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05/25/2006
McCain and Iraq
Senator John McCain has been giving a series of commencement
speeches, including at Liberty University which I excerpt below.
His overriding theme concerns the war in Iraq and why he
continues to support it.
McCain, though, has been fiercely criticized for this stance.
Writing in the Washington Post, commentator Richard Cohen
had the following:
“McCain’s virtue is his virtue – those aspects of his character
that mirror his physical courage. He has been the politician who
would not play politics, the presidential candidate who would
sweep out the White House, put K Street in its place, rein in
Congress and, always, talk plainly and candidly to the American
people. In short, he was the man who could restore faith in
government.
“But he cannot do that if, at the same time, he defends a war
fought for nonexistent reasons, preceded by fibs, lies and
exaggerations, draining America of blood and treasure and
leaving us worse off now than before those bombs were dropped
where – as it symbolically turned out – Saddam Hussein was not.
Times have changed. The Straight Talk Express is in a ditch.”
Agree or disagree, here is the key excerpt from McCain’s basic
stump speech these days.
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John McCain Liberty University May 13, 2006
We have our disagreements, we Americans. We contend
regularly and enthusiastically over many questions: over the size
and purposes of our government; over the social responsibilities
we accept in accord with the dictates of our conscience and our
faithfulness to the God we pray to; over our role in the world and
how to defend our security interests and values in places where
they are threatened. These are important questions; worth
arguing about. We should contend over them with one another.
It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of
crisis, especially in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for
the things we believe in. It is not just our right, but our civic and
moral obligation.
Our country doesn’t depend on the heroism of every citizen. But
all of us should be worthy of the sacrifices made on our behalf.
We have to love our freedom, not just for the private
opportunities it provides, but for the goodness it makes possible.
We have to love it as much, even if not as heroically, as the
brave Americans who defend us at the risk and often the cost of
their lives. We must love it enough to argue about it, and to
serve it, in whatever way our abilities permit and our conscience
requires, whether it calls us to arms or to altruism or to politics.
I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq. Many Americans
did not. My patriotism and my conscience required me to
support it and to engage in the debate over whether and how to
fight it. I stand that ground not to chase vainglorious dreams of
empire; not for a noxious sense of racial superiority over a
subject people; not for cheap oil; - we could have purchased oil
from the former dictator at a price far less expensive than the
blood and treasure we’ve paid to secure those resources for the
people of that nation; not for the allure of chauvinism, to wreak
destruction in the world in order to feel superior to it; not for a
foolishly romantic conception of war. I stand that ground
because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country’s
interests and values required it.
War is an awful business. The lives of the nation’s finest patriots
are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer. Commerce is disrupted,
economies damaged. Strategic interests shielded by years of
statecraft are endangered as the demands of war and diplomacy
conflict. Whether the cause was necessary or not, whether it was
just or not, we should all shed a tear for all that is lost when war
claims its wages from us. However just or false the cause,
however proud and noble the service, it is loss – the loss of
friends, the loss of innocent life, the loss of innocence – that the
veteran feels most keenly forever more. Only a fool or a fraud
sentimentalizes war.
Americans should argue about this war. It has cost the lives of
nearly 2500 of the best of us. It has taken innocent life. It has
imposed an enormous financial burden on our economy. At a
minimum, it has complicated our ability to respond to other
looming threats. Should we lose this war, our defeat will further
destabilize an already volatile and dangerous region,
strengthening the threat of terrorism, and unleash furies that will
assail us for a very long time. I believe the benefits of success
will justify the costs and risks we have incurred. But if an
American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state
their opposition, and argue for another course. It is your right
and your obligation. I respect you for it. I would not respect you
if you chose to ignore such an important responsibility. But I ask
that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to meet my
responsibilities, to follow my conscience, to do my duty as best
as I can, as God has given me light to see that duty.
Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we
deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right
or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity
merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for
all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion
to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in – that
freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with
the laws of nature and nature’s Creator.
We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We need
only to look to the enemy who now confronts us, and the
benighted ideals to which Islamic extremists pledge allegiance –
their disdain for the rights of Man, their contempt for innocent
human life – to appreciate how much unites us.
Take, for example, the awful human catastrophe under way in
the Darfur region of the Sudan. If the United States and the West
can be criticized for our role in this catastrophe it is because we
have waited too long to intervene to protect the multitudes who
are suffering, dying because of it.
Twelve years ago, we turned a blind eye to another genocide, in
Rwanda. And when that reign of terror finally, mercifully
exhausted itself, with over 800,000 Rwandans slaughtered,
Americans, our government, and decent people everywhere in
the world were shocked and ashamed of our silence and inaction,
for ignoring our values, and the demands of our conscience. In
shame and renewed allegiance to our ideals, we swore, not for
the first time, “never again.” But never lasted only until the
tragedy of Darfur.
Now, belatedly, we have recovered our moral sense of duty, and
are prepared, I hope, to put an end to this genocide. Osama bin
Laden and his followers, ready, as always, to sacrifice anything
and anyone to their hatred of the West and our ideals, have called
on Muslims to rise up against any Westerner who dares intervene
to stop the genocide, even though Muslims, hundreds of
thousands of Muslims, are its victims. Now that, my friends, is a
difference, a cause, worth taking up arms against.
It is not a clash of civilizations. I believe, as I hope all
Americans would believe, that no matter where people live, no
matter their history or religious beliefs or the size of their GDP,
all people share the desire to be free; to make by their own
choices and industry better lives for themselves and their
children. Human rights exist above the state and beyond history
– they are God-given. They cannot be rescinded by one
government any more than they can be granted by another. They
inhabit the human heart, and from there, though they may be
abridged, they can never be wrenched.
This is a clash of ideals, a profound and terrible clash of ideals.
It is a fight between right and wrong. Relativism has not place in
this confrontation. We’re not defending an idea that every
human being should eat corn flakes, play baseball or watch
MTV. We’re not insisting that all societies be governed by a
bicameral legislature and a term-limited chief executive. We are
insisting that all people have a right to be free, and that right is
not subject to the whims and interests and authority of another
person, government or culture. Relativism, in this context, is
most certainly not a sign of our humility or ecumenism; it is a
mask for arrogance and selfishness. It is, and I mean this
sincerely and with all humility, not worthy of us. We are a better
people than that.
We are not a perfect nation. Our history has had its moments of
shame and profound regret. But what we have achieved in our
brief history is irrefutable proof that a nation conceived in liberty
will prove stronger, more decent and more enduring than any
nation ordered to exalt the few at the expense of the many or
made from a common race or culture or to preserve traditions
that we have no greater attribute than longevity.
As blessed as we are, no nation complacent in its greatness can
long sustain it. We, too, must prove, as those who came before
us proved, that a people free to act in their own interests, will
perceive those interests in an enlightened way, will live as one
nation, in a kinship of ideals, and make of our power and wealth
a civilization for the ages, a civilization in which all people share
in the promise and responsibilities of freedom.
Should we claim our rights and leave to others the duty to the
ideals that protect them, whatever we gain for ourselves will be
of little lasting value. It will build no monuments to virtue, claim
no honored place in the memory of posterity, offer no worthy
summons to the world. Success, wealth and celebrity gained and
kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes us
comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear,
purchases a fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect
that, in the end, matters most. But sacrifice for a cause greater
than yourself, and you invest your life with the eminence of that
cause, your self-respect assured.
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Hott Spotts returns June 8.
Brian Trumbore
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