In a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Barack Obama came across as a neocon. Or maybe just a Lieberman Democrat. Okay, would you believe...an Elephant Barfly? Here's some highlights:
"...we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good..."
"...I believe that the single most important job of any President is to protect the American people..."
"...When religious schools in Pakistan teach hatred to young children, our children are threatened as well...."
"We must maintain the strongest, best-equipped military in the world in order to defeat and deter conventional threats."
..."I strongly support the expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines..."
"...No President should ever hesitate to use force – unilaterally if necessary – to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened...."
And so on. No doubt the "Kill 'em All" bunch will find fault with Obama's call for actually talking to members of the axis of evil instead of just isolating them and throwing aircraft carriers around (the Condi school of foreign relations instead of the Cheney school) but Kate O'Bierne is warning that a Democrat will probably get the Oval Office this time around because 9 of the 10 GOP hopefuls have hitched their star to Petraeus and the President's Baghdad Surge (only Ron Paul abstained).
They're being duped by the Bush Administration's artifice of simply no longer counting car bombs and other explosives in the casualty counts, as "evidence" that the surge is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. This will, of course, make al-Qaeda in Iraq go for more and more spectacular acts of terror, possibly involving thousands of victims at a time, or a particularly holy shrine, or a chlorine gas attack that kills hundreds of US troops at a time, to prove the President's strategy is still going down the toilet.
So if it has to be Obama in 2008, at least he has one hell of a tutor in foreign policy.
Better hope not. Please visit his Church's website, Trinity United Church of Christ And All Things Black in Chicago...
ReplyDelete"So if it has to be Obama in 2008, at least he has one hell of a tutor in foreign policy."
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Lefties are those that assert an abrupt and complete foreign policy departure of the current administration from the last.
Though that is, in part, what I and others voted for in '99. It's not, alas, what I or any of us got.
Trish: My favorite Lefties are those that assert an abrupt and complete foreign policy departure of the current administration from the last.
ReplyDeleteSame goes for Righties. There was a certain governor of Texas who criticized the preceding Commander-in-Chief for all the nationbuilding he was wont to do.
Words are cheap. Coming after his first debate gaffe wherein the junior senator was caught off guard on this very subject, they are also hollow.
ReplyDeletewhit,
ReplyDeleteOn threads since, here and at BC.
Because you are the host, I'll try to explain and expand, again
cutler, I & traitorous doug, were discussing nepotism and elitism in US government.
I mentioned, as is my wont, the Skull & Boners.
When duece posted the thread on Ms Tzipi Lizni, two things stood out, to me. First that Ms Lizni was an Israeli elitist, tracing her lineage back to an Irgun commander of the King David Hotel terrorist attacks.
The only part of that statement that would require explanation is referencing Irgun as terrorists.
Which is a matter of perspective, as to whether they were, or not.
The British Government, our NATO ally and kissin' cussin', in 2006 wrote a letter to the Israeli Government protesting the commemeration of the King David Hotel bombing, as celebration of a terrorist event.
The link to that story is here at the Bar, a thread or two back.
The underbelly of the thought, is that Ms Rice and Mr Bush expect Mr Fatah and Mr Hamas to migrate from terrorists to peacemakers, on a path similar to Mr Begin's and the Lizni family have.
That is the crux of US Policy with regards Israel and Palistine, the two State solution.
Equality for Palistine, on someone elses dime!
Not only Mr Hamas and Mr Fatah are to soon seek reconciliation with Israel, but Mr Shia and Mr Sunni are about to, as well, in Iraq.
ReplyDeletePraise be!