Thread: John McCain: Early US pull-out from Iraq will cause 'genocid

John McCain: Early US pull-out from Iraq will cause 'genocide'

By Alex Spillius on board the Straight Talk Express in New Hampshire
Last Updated: 1:07am GMT 14/03/2008

On the eve of his first overseas visit since becoming the Republican nominee, John McCain has warned that an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would lead to "chaos and genocide across the region".

McCain fears the consequences of troop withdrawal from Basra

While adopting a more conciliatory tone to US allies than George W Bush, the man he hopes to succeed in the White House, the Arizona senator will take his uncompromising message on the war to London, Paris and the Middle East next week.

In a free-ranging interview on board his newly refurbished bus The Straight Talk Express in New Hampshire, Mr McCain said he would ask Britain and other allies for patience on Iraq.

"My aspiration is that if we show success in Iraq that our European allies will come in and help out in the myriad of ways necessary to rebuild that tragic, war torn country," he said, making it clear that he was determined to keep US troops in Iraq.

"One of the debates of this election will be if the American people want a candidate who wants to get out [of Iraq] as quickly as possible.

"If we do that then al-Qa'eda wins, we have chaos and genocide throughout the region and they will follow us home. That's been my position - forever," said Mr McCain, who will battle either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for the Democrats in November's presidential election.

Despite the political risk of placing support for an unpopular war at the core of his campaign, the senator and Vietnam War veteran will not be diverted from his course or his support for a continued heavy troop presence.

Unlike the years of frustrating we are succeeding and as the American people feel we are succeeding they will tolerate this conflict.

"I understand am public opinion, but I will stay with this strategy because I would much rather lose a campaign than a war. And I believe we would lose the war if we withdrew," he said.

A Pew Research Centre poll yesterday provided encouragement for the senator, finding that 53 percent of Americans now believe "the US will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals", up from 42 per cent six months ago. The senator was visiting snow-covered New Hampshire to say thanks for the January 8 primary victory that set him on the path to the nomination, and to kick off his bid proper for the White House.

At a town event in Exeter he said his priority as president would be the defence of the nation. His overseas visit, though taken under the auspices of the Senate armed services committee, will boost his commander-in-chief credentials while the Democrats continue their drawn-out battle for the party's nomination.

He will go to Jordan, Israel and Paris, where he will see Washington's new favourite foreign leader Nicolas Sarkozy.

It is likely to include a stop in Iraq, which he has visited half a dozen times since the 2003 invasion. "These trips focus your mind," he said, adding: "But obviously we want to look at how we are doing, what the leaders are doing and talk to the troops. There is nothing like being on the ground. I wish more members of Congress would do it."

For all his campaign trail rhetoric about "chasing Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell", he confessed that an earlier visit Pakistan's tribal areas brought home the challenges of tracking the al-Qa'eda leader.

"I went to Waziristan once and it gave me a much better understanding of how difficult it is to get Osama bin Laden. When you see the terrain and the people that have controlled it for 1,000, 2,000 years…I really learn from these trips."

His overseas hosts are likely to receive McCain statesman rather than McCain the stump-speech maker.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, is likely to receive thanks for continued British support in Afghanistan, mixed with some fears that the withdrawal of UK troops from combat in southern Iraq is endangering security, allowing armed factions to stake out territory.

"With all due respect I remain concerned about the situation in Basra. There are different factions that have taken over certain areas in Basra city and province. Everybody knows that, it's not a secret, and General Petraeus is concerned too," he said of the US commander in Iraq.

"I respect the decision the British government made and the British people made and I am grateful for the things they have done. I look forward to working together in other areas, particularly Afghanistan," he added.

The Prime Minister can expect a friendlier encounter than his meeting with Mr Bush in the summer, when the imminent British pull-back to Basra airport had prompted a chill in the Special Relationship.

Mr McCain will also visit Tory leader David Cameron, a big admirer. Despite his abiding commitment to the war, either Mr Cameron or Mr Brown would find a McCain administration more pro-European and more nuanced than George W Bush's on Iraq and the war on terror.

President McCain would also close the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay and bring the US into line with European thinking and action on climate change, which he firmly believes in.

The 71-year-old former naval pilot, who was tortured during the five years he was held as a PoW by the North Vietnamese, is a staunch opponent of torture and would not tolerate the practice of "water-boarding" detainees - which creates the feeling of drowning - that has been countenanced by Mr Bush.

"We would never torture another person and we would comply with the Geneva Conventions," he said, displaying the plain-speaking that endears him to voters of many descriptions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ain113.xml

Comments
I think that if US troops pull out too quickly it will probably precipitate a full scale civil war between Shiite and Sunni for control of the government and of the oil reserves. Iran will back the Shiite militias, and Sunni governments in the region will back the Sunni militias. This was what was basically going on, after all, before the US troop surge.
Posted by Gerold Reimondo - Jandrok on March 14, 2008 5:00 PM
Report this comment

It is clear that the whole Middle East is riddled with ethnic tensions, religious divisiveness, and generally impossible political and territorial rivalries. Anyone who thinks that these issues can be resolved by the application of external force (such as occupation by yet other political, ethnic, or religious forces) needs to take a dose of reality.
Posted by Peter Smith Florida on March 14, 2008 4:51 PM
Report this comment

NO, this is just an excuse to keep their armed forces in Iraq.
It was mentioned on BBC radio this morning by an American in Iraqi, "we must stay there to win the war, if not, America will look lose their Superpower image throughout the world".
Little does he know, they are the big losers already.
Posted by ray smith on March 14, 2008 4:41 PM
Report this comment

I am an American, and agree with Senator McCain. However foolish the decision to go into Iraq, based as it was on faulty and outright false information, we have no right to leave until we have fixed the damage we did. As then Secretary of State Colin Powell said when we announced we were invading, "You break it, you own it." :/

If it weren't for the ethical issues, however, I would prefer that we left. This is going to be a long, and hugely expensive, process -- in money, in time and in lives. At least Senator McCain seems aware of this, and recognizes that attempting to do the job on the cheap is just going to prolong matters and cost more in the long run.

Iraq has been an expensive lesson.

Posted by Catherine Jefferson on March 14, 2008 4:26 PM
Report this comment

McCain is our only hope. If Clinton or Obama become President it will be a return to the Carter years. Too liberal, too weak and unwilling to stand up to emerging threats from not only Bin Laden and his bunch of thugs but also an ever growing threat from China and resurgent Russia. Everything stems from National Defence. Not willing to fight for a just cause then we might as well hand over our democracy to the forces of evil.
Posted by Nick Sargent on March 14, 2008 3:23 PM
Report this comment

There has already been a genocide, according to a
recent poll (ignored by most of the media) over 1
million have died.

link
048857920080130?
feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=22&sp
=true

Posted by andy on March 14, 2008 3:20 PM
Report this comment


It was inevitable that there would be genocide in Iraq when the iron grip of Hussein slackened, just as genocide occurred in Yugoslavia when Marshal Tito died. Of course, the resultant chaos would have then spread throughout the Middle East and beyond.

That's what happens when you get mish-mashes of states slung together from bits of other states due to ill-advised post-war treaties.

It is just possible that the preemptive action of the West might prevent meltdown, given enough time.

But it *will* need more time, and even then it is something of a gamble.
Posted by David Walker on March 14, 2008 3:00 PM
Report this comment

Nobody can define "success" or "victory" in this mess. The US should pull out and leave the locals to figure it out. What's going on there is already chaos and genocide.
Posted by Frank Damp on March 14, 2008 2:29 PM
Report this comment

Yes, I agree. However, I don't care.
We are going to have to leave sooner or later, that is, before or after it bankrupts the U.S. The killing will then begin.
Posted by David Michael on March 14, 2008 1:29 PM
Report this comment

Genocide of whom? Another example of someone making extravagant claims but failing to back them up properly. This is all we have ever seen on Iraq since 2001.
Posted by mike on March 14, 2008 11:49 AM
Report this comment

Invading Iraq was a mistake but pulling out now would be an even bigger mistake, the country would be it total anarchy and people starving to death untill Bin Laden and his merry men move in take over.
Posted by Jim on March 14, 2008 5:56 AM
Report this comment

I agree with Senator McCain!
A CANADIAN
Posted by gestaples on March 14, 2008 2:39 AM
Report this comment

I agree. I opposed the war but we can't just cut and run. Not only would it lead to genocide and possibly to another Islamic state but more seriously ,signals that America, and her allies, can be beaten.
Posted by C Rance on March 14, 2008 1:24 AM
Report this comment

I agree
Posted by Greta Baker on March 14, 2008 12:57 AM
Report this comment

Lets get some facts straight here.

It's costing the USA $1 trillion USD PER ANNUM to maintain its prescence in Iraq and Afghanistan

America doesn't have $1 trillion per annum to spend ANYWHRE, let alone on foreign wars.

The American people are waking up to the disastrous economic and foreign policy decisions made under the Bush administration. The honey pot is empty. There is no money to pay for America's insane foreign policy. Neither is there any money to pay for the social programmes being promised by both the democrat and Republican presidential candidates.

There is only one 'get out of jail' card for the US government. They have to pay for their grandiose schemes by printing the money out of thin air and tomorrow's generation will pay for the debt in higher taxation and devaluation of the dollar. It's INSANE....and many American people are waking up and realizing that the legacy for their children is simply ghastly.

The only presidentail candidate who had the guts to explain the consequences of allowing America's central bank to conjour out of thin air whatever funds are required to maintain America's global empire was Ron Paul, and he was ridiculed and sidelined by the corporate owned mainstream media in the USA for speaking the truth.

Before we get too smug, we should understand that our own governments operate in the same dishonest manner. They borrow from the future to pay for today's decadence foreign policy adventures, public services, nepotism, corruption etc etc

The real victims are our children, because thay will bear the full cost of servicing the debt that is created today to satisfy the insanity and greed of today's politicians.

McCain is a fool. His '100 year prescence' in Iraq is a fantasy. America is facing utter bankruptcy as I write. America's aggressive foreign policy and dollar hegemony is SO OVER, so is the dollar and so is the American middle class. America is bankrupt, a broken smashed husk of a once great country

Iraq was a disaster in every sense

An Economic disaster
A disaster for America's reputation around the world
A disaster for the Iraqi people
A disaster for the young Americans who will foot the bill in perpetuity.

Posted by Matt on March 13, 2008 10:06 PM
Report this comment

I tend to think McCain is of the No Turning Back type and I think that is a good message for Iraq and that region. It needs a stable accepted regime not anarchy post-occupation. They didn't get the start right - but the can still get the ending right.

As to torture, I think Mr McCain is being a little specious - this is action against covert arrests, people rendering and covert detainment.

At what point does any of this even brush against the Geneva Conventions - the US having already defined a new type of combatant which is not a POW, and enemy alien - neither fish not fowl. Good Red Herring is about here.

McCain would have to, above the line, change all the policy and all the detainee status. I simply can't see it happening - even if it were remotely verifiable.
Posted by simon coulter on March 13, 2008 9:27 PM
Report this comment

He's the man for the job.
Posted by Xan on March 13, 2008 9:25 PM
Report this comment

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ain113.xml

Perhaps Americans should just vote for a pro-war President for the next 100 yrs. That would show the rest of the world that we Americans have the wearwithall and conviction to finish what we started.