On the Contrary

According to the latest polls most Americans see John McCain as a better Commander-in-Chief than Barack Obama.  Oh really?  I wonder what it is we are looking for in a Commander-in-Chief?  Is it military experience?  Is it unfaltering and steadfast positions and looking and talking tough that got our present occupant of the White House in so much trouble.   John certainly has all that, but the only difference from President Moron is his military experience.  What is it about his military experience that would make him a good Commander-in-Chief.  Uh-oh, am I crossing a line asking about hero-John McCain’s experience?  Well too bad because it needs to be looked at in a harsh light.

Probably the critical skill of a Commander-in-Chief is the skill to decide when military force is effective and when it would not be.  That would be a skill that has eluded the present occupant of the White House and his Neocon buddies.  A Commander-in-Chief would never use his military resources frivolously and he would only asked the military to make that ultimate sacrifice if there really was no other way.  A Commander-in-Chief would understand that the military is not the ultimate tool, just one of many in his sling, and usually it is the threat of using it that is much more effective than actually using it.  It’s the threat that gets us to political bargaining which is the ultimate goal, not its use with all the unintended consequences.  Situations like Iraq and Iran are clouded with all sorts of complexities.  In Iraq we are learning that simply calling the bad guy al-Qaeda is missing the whole problem that revolves around Shiite and Sunni hatred and jealousy, and has nothing to do with our real battle with al-Waeda.  So ask your self why John McCain keeps confusing the players and talks as though al-Qaeda were the threat in Iraq?

The answer, I believe, revolves around some of what I was talking about yesterday.  That is George Lakoff’s theory that emotions are much more important that rationality when we examine “the facts”.  His whole view of the military and its effective use was framed around his experience in the Viet Nam war.  So let’s consider it.   John McCain was a Navy pilot.  As far as I know he never set foot in South Viet Nam.  He has no personal experience with the corruption of the South Vietnamese army or its puppet government that we set up.  He never saw the free fire zones or the resistance of the Viet Cong.  As far as I know he never really understood the nature of that civil war.  But he thinks we could have won it if our tactics were better.  You see it is all about better tactics.  It is not about the complex social fabric of the North and South Vietnamese.  It is not about the impossibility of intervening in a civil war.  It is simply a problem of management and fortitude.

John got shot down and his war experience is framed by his years as a POW.  He did not see or understand the political strife that went on in his own country; he just resented it because it complicated his life.   His whole emotional being is framed by the torture he withstood fighting to preserve his sanity while not allowing the enemy to use his words to say what so many others in his own country were freely saying, that this war was a mistake.  So John’s emotional being tells him that when you commit troops, it is to the end.  You stay the course.  His view of al-Qaeda as the source of the problem stems from his thinking that North Vietnam was the problem and all we needed to do was improve our tactics and we would have won and then his five years of imprisonment would have meant something.  He can’t see the complexity of the Viet Cong, corrupt and dysfunctional leadership in the south, and an eventual power play of South Vietnamese generals to see who would be king.  Of course winning would have to be defined in Viet Nam and it might have included wiping out the majority of the population.  It must really gall John today that us losing that war had no real impact on world events.  Viet Nam is becoming a very strong trading partner in the world and our friend.

No, John’s view of military force is so colored by his perception of how it was limited in Viet Nam and how he suffered because of it that he ignores the complexities.  Or as I like to say, the devil is in the details.  That’s why John thinks we can win in Iraq.  Once again, define winning.  If we are going to have an extended occupation of Iraq to keep the two real problems from going at one another, I am not sure that is winning.  Staying the course only makes sense if the end is worth it.  I would rather have a Commander-in-Chief who understood what our long term strategic goals were and could focus the military where they might be more effective.  John McCain has called this “cutting and running”.  I use that phrase because it is exactly what his whole emotional being tells him cutting our losses in Iraq and focusing on the real threat in Afghanistan would be.  He can’t see it as the most effective approach to our problem of al-Qaeda.  He thinks we cut and ran in Viet Nam and we all know he thinks we could have won it.  And after all winning is everything even if you lose everything along the way.  I’ll bet in poker he never folds.

There is one more thing that scares me about John McCain.  Remember his comments about Bomb Bomb Iran and his latest, send them cigarettes, we can kill them that way?  Many thought it was funny, but it shows a real lack of empathy for the people of Iran.  And that is who we have to win over.  He doesn’t see the complexity or the real war of the winning over their minds, only the more effective use of firepower, “Bomb, Bomb Iran”.  No I don’t think John McCain would make a better Commander-in Chief than Barack.  Barack still sees the world as it is.  John sees it through the hash coloring of the past and five years in a North Viet Nam prison.  And no he is not better for it.