — and I am as sure of this as I am of anything seriously endanger the people I represent and the country I have served all my adult life. I have many responsibilities to the people of Arizona, and to all Americans. I take them all seriously, Mr. President, or try to. But I have one responsibility that outweighs all the others and that is to do everything in my power, to use whatever meager talents I posses, and every resource God has granted me to protect the security of this great and good nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. And that I intend to do, Mr. President, even if I must stand athwart popular opinion. I will explain my reasons to the American people. I will attempt to convince as many of my countrymen as I can that we must show even greater patience, though our patience is nearly exhausted, and that as long as there is a prospect for not losing this war, then we must not choose to lose it. That is how I construe my responsibility to my constituency and my country. That is how I construed it yesterday. It is how I construe it today. And it is how I will construe it tomorrow. I do not know how I could choose any other course.
I cannot be certain that I possess the skills to be persuasive. I cannot be certain that even if I could convince Americans to give General Petraeus the time he needs to determine whether we can prevail, that we will prevail in Iraq. All I am certain of is that our defeat there would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us, and that I cannot be complicit in it, but must do whatever I can, whether I am effective or not, to help us try to avert it. That, Mr. President, is all I can possibly offer my country at this time. It is not much compared to the sacrifices made by Americans who have volunteered to shoulder a rifle and fight this war for us. I know that, and am humbled by it, as we all are. But though my duty is neither dangerous nor onerous, it compels me nonetheless to say to my colleagues and to all Americans who disagree with me: that as long as we have a chance to succeed we must try to succeed.
I am privileged, as we all are, to be subject to the judgment of the American people and history. But, my friends, they are not always the same judgment. The verdict of the people will arrive long before history’
s. I am unlikely to ever know how history has judged us in this hour. The public’s judgment of me I will know soon enough. I will accept it, as I must. But whether it is favorable or unforgiving, I will stand where I stand, and take comfort from my confidence that I took my responsibilities to my country seriously, and despite the mistakes I have made as a public servant and the flaws I have as an advocate, I tried as best I could to help the country we all love remain as safe as she could be in an hour of serious peril.
Related Posts
This is from Jay Carney of Time Magzine’s Swampland, talking about somebody else, but it fits just as well:
“Now, even if you believed from the beginning that invading Iraq and toppling Saddam was the right thing to do. And even if you’ve never wavered from those convictions. And even if you argued last winter that more troops were necessary and that “surging” was the right thing to do. And even if you insist that there have been some modest — very modest — signs of improvement in a few (not many!) areas of Iraq in the past few months, wouldn’t you be deluding yourself, and testing the gullibility of your readers (given the cumulative experience of the past four-plus years, and all the mistaken predictions you and others had made about how well things were going in Iraq), if you suddenly decided that these few modest signs of improvement somehow proved that a) “we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome”. . .”
I’m not sure why you think that fits this post. I would be uncomfortable saying, "we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome." It would seem premature and overconfident. It’s too soon to conclude that a course of action will be successful. I say that in keeping with the reason why I say it’s much too soon to say Iraq is a failure, and we should abandon it. This is, at it has been since the beginning a risky and highly complex national commitment that will, if it succeeds, take a long time to do so. Thanks to the setbacks of the Rumsfeld years, it’s probably going to take longer than it was going to take back when I wrote these thoughts in 2003.
Anyway, I agree with what Sen. McCain actually said in the speech, which is reproduced above (thereby making it unnecessary to explain it in terms of saying it is just like some other statement that it is NOT like). In case you don’t want to read through the whole thing again (I certainly hope you will do so once), here is what HE said:
If you want it encapsulated further, he said that while he is encouraged by the tactical successes he’s seen since the change in strategy, it’s too early to judge this new approach a strategic success.
Everything else he says is consistent with that.
While I find Senator McCain admirable, I disagree with his stand, not because winning the Iraq war militarily is not to be desired, but because we have squandered so much of our money and strength over the last few years, and made so many mistakes regarding that country, that at this point, I don’t think that we can win. Our military branches can’t meet their enlistment quotas, Al-Qaida is about as strong as it was before 9/11 and gaining strength. Do we want to squander still more people and money, or do we want to go after al-Qaida in its home territory?
Brad, you should carefully consider Karen’s point – “Al-Qaida is about as strong as it was before 9/11 and gaining strength.” Nobody seems to dispute that. So what exacly have we accomplished in Iraq?