Before the New Hampshire primary, John McCain had his now-famous colloquy with a voter in which he said he doesn’t care if American troops are in Iraq for 100 years, provided those troops are not getting killed or wounded.

There are a number of Republicans running around now, saying Mr. McCain never said that, but he did. He said it on several occasions and used numbers like a thousand or ten thousand years – always stipulating that it’s OK with him only if Americans are not being killed or wounded. It was caught on tape, you have YouTube, right?

For all the fuss that been made, no one seems to have asked Mr. McCain the obvious follow up questions to clarify his position.

Follow-up Number One: If you’re willing to keep American soldiers in Iraq for 100 years – provided none are being killed or wounded – how many years are you willing to keep them there if they are being killed and wounded?

Over four thousand troops have died in Iraq, tens of thousands more have been wounded. Generals are warning Congress that our troops are stretched to the breaking point, studies show that as soldiers are sent back for third and fourth tours of duty, they show alarming rates of post-traumatic stress syndrome. So, while Mr. McCain can say you’re willing to keep troops in Iraq if they’re not being killed or wounded, an Iraq without killing and wounding is not a place of this Earth, not now and not for the foreseeable future. We know you’re willing to stay in fantasyland Iraq for a century Mr. McCain. How long are you willing to keep our troops in the real Iraq?

Follow-up Number Two: If we are to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years, should we also expect to keep troops in Afghanistan for 100 years? Afghanistan and the border with Pakistan is the real front in the global war on terror, regardless of how much blood, treasure and effort you and your Bush administration friends pour into Iraq. Like Iraq, Afghanistan shows absolutely no signs of being able to function as a western-style democracy in our lifetimes. If we are to keep troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan for 100 years, then surely we will need a larger military. How much larger should it be? One hundred thousand troops? Two hundred thousand? Five Hundred thousand?

How do we get those troops to enlist? We have trouble recruiting and retaining soldiers now. Of course, with a bigger military, we wouldn’t be burning out troops at the rate we are now, but how are we to recruit extra hundreds of thousands of young people into the military if all they have to look forward to is decades of garrison duty in dusty, desert lands halfway around the world? You compare your imagined Iraq occupation to our bases in Korea, Japan and Germany, but real Iraq and Afghanistan do not compare to Korea, Japan or Germany. Not now and not anytime soon.

Follow-up Number Three: How do we pay for all this?

The Iraq occupation costs taxpayers $12 billion a month, Afghanistan a few billion more. If we somehow arrive at the fantasyland version of Iraq and Afghanistan where our troops are not being killed or wounded, those occupations might not be so expensive, but how fair is it to ask Americans – who, by the way, are three months into a recession that grows deeper by the day – to keep footing the bill for this?

One of the primary reasons the “surge” Mr. McCain praises has worked as well as it has is due to payments American forces make to former insurgents. Approximately 90,000 of these men, euphemistically “the sons of Iraq,” get $180 from the U.S. every month. That’s over $16 million a month right there. How long can we afford to purchase the loyalty of entire nations?

Follow-up Number Four: Then what?

Even if John McCain’s peaceful Iraq/Afghanistan fantasyland emerges from the mist, does he think America’s obligations end there? Take a glance down the African continent: Darfur – and Sudan generally, Somalia, Kenya, Congo, Zimbabwe – all trouble spots. Colombia and Ecuador have been threatening each other lately, Pakistan and Lebanon have surplus internal unrest, there are food riots in Haiti and the Israelis and Palestinians may have a war in Gaza. If leaders of rogue or unstable nations the world over know the U.S. is permanently tied down in two countries, that changes the balance of power all over the planet. How do we deal with that Mr. McCain?

Much has been made of John McCain’s temper and rash, off-the-cuff remarks. Worrisome as those are, I think we have as much if not more to fear from what he produces in his most sober moments.

© Mark Floegel, 2008