Sen. John McCain has been saddled with the term 'McCain Doctrine,' describing the troop surge idea. McCain had long argued that sending more troops to Iraq was a winner and many wondered if the Arizona Senator proposed it because he thought no one would take him up on it. Without the surge, McCain would've been able to claim he could've won the Iraq war, had anyone listened to him. Now, he's stuck with it.So John McCain has an interest in proving that the Iraq War is now going well. And he recently set out on a BS campaign to convince americans of that. Allow me to quote myself from a couple days ago:
John McCain's 'Straight Talk Express' took a little detour through right wing fantasyland recently. Speaking on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio show, McCain told the audience that the troop surge was working and said, "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today." He also told Wolf Blitzer Bagdhad was safe and Blitzer was repeating a 'three-month-old talking point' [i.e., that Baghdad is dangerous]. Then he told Wolf that Gen. Petraeus tools around in an unarmored humvee. That didn't go over so well, mostly because everyone and their brother knows it's a bunch of crap.
So McCain went out to prove that Baghdad's safe. He took a one hour stroll through the city's market with '100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead' and body armor -- just like your average iraqi who has 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead and body armor. He didn't say you didn't have to take reasonable precautions -- like 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead and body armor.
Here's a question. What does all this PR do to actually improve conditions in Iraq? Not one helluva lot. How does any of this help the troops? It doesn't.
In fact, it does the opposite. McCain required more than 100 personnel to go out and play protect-the-candidate, while he wandered around proving how safe Baghdad is if you're surrounded by armed soldiers and helicopters.
This photo-op tour didn't really accomplish much, mostly because it didn't fool anyone. NBC Iraq correspondent Tom Aspell told The Imus Show, "It looked as though the whole trip had been arranged by someone to get rid of the negative publicity about [McCain's] remarks in the States earlier in the week. It seemed as though he'd come to Baghdad, made a point of going to a market, staging this kind of visit to the market, and it just seemed to backfire." He told Imus that, with the kind of protection McCain had, 'even Paris Hilton could ride a bicycle in a bikini through Anbar province.'
In other words, the whole thing was a transparent joke...
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