Q: John Kerry is floating Senator John McCain’s name as a possible Secretary of Defense. John McCain is a hawkish Republican. How does this square with Kerry being a pacifist, like you claim?
A: First of all, you believe Kerry; how wise is it to believe most politicians? Secondly, you’re treating “floating” a name more seriously than it was likely ever intended. However, I’ll grant you both of these to make a point. John McCain is not a hawk of the Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush mold.
Reagan believed in peace through strength. John Kerry would never have supported a military build-up to tame the Soviet empire; in fact, he’s on record as opposing weapons systems every step of the way. Kerry wants people to have free health care, not a stronger military. Bush, like Reagan, believes in peace through strength. However, he has correctly identified that we’re not a peace; that like it or not, we’re at war. If we didn’t realize this by 9/11, we’ll never realize it; and Bush realizes it. John Kerry’s position, in the campaign, is essentially one of, “Well, we kind of are at war but we’re kind of at peace too. Damn it, let the U.N. handle this!” There’s no reason to assume that he’s anything other than a pacifist, because an advocate of peace through strength would never even imply such a thing.
So where does John McCain come in to all this? John McCain is neither a Reaganesque “peace-through-strength” Republican nor a “pre-emptive strike” Bush Republican. Each of these approaches rest on the premise that self-defense is the primary (if not exclusive) basis for the use of military force. Each approach suggests that military force should be a rationally self-interested action. John McCain believes that the use of force should be dramatically extended to sacrifice of country to others.
This was most dramatically illustrated in the Kosovo war during the Clinton Administration. When it became clear that the U.S. could not bomb centuries of tribal warfare out of existence, McCain advocated sending ever more military troops into the country to “save” the unsavable. Thankfully, Clinton had no intention of ever doing such a thing, withdrew from Kosovo when it became clear we could not win and merely called it a victory. Bush may yet do the same in Iraq, though the stakes are much higher in Iraq because that part of the world, unlike Kosovo, actually represents a threat to American interests and safety.
John McCain is probably one of the worst people Kerry could select as Secretary of Defense. A liberal dove would make us weak but at least with the motive of trying to keep us out of war; a conservative in favor of militant self-sacrifice is a warmonger in the true sense of the term. He values war not to protect American interests, but for what he sees as the glory of sacrifice. It’s frightening to think that Kerry would even politically toy with the idea of appointing John McCain as Secretary of Defense, and this drives me still further to the act of holding my nose, closing my eyes and pulling the lever for Bush on Election Day.
