By Michael S. Rozeff.
John McCain (R-AZ) is still a senator and still ready, on principle, to commit U.S. forces and American wealth to any conflict. In this case, it’s in Syria. McCain’s reason is not national security. It’s to help victims and thwart genocide. He made this crystal clear in his remarks of March 19, 2003 on the eve of the U.S. attack on Iraq:
“The United States of America has involved itself in the effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, and now freedom for the Iraqi people, with the same principles that motivated the United States of America in most of the conflicts we have been involved in, most recently Kosovo and Bosnia, and in which, in both of those cases, the United States national security was not at risk, but what was at risk was our advocacy and willingness to serve and sacrifice on behalf of people who are the victims of oppression and genocide.”
The U.S. should not work on the “principles” that McCain advocates. It should not introduce its own force into civil conflicts throughout the world. This has numerous bad effects. It directly heightens the violence of the resistance forces in the affected country. It induces the elite that runs that country into ratcheting up its own violence in order to repress the rebellion and maintain its own control. It immediately makes the U.S. into a political player in the politics of this foreign land. This has its own set of negatives that include upsetting the neighboring states in the region, creating long-lasting enmities, risking failure, causing more civilian deaths, tying down U.S. resources for extended periods of time, loss of flexibility, delaying the reconciliation of the domestic parties or the resolution of their differences, and possibly choosing the wrong side so that the new outcomes are worse than the old.
John McCain doesn’t admit that the McCain policy in Iraq was a disaster for the Iraqi people. He does not mention the 105,000 to 115,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. He does not reveal that the U.S. supported the Kosovo Liberation Army against the Serbian rule and that this led into the violent Serbian repression, so that the U.S. by injecting itself into a civil war exacerbated it and encouraged ethnic cleansing. McCain doesn’t see all the things that went wrong in Afghanistan. He doesn’t see all the things that can and do go wrong. His “principles” are not a sufficient basis for his policy of intervention.
McCain’s assessment of war in Iraq recognized that American lives would be lost. He didn’t acknowledge how many American lives would not be lost but ruined or badly diminished. He completely failed to recognize the loss of Iraqi lives that was about to occur:
“The mission our military is about to embark on is fraught with danger, and it means the loss of brave young American lives. But I also believe it offers the opportunity for a new day for the Iraqi people.”
Arming and aiding any group in Syria that is rebelling against the existing government is likely to heighten the violence and heighten the government’s use of force to maintain its power. McCain’s suggestion will probably make things worse and lead to more death and destruction.
Constitution lovers will wonder where in the U.S. constitution there is a mandate for the U.S. to choose a side in every civil conflict of every state in the world because people are being killed. There isn’t any. No such mandate exists. The U.S. was not created for that purpose....
Continued at:
http://www.infowars.com/against-mccains-interventionist-policy/
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