Politics As Usual

When John McCain issued a statement Wednesday vowing to work "to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address " the current financial crisis, he "temporarily set politics aside." However, former U.S. Representative Mickey Edwards (R.-OK), now a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, explained best the illogic of McCain's misguided effort to intervene in this affair:

McCain and Obama are both members of the senate and they're both able to help craft a solution if they wish to do so without putting the presidential campaign on hold; after all, I’m sure congressional leaders would be willing to accept their calls if they have some important insights to impart. And while one of them will eventually become president, neither one is president yet, nor is either one a member of the congressional leadership; I’m confident that somehow the administration and the other 533 members of congress will be able to muddle through without tapping into the superior wisdom and intellect of their nominees. Sorry, john; it really sounds like you're afraid to debate. This sounds like the sort of ploy we used to use in junior high school elections.

As Ben Smith of Politico put it: "in terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling."

But this is not the Repub Party's most politically expedient move that has come to light in the past 48 hours. According to the Wonk Room at think progress.org, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki on September 17 described in an interview with Al-Iraqiya the nature of negotiations between the United States and Iraq about withdrawal of American troops. According to a transcript obtained from the Open Source Center, Maliki explained

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they [the Bush administration] asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the US] so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date. Agreement has been reached on this issue. They are willing to respond positively because they, too, are facing a critical situation.

So the timing of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would be subject to political considerations- presidential politics and George W. Bush's effort to get John McCain elected president. So much for "supporting the troops."

Pakistan: Obama, Bush, McCain, Palin

It's a fair question. What do our national leader(s) and those who want to be national leaders think about "hot pursuit"- not by police of suspects trying to escape, but by United States armed forces of Al Qaeda in northwestern Pakistan?

Barack Obama has made his position clear. In a speech on August 1, 2007 he declared:

There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

In a foreign-policy speech delivered on July 15, 2008 Obama argued

The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.

John McCain has been almost as clear. The Associated Press on August 2, 2007 described the Arizona senator's response at Stanford University to Obama's remarks of the previous day:

McCain said the situation in Pakistan is "very delicate," since the country's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is an American ally with a tenuous hold on power. The Arizona senator said a direct American attack on the country could cause a backlash that might topple Musharraf.
"I think it's kind of a simplistic view of a very complex situation."

Sarah Palin is less clear. In the portion of her interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson that was aired on 9/11/08, Palin first advocated a policy at odds with the guy at the top of the ticket, then said "we have got to have all options out there on the table," which only means we should never say never. Here is the transcript:

GIBSON: Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?

PALIN: Now, as for our right to invade, we're going to work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new, also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world where war is not going to be a first option. In fact, war has got to be, a military strike, a last option.

GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

PALIN: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.

GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes? That you think we have the right to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?

PALIN: I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table.

And George W. Bush? In 2005 (according to The New York Times in July, 2007)

The decision to halt the planned “snatch and grab” operation frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military’s secret Special Operations units, who say the United States missed a significant opportunity to try to capture senior members of Al Qaeda.
Their frustration has only grown over the past two years, they said, as Al Qaeda has improved its abilities to plan global attacks and build new training compounds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have become virtual havens for the terrorist network.

And now? The Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau (in their blog, "The Swamp") reports

The helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations raid in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident "but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaeda leadership'' at the end of Bush's term, National Public Radio is reporting, citing well-placed sources.
"The plan calls for a much more aggressive military campaign, said one source, familiar with the presidential order, which gives the green light for the military to take part in the operations,'' NPR reports.

The bad news is that the plan may have been undertaken only because of the upcoming election and "represents an 11th-hour effort by the Bush administration to hammer al-Qaeda before leaving office,'' according to NPR. The good news? Bush seems to have adopted Obama's approach, reminiscent of Nouri al -Maliki adopting Obama's approach to a timeline when he declared in early July "the current trend is to reach an agreement on a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to put a timetable on their withdrawal;” and the announcement approximately two weeks later (7/18/08) of a long-term security pact between the U.S. and Iraq including "horizons" for withdrawal.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flatter, Barack Obama should be flattered that the Administration seems to value his judgement.... as long as the Democratic nominee doesn't expect any admissions: from Bush that his primary motive is political; from McCain that he's out of step; or from Palin that she hasn't a clue as to what she's saying.

Bolton Foolishness

If John Bolton was right, as I think he was, when on 6/26/08 on GOP TV's "Hannity and Colmes" he criticized the Bush Administration on North Korea, he was wrong when in the same appearance he rapped International Atomic Energy Administrator Mohamed ElBaredei. Bolton claimed that ElBaradei is "an apologist for Iran," as he did in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in November, 2007 (video and partial transcript from Think Progress).

The regime occupying Washington, D.C. the past 7+ years long has considered ElBaradei an enemy, as this excerpt from a Washington Post article of 12/12/04 reveals:

The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials.

When it issued its "(The) Status Of Nuclear Weapons Inspections: An Update on March 7, 2003, the IAEA vowed to continue inspections. However, it had found no attempt by Baghdad to import uranium, nor aluminum tubes for centrifuge enrichment and concluded "after three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq." No nuclear weapons program- no weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, we invaded Iraq with its Baathist regime a sworn enemy of Teheran, and have for our troubles Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a friend of the Iranians. And John Bolton, with no sense of irony, accuses ElBaradei, whose report could have kept us from invading Iraq and strengthening Iran, of being "an apologist for Iran." This could be a parallel universe- or just another day in the Bush Administration.

Condoleezza Rice, Gun Control Advocate

As a reminder, here is the second amendment to the United States Constitution:

Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.


A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

And here is Condoleezza Rice speaking on April 20, 2008 in Baghdad, encouraging Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to fight the militias of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr:

But clearly, the prime minister has laid down some ground rules which any functioning democratic state would insist upon, having to do with, you know, arms belonging to the state, not to -- not in private hands," she said. "The current circumstances come out of what I think is a very important and indeed appropriate action that the Iraqi government has taken."

To repeat: "ground rules (of) any functioning democratic state (to include) arms belonging to the state.... not in private hands." Exactly.

The Republican Media- no. 3

Tom Foreman of CNN's Washington bureau on July 14, 2007 delivered a report on the cost of the Iraq war. However, while estimating the monthly cost as ten billion dollars, Foreman unfortunately commented ".... if you add in Afghanistan and all the other (emphasis mine) international anti-terror efforts."
So when did our war involvement in Iraq become part of "international anti-terror efforts?" The reasons cited by supporters of this policy, pre- and post- invasion, include: toppling Sadam Hussein (accomplished); removing "weapons of mass destruction" (chemical and biological not found); a nuclear weapons program (reported in January 2003 by International Atomic Energy Agency as nonexistent); spreading democracy throughout the Persian Gulf (Nouri al-Maliki, friend of Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, enemy of democratic Israel). The war has only increased terrorism in the Gulf and throughout the world.
Distressingly, this came not from GOP TV (euphemistically referred to as Fox News) but from a legitimate member of the mainstream media who has joined President Bush in the pretense that this war has anything to do with preventing, or fighting, terrorism.