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I must admit that I was taken by surprise by this video when McCain says that it is not important when American soldiers would be able to leave Iraq’ having heard him before talking about a distant timetable but still a timetable.
Is Andrew Sullivan right in saying that this elections are basically about the empire question?
That’s the critical question in this campaign: do Americans want a neo-empire in the Middle East? Do they want US troops permanently stationed in Iraq with up to 60 permanent bases? That’s what the Bush administration wants to foist onto Iraq; and that’s what McCain believes in. The viral video now buzzing on the Internets is not a gaffe, it’s the truth. McCain would love to see US troops stationed peacefully in Iraq for the foreseeable future. To him it does not matter when they come home. What matters is that the casualty rate get low enough to persuade Americans they shouldn’t care about another expansion of American empire. In fact, the entire debate about bringing them home is puzzling and frustrating to McCain. After all, why should we bring them home when being there for ever is the point?
I haven’t thought of the war as being part of an empire concept but I start to see things a little different and can join Sullivan in saying
My longtime counter-point is that America just can’t be an empire in the old sense, because it simply isn’t in America’s DNA. And because the age of empire is over - and should be over.
Another perspective on the origins and motivation that stood behind the war I found at Radio left sending me to another discussion of the reasons for the war in Iraq. This is a more radical perspective but still it is relevant in the context of the current empire discussion.
Ihope we’ll return to more balanced ways of thinking and that the future administration would be more interested in the life quality of its citizens then to go out and play world sheriff.
