Monday, April 28, 2008

all quotes are taken out of context

...that's why they're "quotes."

That being said, what exactly is "out of context" about the Crazy Train saying we should stay in Iraq for 100 years? He said exactly that-- twice!-- yet on multiple occasions I've heard people say I took his statement "out of context" because "he was talking about a South Korea-type occupation without the casualties we have now."

So McCain only wants to stay long enough to quell violence, so that we can then... stay?

Zachary Roth at the Columbia Journalism Review takes the absurdity even a step further, saying:
It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing.

Really? How? The fact is that, as long as our soldiers have been in Iraq, there have been terrorists, militias, and warlords killing them, and there's no indication whatsoever that they plan to stop anytime in the foreseeable future. How in this context, then, in the actual real world where real living soldiers live and die, is it possible to "keep troops there" without "continuing the war?"

For that matter, what happens if McCain presses on with the occupation and its attendant casualties for 4 years and the violence doesn't go down? 6? 7? What if the violence goes up? Would he leave?

How, then, is "John McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 years" not perfectly accurate?

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