Back Towards The Locus

As the electoral advertising has ground away, both candidates have dispensed gaffes to a grateful press. Recently, however, John McCain has offered a bizarre defence of one of his own – as if, unsatisfied by displaying his ignorance, he feels the need to show off his dishonesty as well. In an interview with Kate Couric, the presidential hopeful gave this curious statement:

Kate Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

As has been noted, however, McCain was wrong. Robert MacFarland – the commander that the Republican candidate was attempting to cite – was noting the anbar awakenings over two months before the surge was decided upon. In September of 2006, he said that:

“With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda — actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.

This is a different phenomena that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the — well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other.”

Now that McCain’s mistake has been noticed, he is doing what politicians do best. He is on the obfuscate:

“First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and it’s made up of a number of components. And this counterinsurgency was initiated to some degree by Colonel McFarland in Anbar province relatively on his own. When I visited with him in December of 2006, he had already initiated that strategy in Ramadi by going in and clearing and holding in certain places. That is a counterinsurgency. And he told me at that time that he believed that that strategy, which is, quote, the surge, part of the surge, would be successful. So then, of course, it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to carry out this counterinsurgency.”

This defence contains many contradictions, and bumps up against others:

• McCain said that “the surge…began the Anbar awakening”, and then thanked General Patraeus, who didn’t take command of MNF-I until February 2007.
• McFarlane, who negotiated with sheiks, initially referenced the awakening as a ‘phenomena‘, not an element of a strategy (or of ‘the surge’).
• Announcing the ‘New Way Forward’ in January 2007, Bush declared “we need a new strategy“, not “we need to enhance an ongoing strategy (have you heard of it, by the way, it’s been going for some time)”.

One needn’t create a full rebuttal, however, as McCain has conveniently fisked himself. On his own website, a piece on Iraq proclaims that “at the end of 2006“, when Iraq was “deemed all but lost“, McCain “supported sending reinforcements to Iraq to implement a classic counterinsurgency strategy“.

This particular occurrence will, of course, have been forgotten as soon as I press ‘publish’, and in the run up to elections policies and platitudes can be tried, tested and dropped. It’s useful, nonetheless, to take note of rhetorical tactics, as – utilised to obscure inevitable inconsistencies – they will be more enduring than any stated aim.