Have to agree with Ed here on John McCain’s visit to Iraq today:
John McCain took some time off of the campaign trail and hit the ground in Iraq this morning.
He intends to meet with Iraqi leadership, who might get a glimpse of the McCain temper for their foot-dragging on reconciliation
Before now, McCain’s criticisms of the Iraqi leadership had been moderated by his status as just another American legislator, albeit one with more clout than some of the other drop-in visitors to the Green Zone. Now that McCain may be the best friend they have left in the upcoming presidential election, they may take his suggestions on speeding up reconciliation efforts closer to heart.
That temper may be become evident to the Iraqi PM especially when everyone knows that the security situation is much improved and they have a open road to accomplish some major reconciliations.
Ed believes this may force the MSM to pay attention to the reduction in violence but I doubt it. Unless it bleeds it doesn’t lead, hell, only Fox has up a blurb on the front page of their website, and when they are forced to print something about it they always want to add a caveat:
Attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 percent since last June, when extra troops were fully deployed. There has been a fall in violence since January but U.S. commanders in Iraq say this does not represent a trend.
Another anonymous source from al-Reuters? Or did they make these commanders up out of whole cloth? How in the world does the fact that we have kicked al-Qaeda’s ass from one end of the country to the other, having forced them to hide like cowards, NOT represent a trend?
See author page
Trips to Iraq
Senator McCain: EIGHT
Senator Obama: zero
Plans for Iraq:
Senator McCain: The Surge
Senator Obama: The Retreat
Hmmmmmm,
Think he and his entourage will take another walk in downtown, wearing a flack vest, with a brigade of troops around him and attack helicopters overhead and declare it to be “as safe as home” again?
[Think he and his entourage will take another walk in downtown, wearing a flack vest, with a brigade of troops around him and attack helicopters overhead and declare it to be “as safe as home” again?] Philadelphia Steve
Huh?
Re: “Huh?”
I guess you donot recal the stroll John McCain took in one of the neighborhoods of Baghdad about two years ago,wearing a flak vest. During that walk he spoke of how safe the streets had become and “they wer as safe as any street in America (or, as I recall, words to that effect).
When the cameas pulled back, you saw that, in addition to his flak vest, the town swauare was blocked off to all, a brigade of troops were around him and three attack helicopters were hovering over head.
It was one of the more blatant propoganda photo-ops that Senator mcCain did on behalf othe Bush Administration in the run up to the 2006 congressional elections in the US.
I saw pictures of his stroll in iraq this week and he still has the brigade of soldiers to demonstrate how “safe” it is. but I did not see any helicopters overhead. Perhaps they just learned to hover out of the camera angles.
re: “He intends to meet with Iraqi leadership, who might get a glimpse of the McCain temper for their foot-dragging on reconciliation”
Not a chance.
Senator McCain is pledged to the George w. Bush’s “third term in office”. If he is elected, the administratoin of “President McCain” will be indistinguishable from that of President Bush, both domestically and internationally, except that we will add a war in (three times larger) Iran to the one in Iraq.
We’ll hear a lot of stern words to the government of iraq, all spoken at press conferences in the United States. When the civil war heats up again, we will have something that will look like an escelaiton: However, since “Surge” has been used, we will hear another word. Perhaps “uptic for Victory”. After all, most of the Bush Administration’s efforts in Iraq have been Pr campaigns in the US, so I would expect no different from a President McCain.
And Conservatives will get to spend four more years of providing alibis and declaring “he’s no Conservative”, until 2012, when it will come time for them to fall in line and vote to re-elect McCain.
Just my prediction.