Everyone knows McCain's Vietnam history; Skyhawk shot down by a missile, 6ish years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, broken bones, torture, refusal to accept reprieve, tenacious clinging to life in conditions brutal as any Nazi torture chamber.

Few are aware of McCain's role in the infamous U.S.S. Forrestal disaster.

Somewhere there is actual footage of McCain escaping from his cockpit and leaping to the deck, and I'm sure some ardent McCainophile will find it.

John McCain is a true hero, if not a true policy wonk.

I thought his escaping indictment in the S&L debacle was far more remarkabkle, considering he wasn't a future president's son, but merely the descendant of some dime-a-dozen admirals.

Emerson said that a hero is no braver than anyone else, but he is brave five minutes longer. McCain maintained that quality for far longer. Some people are too brave for their own good. And some people are just too brave for anyone's good.

Bravery is Mr. McCain's defining quality. The same could be said for Custer.

But so did Hitler! And I'll just betcha McCain wears khakis.

Sorry, I have no idea if McCain loves puppies. I was just disoriented by your Custer reference. Spun my head around and dislodged an eyeball.

Where did that come from?

"There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry."

- General George Armstrong Custer

"I know how to win wars."

- Senator John McCain

"Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."

- Sun Tzu

That either Iraq or Afghanistan is in danger of being lost if followed through diligently? Certainly, McCain's pre-surge position has turned out more reliable than Obama's.

Obama's pre-war position was much more reliable than McCain's.

Urquhart:

That either Iraq or Afghanistan is in danger of being lost if followed through diligently?

Do you contend that there is any realistic hope that either can be won if followed through diligently? By which I mean "won" in the conventional sense that we will have accomplished our objectives and can bring our troops home.

Definitely and possibly, in that order. Afghanistan will be a crapshoot even with full effort from the U.S. - it's always been a place where empires go to die the death of a thousand cuts.

Iraq, even if "followed through diligently," (whatever the hell subjective meaning one attaches to that) will be a failure once the surge is finished. We won't be seeing any verdant garden of Middle Eastern democracy blooming there as a result of our actions; the best we can likely hope for is that a strongman emerges who is somewhat more benign than was Saddam.

And in the end, the biggest problem is with the either/or in your question. Because all indications are that we don't have sufficient troops to follow both through diligently at the same time. Which, as I recall, was one of the arguments of those who were against the war, before it started. McCain's position on that issue at that time has proven to be somewhat less than golden.

Both Jack and I were advocating a withdrawal a couple of years ago, when we were spinning our wheels with the "stay the course" policy. I certainly don't advocate pulling up stakes now that we got serious and adopted the Petraeus/McCain policy. Al Qaeda's finished there, and the Shia militias have quieted after getting spanked by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi gummint should be fine. We just need to gradually let go as more of their troops come online. We'll retain an imperial outpost there, but that's better than retaining one on the Arabian peninsula.

Afghanistan's trickier. Not because we need more troops, or because the gummint is in danger. It's simply because we haven't figured out what to do with Pakistan. I don't have an answer to that, and neither do the candidates.

as you see it, with Afghanistan, and how would more troops help to solve it?

If McCain was your pilot, would you be comfortable flying with him?

He lost five Navy aircraft in his career. That doesn't make you a hero. It makes you dangerous. And the reason he wasn't grounded and stripped of his wings is because his dad covered his ass repeatedly. Any other Navy pilot would've been dumped after the second crash.

That said. I believe McCain is a hero for his leadership in the POW camps, and POWs I've heard speak about their experiences there (in SERE school) have referenced his example. He stayed tough in captivitiy and inspired others to remain tough.

However, he didn't win any war, nor has he ever even planned and executed a military operation at the operational, theater, or strategic level.

Note, folks, the difference between this:

because we haven't figured out what to do with Pakistan.

and this:

because we haven't figured out what to do about Pakistan.

As IOZ might say, the Procurator of the Imperium has spoken.

"With" indeed.

Where are you going to get the troops to fallow through with Afghanistan diligently? We already set our efforts in Iraq back two years. That's how long it will take the Army to reconstitute from the surge to a point where they can maintain pre-surge levels. The travesty will occur this next spring when OIF suffers a subsequent drop in troop levels as a result of the surge.

So tell me urq. Where are you going to get the troops to follow through?

This surge thing basically scraped up all we could muster and some of these brigades are done. We do need more forces in eastern Afghanistan, but where shall they come from? Obama says Iraq, McCain hasn't said - but there is only Iraq.

Bush and Gates were hoping NATO would take the lead in Afghanistan. NATO really only wants a peacekeeper role. The real danger in Afghanistan is that it will get so unruly that NATO may leave us holding the bag.