McCain: I detest war

A big speech from the Republican nominee on foreign policy last night.  It had a number of big themes:

1. He will be running a different kind of foreign policy to George W Bush in some key areas. He highlighted 100% opposition to inhumane treatment of detainees,  closure of Guantanamo and support for action against climate change including "a successor to the Kyoto Treaty [and] a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner".
2. More emphasis on working with democracies.  He wants Russia excluded from the 'G8' and Brazil and India brought inside it.  He reannounced his idea of a League of Democracies to rival the UN.
3. Horrendous violence would follow premature exit from Iraq.  After highlighting the gains made since the start of the surge he warned of the consequences of speedy withdrawal: "We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq.  It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal."
4. War is detestable.  The Vietnam war veteran began his speech with a very personal section about the horror of war:

"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.  My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed.  I rarely saw him again for four years.  My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day.  In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well.  I detest war.  It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description.  When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue.  The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war.  Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly.  Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war.  However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us."

McCain also showed that he understood that anti-Americanism won't be tackled by retreat.  These two key sentences summarise his approach: "Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world.  How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?" 

Another person who understands that anti-Americanism won't be tackled by surrendering to the fashions of world opinion is former Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson.  He wrote this in one of his recent columns for the Washington Post:

"Few American presidents have been more reviled in Europe than Ronald Reagan, who responded to the Soviet deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles by deploying Pershing II nuclear missiles. In West Germany, millions of people marched in protest. American soldiers were surrounded by hostile demonstrators shouting, "We don't want you in our country." But Reagan's unpopular "cowboy" determination helped end the Cold War and lift the nuclear threat from Europe.  And we have seen a good example in our time. The January 2007 decision to surge American troops in Iraq was clearly at odds with world opinion. But retreating from Iraq in failure would have earned global contempt for American weakness instead of global popularity. And the turnaround in Iraq has restored at least some of our standing and leverage in the Middle East.  The real lesson in the years since Sept. 11 is different from what the Democratic candidates imagine: It is easy to be loved when you are a victim. It is harder to be popular when you act decisively to protect yourself and others."

Full speech here.  Watch highlights on PlayPolitical.

Comments

[Doug]

The problem with this speech is that it was lifted from a speech he gave in 2001. He talks as if nothing has changed in the last 7 years. He really isn't prepared to answer any modern realities and is preparing for Bush's third term. McCain even said he agrees with Osama bin Laden! Which military genius believes the propaganda of the enemy and does what they want?

And point 1 is in direct contradiction to his vote a couple of months ago FOR the use of torture. He threw overboard a highly principled, laudable and I thought deeply personal stance on torture for his parties nomination and Bush's establishment support.

Iraq is already a great stain on the US and Britain.

It's interesting that Mike Gerson in a video conversation with Finkelstein had some very complimentary words for Obama and gave good run down of McCain's weaknesses. Gerson's comments about Germany are moronic and have nothing to do with Reagan. Post-war Germany would have reacted that way to any American President of any party. It's simply the way German society stratified during their restoration and the reality of the pacifist German constitution.

[rightsideforum]

His policy proposals seem very bold to me - but it would be an enormous mistake on his part to try and play the 'Not with Bush' card.

If Americans really want a change in foreign policy direction, they'll vote Democrat and go the whole distance.

Basically speaking, when it comes to the case for war and how to deal with middle eastern matters - he's just as hawkish, if not more hawkish than the current President.

Obama and Hillary have both scored so many own goals on foreign policy matters that should all but hand the election to McCain. He will look a weak campaigner against Obama (or pretty much anybody else for that matter), so he'll need to really push these fantastic policy ideas, such as the 'league of democracies' if he is to appeal to the electorate.

I'll be extremely dissapointed if after winning the election, he fails to deliver on any of it.

That's my main problem with Bush, in that as much as I respect and admire him, he has virtually wasted his second term and a hold on both houses for a time. He could have been far more bold - and instead, he tried too hard to placate the minority, i.e. on immigration and social security, instead of working with what he had. Perhaps that is a sign of his more moderate credentials, something McCain shares - but he would do well to remember which party he is standing for.

[Tony Makara]

It would be a mistake to exclude Russia from the G8. The west must do everything it can to ensure that Russia is not drawn or pushed into closer relations with China. Already there have been Sino/Russian joint military manoeuvres and more areas of mutual co-operation are planned. Mr McCain should look at the recent interview given by Dmitry Medvedev given to the financial times. Mr Medvedev is clearly a man who is open to western ideals and it would be utter folly to ostracize Russia and drive her into ever closer co-operation with China. A Sino/Russian axis would be a dangerous prospect for the west, particularly given both are emerging economic giants and will look to strengthen their geopolitical position.

[Doug]

As I mentioned before McCain re-used some of his old stuff from 2001 but it turns out that he actually plagiarised that 2001 speech from a 1996 speech by ret. Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer. The section 4 part described above is another man's personal description of the realities of war. The Democrats can't make anything of this because of the Obama & Clinton plagiarism spats. But to me this again calls into question the core of his character. McCain didn't borrow a nifty rhetorical device to make a policy point. He used another man's words to describe something that should be personal and sacred to McCain - his experience of war. Why on Earth is he doing this? If he's going to be frank with the people he has to put his own words to his feelings about war (with or without help from a speech writer). His war record is unique for a major politician and people want to hear how his personal experiences moulded the man and how that relates to today's challenges.

[mamapajamas]

The American electorate will NOT submit to a "league of democracies" that will sublimate our national soveriegnty to Europe.

We may actually elect McCain because he is the only choice we have, but this grand scheme will probably NOT go through.

We're already on the edge of kicking the UN out of New York. If he thinks we'll tolerate starting yet another alphabet soup agency to rule over us, he's got another think coming. Our ancestors left Europe on purpose.

Happily, the US President does not have the kind of power necessary to do this by himself.