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McCain’s focus this campaign has been his purported strength on national security and the War on Terror. Though he has been a faithful supporter of the troops and was one of the original proponents of the troop surge that has led to major success in Iraq, McCain’s positions on the detention and interrogation of known and suspected terrorists and unlawful combatants is, at best, troubling.

I have always given McCain credit for supporting the surge. He refers to it frequently. I also give credit to General Shinseki who called for more troops. No one, to my knowledge, have denied McCain or Shinseki credit; all say they were right.

However, I do have a few questions on the specifics. Unfortunately, I must digress first.

General Petreus had a counterinsurgency strategy that called for more troops, raising troop levels from about 130,000 to about 160,000. President Bush supported the surge. Democrats opposed. The surge took place and has been a great success. Real credit goes to General Petreus and President Bush.

A couple of days ago I tried to look up Shinseki’s position. The quote, much quoted, was that we would need several hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq. How many hundreds of thousands? As far as I can tell, no one knows! Some in the press said two hundred thousand, without explanation. A detailed article in the American Thinker said three hundred thousand beyond those already in the region of about two hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand total. We are getting the job done with one hundred sixty thousand. Yes, it does seem we did not have enough. But perhaps McCain and Shinseki wanted too many. I believe in giving people their due, plus a little more. But before I conclude that McCain and Shinseki were entirely right, and Rumsfeld was entirely wrong, I would want to know more.

But before I conclude that McCain and Shinseki were entirely right, and Rumsfeld was entirely wrong, I would want to know more.

The media only hears what they're prepared to hear. It's a shame there aren't more people like you who are willing to learn the truth before jumping to conclusions. I would take the time to research some information for you but am in the middle of some heavy research at the moment. Thanks for your input!