Here is the article that the New York Times would not print and asked the McCain camp to rewrite.  While a news media should be fair and balanced that is not always the case.  If you want to buy a media outfit, you could influence what is printed and what is not.  I do think that if you let one party write the other should if you are reporting news.

On to blogs.  They are one sided and don’t have to be fair.  I was asked where are McCain’s flip-flop posts from me.  This from a Liberal blogger who does post the McCain flip-flops, but he himself doesn’t post the Obama ones.  He doesn’t have to.  The blog is opinioned.  Thus fair and balance doesn’t have to be there.  That blogs are slanted and sided and that is the point.

“It is mostly, as you'll see, a response to Democratic contender Barack Obama's views on what to do in Iraq -- and a response to the opinion piece written by Obama that the Times published on July 14. Obama's column was called "My Plan for Iraq."” – USA Today

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/07/new-york-times.html

July 21, 2008

Op-Ed piece by Republican presidential contender John McCain

Sent to The New York Times

Source: The McCain campaign

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless.”  Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats.  The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy.  I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington.  Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent.  "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007.  "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."  Now Sen. Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.”  But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.”  Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks.  More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists.  Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City -- actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Sen. Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops.  All that has changed is his rationale.  In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years.  It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months.  In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost.  If we had taken his advice, it would have been.

Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence.  He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness.  The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Sen. Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help.  The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover.  The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Sen. Obama charges.  A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves.  As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind.  I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons.  This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq.”  Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say.  During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."

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Before I give my views on the highly controversial subject, we should all have an idea of what we are talking about.  Keep in the back of your minds that the terrorists use any means and don’t follow the Geneva Convention, unless they are caught, then they want protection under the Convention.  It is our sons and daughters that get tortured by all means and then killed.  I am not saying we need to lower ourselves to the terrorist’s level, I am just stating a fact!

What is water-boarding?

Water-boarding involves a prisoner being stretched on his back or hung upside down, having a cloth pushed into his mouth and/or plastic film placed over his face and having water poured onto his face.  He gags almost immediately.

Does it come under a technical definition of torture?

Torture is defined by the 1949 UN Convention against Torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..." in order to get information.  The U.S. is signed up to the Convention.  Human rights groups and many governments say that it does constitute torture.  The United States does not agree.

So why has the U.S. used water-boarding?

Because it does not classify water-boarding as torture and regards it an effective method in a small number of cases.  It makes a distinction between "torture,” which it accepts is banned by U.S. and international law, and so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques.”  These include not only water-boarding but sleep deprivation, subjection to cold and long periods of standing, holding your arms out in front of you for extended periods of time, and some slapping. The U.S. feels no physical long-term effects linger.  It works by finding people’s fears and exploiting them.

Isn't the U.S. military banned from using water-boarding?

Yes.  In 2006 a new army manual on collecting intelligence banned torture and degrading treatment, including water-boarding, forced nakedness, hooding and sexual humiliation. The manual's publication followed the scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the passing of the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, which prohibited the "cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment" of detainees.

So why is the CIA allowed to use it?

President Bush excluded the CIA from the restrictions imposed on the military.  He did so in an executive order in July 2007, which sought to define the American commitment to the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 prohibition on cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment and torture. The order declared that a CIA "program of detention and interrogation" complied with the Geneva Convention. The order listed interrogation methods and practices that are not allowed.  These range all the way from murder and rape to acts of humiliation. The banned methods did not, however, include the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.  In a separate memorandum, President Bush drew up a list of allowed methods, but these have not been made public.

Is water-boarding effective?

A retired CIA agent has said a top al-Qaeda suspect was interrogated using a simulated drowning technique, but that he believes it was justified.  According to John Kiriakou, al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah "broke" within half a minute.  "From that day on, he answered every question," the retired agent said.  "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”  The arguments about the efficacy of water-boarding reflect all arguments about similar methods.  Do they produce information or lies?  Can the information be obtained by other means?  And are they counter-productive?  So far, most information has been very helpful it stopping terrorists attacks.  This information may not have been made available without this technique.

Is water-boarding still used?

According to CIA officials, it has been used three times since 2001 but not since 2003.  The CIA Director General Mike Hayden, who took over in May 2006, indicated that he had taken the technique off a list of approved methods.  I would guess it is still being done.

Are there any moves in the U.S. to ban it by law?

Yes.  The US House of Representatives passed a bill in December 2007 that would ban the CIA from using water-boarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.  The bill has to go before the Senate and could be vetoed by President Bush.  The proposed legislation would require the CIA to follow the rules in the Army Field Manual.  It seeks to remove the ambiguity that surrounds the use of water-boarding.  The U.S. attorney-general has declined to rule on whether the method is torture.

Some say that our “Principles” are compromised using the enhanced interrogation technique of water-boarding.  I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that water-boarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the water-boarding technique.  And I struggle with it.

And as time has passed, and as September 11th has, you know, has moved farther and farther back into history it would be so easy to let down our guard. 

In the end, if it will save lives, not just American lives, but any lives it is worth it.  Is it torture?  Yes, but I will not lose any sleep, nor will I feel my morals and principles compromised.

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History will show that we won the war, but lost control in Iraq.  When President Bush declared that we had won in Iraq, he was not lying.  We won the military war!  It was the ensuing civil unrest that we lost in the public eye.  Iraq became a police state and our troops have not been equipped to deal with this.  The problem with Iraq is Iraq.  This country has been at war with itself and its neighbors for over a thousand years.  The Shiites and Sunnis have thus far been unable to put their ancient hatreds aside in order to work together to create a rule-of-law constitutional democracy.  We would not and could not just swoop in and fix this state of affairs.

The United States, under the direction of President Bush, vowed that we would help rebuild this war torn nation.  I am a Republican and support President Bush, but we did not learn from history.  Rather than of the U.S. taxpayers footing the bill, we need a “Marshall Plan” like the one used after World War II.  Here is a case where history did not repeat.  Too bad we did not learn from our history.

For those that may have forgotten or don’t know what the “Marshall Plan” plan is I will give the short version from “Rise of the American Nation Textbook”.

After World War II, Europe and Japan where devastated.  The United States was asked to help rebuild the nation that was devastated by poverty, disease and hunger stricken war torn nations.  The U.S. pledged its support to help in the rebuilding process.  General George C. Marshall, outlined his plan in an address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947 to the graduating class.  In surveying from the air and ground the ruined economies of Europe, Marshall noted the "possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned.”  Marshall stated that there could be "no political stability and no assured peace" without economic security, and that U.S. policy was "directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.”  He called on America to "do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace." 

Full Speech

As the war began, President Bush and his staff needed to have recognition of the scales of the sectarian problems and the lack of infrastructure.  It wasn’t the war, but the aftermath that will do us in.  The American taxpayers should not have been asked to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq.  The Democrats backed President Bush into a corner by accusing him of going to war for oil.  Therefore, asking the Iraqi government to pay us back in oil for the rebuilding was out of the question.     

The rising hatred and extremists to the West way of thinking, values and ideas is now in the forefront.  The Middle East is rich in oil and should help in trying to stabilize its own region and not rely on money from the U.S.  The World nations need to put an end to terrorism and bring world peace.  More nations need to standup like the U.S. and be a leader instead of empty talk.  The U.S. can do it allow, but it should not have to.  The U.S. is the last “Super Power” left, however if we keep writing the blank checks for nations attempting to help themselves we will go broke!