More straight talk from John McCain. The Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate says that he would like to keep American troops in Iraq for the next 100 years:
One hundred years? I must have missed the debate in Congress over whether we should occupy Iraq for the next one hundred years. Don't the American people have a say in this Senator McCain? Don't you think you should ask our opinion before you condemn our troops to be picked off by one by one like this?
Contrast that with Barack Obama's vision for our future involvement in Iraq:
Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
John McCain claims that he wants to steal some of Barack Obama's thunder by positioning himself as the "agent of change". The "change" he is talking about in Iraq is his support for increasing the number of US troops there:
And one of the key points he will spotlight to make his case will be his longstanding support for the increaseof the U.S. military involvement in Iraq -- a position that only a few months ago was seen as evidence that time had passed McCain by.
Yes, I'm sure that's exactly the kind of change the American people are looking for Senator McCain. I encourage you to run with that stance as hard as you can.
Assuming these two become the nominees of their respective parties, the choice in the 2008 election will be clear and straightforward: Should American troops stay in Iraq for 1 or 100 more years? I dearly wish that the entire election could be decided by this single choice for the American people to make.
