I'm just making a guess, Art, as to the subconscious factors that may be driving John McCain. I'm not saying that he consciously wants to continue fighting the Vietnam War, but it's very common for career soldiers who served in a war that ended in failure to carry in themselves the bitter determination to wipe out that old stain of defeat with a future victory...against someone.

So I'm suggesting that McCain's bellicose attitude toward all the "foreign enemies" he sees out there in the world is driven to a great extent by the old ghosts of a failed war in which he served. He wants to win it this time. There is no way to win it this time, because the present war has no realistic objectives (other than controlling various oil sources on foreign ground...that's semi-realistic, at least). It also has no definable boundaries, since the "enemy" this time is not a nation-state and is not confined to any specific geographical area.

The enemy, in fact, lives inside the neocon American mind...not out there in the world somewhere. The neocons ARE the enemy they look to destroy when they attack others, and they ARE the enemy of America and the world in general. The Islamic terrorists are the wasps that come out of a nest when the neocons choose to go and attack it with a baseball bat. The wasps are small, but they can sting, and you'll never kill them all with that baseball bat...you'll just make one hell of a mess of the general area with it, that's all. Everyone in the vicinity will pay the price.