Against it before he was for it

John McCain, before he called for 100 years in Iraq, called for bringing all the troops home because their presence in an Islamic country would inevitably stir up trouble.

McCain has been all over the map on when to bring the troops home.

Let’s be clear on the meaning of “100 years.” It means that our troops keep dying until the various factions in Iraq get tired of killing them. Five years after we started to occupy Germany and Japan, we didn’t have Germans and Japanese slaughtering each other and whatever Americans got in the way.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com