IRAQIS UNMOVED BY MCCAIN VISIT---TIME MAGAZINE

Apparently Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was under the false assumption that Iraqis would be greeting him with flowers and candy like Vice President Dick Cheney said five years ago when U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq.

However, McCain was treated as just another politician making a junket to Baghdad to try and boost his Oval office aspirations and he didn't fool the Iraqi people.

McCain is expected to return to the U.S. after making a stop in London for a fund-raiser and FOX NEWS will be giving him plenty of "face time" so he can talk about how wonderful everything is going in Iraq and how "the surge" has been a roaring success.

It is just a pity there are so many Americans who are taken in by the propaganda of the FOX NEWS reichwing Republican public relations machine.

There is hardly a day goes by this blogger doesn't present a long list of security incidents in Iraq, and, yes, in the area supposedly cleared up by "the surge," as well as a growing list of Americans killed in Iraq. There have been 14 deaths of American GIs in Iraq in the past four days.

McCain was accompanied on his "pep talk" tour of Baghdad's "Green Zone" by turncoat Senator Joseph Lieberman and military wannabe Senator Lindsay Graham, who lives under the delusion that serving in the JAG office was the same as being in combat.

When FOX NEWS does show McCain, Lieberman and Graham touring a Baghdad neighborhood, take a look around at the security precautions. The cameras won't show it all, but you can bet your bottom dollar there will be PSD (Personal Security Detail) soldiers everywhere, plus Humvees and overhead choppers will be circling over the "good will tour."

What a farce.

Comments by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.

Iraqis Unmoved by McCain Visit

By Charles Crain/Baghdad
TIME MAGAZINE

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1722800,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics

"All American leaders — and people — know what is going on in Iraq," said Hassan Suneid, a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party on Sunday. Senator John McCain's surprise visit to Baghdad, he said, was "only for the sake of his candidacy."
McCain, who is making his eighth trip to Iraq since the U.S. invaded the country in 2003, arrived on Sunday, although for security reasons, only a handful of Iraqis had been made aware of his visit.

"Unfortunately," said Faleh Hassan Shansal, a member of the parliamentary bloc loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr, "all American politicians and leaders sneak into Iraq in the darkness, without letting anyone know."

The U.S. Embassy, citing security concerns, has not released McCain's itinerary, but he is expected to meet with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and author of the "surge" strategy backed by McCain, as well as with some Iraqi officials. But by entering Iraq unannounced, staying about a day, and leaving before many Iraqis will even know he was there, chances are slim that the Arizona senator will learn much he didn't already know.

McCain is being accompanied by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, who broke with his party in large part over his support for the war. Both men are strong supporters of McCain's campaign for president.

Perhaps recognizing that the visit might be perceived as a campaign stop rather than a Senate fact-finding mission, McCain has no plans to meet with the media while in Iraq.

McCain's trips have not always garnered the kind of publicity he may have liked. In early 2007, as the U.S. troop surge was getting underway, he pointed to his trip to a Baghdad market as proof that it was possible to "walk freely" in Baghdad, and that the media was not providing Americans with a full picture of the situation in Iraq. It was soon revealed that McCain had been accompanied on his market trip by two attack helicopters and dozens of American soldiers, calling into question his grasp of the situation.

That embarrassment has since been softened somewhat by the drop in violence that began in mid-2007, although violence levels have begun rising again in recent months. But, while McCain's strong support for the surge has set him apart from his potential Democratic opponents and even from many Republicans, the perception in the U.S. that McCain offers a significantly different approach to Iraq than can be expected from his rivals is not shared by many Iraqis. They see more similarities than differences among U.S. politicians, and are not expecting much to change in 2009.

"Things will never change, whether Clinton or Obama or McCain comes to the White House," said Suneid. "Whoever is in the White House will continue the American agenda."