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McCain at VMI
By John
Wish I could have been at the old alma mater today....
First thought, he delivered the address from Jackson Memorial Hall. Taking into consideration size and capacity (older facility, smaller seating capacity), it sounds like demographic breakdown of the audience was simple enough: corps, a few select faculty, press.
No faculty behind the Senator on the stage, sans General Peay.
Perhaps the Institute's PR wonks had last May's commencement speech in mind, where the cameras couldn't avoid panning over a bunch of pissed off looking English professors seated behind the keynote speaker, Secretary Rumsfeld.
Cadet vets of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars in the front row. Good. I picked out three that were my "Brother Rats," meaning they matriculated in the fall of 1999. Gives you an idea of how long they put off their educations so that they could prosecute this war. One of them, my "Rat Roommate" Patrick -who rendered me my first salute at my commissioning- served on a Marine FAST team, protected our embassy in Liberia, and finished out his service with a tour in Iraq. Was proud to see those guys front and center, where they belonged.
The speech. God, we needed this didn't we? No fluff, no BS. No long historial diatribes (many a VMI keynote speaker has been seduced by that quick and easy path). Just "America: We.Are.At.War. Congress, start acting like it."
I gathered three central themes:
1) The future of our national security rests on success (or failure) in Iraq:
Democrats argue we should redirect American resources to the ‘real’ war on terror, of which Iraq is just a sideshow. But whether or not al Qaeda terrorists were a present danger in Iraq before the war, there is no disputing they are there now, and their leaders recognize Iraq as the main battleground in the war on terror. Today, al Qaeda terrorists are the ones preparing the car bombs, firing the Katyusha rockets, planting the IEDs. They maneuver in the midst of Iraq’s sectarian conflict, sparking and fueling the horrendous violence, destroying efforts at political reconciliation, killing innocents on both sides in the hope of creating a conflagration that will cause Americans to lose heart and leave, so they can return to their primary mission — planning and executing attacks on the United States, and destabilizing America’s allies.
2) We have a moral obligation and responsibility to stand by the Iraqi people:
To enumerate the strategic interests at stake in Iraq does not address our moral obligation to a people we liberated from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. I suspect many in this audience, and most members of Congress, look back at America’s failure to act to prevent genocide in Rwanda with shame. I know I do. And yet I fear the potential for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Iraq is even worse. The sectarian violence, the social divisions, the armaments, the weakened security apparatus of the state — all the ingredients are there. Unless we fight to prevent it, our withdrawal will be coupled with a genocide in which we are complicit.....
In Washington, where political calculation seems to trump all other considerations, Democrats in Congress and their leading candidates for President, heedless of the terrible consequences of our failure, unanimously confirmed our new commander, and then insisted he be prevented from taking the action he believes necessary to safeguard our country’s interests. In Iraq, hope is a fragile thing, but all the more admirable for the courage and sacrifice necessary to nurture it. In Washington, cynicism appears to be the quality most prized by those who accept defeat but not the responsibility for its consequences.
3) The road to mid-east stability travels through Baghdad:
A power vacuum in Iraq would invite further interference from Iran at a time when Tehran already feels emboldened enough to develop nuclear weapons, threaten Israel and America, and kidnap British sailors. If the government collapses in Iraq, which it surely will if we leave prematurely, Iraq’s neighbors, from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt, will feel pressure to intervene on the side of their favored factions. This uncertain swirl of events could cause the region to explode and foreclose the opportunity for millions of Muslims and their children to achieve freedom. We could face a terrible choice: watch the region burn, the price of oil escalate dramatically and our economy decline, watch the terrorists establish new base camps or send American troops back to Iraq, with the odds against our success much worse than they are today.
Mary Katharine Ham participated in a post-speech blogger conference call (smart move, Team McCain), linked here. She seemed a bit more interested in McCain's proposed blogger outreach program than the actual speech, but did note --correctly, methinks- that such outreach: "could be hugely beneficial to the war effort, so bravo[sic] to John for saying he'd tackle it."
Hello? What have milbloggers been saying for years? Message, message, message. It's more valuable than armor or bullets. At least in this fight it is. And for some reason, elected officials gave up on the "Why We Fight" meme after 2003. Why? Leadership, like the WSJ said, can mean swimming upstream against the current of public opinion. But sheesh, it doesn't mean public opinion can be ignored.
90% political, 10% military. That's the type of war we're fighting. I'll take a string of speeches like these over a few extra battalions any day of the week.
You want to talk leadership?
I've held this position for four years. I cannot let anything to do with my political career affect my judgment on Iraq."....."I don't know and I don't care what effect it will have on my political aspirations."That's leadership. And that's what I'm looking for in a President.
Photos Courtesy of the Virginia Military Institute
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Oh, most of the faculty who would not want to sit with McCain do not have the "stones" to be in the same room with him.
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There are so few grown ups in the boomer generation serving in Congress. It's a sad situation.....
Ben Bauman 79
Muscat, Oman