This fellow here-over here in the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is, he’s with my opponent. And let’s give a welcome to macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.The young man, S.R. Sidarth, is a resident of Virginia, an American citizen. Critics say that “macaca” is a racist slur, and that you used it because he was dark-skinned. Why did you use those words toward a dark-skinned American?
ALLEN: I made a mistake. I said things thoughtlessly. I’ve apologized for it, as well I should. But there was no racial or ethnic intent to slur anyone. If I had any idea that that word was an insult, I would never do it, because it’s contrary to what I believe and who I am.
Q: Well, where’d the word come from?
ALLEN: Oh, it’s just made up.
Q: You’d never heard it before?
ALLEN: Never heard it before.
ALLEN: There are a lot of things that I wish I had learned earlier in life. I grew up in a football family, and those teams taught me a lot. And one of the things that you learn in football is that you don’t care about someone’s race or ethnicity or religion, it’s a meritocracy, it’s a level playing field, and it’s what we should aspire to in our society. And that’s why I’ve always been advocating, making sure America and Virginia’s a land of opportunity for all. Through the years I’ve learned and I’ve grown. I wish I had had these experiences earlier in life, because I would have made decisions differently.
ALLEN: On the Confederate flag-as a kid, I was rebellious, anti-establishment, I still am. And I looked at the flag as a symbol for that.
Q: But you were governor.
ALLEN: I look at the flag as heritage and as regional pride. But I’ve also seen, over the years, talking and listening and learning and growing, that that flag, to African-Americans, represents repression, segregation and violence against them. And I would never want to have anything to insult or offend someone, and so that’s why I would not be utilizing that flag, because that’s not who I am, and I would never want to have that image or harmful impact on fellow human beings who I want to make sure are part of team America, because we do need to compete much better against countries in six and seven times our population
ALLEN: I’m going to make a determination once I get some more facts. The two key points I’m going to look at [are], number one, these interrogations have helped protect American lives and not just here at home but also in the battlefield. Secondly, the Geneva Convention is very important, and I don’t want to set a precedent that we change the Geneva Convention [because I’m concerned] if one of our troops or one of our CIA agents is caught or captured. Now, the key in all of this is I don’t want to stop these interrogations. I’m not for torture, I’m not for waterboarding, but some of these techniques have been very helpful to us, whether they are sleep deprivation, or whether there’s loud music. And I need to be absolutely certain that what the interrogators are doing now-which is completely fine as far as I’m concerned, protecting Americans-will not be harmed by the proposal.
“If [Virginia Military Institute] admitted women, it wouldn’t be the VMI that we’ve known for 154 years. You just don’t treat women the way you treat fellow cadets. If you did, it would be ungentlemanly, it would be improper.”Men and women shouldn’t be treated the same at a military institution?
ALLEN: The regiment at VMI -the curriculum and the training would be ungentlemanly to treat women the way that they were doing it. At Virginia Tech, we had women and opportunities for women to get military training in a co-ed approach. VMI and their board for many years felt that they should continue the way that they had in the past.
Q: But has women at VMI worked?
ALLEN: Yes, it has.
Q: So you were wrong?
ALLEN: We were wrong. The Supreme Court said we were wrong. We complied with that decision. What I said as governor, is I’m going to deplore anybody who demeans women.
ALLEN: You can’t say, “Gosh,” five years later-my opponent’s campaign’s about second-guessing.
Q: If you knew Saddam did not have WMDs, was it still worth going to war?
ALLEN: I stand by my vote, and the vote was based on the evidence & information before us. We had a choice whether to listen to the critics and do nothing, and then have this world more dangerous if we were right.
ALLEN: I was supporting our efforts of our administration. It was bipartisan support for this resolution, because I thought we needed to show unity of resolve so that Saddam Hussein would see how resolved and how unified were the US as well as the UN, and would actually comply with the weapons inspections.
Q: So in fact you cast that vote out of loyalty to President Bush?
ALLEN: No, it’s loyalty to this country, and making sure that our country is unified in this effort to disarm Saddam Hussein. That was the point.
ALLEN: Military and security aspects of it are absolutely essential. The people of Iraq voted last year three times, 70 percent turnout, walking like slow-moving targets to vote. And they do want a free and just society there.
Q: But what is staying the course?
ALLEN: Staying the course is meaning that we don’t tuck tail and run, that we don’t retreat, that we don’t surrender. This is a central battle front in the war on terror, and it’s not just the president or the vice president or me saying that, that’s what al-Qaeda says, because al-Qaeda’s designs and their goals are to have an Islamic caliphate from Indonesia to Spain, with the capital being in Iraq, an oil-rich area. And we cannot allow Iraq, where al-Qaeda was and is now, we cannot allow them to have that haven for terrorist activity.
ALLEN: We’re going to need to do what it takes to succeed.
Q: Including more troops?
ALLEN: That is actually happening right now. If you look at the troop levels in Iraq, they are higher than they were several months ago. Moreover, they have been concentrated in the Baghdad area, so the troops are going to where they’re needed. But every single week you see more and more Iraqis and their military taking control, with the US in a supportive role.
Q: Mr. Webb, should we increase American troop levels in Iraq?
WEBB: We don’t have the troops. We’ve got people now in the Army pulling their third and sometimes their fourth tours into Iraq. We’re burning out our people. It’s a double strategic mouse trap--first, it was going to burn out our conventional forces, and second, that we have gotten so engaged in fighting the Sunni insurgency that we have allowed the Shia to get more power inside Iraq.
ALLEN: What we have created and helped create in Iraq is indeed, I think, a much freer and more just society than what they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was paying families $35,000 to send their sons and daughters on these suicide missions, killing people in Israel. They do have freedom of religion in their constitution where rights are not enhanced nor diminished on account of religious beliefs. They do have the right of women and men to express themselves without fear of retribution. They do have a judicial system that they’re trying to put together. It is a fledgling representative democracy. It is like an infant. We’re trying to help them learn normal things, like procurement and budgets. Because all the decisions previously were centrally decided by Baghdad, by Saddam Hussein, and there wasn’t any decision-making or discretion at the provincial level.
ALLEN: We have spent money on all those things. In homeland security, we just passed a port security bill this past week.
Q: But my question is $300 billion in Iraq. Could it have been better spent?
ALLEN: We made a decision. You got to stand by your decision and you can’t be constantly second-guessing, Monday-morning quarterbacking.
ALLEN: I have no interest for us to be permanently in Iraq.
Q: Would you vote against them?
ALLEN: I have voted against permanent US bases.
WEBB: Would you vote against these four large bases in the remote areas of Iraq?
ALLEN: The four bases are a consolidation for force protection.
WEBB: How long are we going to be in these bases?
ALLEN: No longer than necessary.
WEBB: If our conventional mission is done in the cities of Iraq, we should be getting our conventional forces out of Iraq. Not into the remote areas of Iraq.
ALLEN: It’s important for force protection. It’s important to have the military options, whether it’s ground forces or air forces.
WEBB: As long as the US conventional forces are in Iraq there will not be peace in the Middle East.
ALLEN: No, that’s not the point. The Iraqis will ultimately take over these bases.
WEBB: Iraqis can build their own bases. You’re not protecting forces if you’re sitting in one area.
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The above quotations are from Virginia Senate debate on Meet the Press, moderated by Tim Russert, Sept. 17, 2006.
Click here for other excerpts from Virginia Senate debate on Meet the Press, moderated by Tim Russert, Sept. 17, 2006. Click here for other excerpts by George Allen. Click here for a profile of George Allen.
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