McCain claimed Iraq was "the first major conflict since 9/11" -- ignoring the war in Afghanistan, where the 9/11 attackers were based

Okay, maybe the punditry will finally start paying attention to McCain's constant screw ups on basic foreign policy issues. They should, because this is one big error uncovered by the Cenk Uygur. Yesterday, he called the war in Iraq "the first major conflict since 9/11." As Cenk wrote:

Was Afghanistan not major enough for him? It almost reminds you of when Don Rumsfeld was not impressed with invading Afghanistan because it did not provide a rich enough target environment. He needed something more major.

In all likelihood, this was a simple mental mistake for McCain, among a litany of others recently. But it does go toward state of mind. They never saw Afghanistan as a priority.

Now, McCain did manage to work in a reference to 9/11, which makes his gaffe even worse. We went to war in Afghanistan directly because of 9/11. The masterminds of the 9/11 attack were operating in Afghanistan. They're still out there because McCain supported Bush's war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11.

This pattern of basic errors by McCain is becoming quite disconcerting.