\jeff{krimmel}

Messing Up the Facts in Iraq

Following the lead in a post at Talking Points Memo, I’ll reproduce an excerpt from The Trail, a blog at the Washington Post website:

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

This gaffe may very well be innocent. But it’s an example of one of the things that infuriates me to no end about the situation in Iraq. The people who are making decisions about how many Americans die over there, and how much money American taxpayers spend, have very little understanding of some of the most basic facts. Everything is politics to these people, including John McCain. Everything is about how we can scare the American public into supporting our continued presence in a quagmire that is sucking lives and money with no end in sight. No need to spend the time learning what is actually happening on the ground in Iraq. As long as our men and women are stationed over there, and our politicians can continue to make “surprise” visits, everything will be okay.

It’s a big deal to throw around the term “Al Qaeda” willy nilly like John McCain does. It’s not just careless. It shows a lack of qualification for the job at hand. It’s not just an issue of vocabulary. There are some extremely important subtleties that are in flux on a day-to-day basis in Iraq. The country is teetering on a balance between order and chaos. And if our elected officials can’t take the time to learn who the main actors are, and from which geographical regions they are coming and to which they are going, how can we ever expect our presence there to lead to any form of “success”, however that term may be defined?