Let me once again preface the following by saying that I have a profound respect for John McCain's service for our country in Vietnam, and his years of dutiful service in the Senate fighting corruption and standing up for his beliefs.
Didn't John McCain follow the Democratic primaries? Hillary Clinton should have taught him that calling Obama an elitist doesn't work. When you are the son and grandson of admirals and the husband of a wealthy beer heiress, you can't call someone who was raised by a single mother an elitist and expect it to work for too long. Jake Tapper of ABC recently posted an "elitist celebrity quiz" that hits back at McCain.
It is getting to the point where McCain has to use the tactic of bullying the press into "equal coverage" by saying that they have to cover his campaign just as much as Obama's, when Obama goes to Germany and McCain goes to German restaurants in Ohio. The press has to give just as much credibility to McCain's Iraq policy when Obama's has been all but endorsed by Iraq's PM and leading military officials. The press has to cover McCain's 200 person town hall meetings just as much as Obama's 200,000 rally in Berlin.
Obama's an elitist because he made money by writing books, but you know, forget that Cindy McCain is a wealthy beer heiress. Forget that Obama was raised by a single mother. Forget that he has risen to his current position out of the rough streets of Chicago politics. Of course "community organizing" doesn't mean working in soup kitchens but it does mean working to help poor people to get their voices heard and their needs met.
When Obama goes on a world tour, meets with leaders who he will possibly be working with as president, and draws huge crowds, he is arrogant and premature. But when John McCain makes trips overseas, it shows that he has foreign policy experience. Obama can't play the race card but McCain is allowed to bash his patriotism all day. Obama is a flip-flopper when he makes political decisions but when John McCain runs ads comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? No that's just a questioning of Obama's substance, not a personal attack that McCain once swore to abstain from.
The John McCain of 2000 would have made a great president. If he hadn't been demolished by Bush, Rove, and Co., we would have had an election between two excellent candidates. Maybe the debate would have been about policy rather than about whether Al Gore really said he invented the internet.
What's happened to that John McCain?
His upcoming VP announcement will certainly shake things up but there's no one he can pick that will really turn his campaign around. The Olympics will be starting soon and right after that will be the Democratic National Convention. The Straight-Talk Express has run itself over a cliff. I have the profoundest respect for John McCain as a person, but he has put himself in a race that he simply cannot win, and it is markedly upsetting him.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Abortion comment + response
The following is a note regarding abortion, followed by my response.
===Original Note===
This following passage came from a woman named Eileen Crosby. She is currently a student at Franciscan University. I received this as an imbox message from one of the groups I am in, "Barack Obama is So Pro-Abortion It's Frightening." Eileen posted this under the topic view: "Franciscan Students are So Republican It’s Frightening." This is post #6, so if you want to see the original copy, you can do so. This woman wrote beautifully on how abortion can affect all aspects of politics, including our foreign policy. I really hope you think this is really awesome! I most certainly did :) Passage from Eileen Crosby: Jul 17, 2008 at 7:27 AM “Why I am a single issue voter: Because abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and all issues that threaten innocent human life is not a single issue.
Foreign policy is largely affected by the life stances of each president. If the president is "pro-choice" then countries suffer. Under Clinton's administration, our UN delegates single-handedly bullied the world conference on agriculture in order to force developing countries to legalize abortion. How? We denied foreign food aid to 3rd world countries until they legalized abortion. We even forced South American countries -- who culturally and traditionally abhor abortion -- to legalize the practice. Barack Obama has also promised to reverse the Mexico city plan which will provide money to Mexico specifically for abortion. These are just some examples. The war in Iraq: will abortion be legal in Iraq? It would be illogical for this to happen -- Iraq is a Muslim nation that is fundamentally against abortion. However, our administration, whether or not they are for or against the war, will have a large impact on the socialization of the country. Will we press our 'values' on this country?
Health care: Senator Obama's health care plan requires that everyone have health care and that all health care covers abortion. That means that whether you agree with this or not, your tax dollars WILL fund abortions for your friends, coworkers, maybe even cousins or sisters. Besides this, his plan calls for socialized medicine, which in itself is not bad, however his plan specifically makes it illegal for you to add your own money to a health plan. Yes, you will not be allowed to purchase more health care for yourself or for your family. This means that when you run out of coverage, you are just out of luck. It means that there will be health care rationing. It means that when you break your leg or need allergy shots or stitches or an MRI you will get it no problem. But when grandma needs kidney dialysis she probably won't have any coverage left, and since the hospitals can only get so much money, they will probably "let her die" in order to set your broken leg next time you fall out of the tree you were climbing. Don't believe me? Check out the futile care cases that are happening now in Texas, where people like Andrea Clark or Emilio Gonzales were denied care and died because of this idea of health care rationing.
Economically: Abortion is a HUGE industry. It affects our economics. Think of how our economy could benefit from the 50 million dead children. Our social security would not be crashing! There would be more people to work, less need to import workers. More people making food, goods, serving others. Instead of paying money to wound our mothers and kill our children we would be benefiting from the work they would do. But I hope you are getting my point, so I will end with one last reason of why I am a single issue voter.
Socially: Our mothers deserve more then a dead baby. We keep abortion legal because we have to "make it so women don't need abortions", when in reality by keeping abortion legal we are telling women that they are not worth a real solution. We keep abortion legal, 'just until we can come up with a better welfare program', and so instead of helping a mother raise her child, feed her child and clothe her child we hand her a dead child. Is this what she deserves? What about the schools? We need a better school system that can handle more children and educate children better. So instead of letting them go through a less then adequate school system (by our standards) we kill them and hand their mother a dead child. Is this what they deserve? We take women who have been raped and say "we understand your pain, here have an abortion and it will make this better" and rip the only life they have left in them out of them, and hand them a dead child. Now she is not a rape survivor, but a victim of rape holding a dead child. So there are no jobs. To fix this do we hand mothers dead children? They now have no job and a dead child. There is not social system to protect these women. You are right. There is no one standing up for them and their dignity. Women deserve better then abortion. Our society deserves better then abortion. It is a joke to set up social program after social program when abortion is still legal. It is a joke to push for women's rights when abortion is still legal. Because when the day comes to a close we are still telling these women that the best we can offer them is a dead child. We tell them that we are working on these programs, but right now all we have to offer them is death. I don't believe that this is what the United States of America represents.
I am a Franciscan student. I am a woman. I am a social work major who is VERY concerned with social policies. Maybe because of these qualities you will not be able to listen to what I have to say. But maybe, because of the women in your own life who I am sure you love and respect, you will hear the danger in taking this issue out of the forefront of our fight for justice.” [Eileen's passage ends here]
Now I have some things to add to this wonderful statement by Eileen In addition to what she said; Obama is so radically pro-choice, that if elected president, he would make sure that the $400 an abortionist would regulary receive from each abortion would increase by $3600. That means that an abortionist will get $4000 for each abortion. This is an additional 36 hundred dollars that would come out of American tax dollars. This also would not just come out of the wealthy class, like Obama claims. I'm sure anyone can do the math efficiently knowing that there are over a million abortions taking place each year in the United States alone. I truly believe that if abortion becomes more common to perform, a huge number of people will become happy to do it for the sole purpose of money. This is just plain wrong and it will be completely contradictory with the position of looking out for the safety and well-being of women who are pregnant.
The thing that troubles me so greatly about Obama is that he is not pro-choice, but pro-abortion. His views about abortion are completely radical to the average pro-choice view. The reason why this is a problem is because his opinion could impact the public opinion of abortion, due to the fact that he is so popular. Since the president of the country is supposed to be a moral leader, I don't believe Obama is qualified for president. Words such as "punished with a baby" (words that Obama used) show that he has complete disregard for the sanctity of life and the seriousness of the abortion procedure.
Neither McCain nor Obama are going to be able to provide peace and prosperity for the people of the world as well as they should, believe me when I say that. At the end of the day, however, one candidate will be publicly against killing the unborn while the other candidate will support it. It's one thing for a leader to fail to provide for the American people, (like Bush and Clinton). It's another thing for one, however, to personally approve killing the most vulnerable and innocent members of our society intentionally. This is all my opinion though, and I do respect the fact that others may have their own views.
The last that I have to say is to simply look at one of the pieces of legislation that he has promised to sign into law with his first act of presidency. Eileen mentioned one of them in another post. The one that she mentioned is the "Freedom of Choice Act." This is by far more radical then Roe v. Wade. It would legalize abortion in ALL 9 MONTHS OF PREGNANCY for any reason. It would also make it illegal to give information or support to women in these crisis pregnancies. This is flat out ridiculous. I honestly respect people for being pro-choice, but this is too far to the extreme. Most pro-choice people I know only support it before 6 months of the pregnancy. I still STRONGLY disagree with that philosophy, but I can respect those who have this opinion, because I know that they have this view out of concern for the woman. I find it very difficult to respect people's opinion of abortion of all 9 months, however. I hate to sound rude, but that this is common sense, and you really have to lack common sense if you think a baby is not a human after 6 months. As you can tell, I am VERY passionate about this, so I'll stop before I go to far and offend anyone. I thought this was really important to address though. I don't think many people truly know Obama's positions. He has become more of a celebrity than a presidential candidate, which is really dangerous. Anyways, feel free to add any comments that you wish to add.
===My Response===
Even if Obama personally has many radical views on abortion, there is no political will to change the current status of abortion. The majority of the American people support the right to choose but a majority also supports restrictions on abortion. The status quo is not going to be changing.
That being said, this article makes the assumption that we are forcing mothers to get abortions (see the section about handing rape victims a dead baby). Abortions are not forced. They are a painful decision made by a woman and her doctor. I respect the fact that the author of this article is a woman and thus has more of a right to be anti-abortion than me, but I still do not believe anyone has the right to make a decision about abortion other than the woman who has to make the decision.
The claim that abortion hurts our economy is simply untrue. If it was, then why isn't our government pushing for people to have more children? The book Freakonomics has a chapter that brings up the highly controversial theory that legal abortion was the key factor in the decrease in crime in the 1990s. I will not voice support for the theory solely due to the controversy of it, but I will summarize it. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973. Prior to the decision, middle-class and rich women got illegal abortions that were either highly dangerous or highly expensive. Poor women could not. After Roe v. Wade, poor women who were in the unfortunate situation of having an unwanted pregnancy could afford to get abortions. Those poor women were often urban, black, and single (taken from the book). Think about children raised in that kind of environment. It is common knowledge (check the records) that many criminals grew up in impoverished, urban settings with a poor family life. The theory asserts that 1990 was around the time that the aborted babies would have grown up to become criminals. Ideologically, the theory is untouchable, but you have to admit it makes sense.
I am moderately pro-choice, solely because I know I have absolutely no right to forbid a woman from having an abortion. Abortion is always the option of last resort, and it is a painful decision for a woman to make. I remind you of the occasion when Bill Clinton talked about his pro-choice stance in front of a group of Democratic activists, who applauded. Clinton promptly ended the applause, as his goal was to reduce the number of abortions to zero. He also understood that the government has no business in a mother's womb. This article, like many from anti-abortion (yes, unlike pro-abortion or pro-life, the term anti-abortion does not mince words about the people it
describes) voters, seeks to demonize those that perform abortions or have abortions performed on them. It does not recognize that there is a biological difference between a fetus and a baby. It uses the term "infanticide" and implies it to be the same as terminating a fetus.
I do not support the most radical policies of pro-choice activists, however the debate is not about them. The debate is about the women who are put into the unfortunate situation of having an abortion. When right-wingers protest in front of Planned Parenthood clinics and shout insults at the women walking in, they are hurting women who are already in a difficult situation as it is. We must respect the sanctity of life, and some people forget that respect applies to living adults as well as unborn fetuses.
===Original Note===
This following passage came from a woman named Eileen Crosby. She is currently a student at Franciscan University. I received this as an imbox message from one of the groups I am in, "Barack Obama is So Pro-Abortion It's Frightening." Eileen posted this under the topic view: "Franciscan Students are So Republican It’s Frightening." This is post #6, so if you want to see the original copy, you can do so. This woman wrote beautifully on how abortion can affect all aspects of politics, including our foreign policy. I really hope you think this is really awesome! I most certainly did :) Passage from Eileen Crosby: Jul 17, 2008 at 7:27 AM “Why I am a single issue voter: Because abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and all issues that threaten innocent human life is not a single issue.
Foreign policy is largely affected by the life stances of each president. If the president is "pro-choice" then countries suffer. Under Clinton's administration, our UN delegates single-handedly bullied the world conference on agriculture in order to force developing countries to legalize abortion. How? We denied foreign food aid to 3rd world countries until they legalized abortion. We even forced South American countries -- who culturally and traditionally abhor abortion -- to legalize the practice. Barack Obama has also promised to reverse the Mexico city plan which will provide money to Mexico specifically for abortion. These are just some examples. The war in Iraq: will abortion be legal in Iraq? It would be illogical for this to happen -- Iraq is a Muslim nation that is fundamentally against abortion. However, our administration, whether or not they are for or against the war, will have a large impact on the socialization of the country. Will we press our 'values' on this country?
Health care: Senator Obama's health care plan requires that everyone have health care and that all health care covers abortion. That means that whether you agree with this or not, your tax dollars WILL fund abortions for your friends, coworkers, maybe even cousins or sisters. Besides this, his plan calls for socialized medicine, which in itself is not bad, however his plan specifically makes it illegal for you to add your own money to a health plan. Yes, you will not be allowed to purchase more health care for yourself or for your family. This means that when you run out of coverage, you are just out of luck. It means that there will be health care rationing. It means that when you break your leg or need allergy shots or stitches or an MRI you will get it no problem. But when grandma needs kidney dialysis she probably won't have any coverage left, and since the hospitals can only get so much money, they will probably "let her die" in order to set your broken leg next time you fall out of the tree you were climbing. Don't believe me? Check out the futile care cases that are happening now in Texas, where people like Andrea Clark or Emilio Gonzales were denied care and died because of this idea of health care rationing.
Economically: Abortion is a HUGE industry. It affects our economics. Think of how our economy could benefit from the 50 million dead children. Our social security would not be crashing! There would be more people to work, less need to import workers. More people making food, goods, serving others. Instead of paying money to wound our mothers and kill our children we would be benefiting from the work they would do. But I hope you are getting my point, so I will end with one last reason of why I am a single issue voter.
Socially: Our mothers deserve more then a dead baby. We keep abortion legal because we have to "make it so women don't need abortions", when in reality by keeping abortion legal we are telling women that they are not worth a real solution. We keep abortion legal, 'just until we can come up with a better welfare program', and so instead of helping a mother raise her child, feed her child and clothe her child we hand her a dead child. Is this what she deserves? What about the schools? We need a better school system that can handle more children and educate children better. So instead of letting them go through a less then adequate school system (by our standards) we kill them and hand their mother a dead child. Is this what they deserve? We take women who have been raped and say "we understand your pain, here have an abortion and it will make this better" and rip the only life they have left in them out of them, and hand them a dead child. Now she is not a rape survivor, but a victim of rape holding a dead child. So there are no jobs. To fix this do we hand mothers dead children? They now have no job and a dead child. There is not social system to protect these women. You are right. There is no one standing up for them and their dignity. Women deserve better then abortion. Our society deserves better then abortion. It is a joke to set up social program after social program when abortion is still legal. It is a joke to push for women's rights when abortion is still legal. Because when the day comes to a close we are still telling these women that the best we can offer them is a dead child. We tell them that we are working on these programs, but right now all we have to offer them is death. I don't believe that this is what the United States of America represents.
I am a Franciscan student. I am a woman. I am a social work major who is VERY concerned with social policies. Maybe because of these qualities you will not be able to listen to what I have to say. But maybe, because of the women in your own life who I am sure you love and respect, you will hear the danger in taking this issue out of the forefront of our fight for justice.” [Eileen's passage ends here]
Now I have some things to add to this wonderful statement by Eileen In addition to what she said; Obama is so radically pro-choice, that if elected president, he would make sure that the $400 an abortionist would regulary receive from each abortion would increase by $3600. That means that an abortionist will get $4000 for each abortion. This is an additional 36 hundred dollars that would come out of American tax dollars. This also would not just come out of the wealthy class, like Obama claims. I'm sure anyone can do the math efficiently knowing that there are over a million abortions taking place each year in the United States alone. I truly believe that if abortion becomes more common to perform, a huge number of people will become happy to do it for the sole purpose of money. This is just plain wrong and it will be completely contradictory with the position of looking out for the safety and well-being of women who are pregnant.
The thing that troubles me so greatly about Obama is that he is not pro-choice, but pro-abortion. His views about abortion are completely radical to the average pro-choice view. The reason why this is a problem is because his opinion could impact the public opinion of abortion, due to the fact that he is so popular. Since the president of the country is supposed to be a moral leader, I don't believe Obama is qualified for president. Words such as "punished with a baby" (words that Obama used) show that he has complete disregard for the sanctity of life and the seriousness of the abortion procedure.
Neither McCain nor Obama are going to be able to provide peace and prosperity for the people of the world as well as they should, believe me when I say that. At the end of the day, however, one candidate will be publicly against killing the unborn while the other candidate will support it. It's one thing for a leader to fail to provide for the American people, (like Bush and Clinton). It's another thing for one, however, to personally approve killing the most vulnerable and innocent members of our society intentionally. This is all my opinion though, and I do respect the fact that others may have their own views.
The last that I have to say is to simply look at one of the pieces of legislation that he has promised to sign into law with his first act of presidency. Eileen mentioned one of them in another post. The one that she mentioned is the "Freedom of Choice Act." This is by far more radical then Roe v. Wade. It would legalize abortion in ALL 9 MONTHS OF PREGNANCY for any reason. It would also make it illegal to give information or support to women in these crisis pregnancies. This is flat out ridiculous. I honestly respect people for being pro-choice, but this is too far to the extreme. Most pro-choice people I know only support it before 6 months of the pregnancy. I still STRONGLY disagree with that philosophy, but I can respect those who have this opinion, because I know that they have this view out of concern for the woman. I find it very difficult to respect people's opinion of abortion of all 9 months, however. I hate to sound rude, but that this is common sense, and you really have to lack common sense if you think a baby is not a human after 6 months. As you can tell, I am VERY passionate about this, so I'll stop before I go to far and offend anyone. I thought this was really important to address though. I don't think many people truly know Obama's positions. He has become more of a celebrity than a presidential candidate, which is really dangerous. Anyways, feel free to add any comments that you wish to add.
===My Response===
Even if Obama personally has many radical views on abortion, there is no political will to change the current status of abortion. The majority of the American people support the right to choose but a majority also supports restrictions on abortion. The status quo is not going to be changing.
That being said, this article makes the assumption that we are forcing mothers to get abortions (see the section about handing rape victims a dead baby). Abortions are not forced. They are a painful decision made by a woman and her doctor. I respect the fact that the author of this article is a woman and thus has more of a right to be anti-abortion than me, but I still do not believe anyone has the right to make a decision about abortion other than the woman who has to make the decision.
The claim that abortion hurts our economy is simply untrue. If it was, then why isn't our government pushing for people to have more children? The book Freakonomics has a chapter that brings up the highly controversial theory that legal abortion was the key factor in the decrease in crime in the 1990s. I will not voice support for the theory solely due to the controversy of it, but I will summarize it. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973. Prior to the decision, middle-class and rich women got illegal abortions that were either highly dangerous or highly expensive. Poor women could not. After Roe v. Wade, poor women who were in the unfortunate situation of having an unwanted pregnancy could afford to get abortions. Those poor women were often urban, black, and single (taken from the book). Think about children raised in that kind of environment. It is common knowledge (check the records) that many criminals grew up in impoverished, urban settings with a poor family life. The theory asserts that 1990 was around the time that the aborted babies would have grown up to become criminals. Ideologically, the theory is untouchable, but you have to admit it makes sense.
I am moderately pro-choice, solely because I know I have absolutely no right to forbid a woman from having an abortion. Abortion is always the option of last resort, and it is a painful decision for a woman to make. I remind you of the occasion when Bill Clinton talked about his pro-choice stance in front of a group of Democratic activists, who applauded. Clinton promptly ended the applause, as his goal was to reduce the number of abortions to zero. He also understood that the government has no business in a mother's womb. This article, like many from anti-abortion (yes, unlike pro-abortion or pro-life, the term anti-abortion does not mince words about the people it
describes) voters, seeks to demonize those that perform abortions or have abortions performed on them. It does not recognize that there is a biological difference between a fetus and a baby. It uses the term "infanticide" and implies it to be the same as terminating a fetus.I do not support the most radical policies of pro-choice activists, however the debate is not about them. The debate is about the women who are put into the unfortunate situation of having an abortion. When right-wingers protest in front of Planned Parenthood clinics and shout insults at the women walking in, they are hurting women who are already in a difficult situation as it is. We must respect the sanctity of life, and some people forget that respect applies to living adults as well as unborn fetuses.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Media Bias, etc.
The following is a response to a comment on the response of the media to political gaffes of John McCain and Barack Obama. The original comment will be posted pending the permission of the author.
===Original comment===
Remember when Obama said that he had visited all 57 States during his campaign? Then there was the time that he said "Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Oh, and what about the time that Obama said "10,000 people died" in the Kansas tornadoes (death toll really 12). Let’s not forget when Obama said that Arkansas was a "nearby" state to Kentucky. Man was that a major flub showing a complete lack of knowledge of simple geography.
I bet you no one knew that he made those mistakes until I just mentioned them. Obama has made his fair share of mistakes. Once again, I’m not a big fan of John McCain AT ALL, and I don't have an issue with Obama making mistakes. It happens. But I’m sick of people attacking McCain for slipping and saying that he is making mistakes because he's too old.
So, McCain is senile and Obama... well, he just needs a nice nap.
The press is doing their level best to gin up McCain's flubs but are correspondingly dismissive of Obama's. Obama's constant gaffes are being called "minor misstatements," and are only made because he is so, so tired. They are all bending over backwards to excuse Obama's gaffes while unbendingly calling McCain's a result of some mental problem!
Well, there are great lists on the Internet of the flubs and gaffes from both candidates, so you decide what those gaffes can be blamed on. As to the left, unsurprisingly they can only see McCain's. Good thing the left is so much more "fair" and "balanced" than the rest of us.
But, there is one lingering question that hangs over this whole business. If McCain's gaffes are a result of his being old and tired, how is it they can use being "tired" as an excuse to paper over the mistakes of Obama? And if Obama's are ascribed to mere exhaustion then why can't we say that McCain is just as tired? After all, McCain is a 71-year-old man. Is Obama so weak that he tires as easily as a man of such advanced years as McCain?
Well, I guess all I can say is that the left's excuse making is weak indeed. Weak and tired.
I want to make it clear though that I have a lot of respect for Obama as a charismatic person, and I understand that campaigns can be long and tiresome. This is exactly why I think it is unfair to attack McCain about this and not Obama. Either attack both or attack neither.
===My Response===
Although many farther left than me have used McCain's gaffes as a sign of his senility, I will not resort to using his age against him. Nor will I completely excuse Obama from his slips. Everyone can be excused for slip-ups at times.
However, not all gaffes are created equal. I specifically brought up McCain's Iraq-Afghanistan border issue because of the nature of the incident. McCain has sold himself to the American people as being a national security expert and a better commander in chief than Obama. I honor his military service and I think he is a true American hero for his experiences as a POW. However you cannot equate his service as a soldier with foreign policy experience. Note that I am not saying Obama has more experience than he, McCain has been extensively involved with foreign policy during his service in the Senate. But the main foreign policy issues of this election are Iraq and Iran. McCain and the Republicans have shoved it down our throats that he was right on the surge and Obama's policies would have created a civil war. And I completely agree with that viewpoint, as I have stated many times on my blog. Obama was wrong about the surge, and I was wrong on the surge too. But remember, who was the one who opposed going to war in the first place? Obama would never have had the opportunity to mess up on the surge, because we would never have invaded Iraq when we were attacked by terrorists from Afghanistan. There have been countless books and nonpartisan investigations into the administration's misconduct of the war so I won't repeat their findings here.
If you take the time to do "a google" (note, that's simply a joke, plenty of people are just as technologically challenged as McCain), you will find many articles about how that traitor *cough* I mean that Senator Joe Lieberman has had to correct McCain when he mixes up Sunni with Shiite. That is not a mistake you make when you are a person who claims to have extensive knowledge of Iraq. That's a mistake you make when you are George W. Bush and you invade a country without planning for a long occupation.
-Last I checked, Arkansas was less than 50 miles from Kentucky. If Obama had said "bordering", it would have been a mistake but I'd definitely say Arkansas is "nearby" Kentucky".
-Ok the 57 state thing I can't explain. You win on that one. I had heard about it though.
-Come on, the Israel Israel thing is kinda obvious...heard about it and discarded it
-The tornado death toll I haven't heard and can't explain.
Now I am not dismissing Obama's missteps. Plenty of McCain's statements have been similarly easily explained. But I have not heard Obama diagnose the economic crisis as a "mental recession", which McCain has done along with Phil "Banished-to-Belarus" Gramm. Yes that was a gaffe, but how can you say those kinds of things on accident? Make no mistake, it wasn't a simple misquote, McCain has admitted many times his economic incompetence. The GAO (an official government agency) has studied both candidates' tax plans. I will not argue the 5.7 trillion dollar cost of McCain's plan here, but I do know that there is no way to balance the budget with that big of a taxcut. Kill all the pork you want, you just can't do it. And although Obama's plan is less of a cut (and an increase for the richest), it at least doesn't claim to be able to balance the budget and give a massive tax cut at the same time. Look up Obama's enormous economic team. Then look up McCain's. Look up Obama's record of not listening to his advisors. Can't find it? Look up McCain's. McCain has done some wonderful work in fighting corruption in Congress but his tax plan is simply ridiculous. I (as a pro-business liberal) can't support Obama's remarks against free trade, but I trust that he is taking advice from competent people. I mean he has Warren Buffett. A guy worth $62 billion can't be an economic idiot.
Your fair and balanced comment works against you. I have never claimed that the media is fair or balanced. I don't even get my news from cable networks. I use the BBC for news and RealClearPolitics.com for politics. I have read my share of Weekly Standard articles as well as the New York Times. But who claims to be "fair and balanced" anyway? What network came up with the "No Spin Zone"? I grant you there is a huge bias toward Obama in this race (and what are you going to do about it?), but the liberal bias in the media prior to this campaign is a complete invention of the right. Don't take it from me, talk to David Brock, a former member of the vast right-wing conspiracy that impeached Clinton for lying about an affair that affected maybe 3 people, but produced a shrub that lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq and got 4,000 heroic American soldiers killed. Not to mention enabled 9/11 to happen (again, don't take it from me, go read the 9/11 Commission Report). I don't think it's fair that Obama has 3 anchors following him around the world while McCain stews and home, but the media follows the stories, and there obviously is a reason that they chose Obama. He inspires people more than McCain so obviously the media will follow him to improve ratings. I read somewhere (forgot the source) that John McCain will not get people to pick his speeches over American Idol, but Obama will.
Ok that was way off topic. Let me just say that I never attacked McCain for the things he has said just because he is old or just because he happens to be running against Barack Obama. It's just that you have to look at what the gaffes say about the candidate. Obama has said things that have made me see him as just an ordinary politician, but he has yet to make me think that he will run our country into the ground. John Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran McCain has said many such things. You can't just explain things like that away by saying "oh that's just a little slip-up". Even when Hillary Clinton said things about attacking Iran, I got the same unease. Obama at least made the politically incorrect choice of being honest and saying that we have to talk to hostile leaders to get them to negotiate. Oh look, even the Bush administration agrees, we just sent negotiators to Iran. Regarding Obama's remarks about attacking Pakistan, I have news for you. The right went just as crazy about that. And al-Qaeda is actually hiding in Pakistan. Remember Jeremiah Wright? Louis Farrakhan? Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Why does associating with them mean Obama is automatically a radical? Some people on the right prefer to ignore Obama's positions and go straight to the radicals he's been around for ammo. And the media has extensively covered his radical associations.
Oh look, I just got an email from MoveOn.org's John McCain media watch. CBS edited his statements to make him appear more knowledgeable about Iraq. Yes, MoveOn is a left-wing organization but facts are facts. The media is indeed biased but John McCain hasn't given it any reason to adore him like they did back in the 2000 campaign when he ran against the previously mentioned shrub.
===Original comment===
Remember when Obama said that he had visited all 57 States during his campaign? Then there was the time that he said "Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Oh, and what about the time that Obama said "10,000 people died" in the Kansas tornadoes (death toll really 12). Let’s not forget when Obama said that Arkansas was a "nearby" state to Kentucky. Man was that a major flub showing a complete lack of knowledge of simple geography.
I bet you no one knew that he made those mistakes until I just mentioned them. Obama has made his fair share of mistakes. Once again, I’m not a big fan of John McCain AT ALL, and I don't have an issue with Obama making mistakes. It happens. But I’m sick of people attacking McCain for slipping and saying that he is making mistakes because he's too old.
So, McCain is senile and Obama... well, he just needs a nice nap.
The press is doing their level best to gin up McCain's flubs but are correspondingly dismissive of Obama's. Obama's constant gaffes are being called "minor misstatements," and are only made because he is so, so tired. They are all bending over backwards to excuse Obama's gaffes while unbendingly calling McCain's a result of some mental problem!
Well, there are great lists on the Internet of the flubs and gaffes from both candidates, so you decide what those gaffes can be blamed on. As to the left, unsurprisingly they can only see McCain's. Good thing the left is so much more "fair" and "balanced" than the rest of us.
But, there is one lingering question that hangs over this whole business. If McCain's gaffes are a result of his being old and tired, how is it they can use being "tired" as an excuse to paper over the mistakes of Obama? And if Obama's are ascribed to mere exhaustion then why can't we say that McCain is just as tired? After all, McCain is a 71-year-old man. Is Obama so weak that he tires as easily as a man of such advanced years as McCain?
Well, I guess all I can say is that the left's excuse making is weak indeed. Weak and tired.
I want to make it clear though that I have a lot of respect for Obama as a charismatic person, and I understand that campaigns can be long and tiresome. This is exactly why I think it is unfair to attack McCain about this and not Obama. Either attack both or attack neither.
===My Response===
Although many farther left than me have used McCain's gaffes as a sign of his senility, I will not resort to using his age against him. Nor will I completely excuse Obama from his slips. Everyone can be excused for slip-ups at times.
However, not all gaffes are created equal. I specifically brought up McCain's Iraq-Afghanistan border issue because of the nature of the incident. McCain has sold himself to the American people as being a national security expert and a better commander in chief than Obama. I honor his military service and I think he is a true American hero for his experiences as a POW. However you cannot equate his service as a soldier with foreign policy experience. Note that I am not saying Obama has more experience than he, McCain has been extensively involved with foreign policy during his service in the Senate. But the main foreign policy issues of this election are Iraq and Iran. McCain and the Republicans have shoved it down our throats that he was right on the surge and Obama's policies would have created a civil war. And I completely agree with that viewpoint, as I have stated many times on my blog. Obama was wrong about the surge, and I was wrong on the surge too. But remember, who was the one who opposed going to war in the first place? Obama would never have had the opportunity to mess up on the surge, because we would never have invaded Iraq when we were attacked by terrorists from Afghanistan. There have been countless books and nonpartisan investigations into the administration's misconduct of the war so I won't repeat their findings here.
If you take the time to do "a google" (note, that's simply a joke, plenty of people are just as technologically challenged as McCain), you will find many articles about how that traitor *cough* I mean that Senator Joe Lieberman has had to correct McCain when he mixes up Sunni with Shiite. That is not a mistake you make when you are a person who claims to have extensive knowledge of Iraq. That's a mistake you make when you are George W. Bush and you invade a country without planning for a long occupation.
-Last I checked, Arkansas was less than 50 miles from Kentucky. If Obama had said "bordering", it would have been a mistake but I'd definitely say Arkansas is "nearby" Kentucky".
-Ok the 57 state thing I can't explain. You win on that one. I had heard about it though.
-Come on, the Israel Israel thing is kinda obvious...heard about it and discarded it
-The tornado death toll I haven't heard and can't explain.
Now I am not dismissing Obama's missteps. Plenty of McCain's statements have been similarly easily explained. But I have not heard Obama diagnose the economic crisis as a "mental recession", which McCain has done along with Phil "Banished-to-Belarus" Gramm. Yes that was a gaffe, but how can you say those kinds of things on accident? Make no mistake, it wasn't a simple misquote, McCain has admitted many times his economic incompetence. The GAO (an official government agency) has studied both candidates' tax plans. I will not argue the 5.7 trillion dollar cost of McCain's plan here, but I do know that there is no way to balance the budget with that big of a taxcut. Kill all the pork you want, you just can't do it. And although Obama's plan is less of a cut (and an increase for the richest), it at least doesn't claim to be able to balance the budget and give a massive tax cut at the same time. Look up Obama's enormous economic team. Then look up McCain's. Look up Obama's record of not listening to his advisors. Can't find it? Look up McCain's. McCain has done some wonderful work in fighting corruption in Congress but his tax plan is simply ridiculous. I (as a pro-business liberal) can't support Obama's remarks against free trade, but I trust that he is taking advice from competent people. I mean he has Warren Buffett. A guy worth $62 billion can't be an economic idiot.
Your fair and balanced comment works against you. I have never claimed that the media is fair or balanced. I don't even get my news from cable networks. I use the BBC for news and RealClearPolitics.com for politics. I have read my share of Weekly Standard articles as well as the New York Times. But who claims to be "fair and balanced" anyway? What network came up with the "No Spin Zone"? I grant you there is a huge bias toward Obama in this race (and what are you going to do about it?), but the liberal bias in the media prior to this campaign is a complete invention of the right. Don't take it from me, talk to David Brock, a former member of the vast right-wing conspiracy that impeached Clinton for lying about an affair that affected maybe 3 people, but produced a shrub that lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq and got 4,000 heroic American soldiers killed. Not to mention enabled 9/11 to happen (again, don't take it from me, go read the 9/11 Commission Report). I don't think it's fair that Obama has 3 anchors following him around the world while McCain stews and home, but the media follows the stories, and there obviously is a reason that they chose Obama. He inspires people more than McCain so obviously the media will follow him to improve ratings. I read somewhere (forgot the source) that John McCain will not get people to pick his speeches over American Idol, but Obama will.
Ok that was way off topic. Let me just say that I never attacked McCain for the things he has said just because he is old or just because he happens to be running against Barack Obama. It's just that you have to look at what the gaffes say about the candidate. Obama has said things that have made me see him as just an ordinary politician, but he has yet to make me think that he will run our country into the ground. John Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran McCain has said many such things. You can't just explain things like that away by saying "oh that's just a little slip-up". Even when Hillary Clinton said things about attacking Iran, I got the same unease. Obama at least made the politically incorrect choice of being honest and saying that we have to talk to hostile leaders to get them to negotiate. Oh look, even the Bush administration agrees, we just sent negotiators to Iran. Regarding Obama's remarks about attacking Pakistan, I have news for you. The right went just as crazy about that. And al-Qaeda is actually hiding in Pakistan. Remember Jeremiah Wright? Louis Farrakhan? Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Why does associating with them mean Obama is automatically a radical? Some people on the right prefer to ignore Obama's positions and go straight to the radicals he's been around for ammo. And the media has extensively covered his radical associations.
Oh look, I just got an email from MoveOn.org's John McCain media watch. CBS edited his statements to make him appear more knowledgeable about Iraq. Yes, MoveOn is a left-wing organization but facts are facts. The media is indeed biased but John McCain hasn't given it any reason to adore him like they did back in the 2000 campaign when he ran against the previously mentioned shrub.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
France ends mandatory 35 hour work week
That's right, France has abolished the mandatory work week. As much as I admire France and its delicious baked goods, the 35 hour week is ridiculous. What are they doing with that extra hour a day? Not to mention the whole month of August. I mean that's at least 10 whole days a year that they're not churning out pastries and 
baguettes and headbutts.
Did I mention I like French bread?
baguettes and headbutts.Did I mention I like French bread?
McCain wipes Iran off map
"We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border,” McCain said on ABC News, effectively wiping Iran off the map. (source)
The Iranian threat is gone! All hail John McCain!
Maybe this is why McCain thinks Iraq is the central front of the war on terror. I mean, Iraq doesn't even sound like Afghanistan. It'd be a little more forgivable to confuse Iraq and Iran, but Afghanistan? I guess Joe Lieberman didn't get there in time to catch that one.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Government owes music royalties for use at Gitmo
A slight change of pace from genocide (my trip tomorrow is postponed to Friday due to inclement weather).
The US government has been using pop songs to "torture" detainees at Guantanamo through sleep deprivation and possibly offensive lyrics. However, as this technically constitutes public playing of the music, they owe licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI for their use of the songs. Of course, the government has not paid.
As comedian and filmmaker Paul Provenza said this week on the panel of the NPR news quiz/comedy show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me! (of which I am a huge fan, you should all go check it out right away), "You know, the Constitution didn't seem to make a difference, but ASCAP is gonna come to the rescue here...There's something really poetic about that I think"
Loathe as I am to support ASCAP, I'll go with whatever brings down Guantanamo the fastest. You go ASCAP! Show 'em not to mess with your crack legal team.
The following is a (not thoroughly checked) list of songs claimed to be used as torture. (From a comment on the Freakonomics blog @ NYTimes Online-see comment #6 on link, originally sourced to imeem.com, an obligatory 1 minute search failed to retrieve the original source)
===
‘F**K Your God’ by Deicide
‘Die MF Die’ by Dope
‘Take Your Best Shot’ by Dope
‘White America’ by Eminem
‘Kim’ by Eminem
‘Barney Theme Song’
‘Bodies’ by Drowning Pool
‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica
‘Meow Mix Jingle’
‘Sesame Street Theme Song’
‘Babylon’ by David Gray
‘Born in the USA’ by Bruce Springsteen
‘Shoot to Thrill’ by AC/DC
‘Hells Bells’ by AC/DC
‘Stayin Alive’ by The Bee Gees
‘All Eyes on Me’ by Tupac
‘Dirty’ by Christina Aguilera
‘America’ by Neil Diamond
‘Bulls on Parade’ by Rage Against the Machine
‘American Pie’ by Don McLean
‘Click Click Boom’ by Saliva
‘Cold’ by Matchbox 20
‘Swan Dive’ by Hed PE
‘Raspberry Beret’ by Prince
===
Most of the list is hilarious but BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE SOLDIER WHO SUGGESTED PLAYING AMERICAN PIE AS TORTURE!!!
The US government has been using pop songs to "torture" detainees at Guantanamo through sleep deprivation and possibly offensive lyrics. However, as this technically constitutes public playing of the music, they owe licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI for their use of the songs. Of course, the government has not paid.
As comedian and filmmaker Paul Provenza said this week on the panel of the NPR news quiz/comedy show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me! (of which I am a huge fan, you should all go check it out right away), "You know, the Constitution didn't seem to make a difference, but ASCAP is gonna come to the rescue here...There's something really poetic about that I think"
Loathe as I am to support ASCAP, I'll go with whatever brings down Guantanamo the fastest. You go ASCAP! Show 'em not to mess with your crack legal team.
The following is a (not thoroughly checked) list of songs claimed to be used as torture. (From a comment on the Freakonomics blog @ NYTimes Online-see comment #6 on link, originally sourced to imeem.com, an obligatory 1 minute search failed to retrieve the original source)
===
‘F**K Your God’ by Deicide
‘Die MF Die’ by Dope
‘Take Your Best Shot’ by Dope
‘White America’ by Eminem
‘Kim’ by Eminem
‘Barney Theme Song’
‘Bodies’ by Drowning Pool
‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica
‘Meow Mix Jingle’
‘Sesame Street Theme Song’
‘Babylon’ by David Gray
‘Born in the USA’ by Bruce Springsteen
‘Shoot to Thrill’ by AC/DC
‘Hells Bells’ by AC/DC
‘Stayin Alive’ by The Bee Gees
‘All Eyes on Me’ by Tupac
‘Dirty’ by Christina Aguilera
‘America’ by Neil Diamond
‘Bulls on Parade’ by Rage Against the Machine
‘American Pie’ by Don McLean
‘Click Click Boom’ by Saliva
‘Cold’ by Matchbox 20
‘Swan Dive’ by Hed PE
‘Raspberry Beret’ by Prince
===
Most of the list is hilarious but BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE SOLDIER WHO SUGGESTED PLAYING AMERICAN PIE AS TORTURE!!!
Darfur.2
Last week's ICC indictment against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir meant absolutely nothing. Even if the ICC had any legitimacy, even if Sudan had signed the Rome Statute which created the ICC, even if the court had the full backing of Europe and the United States (which are afraid of charges leveled against their own leaders), even if al-Bashir gave himself up or was kicked out by a coup, the legal process is far too slow to do anything to stop the genocide in Darfur. Did anyone think the indictment would do anything? The only way to bring him to justice is an invasion, which the West lacks the will and the stomach to carry out. By the time the ICC "investigates" the atrocities and far understates the crimes of the Sudanese government, thousands more Darfuris will be dead. And al-Bashir will still be in power.
This article highlights the hypocrisy the Sudanese government and its allies see and exploit in the efforts of the West to stop the killing. If the West is unwilling to put its own leaders under the jurisdiction of the ICC then why should Sudan? The United States isn't even party to the statute anymore. President Bush's statement "We'll see how that plays out." seems to make genocide a spectator sport for the US.
The investigation is happening even though humanitarian groups have already provided all the evidence you could ever need in a criminal prosecution. There is no question that the Sudanese regime is guilty of the massacre, and yet the investigation continues to crawl along toward the justice that will never be served in Darfur.
---
I will be in Washington D.C. tomorrow to visit, among other places, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for a reminder of why we still say "Never Again". Afterward I will start working on letters to Congress and other influential leaders, as well as petitions and presentations, which I hope to release to the public in my local area as well as online.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Liberal Sensitivity
Myself being a liberal with a sense of humor, I see the point in this article but will have to refute its basic claims.
The difference between making fun of McCain's age, or his trigger-happiness, or even Secretary Rice's race; and Obama's religion-is that McCain is indeed old, and he has made statements like his infamous "bomb bomb bomb Iran", and Secretary Rice is indeed black, but in no way is Barack Obama a Muslim. However tasteless the McCain cartoon may be, it causes no harm to spread a rumor that McCain is old, if you hadn't noticed, he is in fact old. If you see the McCain cartoon, you'll just laugh and remember the good old days when President Reagan told stories about his dinners with Thomas Jefferson. It's a lot easier to make fun of a person's age, or a tough stance on hostile nations, or even burning the Constitution, and laugh at it. After years of Bush burning the Constitution, we've kind of gotten a little used to it. It also must be noted that the cartoon was a spoof of the original Obama cartoon.
However, continuing to insinuate that Obama is a Muslim, when a good portion of the electorate still believes that he is, is simply an outright untruth. To say that Obama is in league with Osama, that Michelle is a violent black supremacist bent on a killing spree, to say that Obama is a flag burner, those are not stretches of the truth. You couldn't even come up with the cartoon if you took the truth and stretched it to Pluto. They are outright lies.
Of course I understand that the cartoon (from the New Yorker) was satirizing the pitiful attempts of the right to label Obama as a Muslim and a terrorist supporter, but I know that he is indeed not a Muslim and has lived the American Dream as much as any of us. The 12% of Americans who think Obama is a Muslim may not.
And after being attacked for being part of a CHRISTIAN church with a hate-spewing pastor? It must have been hard to be a Muslim in the United Church of Christ. Must be why he left.
The difference between making fun of McCain's age, or his trigger-happiness, or even Secretary Rice's race; and Obama's religion-is that McCain is indeed old, and he has made statements like his infamous "bomb bomb bomb Iran", and Secretary Rice is indeed black, but in no way is Barack Obama a Muslim. However tasteless the McCain cartoon may be, it causes no harm to spread a rumor that McCain is old, if you hadn't noticed, he is in fact old. If you see the McCain cartoon, you'll just laugh and remember the good old days when President Reagan told stories about his dinners with Thomas Jefferson. It's a lot easier to make fun of a person's age, or a tough stance on hostile nations, or even burning the Constitution, and laugh at it. After years of Bush burning the Constitution, we've kind of gotten a little used to it. It also must be noted that the cartoon was a spoof of the original Obama cartoon.
However, continuing to insinuate that Obama is a Muslim, when a good portion of the electorate still believes that he is, is simply an outright untruth. To say that Obama is in league with Osama, that Michelle is a violent black supremacist bent on a killing spree, to say that Obama is a flag burner, those are not stretches of the truth. You couldn't even come up with the cartoon if you took the truth and stretched it to Pluto. They are outright lies.
Of course I understand that the cartoon (from the New Yorker) was satirizing the pitiful attempts of the right to label Obama as a Muslim and a terrorist supporter, but I know that he is indeed not a Muslim and has lived the American Dream as much as any of us. The 12% of Americans who think Obama is a Muslim may not.
And after being attacked for being part of a CHRISTIAN church with a hate-spewing pastor? It must have been hard to be a Muslim in the United Church of Christ. Must be why he left.
Evolution debate comment
I personally think the evolution debate is as ridiculous as the claims of flat-earthers, but for some reason, it is one scientific issue (along with global climate change) that has been hijacked by politics and ideology. Why isn't the church still arguing against Copernicus? Anyway, here is a repost of a comment I made on The Fray @ Slate.com, in response to a post by a person undecided on evolution, in response to an article about blind salamanders. (apparently we have not evolved enough to get rid of laziness, hence the incoherence of the previous sentence)
===From a post on The Fray @ Slate.com===
===From a post on The Fray @ Slate.com===
If you are saying that the salamanders in question once had eyes and then lost them during the course of their lives, you are mistaken. The salamander population as a whole gradually lost its eyes over many generations. When one individual changes a characteristic, such as a chameleon changing its color, a bird changing its nesting location in response to predators, a human building a house to have shelter, that is adaptation. When an entire population gradually changes its characteristics through the dying out of weaker individuals, that is evolution. You are not going to witness evolution except in bacteria that evolve extremely rapidly in response to antibiotics that kill off large portions of their population. Do you believe in atomic theory? Have you ever seen an atom? Do you believe that the Earth orbits the Sun? Have you been to a location where you can tell that is true? The scientific debate over evolution is no different than a debate over any other theory, yet it is the one issue on which nonscientists claim to have the correct view on. The scientific record supporting evolution is no less solid than that supporting other theories, yet we laypeople still doubt it. Science cannot be subordinated to ideology. Science is what our entire society is built on.
As far as the blind salamanders go, they have no use for eyes in the lightless environment in which they live, thus salamanders without eyes (or with incrementally less functional eyes) have to put less energy and resources into maintaining their eyes, thus are better equipped to survive. The chance to survive may only increase by tiny fractions of a percent, but again, the process occurs over many many generations. If people (not necessarily the original poster) can base creationism on pure faith, the leap of faith to believe in evolution is far smaller. Even for us commoners to trust in and partially understand the science is a smaller leap than to trust purely in the Bible.
By definition, science is based on logic. Scientific=logical. There is no way that anything involving even the slightest bit of faith can be completely logical. Note this doesn't contradict my previous statement, as the facts are all there to support evolution, it's just a lot of it is only accessible/comprehensible to scientists. The basic premise of any system involving a creator/designer is the existence of such a being, which can never be logically proven.A message to Senator Obama
At the end of this post is a message sent to Senator Obama via his website.
Feel free to copy the message and resend it if you want. It is a point I see over and over from conservative and some mainstream journalists-that McCain was right on the surge and Obama's "surrender tactics" would have led to an Iraq in chaos. I opposed the surge (as did many top commanders), and I was wrong. The circumstances at the time led me to the belief that things would not get better and it was time to cut our losses and leave Iraq, whatever the consequences. And I applaud Senator McCain's judgement.
However, the real issue is not the surge, as in an Obama presidency, we would never go to war without rigorous planning for the aftermath. Obama would listen to generals like Eric Shinseki who warned that we did not have enough troops. Yes, McCain probably would not have invaded Iraq if he had been president, he would have listened to the generals, and he was right on the surge, but the fact still remains that he still supports the initial invasion. He believes that the central fight against terror is Iraq, where al-Qaeda only went after we invaded and toppled Saddam.
We as a country have forgotten the crimes of the Bush administration that led us into war in the first place. I will repeat this until it is heard: John McCain was right on the surge, but Barack Obama was right on the war.
===a message to Senator Obama===
Senator McCain seems to have come up with an effective (for now) strategy regarding Iraq. A good portion of the American people still see him as a more capable commander in chief due to his military experience and his foresight in pushing for the troop surge. Those people that still trust Senator McCain over Senator Obama on Iraq are not those who are likely to be swayed by PM Nouri al-Maliki's "endorsement" of the Obama Iraq proposal.
The nation seems to have forgotten who was right on the bigger issue of going to war in the first place. The nation has forgotten the lies the Bush administration used to lead us into Iraq. And the nation has forgotten that John McCain still supports the initial decision to go to war. If Senator Obama had been president, he would never have had the chance to go wrong on the surge, because it would never have happened.
Senator Obama, if you wish to dispel John McCain's supposed superiority on the Iraq issue, you need to remind voters that you were right on the most important decision-the initial one. The recent successes in Iraq have made many people forget all the killing that has already happened. Don't let America forget that you were the one to oppose the war from the beginning.
Feel free to copy the message and resend it if you want. It is a point I see over and over from conservative and some mainstream journalists-that McCain was right on the surge and Obama's "surrender tactics" would have led to an Iraq in chaos. I opposed the surge (as did many top commanders), and I was wrong. The circumstances at the time led me to the belief that things would not get better and it was time to cut our losses and leave Iraq, whatever the consequences. And I applaud Senator McCain's judgement.
However, the real issue is not the surge, as in an Obama presidency, we would never go to war without rigorous planning for the aftermath. Obama would listen to generals like Eric Shinseki who warned that we did not have enough troops. Yes, McCain probably would not have invaded Iraq if he had been president, he would have listened to the generals, and he was right on the surge, but the fact still remains that he still supports the initial invasion. He believes that the central fight against terror is Iraq, where al-Qaeda only went after we invaded and toppled Saddam.
We as a country have forgotten the crimes of the Bush administration that led us into war in the first place. I will repeat this until it is heard: John McCain was right on the surge, but Barack Obama was right on the war.
===a message to Senator Obama===
Senator McCain seems to have come up with an effective (for now) strategy regarding Iraq. A good portion of the American people still see him as a more capable commander in chief due to his military experience and his foresight in pushing for the troop surge. Those people that still trust Senator McCain over Senator Obama on Iraq are not those who are likely to be swayed by PM Nouri al-Maliki's "endorsement" of the Obama Iraq proposal.
The nation seems to have forgotten who was right on the bigger issue of going to war in the first place. The nation has forgotten the lies the Bush administration used to lead us into Iraq. And the nation has forgotten that John McCain still supports the initial decision to go to war. If Senator Obama had been president, he would never have had the chance to go wrong on the surge, because it would never have happened.
Senator Obama, if you wish to dispel John McCain's supposed superiority on the Iraq issue, you need to remind voters that you were right on the most important decision-the initial one. The recent successes in Iraq have made many people forget all the killing that has already happened. Don't let America forget that you were the one to oppose the war from the beginning.
Is polling irrelevant?
Based on this article it is, and Obama is much more solid than polls would argue. The formula it mentions is dubious but a 14/15 accuracy is hard to argue with.
This time however, both of the candidates have an image of being a different breed of politician, though neither can truly claim to be that. McCain's maverick image still sticks from his failed 2000 bid, and his considerable Senate record does show many instances where he strays from party line, often to the wrath of Republican leaders. His strong stance against corruption and meaningless spending still separates him from the Republican establishment that the country has grown weary of. A McCain presidency would certainly ease the partisanship that has taken root in America.
Then again, on the most important issues-the economy, Iraq, dealing with hostile nations-McCain is simply an extension of Bush. He has admitted many times that he has little experience or knowledge of domestic affairs at a time when the state of our union has been weakened at home as well as abroad. I would hope that McCain would have the sense to surround himself with knowledgeable and competent advisors, but he is not known for having an open mind, and most likely would draw from the same group that made up the Bush administration. Phil Gramm may be banished to Belarus, but let it not be forgotten that McCain himself diagnosed the country with a mental recession.
Obama is in danger of losing the force that drove a young, African-American, freshman Senator from Illinois to become the Democratic presidential candidate. His recent rush to the center, although it doesn't bother me personally, has alienated many of his supporters on the left and caused many others to mistrust his intentions. He is only doing what any politician would do, only he does it in the midst of a campaign that is supposed to be about change.
Another problem is, yes, Obama's race. Of course race shouldn't be a factor at all, yet history begs to differ. Your average conscientious white person will tell you that "no, of course race will play no part in my decision". However, there are many historical examples (of which I am too lazy to dig up right now) that show black candidates leading in the polls prior to an election getting trounced on election day. In the voting booth, it's you and your biases, with no one around to confront you about them. No mainstream journalist dare mention race in this campaign, but it is a wild card that will always be lingering in the back of voters' minds.
This time however, both of the candidates have an image of being a different breed of politician, though neither can truly claim to be that. McCain's maverick image still sticks from his failed 2000 bid, and his considerable Senate record does show many instances where he strays from party line, often to the wrath of Republican leaders. His strong stance against corruption and meaningless spending still separates him from the Republican establishment that the country has grown weary of. A McCain presidency would certainly ease the partisanship that has taken root in America.
Then again, on the most important issues-the economy, Iraq, dealing with hostile nations-McCain is simply an extension of Bush. He has admitted many times that he has little experience or knowledge of domestic affairs at a time when the state of our union has been weakened at home as well as abroad. I would hope that McCain would have the sense to surround himself with knowledgeable and competent advisors, but he is not known for having an open mind, and most likely would draw from the same group that made up the Bush administration. Phil Gramm may be banished to Belarus, but let it not be forgotten that McCain himself diagnosed the country with a mental recession.
Obama is in danger of losing the force that drove a young, African-American, freshman Senator from Illinois to become the Democratic presidential candidate. His recent rush to the center, although it doesn't bother me personally, has alienated many of his supporters on the left and caused many others to mistrust his intentions. He is only doing what any politician would do, only he does it in the midst of a campaign that is supposed to be about change.
Another problem is, yes, Obama's race. Of course race shouldn't be a factor at all, yet history begs to differ. Your average conscientious white person will tell you that "no, of course race will play no part in my decision". However, there are many historical examples (of which I am too lazy to dig up right now) that show black candidates leading in the polls prior to an election getting trounced on election day. In the voting booth, it's you and your biases, with no one around to confront you about them. No mainstream journalist dare mention race in this campaign, but it is a wild card that will always be lingering in the back of voters' minds.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
6 Months Left
Yes, that is the light at the end of the tunnel. Just 6 more months until Barack Obama takes the oath of office and becomes the 44th President of the United States...hopefully.
I must give the Bush administration credit for some of its recent turns of policy. Although they do not erase the previous offenses, they are a sign that someone at the White House is thinking correctly. In fact it'd be easy for future historians to think the Obama presidency had already started at this point.
Negotiations with Iran? During the Bush administration? No way. Tough talk from the G8 on Zimbabwe? Climate change? North Korea? What has happened to the Bush presidency? It's a shame no one is paying attention. With the Big Three following Obama across the globe, the good news that is finally coming out of the Bush White House is going unnoticed. And John McCain's Straight-Talk Express is getting quite lonely.
I must give the Bush administration credit for some of its recent turns of policy. Although they do not erase the previous offenses, they are a sign that someone at the White House is thinking correctly. In fact it'd be easy for future historians to think the Obama presidency had already started at this point.
Negotiations with Iran? During the Bush administration? No way. Tough talk from the G8 on Zimbabwe? Climate change? North Korea? What has happened to the Bush presidency? It's a shame no one is paying attention. With the Big Three following Obama across the globe, the good news that is finally coming out of the Bush White House is going unnoticed. And John McCain's Straight-Talk Express is getting quite lonely.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Guantanamo Video
(see post below for link to video)
The released Guantanamo video clip (full 7 hours will be released Tuesday) isn't anything terribly shocking. No torture or even intense questioning is shown, just a crying kid sitting in a room with a questioner. We've seen far worse, with the Abu-Ghraib photos and countless allegations of torture by other detainees. We know nothing more now than we did yesterday, these videos do nothing but add to the heap of evidence we already have.
But this video is different. Khadr's lawyers are relying on the fact that any video of a crying teenager being questioned, even nonviolently, will hit the public like a sledgehammer and force the government into action through public outrage. The video ties the whole mess together, and puts the face of Omar Khadr, Canadian citizen, on the debacle. You can't watch the video and tell yourself "oh, we may go to extremes sometimes but the people locked up at Gitmo are hardened terrorists who want to kill us". The video may wind up not only saving Mr. Khadr, now 21 and facing multiple terrorism charges and the prospect of life imprisonment, but also be the straw that tips Gitmo's existence over the cliff.
Unfortunately, Canadian PM Stephen Harper has refused to demand Khadr's extradition back to Canada. Since Khadr is a Canadian citizen, you would expect Canada to rush to his defense, but he has fallen into the same legal black hole that the rest of the detainees are in. Canada's government has the obligation to protect its citizens, and although Khadr could be easily returned to Canada, he remains in Guantanamo.
The released Guantanamo video clip (full 7 hours will be released Tuesday) isn't anything terribly shocking. No torture or even intense questioning is shown, just a crying kid sitting in a room with a questioner. We've seen far worse, with the Abu-Ghraib photos and countless allegations of torture by other detainees. We know nothing more now than we did yesterday, these videos do nothing but add to the heap of evidence we already have.
But this video is different. Khadr's lawyers are relying on the fact that any video of a crying teenager being questioned, even nonviolently, will hit the public like a sledgehammer and force the government into action through public outrage. The video ties the whole mess together, and puts the face of Omar Khadr, Canadian citizen, on the debacle. You can't watch the video and tell yourself "oh, we may go to extremes sometimes but the people locked up at Gitmo are hardened terrorists who want to kill us". The video may wind up not only saving Mr. Khadr, now 21 and facing multiple terrorism charges and the prospect of life imprisonment, but also be the straw that tips Gitmo's existence over the cliff.
Unfortunately, Canadian PM Stephen Harper has refused to demand Khadr's extradition back to Canada. Since Khadr is a Canadian citizen, you would expect Canada to rush to his defense, but he has fallen into the same legal black hole that the rest of the detainees are in. Canada's government has the obligation to protect its citizens, and although Khadr could be easily returned to Canada, he remains in Guantanamo.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Commentary on Iraq
Original article: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/15801
===
So Obama was wrong about the surge. His predictions about it were wrong. Ok, we got that straight.
Why have we stopped talking about how we got into the war in the first place? Remember the reason stated by the Bush administration was to get rid of their WMDs. It has been revealed by numerous nonpartisan studies including the Iraq Study Group that the “evidence” and “intelligence” cited by the administration was a sham. The British report about Nigerien uranium was not, as claimed, given to us as solid evidence.
So then, after that was exposed, Bush tried to tie them to 9/11. Again, deliberate misleading of the American people. No connection at all. Al Qaeda was based in…oh, Afghanistan? That’s a whole Iran away from Iraq. The meeting between that Iraqi official and Al Qaeda operatives in the Czech Republic? Sham. Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq prior to the war. Saddam (fiercely secular) would have had nothing to do with fundamentalist Islamists. Fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here? How about fighting them in Afghanistan (instead of telling our Afghan allies to let Osama escape at Tora Bora) so we don’t have to fight them anywhere?
And once we wise up to the lack of Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, you’d think Bush would have run out of tricks but no, we’re “bringing freedom to the Iraqis”. Oh the Iraqis are overjoyed by their newfound freedom, so happy that they give us these things that explode and kill our troops!
The idea that because we’re already in Iraq, we might as well act like it wasn’t Bush’s fault and criticize Obama for making a wrong judgement regarding the war (he’s not even a military expert for crying out loud, how are we supposed to hold him to the same standards as a president who has countless generals to help him make him decisions?), is completely ridiculous. Unlike Bush, whose administration ostracized generals like Eric Shinseki for giving realistic estimates of several hundred thousand troops needed in Iraq, Obama by his “flip-flop” in fact shows a willingness to listen to commanders on the ground and an ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Call it what you will, but he has done what McCain challenged him to do, go to Iraq and speak with commanders. Obama has done exactly that, and now is being criticized for “flip-flopping” when what he did was exactly what a president would have to do-seek advice from commanders before making decisions.
Again, the argument that the Iraq War has led to a defeat for Al Qaeda is terribly misleading. There would have been no Al Qaeda in Iraq to defeat if we had not invaded and provided 140,000 targets for budding jihadists to shoot at. If we had sent a ground force into Afghanistan when we had Osama holed up in Tora Bora instead of dropping bombs that couldn’t reach the entrenched terrorists, our troops may have returned home triumphantly from Afghanistan having completed their mission of annihilating the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
I give John McCain credit for having the wisdom to see that the initial phases of the war were a complete disaster, and that more troops would be needed to quell the violence. I honor his wartime service as a pilot and his suffering as a PoW. But I still cannot reconcile myself to his support for an unjustified war in the first place.
Obama may have been wrong about the surge (implemented years after Shinseki’s original recommendations of much higher troop levels), but he was right about the most important decision-the one that landed us in war in the first place. To suggest that a wrong stance on the surge is more damning than misleading the country into war in the first place, that is blindness to reality. And to erase President Bush’s previous blunders because he implemented a plan that worked after years of failure? That is blindness to reality.
===
It may certainly have benefited much of the Iraqi population to get rid of Saddam. In fact, if we manage to keep things going the way they are and leave Iraq a stable democracy (which I, a Democrat and Obama supporter, sincerely hope we do, we may look back years from now and see the Iraq War as having positive long term effects after all. I sincerely hope that is true.
However, no amount of good news from Iraq can erase the fact that Bush simply lied us into war. Let me remind you that our stated purpose was not to remove Saddam from power and free the Iraqis, it was to find WMDs that our administration told us were in Iraq, when they knew they had no evidence to back it up. If Bill Clinton can get impeached for lying about an affair (which really only directly affected three people-he, Monica Lewinsky, and Hillary Clinton), then why does Bush get off the hook for lying about a war that has caused the deaths of upwards of 4,000 brave American troops, several thousand more wounded and psychologically traumatized, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis? I challenge anyone who supported the Clinton impeachment as well as President Bush to think that through and come up with a valid response. Please email me or comment on my blog, this post will be there.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Barack W. Bush?
No kidding. Someone had the nerve to suggest such a comparison.
Loathe as I am to say it, Barack Obama supports some of the same positions as George Bush because-some of George Bush's positions are actually logically sensible! In fact many of the so-called flip-flops coming from Obama in recent weeks represent rephrasings of his positions or adjustments to changing situations. Isn't that what a politician is supposed to do? I sure don't want a president who does not change his policies to suit changing circumstances.
On gun rights, Barack Obama is suddenly a gun rights supporter because he backed the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming the rights of the individual. Nonsense. Barack Obama has always been in favor of affirming the rights of the individual while at the same time, supporting regulations that save lives in crime-ridden urban areas like his native Chicago. From the recent commentary you'd think he's in cahoots with the NRA...
On the death penalty and the "mental distress" issue of abortion, Obama is simply responding to new Supreme Court decisions. Where in the rules of politics does it say that you have to either completely support or completely oppose a policy? One of the great injustices of politics is that pro-choice is somehow equated with pro-abortion. As if liberals spend their free time getting abortions for fun. Pro-choice politicians would like nothing more than for the number of abortions to be zero. Plenty of pro-choice politicians have affirmed their personal opposition to abortion while maintaining that the decision rests solely with a woman and her doctor, not the government.
Concerning Obama's support for faith-based initiatives, there is nothing wrong with supporting social justice programs run by churches. Religion has shown a great power to ease the suffering of less fortunate individuals, and by all means, such programs should be backed. However, under President Bush, these programs have not been used to aid the poor, they have been used as spoils handed over to his cronies. As shown by his numerous tax cuts for the rich and funding cuts for the poor, our President could care less about our nation's poor. How's that for following the teachings of Jesus? The Democratic Party has historically been far more connected with social welfare programs that help the needy in our society. A President Obama would simply take the power of the churches and use it for its intended purpose-aiding the needy.
On Obama's recent renunciation of public financing, what politician can be expected to give up the vast fundraising power he has managed to build? I do not applaud his decision to renounce his previous pledges but I can certainly see why he did so. Also consider Obama's efforts to raise money from millions of small donors instead of the usual tactics of complete reliance on corporate interests. Of course, Obama still raises large amounts of money from corporate interests, but he has also raised more money from grass-roots organizations than any candidate in history. MoveOn.org, a major Democratic PAC, has moved to get more money from small donors. It has closed its 527 group, which is subject to less regulations regarding contributions. Also noteworthy is the massive RNC warchest that is not officially part of McCain's campaign. The Obama campaign recently calculated that it is still behind McCain in funds due to the massive RNC cash reserves.
On foreign policy, of course Obama supports certain Bush policies - because they have worked. For some reason, the author implies that opposing the Bush administration means opposing all of its actions. Obama has said over and over that the campaign in Afghanistan is where our resources should be focused, instead of in Iraq. The North Korea talks are something that no sane politician could possibly oppose, and diplomacy has always been part of the Obama platform. Remember that Obama was the one to pledge to talk to hostile leaders. Note that the talks with North Korea came after years of the failed Bush policy of threats and nonnegotiation. It was only smart work on the part of the State Department and Secretary Rice that North Korea was brought back to the negotiating table. Only this time, Kim Jong-Il had more powerful cards to play as failed Bush policy had enabled him to develop nuclear weapons. Expanding the military is likewise an important nonpartisan issue that is even more necessary given the Bush admistration's overstretching of the military. Cuba? Same deal. Why should a politician be compelled to keep his positions the same, even if he sincerely changes his positions? The embargo position switch can't possibly gain him much of an electoral edge, it's such a sideline issue that Obama can't very well use it to leverage votes.
Obama's characterization of Iran as a "grave threat" is due to, you guessed it, the Bush administration's mishandling of the situation. Bush's failed policy of not talking to hostile countries has given Iran to step up its own nuclear program. Back in 2002, when Iran was added to the Axis of Evil, it was in fact a valuable ally in the fight against the Taliban (see post: Iranian Revolutionary Guard for more on Iran). If we hadn't started the demagoguing then, Iran might now be a stabilizing force in the region, not a potential enemy.
Finally, the right's characterization of the Iraq issue has created a Catch-22 for Obama. First, McCain criticized Obama for not going to Iraq and speaking with the generals on the ground. But when he does exactly that, the Republicans criticize him for completely reversing his position. Since when does a carefully planned withdrawal based on the recommendations of military professionals mean the opposite of a carefully planned withdrawal based on a timetable? I'd like the McCain camp to come up with a similarly careful plan of action in Iraq. The Republican plan to hand over authority to the Iraqis is clearly not working as planned, due to serious flaws and delays in the execution. Without the goal of withdrawal, a secure handover to the Iraqis is not going to happen either.
Now I certainly see merit in criticism that says Obama has repudiated his pledge to change politics as we know it. But what's wrong with having a president that pays attention to what the people want? What's wrong with having a president that moves to the center because that's where the public is? Isn't that what the president is supposed to do, carry out the will of the people?
Loathe as I am to say it, Barack Obama supports some of the same positions as George Bush because-some of George Bush's positions are actually logically sensible! In fact many of the so-called flip-flops coming from Obama in recent weeks represent rephrasings of his positions or adjustments to changing situations. Isn't that what a politician is supposed to do? I sure don't want a president who does not change his policies to suit changing circumstances.
On gun rights, Barack Obama is suddenly a gun rights supporter because he backed the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming the rights of the individual. Nonsense. Barack Obama has always been in favor of affirming the rights of the individual while at the same time, supporting regulations that save lives in crime-ridden urban areas like his native Chicago. From the recent commentary you'd think he's in cahoots with the NRA...
On the death penalty and the "mental distress" issue of abortion, Obama is simply responding to new Supreme Court decisions. Where in the rules of politics does it say that you have to either completely support or completely oppose a policy? One of the great injustices of politics is that pro-choice is somehow equated with pro-abortion. As if liberals spend their free time getting abortions for fun. Pro-choice politicians would like nothing more than for the number of abortions to be zero. Plenty of pro-choice politicians have affirmed their personal opposition to abortion while maintaining that the decision rests solely with a woman and her doctor, not the government.
Concerning Obama's support for faith-based initiatives, there is nothing wrong with supporting social justice programs run by churches. Religion has shown a great power to ease the suffering of less fortunate individuals, and by all means, such programs should be backed. However, under President Bush, these programs have not been used to aid the poor, they have been used as spoils handed over to his cronies. As shown by his numerous tax cuts for the rich and funding cuts for the poor, our President could care less about our nation's poor. How's that for following the teachings of Jesus? The Democratic Party has historically been far more connected with social welfare programs that help the needy in our society. A President Obama would simply take the power of the churches and use it for its intended purpose-aiding the needy.
On Obama's recent renunciation of public financing, what politician can be expected to give up the vast fundraising power he has managed to build? I do not applaud his decision to renounce his previous pledges but I can certainly see why he did so. Also consider Obama's efforts to raise money from millions of small donors instead of the usual tactics of complete reliance on corporate interests. Of course, Obama still raises large amounts of money from corporate interests, but he has also raised more money from grass-roots organizations than any candidate in history. MoveOn.org, a major Democratic PAC, has moved to get more money from small donors. It has closed its 527 group, which is subject to less regulations regarding contributions. Also noteworthy is the massive RNC warchest that is not officially part of McCain's campaign. The Obama campaign recently calculated that it is still behind McCain in funds due to the massive RNC cash reserves.
On foreign policy, of course Obama supports certain Bush policies - because they have worked. For some reason, the author implies that opposing the Bush administration means opposing all of its actions. Obama has said over and over that the campaign in Afghanistan is where our resources should be focused, instead of in Iraq. The North Korea talks are something that no sane politician could possibly oppose, and diplomacy has always been part of the Obama platform. Remember that Obama was the one to pledge to talk to hostile leaders. Note that the talks with North Korea came after years of the failed Bush policy of threats and nonnegotiation. It was only smart work on the part of the State Department and Secretary Rice that North Korea was brought back to the negotiating table. Only this time, Kim Jong-Il had more powerful cards to play as failed Bush policy had enabled him to develop nuclear weapons. Expanding the military is likewise an important nonpartisan issue that is even more necessary given the Bush admistration's overstretching of the military. Cuba? Same deal. Why should a politician be compelled to keep his positions the same, even if he sincerely changes his positions? The embargo position switch can't possibly gain him much of an electoral edge, it's such a sideline issue that Obama can't very well use it to leverage votes.
Obama's characterization of Iran as a "grave threat" is due to, you guessed it, the Bush administration's mishandling of the situation. Bush's failed policy of not talking to hostile countries has given Iran to step up its own nuclear program. Back in 2002, when Iran was added to the Axis of Evil, it was in fact a valuable ally in the fight against the Taliban (see post: Iranian Revolutionary Guard for more on Iran). If we hadn't started the demagoguing then, Iran might now be a stabilizing force in the region, not a potential enemy.
Finally, the right's characterization of the Iraq issue has created a Catch-22 for Obama. First, McCain criticized Obama for not going to Iraq and speaking with the generals on the ground. But when he does exactly that, the Republicans criticize him for completely reversing his position. Since when does a carefully planned withdrawal based on the recommendations of military professionals mean the opposite of a carefully planned withdrawal based on a timetable? I'd like the McCain camp to come up with a similarly careful plan of action in Iraq. The Republican plan to hand over authority to the Iraqis is clearly not working as planned, due to serious flaws and delays in the execution. Without the goal of withdrawal, a secure handover to the Iraqis is not going to happen either.
Now I certainly see merit in criticism that says Obama has repudiated his pledge to change politics as we know it. But what's wrong with having a president that pays attention to what the people want? What's wrong with having a president that moves to the center because that's where the public is? Isn't that what the president is supposed to do, carry out the will of the people?
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Darfur.1
Darfur has become my cause célèbre after a great deal of research done, documentaries watched, and presentations attended. Sadly most of the damage was done several years ago at which point I did not know much about Darfur besides its name. I am already far too late to do anything meaningful to help save the people of Darfur. Most of its population has already been victimized as the West, including me, stood by. "Never Again" has become a phrase as cheap as the server space this blog post is kept on.
However, as long as a single Darfuri lives and government Antonov bombers still fly raids over what few Black African villages remain standing, we are (I am) still obligated to do something.
Reluctant as I am to lay blame, especially when Darfuris are still dying, as a blogger it is one of my responsibilities to pressure and shame more influential people into action. Apart from specialty international events journals, most of the commentary by the mainstream press has been in denial of the facts on the ground. This article from the BBC illustrates the point quite nicely.
The introductory mention of Rwanda (another personal area of interest) is the stock reaction to genocide by the conscientious Westerner. Of course, it's sadly mistaken. Plenty of powerful people opposed armed intervention. Inaction is not partisan-Bill Clinton let 800,000 Rwandans die just as easily as George Bush is letting hundreds of thousands of Darfuris die (estimates are rough, major humanitarian organizations have estimated around 400,000 dead and approximately 3 million displaced out of a total Darfuri population of about 7 million, just over half of whom are the targeted Black African tribes). Nor is inaction limited to this side of the Atlantic. French President François Mitterrand provided a steady stream of monetary and military aid to the Hutu militia-aid that was used to purchases cheap Chinese machetes by the crateful, which were then used to hack apart their victims. After the heads stopped rolling (due to the victory of Tutsi rebels), the French (under the UN) rushed in with amazing speed to set up a "safe zone" in Operation Turquoise to provide for the safety of Rwandan civilians. They managed to save some innocent Hutus who had not taken part in the slaughter, but it was also a haven for the remnants of the Hutu militia who had killed 800,000 over the past 100 days. The West has largely forgotten its role in enabling the Rwandan genocide.
I certainly credit British Foreign Secretary Milliband for his recognition of the worthlessness of the "Never Again" slogan, however, it comes too late. The genocide in Darfur has already happened and once again we are saying "Never Again".
A war between a sovereign government and a rebel group is the wrong way to characterize the conflict in Darfur. 400,000 casualties. Now if those 400,000 were all rebel soldiers, then the government would have a legitimate argument that it is trying to fight off insurrection, even if the rebels had a valid cause. Then again, if there were a rebel army of 400,000, Omar al-Bashir and his henchmen would be burning in hell right now and Sudan would be under a different regime. The reality is that the vast majority of the casualties in this "war" are civilians. Black African civilians deliberately targeted by the Arab militia. You can call it a war, but it is a war waged by a government against its defenseless citizens.
It is true that most of the deaths have already occurred. But the statement that there are far fewer deaths now than before has an obvious caveat. Go back to the previously mentioned statistics that said that 400,000 have been killed and around 3-4 million displaced. Consider the fact that just over half of the (pre-genocide) 7 million population is the targeted Black African population. Not too many Darfuris left unharmed, are there? Millions have fled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, many more to neighboring countries. It is estimated that 90% of African villages in Darfur have been destroyed. No wonder there are less deaths. At least the government can't just level the IDP camps, as foreign aid workers are there who might get killed and cause a Western backlash. Not that the deaths of humanitarian workers (such as the attacks this week) make a difference. Spineless Western countries still will not do anything.
But what is most disconcerting about the article is the assertion that humanitarian aid has made life in Darfur "just about tolerable". That relief has been "so proficient that death rates among Darfur's children have been brought down to pre-war levels". To even suggest that life in Darfur is "just about tolerable" is an incredible injustice to the victims of this horrible disaster. Women and children in IDP camps regularly risk rape, beatings, mutilation, or death when venturing out into the desert to find water or firewood. Many children have been orphaned or separated from their families by the conflict. Disease and famine run rampant in the crowded, understaffed, and undersupplied camps. Regular Janjaweed militia attacks and painful memories keep Darfuris in a constant state of fear. Darfuris already struggle day to day in a living hell. Intervention could hardly "pave the way to a problem from hell" in Darfur.
To even suggest that humanitarian efforts have brought life in Darfur to a tolerable level is a clear path to forgetting the whole conflict. Of course humanitarian efforts should continue, but as the Sudanese government has shown us repeatedly, it is expert at kicking out (or killing) aid workers when the militia want more victims to butcher. It is not enough. Yes, millions of lives have been saved, but if you killed another million Darfuris, you could still say "millions are still alive". Let us not pretend that we have saved Darfur. And as any humanitarian worker who has been in Darfur can tell you, the symbol of the UN is not enough to protect you from marauding militiamen. Only a trained military force can do that.
The rest of the article basically outlines a potential military intervention in Darfur. The author raises some valid points that in my opinion, simply strengthen the rationale for intervention. Mr. de Waal is correct that Khartoum fears regime change or secession for Darfur. And it is exactly this fear that is the West's trump card. Omar al-Bashir saw what happened to Slobodan Milosevic, what happened to Saddamn Hussein. He may be a cruel, genocidal dictator, but he has shown us that he is not stupid when it comes to international politics. So far the West has simply sent him idle threats and International Criminal Court investigations (which Sudan is not under the jurisdiction of anyway) and al-Bashir has read our cowardice perfectly. We are cautious to invade, especially Arab nations, in the post-Iraq era. But our failure in Iraq cannot be an excuse to not intervene in Darfur. I say, out of Iraq, into Darfur! We should have seen the parallels to Rwanda as soon as the killings started.
Lest parallels to Iraq be drawn, I add that the force need not be very large. Khartoum is not stupid enough to directly oppose a modern Western military force. In 2005, a peace agreement was signed in Southern Sudan that led to a (at least in appearance) coalition government and a promised referendum on independence for Southern Sudan. All it takes is enough of a force to scare Khartoum to the negotiating table, and the killing will stop. As Mr. de Waal writes, idle threats are meaningless if not backed up by credible force. So why not actually assemble said credible force? Our problem in Iraq is that we are fighting insurgents. Our goal in Darfur is not regime change, it is just to stop the killing. If the current regime stands, a long-term occupying force is not necessary and we will not have another nation-building project on our hands.
To the worries of opposition from the Islamic world, remember that the victims of the Darfur conflict are themselves Muslims as well. Omar al-Bashir himself is not even an Arab. As long as it is made clear that we are not there to change the regime, there should be no viable arguments from the Arab world. In 1991, we attacked Iraq to get them out of Kuwait-with the support of the Arab world. Bush Sr. smartly decided not to go all the way. Who is there that will say that the Sudanese regime can stand up to the might of the Western world with its weapons aimed at it? For all our claims of superpower status, we have let such petty men as North Korea's Kim Jong-Il and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walk all over us, flaunting their defiance of American power. America is still the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must once again put that power to use to save lives and promote peace.
However, as long as a single Darfuri lives and government Antonov bombers still fly raids over what few Black African villages remain standing, we are (I am) still obligated to do something.
Reluctant as I am to lay blame, especially when Darfuris are still dying, as a blogger it is one of my responsibilities to pressure and shame more influential people into action. Apart from specialty international events journals, most of the commentary by the mainstream press has been in denial of the facts on the ground. This article from the BBC illustrates the point quite nicely.
The introductory mention of Rwanda (another personal area of interest) is the stock reaction to genocide by the conscientious Westerner. Of course, it's sadly mistaken. Plenty of powerful people opposed armed intervention. Inaction is not partisan-Bill Clinton let 800,000 Rwandans die just as easily as George Bush is letting hundreds of thousands of Darfuris die (estimates are rough, major humanitarian organizations have estimated around 400,000 dead and approximately 3 million displaced out of a total Darfuri population of about 7 million, just over half of whom are the targeted Black African tribes). Nor is inaction limited to this side of the Atlantic. French President François Mitterrand provided a steady stream of monetary and military aid to the Hutu militia-aid that was used to purchases cheap Chinese machetes by the crateful, which were then used to hack apart their victims. After the heads stopped rolling (due to the victory of Tutsi rebels), the French (under the UN) rushed in with amazing speed to set up a "safe zone" in Operation Turquoise to provide for the safety of Rwandan civilians. They managed to save some innocent Hutus who had not taken part in the slaughter, but it was also a haven for the remnants of the Hutu militia who had killed 800,000 over the past 100 days. The West has largely forgotten its role in enabling the Rwandan genocide.
I certainly credit British Foreign Secretary Milliband for his recognition of the worthlessness of the "Never Again" slogan, however, it comes too late. The genocide in Darfur has already happened and once again we are saying "Never Again".
A war between a sovereign government and a rebel group is the wrong way to characterize the conflict in Darfur. 400,000 casualties. Now if those 400,000 were all rebel soldiers, then the government would have a legitimate argument that it is trying to fight off insurrection, even if the rebels had a valid cause. Then again, if there were a rebel army of 400,000, Omar al-Bashir and his henchmen would be burning in hell right now and Sudan would be under a different regime. The reality is that the vast majority of the casualties in this "war" are civilians. Black African civilians deliberately targeted by the Arab militia. You can call it a war, but it is a war waged by a government against its defenseless citizens.
It is true that most of the deaths have already occurred. But the statement that there are far fewer deaths now than before has an obvious caveat. Go back to the previously mentioned statistics that said that 400,000 have been killed and around 3-4 million displaced. Consider the fact that just over half of the (pre-genocide) 7 million population is the targeted Black African population. Not too many Darfuris left unharmed, are there? Millions have fled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, many more to neighboring countries. It is estimated that 90% of African villages in Darfur have been destroyed. No wonder there are less deaths. At least the government can't just level the IDP camps, as foreign aid workers are there who might get killed and cause a Western backlash. Not that the deaths of humanitarian workers (such as the attacks this week) make a difference. Spineless Western countries still will not do anything.
But what is most disconcerting about the article is the assertion that humanitarian aid has made life in Darfur "just about tolerable". That relief has been "so proficient that death rates among Darfur's children have been brought down to pre-war levels". To even suggest that life in Darfur is "just about tolerable" is an incredible injustice to the victims of this horrible disaster. Women and children in IDP camps regularly risk rape, beatings, mutilation, or death when venturing out into the desert to find water or firewood. Many children have been orphaned or separated from their families by the conflict. Disease and famine run rampant in the crowded, understaffed, and undersupplied camps. Regular Janjaweed militia attacks and painful memories keep Darfuris in a constant state of fear. Darfuris already struggle day to day in a living hell. Intervention could hardly "pave the way to a problem from hell" in Darfur.
To even suggest that humanitarian efforts have brought life in Darfur to a tolerable level is a clear path to forgetting the whole conflict. Of course humanitarian efforts should continue, but as the Sudanese government has shown us repeatedly, it is expert at kicking out (or killing) aid workers when the militia want more victims to butcher. It is not enough. Yes, millions of lives have been saved, but if you killed another million Darfuris, you could still say "millions are still alive". Let us not pretend that we have saved Darfur. And as any humanitarian worker who has been in Darfur can tell you, the symbol of the UN is not enough to protect you from marauding militiamen. Only a trained military force can do that.
The rest of the article basically outlines a potential military intervention in Darfur. The author raises some valid points that in my opinion, simply strengthen the rationale for intervention. Mr. de Waal is correct that Khartoum fears regime change or secession for Darfur. And it is exactly this fear that is the West's trump card. Omar al-Bashir saw what happened to Slobodan Milosevic, what happened to Saddamn Hussein. He may be a cruel, genocidal dictator, but he has shown us that he is not stupid when it comes to international politics. So far the West has simply sent him idle threats and International Criminal Court investigations (which Sudan is not under the jurisdiction of anyway) and al-Bashir has read our cowardice perfectly. We are cautious to invade, especially Arab nations, in the post-Iraq era. But our failure in Iraq cannot be an excuse to not intervene in Darfur. I say, out of Iraq, into Darfur! We should have seen the parallels to Rwanda as soon as the killings started.
Lest parallels to Iraq be drawn, I add that the force need not be very large. Khartoum is not stupid enough to directly oppose a modern Western military force. In 2005, a peace agreement was signed in Southern Sudan that led to a (at least in appearance) coalition government and a promised referendum on independence for Southern Sudan. All it takes is enough of a force to scare Khartoum to the negotiating table, and the killing will stop. As Mr. de Waal writes, idle threats are meaningless if not backed up by credible force. So why not actually assemble said credible force? Our problem in Iraq is that we are fighting insurgents. Our goal in Darfur is not regime change, it is just to stop the killing. If the current regime stands, a long-term occupying force is not necessary and we will not have another nation-building project on our hands.
To the worries of opposition from the Islamic world, remember that the victims of the Darfur conflict are themselves Muslims as well. Omar al-Bashir himself is not even an Arab. As long as it is made clear that we are not there to change the regime, there should be no viable arguments from the Arab world. In 1991, we attacked Iraq to get them out of Kuwait-with the support of the Arab world. Bush Sr. smartly decided not to go all the way. Who is there that will say that the Sudanese regime can stand up to the might of the Western world with its weapons aimed at it? For all our claims of superpower status, we have let such petty men as North Korea's Kim Jong-Il and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walk all over us, flaunting their defiance of American power. America is still the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must once again put that power to use to save lives and promote peace.
More idle posturing on Russia
Yet another completely useless suggestion from John McCain.
What the hell was he thinking? A man who claims to have more foreign policy experience than Barack Obama can't possibly say something like this and expect to be taken seriously. Yes of course Putin has consolidated his control over Russia even with his departure from office, but how is kicking Russia out of the G-8 going to do anything? I thought isolationism went out of style after WWII...
And who are we to be criticizing other countries for chipping away at democracy? America, land of the PATRIOT ACT, warrantless wiretapping, and Guantanamo Bay...
What the hell was he thinking? A man who claims to have more foreign policy experience than Barack Obama can't possibly say something like this and expect to be taken seriously. Yes of course Putin has consolidated his control over Russia even with his departure from office, but how is kicking Russia out of the G-8 going to do anything? I thought isolationism went out of style after WWII...
And who are we to be criticizing other countries for chipping away at democracy? America, land of the PATRIOT ACT, warrantless wiretapping, and Guantanamo Bay...
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Sharia in Britain, etc.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips of England declared in a speech that Sharia law can be used in England to negotiate contracts as long as it complies with British Law.
This alarmed me at first (the water around here gives you a conservative knee-jerk xenophobia if you aren't careful) but after some consideration and reading of the surprisingly civil comments, I realized this, if taken at face value, has absolutely no meaning.
Where's the beef?
If English law is still supreme, then what was the point of the speech? I don't agree with the author's viewpoint (FOX commentator) but he raises some valid questions. The speech either has no meaning or it says that Sharia can supersede English law.
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The G8 moved with blinding fast speed on Zimbabwe, calling for sanctions, my god, sanctions! He should've provided us with intelligence about the terrorists, it worked well enough for Omar al-Bashir. Heck we even flew a genocidaire over on a private jet to get "intelligence" off of him back in '05. Whole lot of good Sudanese intelligence is doing us now.
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In further news, the BBC is just as bad as the American media if you go by the content of this article. It's fascinating that the argument isn't because a prominent businessman was caught in a bizarre and creepy sexual act, it's because of allegations that aforementioned bizarre and creepy sexual act involved National Socialism.
This alarmed me at first (the water around here gives you a conservative knee-jerk xenophobia if you aren't careful) but after some consideration and reading of the surprisingly civil comments, I realized this, if taken at face value, has absolutely no meaning.
Where's the beef?
If English law is still supreme, then what was the point of the speech? I don't agree with the author's viewpoint (FOX commentator) but he raises some valid questions. The speech either has no meaning or it says that Sharia can supersede English law.
--
The G8 moved with blinding fast speed on Zimbabwe, calling for sanctions, my god, sanctions! He should've provided us with intelligence about the terrorists, it worked well enough for Omar al-Bashir. Heck we even flew a genocidaire over on a private jet to get "intelligence" off of him back in '05. Whole lot of good Sudanese intelligence is doing us now.
--
In further news, the BBC is just as bad as the American media if you go by the content of this article. It's fascinating that the argument isn't because a prominent businessman was caught in a bizarre and creepy sexual act, it's because of allegations that aforementioned bizarre and creepy sexual act involved National Socialism.
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After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was a group of insurgents called the mujahedin that included one Osama bin Laden, that was funded (and perhaps trained) by a foreign government. During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapon using government was backed by the same country.
A country called the United States of America.
Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't take a strong stance against Iran, or that the Revolutionary Guards do not fund groups such as Hezbollah, I'm saying that we need to examine our own record before we claim the right to judge other countries. If the Revolutionary Guards are a terrorist organization, then the CIA most definitely is too.
Obama has a point that the move is merely provocative and we know this administration likes nothing more than driving the country into wars with Islamic nations it doesn't like.
Anyone who says that Obama is simply waffling his position, I challenge you to tell me what political ground Obama wins by opposing the condemnation of Iran. He will gain the votes of those who support the regime. Last time I checked there weren't that many of those people in the US.
What had the Iranians done to us back in 2002 to merit being placed in the Axis of Evil? Iran was a key ally in the fight against the Taliban, they had supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance for many years and provided American forces with key assistance in Afghanistan. At that time, Iran's president was the reformist Mohammad Khatami, who attempted to put Iran on the path back toward democracy and an open society. As many Americans are ignorant of, Iran is a non-Arab, non-Arabic speaking nation with a unique culture and history that goes back millenia. It also has a population that is eager for democracy and clamoring to join the Western World, which alas, its theocratic leaders do not want. Speaking of democracy, in 1951, the Iranians democratically elected Mohammed Mosaddeq, a European-educated man, to be Prime Minister. Sadly, he was overthrown in 1953 by a coup backed by, you guessed it, the American CIA. We squashed Iran's best chance for democracy in favor of a dictatorial Shah. How's that for spreading democracy to the Middle East...
To compound the nonsense, we recently removed North Korea, a nation with known nuclear weapons, from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. First of all, NK poses far more of a threat to the US than Iran ever did. To start, it actually has tested nuclear weapons, unlike Iran. It does not have an educated population and active dissidents like Iran does. It's led by one crazed man instead of by Iran's complex hierarchy of leaders. Under the Clinton administration, we had been talking to the North Koreans (albeit not very successfully). When Bush came around, we stopped, and they were free to develop their nukes. But even Bush was convinced to talk and with smart diplomacy on the part of the State department, we managed to get the North Koreans to negotiate. Note that by this time, we had already given the North Koreans enough time to develop long-ranged missiles and nuclear weapons. John McCain has repeatedly endorsed the Bush strategy of hostile posturing instead of smart diplomacy. The Bush administration itself has reluctantly showed us that diplomacy does work, even if it still refuses to acknowledge it. Threats mean nothing unless we actually invade enemy nations, which is a last resort if diplomacy has failed.
And if we can just remove a country from the terrorist sponsors list because they decided to talk to us, what's the point of the list? Kim Jong-Il couldn't care less about whether he's on the list, and putting Iran on the list will just aggravated Muslim countries into more anti-American hatred. Nelson Mandela and his ANC were labeled as terrorists until just recently. I challenge supporters of McCain's position to tell me what the labeling of groups as terrorists actually does.