I have a question though: Exactly what experience is McCain using to claim that he can win wars. It’s one thing to be a troop fighting in a war. It’s quite another to be someone who can come up with both a strategy and tactics to win a way.
As I’ve noted before, there is a difference between strategy and tactics. Obama in his speech recognized that, while there are tactical successes that the surge has provided, the surge has yet to result in a strategic success, namely allowing the Iraqi’s to get their political act together. It is the larger picture – the picture of strategy – which is ultimately important. It is nice to win battles and achieve tactical victories, but without a strategic victory, the whole thing is moot. You can win 1000 battles, and still lose the war.
This is why McCain cannot use his support for the surge to claim that he “knows how to win wars.” Yes, he may have shown that, in this one specific instance, he supported a policy which granted a limited tactical victory, but it shows nothing about whether he can come up with a good strategy. One can be great at commanding an army in battle, but be terrible at managing a war (and vice versa).
Similarly, he can’t really use his military experience or his POW experience to argue for it either. Again, being a soldier doesn’t mean you know jack about managing a war, and being a POW has absolutely nothing to do with the question. Yes, it makes him a hero, but it doesn’t mean he knows how to formulate military strategy.
So I ask again – exactly what experience is McCain using to say that he can “win wars” and is thus, somehow, intrinsically more qualified to be commander-in-chief than Obama is?
