Voters split over McCain, Obama views on Iraq

Voters split over McCain, Obama views on Iraq is an article that has recently appeared in Yahoo! News. Worth reading, it pretty accurately reflects the crazy, mixed up sentiments of voters this year about the war in Iraq, oldstyleliberal thinks.

Clearly, the fact that sizable voter majorities think the war was a mistake does not help Senator Obama all that much. Senator McCain gets high marks for his seeming to be the better military leader, even though (or perhaps because) he vocally supports the war:

"He's more experienced militarily," said Ann Burkes, a registered Democrat and retired third-grade teacher from Broken Arrow, Okla. "And I don't know if I agree with [his] stay-the-course (policy), but I think the good probably outweighs the bad with him, experience-wise." ...

Leeann Ormsbee, a registered Democrat from Waterford, Pa., believes the United States rushed to war, but now does not believe troops should simply withdraw. The 29-year-old self-employed house cleaner says she has never voted for a Republican. She might this time.

"I do believe that he will do better in Iraq," she said of McCain. "Because he's served in the military and he has said we can't just pull out. ... I think we're just kind of stuck with it now and we have to finish."

Republican pollster Neil Newhouse calls these voters "nose-holders."

"They don't like the fact that we're over there, they don't think the decision was the right one, but they understand that if we simply withdraw our troops it would leave things worse off," he said.

The belief of yours truly, oldstyleliberal, is that things will eventually be worse off if we stay. oldstyleliberal believes that sooner or later, war begets war and violence begets vengeance.

Without fail, killing desensitizes the soul — whether one does it or merely witnesses it. And watching your comrades get killed spurs a desire for revenge. Put the two together, and you have a sure recipe for future violence.

The violent future can, however, be delayed. Those Iraqis who would seize power, terrorize their countrymen, and generally exact revenge for the last several years of killing may just be biding their time until a Democratic president enters the White House and cuts U.S. troop strength over there.

Which means that if we cross them up and elect the hawkish McCain instead, there may be a surge of postponed Iraqi atrocities coming to the fore at that time, provoking a President McCain to hit back even harder than ever, thereby stoking the resentment mill even further in Iraq.

War begets war. Violence begets revenge. It is an Iron Law of human behavior.

So Obama is right. We need to withdraw as expeditiously as we can, given the need for preventing the withdrawal itself from provoking additional chaos.

Once we are out of Iraq, we can expect to witness the ghastly sight of innumerable chickens coming home to roost in that country, and being slaughtered ... just as happened in Vietnam after the last American helicopter lifted off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Americans such as those mentioned in the article who oppose the war, but also oppose withdrawal, are hoping in vain that something good will happen between now and when we finally do pull the plug ... something that will cancel the balance long overdue for vengeance in Iraq.

oldstyleliberal feels their reluctance to face facts and insist on ending the war will make for a worse outcome, not a better one.