By Bill Doughty––
In 2008, while running for President, Senator John McCain was asked if he could envision the United States staying in Iraq for 100 years. "Maybe 100," McCain responded. "As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”
As for Afghanistan, when challenged in 2015 on National Public Radio if he believed the United States was headed to a permanent presence there, McCain replied, “Oh, I think we are, just as we have a permanent presence in South Korea and in Japan and in Germany and other places where we've fought conflicts.”
Of course, South Korea, Japan, and Germany are nations with democratically elected governments that, unlike Afghanistan and many other Middle East countries, don’t defer to a fundamentalist religious ideology. They are self-governing nations, not a collection of despotic tribes rife with corruption.
Nevertheless, McCain believed, “You can have a certain level of involvement and engagement which, frankly, does not include a lot of American casualties because of the roles that they would play –– advise, train special forces, others and have plans that will stabilize the situation.”
Clearly, the service, sacrifice, and commitment by U.S. military servicemembers in Afghanistan over 20 years contributed to a safer United States. Now our military continues heroic service under challenging and often heartbreaking conditions in Kabul.
A U.S. Marine assigned to 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) comforts an infant while they wait for the mother during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Nicholas Guevara)
Questions
What would McCain think about the strategic decisions by the Trump and Biden administrations to leave Afghanistan this year? What would he say about the tactical operation that was rushed to evacuate Americans and Afghan citizens who helped Americans?
Would McCain be appalled? Would he be shocked at how quickly Afghanistan’s government crumbled and most of its military failed to effectively fight the Taliban, despite our 20-year investment –– and perhaps because of the sudden pullout of the U.S. military and in-country air support?
Should former President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have arranged the Doha agreement with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan by May 2021? Could we be sure the civil war in Afghanistan wouldn’t escalate if President Biden had abrogated the Trump administration’s treaty with the Taliban instead of delaying its implementation till the end of this month?
Fundamentally, should we tolerate the deaths of more American sons and daughters as the Taliban continued to gain ascendance? Should we have remained there for continued nation-building permanently in a forever war? Finally, can we prevent another 9/11-like terrorist attack on our homeland without a forever presence in Afghanistan?
Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC) guide evacuees on to a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with an orderly drawdown of designated personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz).
Ethos
As to how McCain might feel at this moment in history, we have an insight from his strategic communicator, speechwriter, and collaborator, Mark Salter, whose latest book is “The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain” (Simon & Schuster, 2020).
While Salter says he does not speak for McCain, he offers a deep insight into McCain’s ethos: “He was drawn to the idea of national-greatness” conservatism articulated by Bill Kristol and David Brooks,” a break from Reagan’s “anti-government ideology.”
“The international corollary of national greatness was a muscular foreign policy that championed American values as purposefully as it defended American interests … McCain’s empathy with oppressed people moved him to publicly champion their cause, and to urge whichever administration was in office to use diplomacy and economic influence to do likewise. Sometimes, in situations of extreme inhumanity, as in Srebrenica, he would support military intervention to stop or prevent slaughter.
“McCain’s rogue-state-rollback proposal was not an argument for the use of force to ‘liberate’ subject populations from regimes that threatened the world’s peace and stability and were the world’s worst human rights offenders. Rather, it was a call for the U.S. to use soft power, public diplomacy, and economic sanctions to support popular resistance to ‘odious regimes’ and, where possible, by supplying them with arms and material support. McCain cited North Korea and Iraq as examples, but he had other regimes in mind as well, including Iran, Libya, and Afghanistan. It was a reformation of the Reagan Doctrine … McCain warned against using military force as a substitute for diplomacy.”
Salter explains further that McCain’s view about government and public service was more a “guiding principle” not a “governing philosophy,” per se:
“It was more of an ethos, a commitment to probity in government from a man who was raised to obey a code of conduct. To the extent that it was some kind of philosophy, it could be summarized this: America isn’t merely a tribe or collection of tribes or a geographic entity. It is an idea that forms the greatest cause in human history, the idea that self-government is the only moral government, and that all people everywhere possess equal dignity and a natural right to their freedom and to equal justice under the law. The American people distrusted their government because they had less influence on its behavior than did wealthy special interests. The public’s cynicism about government was hardening into alienation, which threatened America’s cause at home and abroad. To address that threat, patriots should act to improve government, ethically and operationally, to restore the public’s faith in America’s system of government and the cause of freedom.”
Salter notes that McCain’s sense of honor, courage, and commitment was rooted in his experience at the U.S. Naval Academy. “Annapolis … included him in the traditions of honor it represented and that he respected, just as he respected famous men the school had produced. Navy and Marine Corps legends Dewey, Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, Lejeune, Burke, his commanding officer in prison, Jim Stockdale, his father and grandfather.”
Like most of those great naval leaders, McCain had the will to fight when necessary, and he was clearly in favor of diplomacy, self-determination, and defending the Constitution as well as the homeland.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Zalmay Khalilzad meet with Taliban delegates Abdul Ghani Baradar, Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, and Suhail Shaheen in Doha, Qatar, September 12, 2020. (State Department)
Top photo:
Arizona Sen. John McCain addresses members of the U.S. military in the Clamshell gym on Bagram Air Field, July 4, 2012. McCain spent the afternoon on the airfield meeting with constituents, conducting a promotion and re-enlistment ceremony, and visiting the Craig Joint Theater Hospital. (Sgt. Ken Scar)
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