McCain misses the point.

Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.

"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost," the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator's last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.

"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time," the Arizona senator added. "If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly."

Barack Obama's position is that this war should never have happened. There is nothing he is going to see in Iraq that is going to make him change that position.

And what is the measure of this so-called "success" that the surge has provided? It is determined by the fact that there are fewer American causalities.

In other words Americans are being placed in an extremely dangerous place and are surviving the experience in larger numbers then before we started this surge, and that is being called "success". Of course we all know that this surge cannot be sustained indefinitely. And then what?

Well Obama would like to bring these brave men and women home. Then their survival rate would be almost 100%, give or take some accidents. I think we can all agree that would be a much more impressive statistic. Personally I would be very gratified to see our citizens home safe and sound with their families.

Then Obama could start the arduous task of repairing the diplomatic damage done to our country by the swaggering man-child that has caused all of this grief. Putting McCain in office is just replacing one war monger with another war monger. We simply cannot afford any more war.

Our country will be much safer with its armed forces here at home and our Commander in Chief giving the world somebody to admire and trust. That is what Barack Obama offers. Not more of the same kind of policies that have placed us in this dangerous position.

John McCain simply does not, and cannot, understand that.