Earlier this week [1], I mentioned that the conservative blog RedState is trying to pressure the traditional media to treat critiques of John McCain's embrace of a 100-year occupation of Iraq as lies and distortion.
Today, RedState [2] sent an email alert to readers [3] to further push the point ... making a, shall we say, novel argument (emphasis added):
Clearly McCain was talking about a peace time standing presence ... Someone should ask the Democrats if they think we're still at war with the confederacy, the Germans, and the Japanese given all the standing American armies in the South, Germany, and Japan.
As I said in my previous post [1], "Claiming a 100-year occupation in Iraq would be like Germany or Korea reveals an immense lack of foreign policy knowledge, judgment and vision. The situations and political dynamics have absolutely no similarity." (For more on that point, check out Agence France Presse [4], Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy [5], Talking Points Memo [6], Booman Tribune [7], The Newshoggers [8] and Juan Cole [9].)
But hey, at least Germany and Japan are like Iraq in that they are other countries.
I can't believe I am wasting 15 seconds of my life to type this, but having military bases in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina does not constitute a permanent occupation. Does RedState really believe that 140 years after the Civil War, American troops have a "peace time standing presence" in the American south?
Conservatives are still flogging the notion that they hold an innate superiority on national security and foreign policy.
The disaster of Iraq has already stripped the veneer off of that fallacy.
Trying to claim that having military bases in Iraq for 100 years -- when our own intelligence community [10] says "fear of Western domination" is what fuels the "jihadist movement" -- is just like having military bases in our own country, is probably not the best way to regain the public's trust on national security.
Hey Rick [11], help a brother out. What explains this conservative inanity?
A prominent conservative blog argues that keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years is just like having "standing American armies in the South."
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Links:
[1] http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/100-year-occupation-100-years-war
[2] http://redstate.com/
[3] http://stix1972.typepad.com/stix_blog/2008/04/petition-for-ge.html
[4] http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&click_id=2813&art_id=iol1068101125208U262&set_id=6
[5] http://www.realisticforeignpolicy.org/archives/2003/12/_the_difference.php
[6] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/159290.php
[7] http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/5/30/135344/367
[8] http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/05/iraq-occupationforever.html
[9] http://www.juancole.com/2003/11/historians-dispute-analogies-to.html
[10] http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_otherprod/Global_Terrorism_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf
[11] http://ourfuture.org/users/rick-perlstein