10 Comments Add your own

• 1. David Johnson  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm

  Pat,

  Your drinking again aren’t you?

• 2. Pat Cunningham  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm

  No, not really. But I might.

• 3. Craig Knauss  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  Man, the Cainies are grabbing at straws. Or maybe they’re really that dumb. It’s hard to tell.

• 4. equalityrkfd=  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 2:17 pm

  Just shows you how desperate they are to detract from all the media attention on Obama is getting. Isn’t it a little early in the campaign to be sitting in a corner and screaming Nazi’s? Apperantly, not, how pathetic.

• 5. echo4charlie  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  A year ago, the pundits said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was a “sure thing” to win the Democratic nomination, and Senator John McCain was a “sure thing” not to win the GOP nomination. The pundits were wrong then. I wouldn’t put much stock in them now.

  Understand that gap and you’ll understand precisely why Senator Obama, this week, is in the Middle-East. Our junior Senator realizes his international record does not inspire confidence. He has no military experience and very, very little foreign policy experience. Certainly none to compare with to Senator McCain, a bonafide war hero who has been engaged in every major foreign policy debate of the last quarter century.

  To win in November, Senator Obama has to close that perception gap. He has to convince more Americans that he is ready for whatever comes next, be it more terrorism from al Qaeda, an orderly transition of power in Iraq, or a full blown war with Iran.

  So, he is meeting with foreign leaders as well as U.S. military commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Israel and hoping at the very least that the pictures Americans see on TV and in the newspapers from his “whirlwind tour” will cause them to begin to see him as a world leader and ease their many doubts.

  A picture is worth a thousand words, but, a week’s worth of photos will not be enough. After all, the Senator’s core problem is not simply that he lacks the requisite experience. It’s the widespread perception that he lacks the necessary judgment when it comes to the most troubling issues of the Middle East.

  From the moment President Bush announced that he was taking Sen. McCain’s advice to send more U.S. troops to Iraq to crush the insurgency and restore order, Senator Obama has been a fierce critic of the “surge,” arguing not only that it would not help, but that it would actually make the situation worse. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there,” Senator Obama said on January 17, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

  Eighteen months later, the results are in: the “surge” has been an astounding success. Things didn’t get worse. They got better. Much better. Violent attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians are down 80%. More than 90% of Iraqi terroritory is now quite safe. More than 70% of combat operations in Iraq are now led by Iraqi forces, with U.S. assistance. Yet, our junior Senator struggles to acknowlege the success and refuses to describe his decision to vote against the “surge” in Iraq as a mistake, even as he supports a surge of more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

  Consider this exchange yesterday with Terry Moran of ABC News.

  Moran: “‘[T]he surge of U.S. troops, combined with ordinary Iraqis’ rejection of both al Qaeda and Shiite extremists have transformed the country. Attacks are down more than 80% nationwide. U.S. combat casualties have plummeted, five this month so far, compared with 78 last July, and Baghdad has a pulse again.’ If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you — would you support the surge?”

  Obama: “No, because — keep in mind that -”

  Moran: “You wouldn’t?”

  Obama: “Well, no, keep — these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. I think what I am absolutely convinced of is that at that time, we had to change the political debate, because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.”

  Moran: “And so, when pressed, Barack Obama says he still would have opposed the surge.”

  In May of this year, Senator Obama told a town hall meeting crowd that he thought of Iran as a “small and relatively harmless country”, and felt that they were hardly a major threat to the United States, Israel or our allies in the Middle East. “I mean think about it.,” he told a group of supporters. “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us….You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military.”

  His aides and advisors were, understandably and undeniably, horrified. Even Senator Clinton conceded Iran was a major threat — particularly given the regime’s lust for nuclear weapons.

  So, the next day, our Senator flip-flopped. He told a new audience a new story, that he actually does believe Iran is a threat. But I believe that Senator Obama’s original, unscripted remarks were telling. I believe that Senator Obama does not actually believe the regime led by the Ayatollah Khameini and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are deeply and inherently dangerous. He sees Iran as a nuisance, not a forthcoming nuclear-armed power. That is why he is so adamant about wanting to sit down and “negotiate personally” with Ahmadinejad, without preconditions.

  His official website actually boasts about this position. “Senator Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions,” it reads. But to what end?

  I truly doubt that Senator Obama actually studied the speeches of Khameini and Ahmadinejad. Or has, dangerously, simply discounted them. Has he studied their eschatology, or end times theology? He should know it, as it is part of Islam (in which it it has been stated that he was raised-although he denies that he was). Has he taken the time, or put in the effort, or at least been briefed about how this eschatology is driving Iranian foreign policy? No one who truly understands what the current Iranian leadership believes could honestly conclude that they can be successfully negotiated with, much less deterred. Ahmadinejad, after all, believes it is his God-given mission to annihilate the U.S., Israel and Judeo-Christian civilization as we know. Why? To create the conditions that will bring the Islamic Messiah known as the Mahdi or the “12th Imam” to earth.

  Ahmadinejad is not just another power-hungry dictator. He is a Shia Islamic fascist. He believes his life destiny is to kill millions of Jews and Christians and usher in an Islamic caliphate. He believes he is a John-the-Baptist, a forerunner, of the Islamic Messiah. If he dies, he believes he will spend eternity in paradise with 72 virgins. But he doesn’t really believe he’s going to die. He believes he has been chosen for a divine appointment, and that nothing can stop him. That is what makes him so dangerous.

  Unfortunately, too many Washington politicians — Sen. Obama included — do not understand this.

  I just don’t want this to be another “hindsight” lesson that millions learn the hard way.

• 6. Orlando Clay  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 2:26 pm

  Wow….Just a little over three months until the election and it looks as though an air of desperation is already hovering over the McCain camp. When the primary season was in full swing, I truly believed, as a middle-of-the-road guy who leans just slightly to the left of center, that any of the three major candidates (Obama, McCain, or Clinton) would make a fine president. I figured (quite erroneously, it appears) that any of them in the Oval Office would be a drastic improvement over the nearly eight years of lies, war crimes, arrogance, incompetence, corruption, and continual failure that Bush #43 has inflicted upon our country. Now, it turns out that McCain is apparently every bit inept and clueless as Bush, but he doesn’t have, thankfully, the wall of insulation that Karl Rove and the propagandaists at Fox News provided to protect Bush.

• 7. echo4charlie  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 3:38 pm

  The original comment Senator Obama made was as follows:

  “Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done.”

  What he was saying, in my opinion, is that if genocide is our criterion for deploying troops, there are areas far heavier in committing genocide than others, for instance, Darfur or Rwanda.

  You know why we haven’t sent trrops there on “humanitarian” cause? Whether the President be President George W. Bush (who has pushed for no presence in Darfur or Rwanda), President William Jefferson Clinton (who pushed for no presence in Rwanda during his Presidency), or be the future President Obama or McCain, there is one common thread as to why we won’t be involved in sending troops in to curb those genocides.

  This sounds harsh, but, they have no resources that the US needs, so, aside from human life (which, to me, is more important than any resource), we see no capitalistic value in any of their resources, so we’re indifferent (on a whole).

  Sorry to sound callous, or unfair, but, it doesn’t seem that we, or the UN, get involved in anything that doesn’t concern oil, trade issues and sanctions, or wildlife conservation. It’s like nobody holds a human life to any value anymore.

  To be honest, even as a young Marine at the time of the the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s minority Tutsis and the moderates of its Hutu majority at the hands of the Interahamwe (the militant wing of the MRND), I couldn’t understand why we didn’t deploy there in aid. These people were even pleading and crying out in question: “When will America come and save us”! Well, we never did.

  I never understood why, until the last few years. Then it dawned on me. There is no capitalistic benefit to our country in Rwanda (or currently, as well, Darfur). No “precious” resource (as life in our world is, for some reason, seemingly disregarded as precious).

  Other countries seem to be viewing things the same way, as I don’t really see anyone else standing out to rescue these people, either. All aid is coming from humanitarian foundations, but not governments, per se.

  I don’t see any of that changing, no matter whom we elect President.

• 8. Q Jordon  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm

  WOW! Echo4Charlie, that is the best piece you have written as of yet. The insight is right on target. The keyword is resources.

  The question is - why do you not realize that is the reason we are in Iraq. It is not to establish freedom or a democracy for the people, it is about protecting the resource, and in this case - OIL.

  That is why many of us have soured on this war. We say through the facade. We know what it is truly about. If we could believe it was about setting up a democracy, then the President and Sen. McCain would leave by a set timetable as this democratically elected government is asking us to do at this moment.

  And as both, the President and Senator, agreed to in 2004.

  I commend you on seeing the true reason we are in Iraq - Resources. And of course, a launching pad to go into Iran.

• 9. Q Jordon  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 5:48 pm

  Oops, a correction on the word say to saw - in the sentence involving through the facade.

  I am so use to being able to edit my own blogs after the submit.

• 10. Q Jordon  |  July 23rd, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  I am proud to be an American. I have served my country as well. Between the years 82-85, I served in the Army in Ft. Hood, TX with the 1st Calvary Division.

  This war has divided veterans as well as citizens that have not served. My opinion is that we did drop the ball by not going after those that perpetrated the crime - Bin Laden and the cronies in Afghanistan.

  By going into Iraq, we wasted the military resources and clout we could have used in getting Bin Laden. Now, many nations see us as imperialist that are only after resources from other nations.

  I cannot say they are incorrect. We do it under the guise of creating democracies, but if this were the case, we allowed for a military coup to take place in Pakistan where a duly elected President was overthrown. Then to add insult, we supported the general that took over after the coup.

  Our double speak creates confusion with many nations, and a distrust build among them.

  We need a more coherent foreign policy that puts the needs of our nation with those of other nations, even if it means we disagree with those in charge.

  The cold war never ended, it just switched geographical locations.

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