Talk:McCain Editorial

There's a lot of good conservative vs. liberal points being made here. It may help to construct a table showing where liberals and conservatives agree or disagree.

For example, both sides want the US military to leave as soon as possible; neither side favors a permanent "occupation". Think of the US and Japan after WWII. America occupied Japan for 5 years, but how many bases do we have there now? I think only the remote island of Okinawa has a US naval base.

But we should be clear about what each side says about the other. If liberals falsely claim that conservatives favor a permanent military presence, that would be a lie and should be exposed. If conservatives disagree about that, we should distinguish between those who do and those who don't.

On the withdrawal issue, the liberal-conservative split is mostly on when and how - not whether or not. Liberals say we should establish a date, and then withdraw by that date; they implicitly dismiss any consideration of whether the withdrawal should be related to the intensity of terrorism or anti-government insurgency. Conservatives maintain that by setting a firm withdrawal date (not a target but a hard deadline) we would empower the terrorists and insurgents to defeat the new Iraqi government.

Do both sides agree that Iraq ought to remain free? Are there Democrats or others who say things like, "If they don't want democracy we shouldn't impose it on them?" Perhaps this is the real ideological stumbling block. Has anyone ever chosen to give up freedom? If so, what was their reason? (Please give 3 or more examples.) --Ed Poor ^Talk 09:33, 25 November 2008 (EST)