Iraqi Prime Minister Supports Obama's Iraq Plan, Not McCain's (Republican Strategist Says "We're Fucked")

So Obama is now on his world tour, which will take him through the Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the Occupied Territories, and Europe, among other places. John McCain has of course been attacking Obama on the fact he hasn't been on one of these trips for two years (he has been campaigning for the presidency for one and a half years, that doesn't leave much free time). McCain asserts that Obama hasn't met with Gen. Petraeus so he can't possibly know what is going on in Iraq. This, despite the fact that Obama met with Petraeus while he was testifying before Congress a few months ago. Apparently it isn't the actual meeting with Petraeus that is important, it is the longitude and latitude of that of that meeting. Somehow meeting with him in the US yields different results than if that meeting occurred in Iraq. Perhaps Obama should also meet with him in Antarctica, because who knows what he might say there.

And of course Petraeus has his own agenda, which closely reflects Bush's agenda. After all, Petraeus has misled Congress before. And Obama has made it clear that the military doesn't shape US foreign policy, the president does, yet he will take what they say under consideration. Of course McCain seems to think that this country is ran by the military, and that by talking to the military we can understand the big picture of our foreign policy. This, of course, helps explain why McCain and Bush have been so wrong on virtually everything. Obama, it turns out, has been right again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan. Yet despite this, the media buys into this false characterization of McCain as foreign policy expert, juxtaposed with Obama the neophyte. Talk about media bias. It takes quite a leap to view the person (and the party) who has been wrong about so much as the expert, and the person who has been right about so much as the newbie. But hey, that's the media for you.

So anyway, Obama is starting off his trip in Afghanistan today. And today we also got news that already one person supports his Iraq plan: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Yes, probably the only people that you need to go to Iraq to hear, the Iraqis, agree with OBAMA, and think it is best for the US to pull out sooner rather than later:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

"Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems."

"The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn't," Maliki told Der Spiegel.

Maybe McCain should spend a little less time hanging on the every word of military leaders, and a little more time actually listening to the people who run the country we are occupying. What a crazy idea! It has been obvious for a long time that there is no military solution to Iraq. And McCain, Petraeus said that too.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget this little gem from Bush last year:

"We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice," the president said during a Rose Garden news conference. "If they were to say 'leave', we would leave."

Hm, seems that we should be listening to what Obama has been saying, and start packing our bags.

[Update: And let's not forget this little gem from John McCain himself, it'll be fun to see him spin (flip-flop, flip-flop) his way out of this:

QUESTION: Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it's a hypothetical, but it's at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

Well said John, well said.]

It is almost comical how Obama is always right on these things, yet never gets credit. He is constantly being criticized by Bush and McCain. He was criticized for saying he would make surgical strikes at terrorists within the borders of Pakistan if their government is unwilling or unable to do it themselves. Yet then Bush did exactly that, and killed a high ranking al-Qaeda official. And then as violence has risen in Afghanistan, and the Taliban has made gains while al-Qaeda has continued to go free, Obama (oh, and military leaders) called for troops to be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan, and McCain opposed any more troops for Afghanistan. Yet since then things have gotten worse with no new troops, and now McCain supports more troops for Afghanistan. And Obama has supported withdrawing troops from Iraq for a long time, yet Bush, McCain and the Republicans have called that "surrender" and "cutting and running" and opposed any "timelines", only now the military is sounding the same alarms as Obama has been about our military being stressed to the breaking point, and we've reached a point where we have no choice but to withdraw troops because our military simply can't handle it anymore. And of course the Iraqis agree with Obama. And now Bush and al-Maliki are discussing a "time horizon" for withdrawal of US troops. [Update: I almost forgot, Obama has said for months and months now that we should talk to foreign leaders like Ahmadinejad, the Republicans (and even Hillary) have attacked him for it relentlessly, comparing him to Nazi appeasers, and now the Bush administration is finally starting to open diplomatic channels to Tehran.] Time after time Obama has led on these issues, and been right, and McCain and Bush have followed, slowly, and grudgingly. Bush and McCain and the Republicans have been dead wrong from the beginning. And yet the media pushes this "Obama is inexperienced" nonsense, paying absolutely no attention to his vastly superior judgment. It is insanity that the same idiots that got us into this mess to begin with are treated as the smart ones. Our media has absolutely no hindsight. All of the focus is on the future, what we do with the mess now, with absolutely no acknowledgment of who's fault the disaster was to begin with. Bush and McCain should have absolutely no standing to discuss these issues, they should have zero credibility. They made the mistakes that Obama is going to have to clean up. Obama has the answers, it is time the media stop pretending he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Ezra Klein points out the pro-McCain, anti-Obama double-standard in the media, and he is absolutely right:

To really understand the importance of Maliki's comments, you need to consider their opposite. Imagine if Maliki had walked in front of the cameras and said, "at this stage, a timetable for withdrawal is unrealistic, and we hope our American friends will not bow to domestic political pressures and be hasty in leaving Iraq just as the country improves." It would be a transformative moment in this election. John McCain would talk of nothing else. The cable shows would talk of nothing else. Magazines would run thousands of covers about "Obama's Iraq Problem." Obama would probably lose the race.

If something like this happened that boosted McCain's position and made Obama's look bad, the media would tear Obama apart. When it happens to McCain...*crickets*. Thanks media, hopefully SNL will make fun of you at some point so you'll start doing your job. There never was a pro-Obama bias in the media, but the pro-McCain bias has been staggering from the very beginning.

Update: Marc Ambinder puts al-Maliki's announcement in context:

This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq's Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there's no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? to argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren't equivalent to Iraq's, but... Maliki isn't listening to the generals on the ground...but the "hasn't been to Iraq" line doesn't work here.

So how will the McCain campaign respond?

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, "We're fucked." No response yet from the McCain campaign.

Never fear, we're all counting on the media to sweep it under the rug for you McCain, as usual. Let's hope I'm pleasantly surprised for once..

Update #2: A White House employee screwed up while forwarding the article titled "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine" internally (undoubtedly so the Bush administration could start with damage control), and accidentally sent the email to their huge media distribution list! Hahahaha. You can't make this stuff up.

Update #3: The Obama campaign has released a memo highlighting pretty much the exact same things I just highlighted in this blog. Here is the intro, check here for the whole thing:

RE: Obama Leading on Foreign Policy, McCain Following

There are two problems with John McCain’s political attacks on Barack Obama’s foreign policy. First, on the biggest foreign policy questions of the last eight years, Barack Obama has made the right judgment and John McCain has sided with George Bush in making the wrong one. Second, the failure of the McCain-Bush foreign policy has forced John McCain to change his position, and to embrace the very same Obama approaches that he once attacked.

Just this week, Senator McCain has been forced by events to switch to Barack Obama’s position on two fundamental issues: more troops in Afghanistan, and more diplomacy with Iran. On both issues, Obama took stands that weren’t politically popular at the time – opposing the war in Iraq as a diversion from the critical mission in Afghanistan, and standing up for direct diplomacy with Iran – while John McCain lined up with George Bush. Time has proven Obama’s judgment right and McCain wrong.

The next shift appears to be Iraq. For months, Senator McCain has called any plan to redeploy our troops from Iraq "surrender" – even though we’d be leaving Iraq to a sovereign Iraqi government. Now, the Bush Administration is embracing the negotiation of troop withdrawals with the Iraqi government – a position that Senator Obama called for last September, and reiterated on Monday in the New York Times. And now, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports Barack Obama’s timeline, telling Der Speigel that, "Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months."

Update #4: This is great, so after the buzz over Maliki's statement, the White House got involved, had the US Embassy in Iraq contact Maliki to "express concern" with his statements, and then an "Iraqi official" released a retraction of his comments from US Central Command (hmm...) saying, that Maliki's statement was "misunderstood and mistranslated" and "not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq" although the Iraqis never mention what was "mistranslated" or "misunderstood", in fact Maliki's comments really leave absolutely no wiggle room, they were clear as day, and Der Spiegel stands by their reporting. Let's review what Maliki said:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

"Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems."

"The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn't," Maliki told Der Spiegel.

Yeah, I don't see how you can mistake that. It doesn't seem like anyone is buying the coverup. Pretty ridiculous.

Update (7/21): Now McCain is directly disputing the translation of Maliki's comments, even though the New York Times has independently verified the translation as accurate. Oh yeah, and then the same Iraqi spokesman who came out yesterday (from US Central Command) and said Maliki's comments were "mistranslated" and "misunderstood" after the White House threw a fit, came out today and said he hopes US troops can be out by 2010, which is essentially the exact same time frame Obama is pushing for. So much for "mistranslated" and "misunderstood". Yet McCain is still trying to refute this is what the Iraqis want. Keep digging McCain, keep digging.

Does McCain Advocate Jihad Against "The Muslims"? [Update: Yes, He Does]

If there is one thing we don't need, it is a religious war between the world's two largest religions, which include half of the people on this planet. The last thing we need is to inflame the Middle East, where our policies (notice, not our "freedom" or "love" or "liberty" or even our culture) have made us a source of hatred, by taking the conflict from the level of conflicts over foreign policy to global religious crusade.

Yet that seems to be what the McCain campaign (just like Bush and most, if not all, Republicans) seems intent on doing:

One of John McCain's fellow POW's in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq [on an official campaign conference call], saying, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us."

In a phone call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Colonel Bud Day added: "I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel."

So the guy makes it obvious that he is speaking for McCain (on a first name basis no less). And this just isn't any surrogate, he is a major McCain surrogate. The guy is mentioned on McCain's website at least 143 times. He was one of the Swiftboaters against Kerry. He was recently rolled out by the McCain campaign to attack Gen. Wes Clark. This guy speaks for McCain, he talks about foreign policy and military matters for McCain. And here is he saying that "the Muslims" are trying to kill us, and we are, ostensibly, left with no other choice but to kill them first.

As Ben Smith notes, this "seems to have cast McCain's foreign policy in stark, religious terms". It isn't that we are at war with a predominately Muslim country because we invaded it without reason. It isn't that al-Qaeda attacked us because we had military bases set up in Saudi Arabia, and give weapons to Israel, which they use to kill Palestinians. Those are the foreign policy issues Osama bin Laden himself cited when explaining his opposition to the United States. Notice, he didn't say it was a religious war between Islam and Christianity (because according to the Republicans we are a Christian theocracy), that can only be solved by over a billion people dying on one side or the other. His beef isn't with our culture (he may not like it, but it isn't in itself justification for terrorist attacks), it isn't with our religion, it is with our foreign policy. He has specific and very real policy goals.

So why the hell are the Republicans intent on making this about religion? Why do they want to turn this into a clash of civilizations? Why are they constantly making this a war against Islam, or "Islamofascists" (which not a single GOP operative can actually define)? What a sloppy, obtuse way to understand and develop a foreign policy. Seriously, are these people complete idiots? Can they not understand grownup problems like foreign policy and diplomacy? Does it have to be some idiotic, Manichean dichotomy inevitably resulting in some epic World War between major religions?

Talk about sloppy and ignorant. "The Muslims"? He does realize that we have allies in the region that are Muslim. We rely on military bases set up in Muslim countries. The Iraqis we supposedly went over there to "liberate" (well, after we supposedly went over there to protect ourselves from "WMDs") are Muslim. There are hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans, are they trying to kill us? Must we kill them lest we be forced to "kneel"? There are two Muslim members of Congress, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, are they trying to kill us? Should our "Christian" members of Congress lynch these two terrorists on the floor of the House? After all, they are with "the Muslims", so they must be trying to kill us. Right? That is how it works when we view the world through the oversimplified lens of an eight-year-old, or a Republican, right? We should have Christians fighting Muslims in the streets, and vice versa right? There are 55 countries in the world with majority-Muslim populations, so which should we wipe off the Earth first? Should it be Indonesia? They have the most Muslims, so obviously since we are "at war" with "the Muslims" that must mean they are trying to kill us the hardest, right?

I think you get the point, it is appalling, and insane, that Republicans go out of their way to frame real, life and death issues in the world in fairytale terms that only confuse the issues in the minds of Americans, while exacerbating the hatred or distrust of the United States in the Muslim world. Do we really want a prospective next president surrounding himself with maniacs who want to make our foreign policy into a new Crusade? Do we really want to go there? Do we really want our next president to view foreign policy through the lens of religious war? Does that make us any better than those fringe extremists who believe in jihad? Because that is essentially what these people are trying to make this into, a Christian jihad against all Muslims, fueled by fanatics, American fanatics.

Now I won't even go into the bigotry and racism these comments were wrapped in, I'll just wait for McCain to denounce and reject his surrogate's comments, and end his role in his campaign. I'll wait for McCain to apologize to Muslims, or at the very least the hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans, and the two Muslim US Representatives who were undoubtedly offended by the McCain campaign accusing them of wanting to kill "us". I'll wait for McCain to make it clear that our foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia isn't framed in terms of an "us or them" religious war between the United States and the world's 1.5+ billion Muslims. That is what I expect from the McCain campaign, because with the tense relationship we have with the Middle East, there is no room for these beliefs to be tolerated, and there is no room for further worsening our standing in the Middle East.

And McCain can apologize for his "I hate the gooks, I will hate them as long as I live" comments while he is at it.

Update: McCain's campaign definitely isn't denouncing or rejecting the comments, in fact they seem to agree, unsurprisingly. A McCain spokesperson responded with this:

"The threat we face is from radical Islamic extremism."

Yes, it has nothing to do with our foreign policy, or leaders or ideologues of various countries, or globalization, or poverty, it is apparently all about their religion. Their problem with us has nothing to do with their religious faith, which shares its origins and many beliefs with Christianity, it is about our foreign policy. Am I surprised that McCain shares the fanatical and completely ignorant beliefs of his surrogate and the vast majority of the Republican Party? Of course not.

Obama's Foreign Policy Speech

Today Obama gave a big foreign policy speech, complete with a history lesson, in which he laid out his vision of a strong foreign policy founded on peace and diplomacy. Give it a watch:



Transcript here.

And while Obama educates voters on the historical underpinnings of our foreign policy, McCain still can't figure out that Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country in 15 years, not to mention his notorious problems understanding the basics of Sunni and Shia.

It would be hard to find two candidates who are more different.

This election is a no-brainer.

McCain Would Repeat The War All Over Again

John McCain said something rather shocking today, and I don't mean confusing Sudan and Somalia:

In an interview with reporters on the back of his campaign bus, the "Straight Talk Express" Monday afternoon, McCain said that even in retrospect he would still have voted to authorize the war, as he did in 2002.

"I think there's no question," said the Republican's likely presidential nominee. "I owe too much to these young people who are serving there to let political considerations interfere with what I know is right.

When asked if he would have pushed for the war to begin with, had he known everything he knows now, McCain said he would do it all over again. Let's deconstruct that:

• McCain would have authorized a war against a sovereign nation, in clear violation of the UN Charter, under the false assumption that it possessed WMDs, even if he knew with 100% certainty that there were no WMDs, thus stripping his only justification for invasion, yet he would do it anyway. (This isn't all that surprising, since that is essentially what he actually did, only it wasn't a 100% certainty, but the evidence was clearly not there to support the WMD claims)
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he knew doing so would produce no benefits, and would take our focus off Afghanistan and allow Osama bin Laden to go unpunished 7 years after 9/11, and leave al-Qaeda to regain its previous strength.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq, even though doing so would greatly increase Iran's power in the Middle East.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq, even if he knew that doing so would greatly increase anti-American sentiment around the world and aid terrorist recruitment. (That is a no-brainer, he should have known that anyway)
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known it would cost at least $3 trillion in taxpayer money that could have gone to universal health care, or improving our education system, or alternative energy research, or all of those AND not creating a record national debt.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known that it would cause gas prices to skyrocket and help put the US into a recession.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known that well over 4,000 Americans would die, and tens of thousand would be wounded, countless would live with PTSD for the rest of their lives, and then there would be many suicides on top of that, and thousands of American families would be torn apart, again, all with absolutely no gains or benefits coming from the invasion and occupation whatsoever.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known the invasion would have been followed by years of bloody civil war and ethnic cleansing, and eventually would have led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, most of them civilians, to say nothing of the untold number of wounded.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known that it would created a huge refugee, and humanitarian, crisis with over 4.5 million people displaced.
• McCain would have still invaded Iraq even if he had known that directly after the invasion looters would steal or destroy almost all of Iraq's cultural heritage in a mass pillaging of Iraq's museums, libraries and archaeological sites, while American soldiers watched (and protected the Oil Ministry, and nothing else). Iraq, at the heart of Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, is a historical treasure, and it was destroyed, and meant absolutely nothing to Bush, McCain, or any of the rest of them. Turns out it meant a lot to Iraqis and others living in the Middle East.

The list could go on and on, but you get the idea: Despite all of the horrible things that have happened as a result of the unlawful invasion of Iraq, John McCain would have done it anyway, even though nothing good has came of it, and certainly nothing good enough to outweigh the limitless costs of the invasion. Words don't do this justice, it is insanity, it is so unbelievably reckless, evil, sociopathic, it is just mindboggling, that ANYONE could say this war should have been waged, that anyone could say that it was worth it, worth all of that. I mean really we should view these sort of comments as if someone had said the Holocaust never happened. No, think about it, that is how asinine and cruel his comments were.

This war is indefensible, PERIOD.

McCain Not So Good On Foreign Policy, Even In The Senate

We all know John McCain doesn't know much about what is going on in Iraq or Iran, or Cuba, or America, or anywhere else. Sadly enough though, he apparently doesn't even know what is going on in the Senate, where is supposedly works. Even worse, McCain doesn't know what is going on in the Senate, concerning big changes in US foreign policy, toward Iran, which he has been attacking Obama over. Oh, and the big legislation he doesn't know about? It just happens to be Obama's legislation. Here is the scoop from the Huffington Post:

That trip-up [McCain's Katrina lie earlier today], however, was mild in compared to the gaffe that happened earlier in the day, when McCain acknowledged he was not aware that Obama had introduced a bill that called for international divestment from Iran.

Reporter: Are you familiar with his disinvestment bill?

McCain: No, I am not familiar with it at all. I do not know if it passed the senate or had any hearing or anything else. I had, so, literally thousands and thousands pieces of legislation are proposed every year. I know what he did. He voted against the Iranian revolutionary guard being declared a terrorist organization.*

The admission could prove damaging for a variety of reasons. For starters, Obama's bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives, is currently being held up in the Senate by Republican Sen. Richard Shelby. More significantly, two McCain surrogates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Eric Cantor, are co-sponsors of Obama's measure despite, on Wednesday, ripping the Illinois Democrat for not having the experience to deal with Iran.

Hm, so Obama supposedly doesn't know anything about Iraq, but he is actually leading on US foreign policy toward Iran, and McCain is the one who doesn't know anything about it, even though it is being considered by the place he supposedly works. Although, it makes sense that he wouldn't be aware of what is going on there, since he has managed to miss more votes during this campaign than any other candidate, this despite the fact his nomination was wrapped up months earlier than the Democrats.

I'm obviously going to need to come up with a term to encompass all of McCain's gaffes/lies/ignorance, because he essentially messes up at least once a day.

*Note: Obama's opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which labeled Iran's Revolutionary Guard (part of its official military) as a terrorist organization is actually a good thing. Using the rationale McCain employed in supporting that amendment, the United States military would be a terrorist organization, indeed it would be a MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger terrorist organization that Iran (they actually have no evidence of Iran committing any acts of terrorism, or even aggression), or al-Qaeda, or any other terrorist organization in the world. The same goes for Israel's military. The precedent it sets is incredibly dangerous, and reckless.

McCain Exposes His Foreign Policy Ignorance, Yet Again

Moira Whelan over at the Huffington Post points out McCain's latest foreign policy gaffe--well, not so much a gaffe as yet another sign he doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to many things, especially foreign policy:

Yesterday, in his big non-proliferation speech, McCain took his gaffes to a new level. He actually invented 20 years of negotiations between the United States and Tehran. In his speech, McCain said:

"Today, some people seem to think they've discovered a brand new cause, something no one before them ever thought of. Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades."

McCain has clearly forgotten what Max Bergmann points out: The stated policy of the United States since April 7, 1980 has been that we don't talk to the Iranians. Never has the United States had communications, or tried to have communications, with the Iranian government on their nuclear program. Iran's nuclear communications have been limited to working through the European Union (led by France and Germany, countries John McCain has referred to as "vacuous" and "posturing").

This is why I love that McCain has it in his head that attacking Obama on foreign policy is a smart strategy, when every single day he does it he highlights more of his ignorance, and more of how closely he clings to Bush's failed policies. Obama loves it too, which is why he has repeated said that the foreign policy debate is one he is happy to have with McCain.

And again, these aren't just isolated examples of ineptitude, all of these taken together paint a crystal clear picture of what kind of failed leader McCain intends to be.

Taken with his other many gaffes on Iran (repeated Sunni/Shia screw up, the use of Khamenei and Ahmajinedad interchangeably) there should be real questions about whether McCain has any knowledge of US-Iranian relations. Given that this one was in his prepared text, it also makes you wonder what his foreign policy team actually knows about Iran. For a man running for President on his foreign policy aptitude such confusion should sound alarm bells.

It says something when McCain is setting off more alarm bells during his campaign than Bush did during the 2000 campaign when it comes to ignorance. The question is, when will the media start doing their job with McCain?

5 Myths About Being 'Pro-Israel' (Repost)

[Last month I wrote about the formation of a new progressive pro-Israel group, J Street, which seeks to provide an alternative to the anti-peace neoconservative group AIPAC and other hardline American Jewish lobby/advocacy groups. Last Sunday the executive director of J Street wrote this in the Washington Post, which I'm reposting here because I think it is very important to get out, and I'm sure almost everyone missed the original publication. Essentially we can't hope to achieve peace in the Middle East, and reduce anti-American sentiment until we recognize the following:]

5 Myths About Being 'Pro-Israel'
by Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street

Six decades ago, my father fought alongside Menachem Begin for Israel's independence. If you'd have told him back then that politicians in the world's last superpower would be jockeying today to see who can be more "pro-Israel," he would have laughed at you. Grateful as I am for decades of U.S. friendship to Israel, I have to wonder, as the state my father helped found turns 60, just who is defining what it means to be pro-Israel in the United States these days.

Some purported keepers of that flame claim that supporting Israel means reflexively supporting every Israeli action and implacably opposing every Israeli foe -- adopting the talking points of neoconservatives and the most right-wing elements of the American Jewish and Christian Zionist communities. Criticize or question Israeli behavior and you're labeled "anti-Israel," or worse. But unquestioning encouragement for short-sighted Israeli policies such as expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank isn't real friendship. (Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road?) Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

1. American Jews choose to back candidates largely on the basis of their stance on Israel.

This urban legend has somehow become a tenet of American Politics 101, which is why politicians work so hard to earn the pro-Israel label in the first place. But it's a self-serving fable, cultivated by a tiny minority of politically conservative American Jews who actually are single-issue voters. Most Jewish voters make their political choices the way other Americans do: based on their views on the full spectrum of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Moreover, the American Jewish community still has a markedly progressive bent. Exit polls suggest that nearly 80 percent of Jewish Americans voted for John F. Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004; some 70 percent of them were opposed to the Iraq war in 2005, according to the American Jewish Committee; and polls show that most American Jews say they favor a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy that's aimed at achieving peace.

2. To be strong on Israel, you have to be harsh to the Palestinians.

Wrong, and counterproductive to boot. One popular way for members of Congress to earn their pro-Israel stripes is to come down as hard as possible on the Palestinians, by using economic and diplomatic pressure or giving the Israelis a freer hand for military strikes. That may satisfy some primal urge to lash out at Israel's foes, but it does Israel more harm than good.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has argued, Israel's survival depends on offering the Palestinians a more hopeful future built on political sovereignty and economic development. As long as Palestinians despair of a decent and dignified life, Israel will be at war. And as long as the only channel for the Palestinians' ingenuity is building better rockets, not even the Great Wall of China will protect Israel's cities from their wrath. Helping the Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most pro-Israel things an American politician can do.

3. The Rev. John Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionists are good for the Jews.

Hardly. Are Israel and American Jewry really so desperate that we must cozy up to people whose messianic dreams entail having us all killed or converted to Christianity? Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, and his ilk believe that Israel dare not cede any territory in the quest for peace, claiming that the Bible promised all of the holy land to the Jews. In other words, Christian Zionists look at the trade-offs that Israel must make to achieve peace -- and hope to thwart them. Then again, peace is not what these folks have in mind; they hope that Israel will seek to permanently expand its borders, thereby goading the Arabs into a war that will become the catalyst for Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Do your ambitions for Israel extend beyond turning it into the fuel for the fire of the "End of Days"? Then Hagee and company are not -- repeat, not -- your friends.

4. Talking peace with your enemies demonstrates weakness.

You don't need an advanced degree in international relations to recognize that pursuing peace only with people you like is pointless. Most Israelis know this; a recent poll in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that two-thirds of Israelis favor cease-fire negotiations between their government and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, exactly because Hamas is such a bitter foe. But in Washington, we self-righteously refuse to engage -- even indirectly -- with Hamas, Iran or Syria.

Hamas won the most recent Palestinian national elections in a landslide. Do we seriously think that it can be erased from the political landscape simply by assassinations and sanctions? Precisely because Hamas and Iran represent the most worrisome strategic challenges to Israel, responsible friends of Israel who'd like to see it live in security for its next 60 years should be engaging with them to search for alternatives to war.

5. George W. Bush is the best friend Israel has ever had.

Not even close. The president has acted as Israel's exclusive corner man when he should have been refereeing the fight. That choice weakened Israel's long-term security.

Israel needs U.S. help to maintain its military edge over its foes, but it also needs the United States to contain Arab-Israeli crises and broker peace. Israel's existing peace pacts owe much to Washington's ability to bridge the mistrust among parties in the Middle East. So when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel's amen choir, as it has throughout Bush's tenure, the United States dims Israel's prospects of winning security through diplomacy. The best gift that Israel's friends here could give this gallant, embattled democracy on its milestone birthday would be returning the United States to its leading role in active diplomacy to end the conflicts in the Middle East -- and help a secure, thriving Israel find a permanent, accepted home among the community of nations.

jeremyb@jstreet.org

Jeremy Ben-Ami is executive director of J Street, a lobby and political action committee that promotes peace and security in the Middle East.

Just Imagine

I don't remember the last time our torture facility at Guantanamo Bay made it into the mainstream news. Actually I think I do remember, it was during one of the Republican debates when all of the Republican nominees were trying to outdo each other on who could do the most to continue torturing people at Guantanamo Bay, and I believe Mitt Romney won when he said if elected president he would double it in size.

Despite the media blockout on our Republican government's unlawful detentions and torture, hundreds of prisoners remain in US custody, most without charge or the right of habeas corpus. Here is one of the "lucky" ones, meaning he was actually freed, but not until being imprisoned and abused by the US government for six and a half years, oh, and he didn't do anything wrong, he was a reporter in a war zone, and he was released without charge, after 6.5 years.

From Amnesty International:

On May 1st, Sami al Hajj was released from Guantánamo Bay prison after six and a half years in detention. Al Hajj was a focus of our write-a-thon in December and was adopted by Amnesty groups across the country.

Sami was a journalist for the television station al-Jazeera. In 2002, he was assigned to cover the conflict in Afghanistan. While traveling in Pakistan, Sami al Hajj was stopped by Pakistani police and detained.

He was handed over to U.S. forces, taken to Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and ultimately to Guantánamo He was never charged with a crime, yet was held and allegedly tortured for six years.

Upon being released, Sami flew to Khartoum, Sudan. His health was in such bad condition that he had to be carried off on a stretcher.

Can you imagine being snatched up for no reason and imprisoned and possibly tortured for six and a half years without being accused of anything, without being told why you were being held, and without any right to challenge your unlawful detention? Can you imagine being so powerless? Can you imagine languishing for six and a half years of your life? This guy probably had a family, can you imagine being away from your family for six and a half years? Six and a half years with no contact, no way to communicate with the outside world? And then imagine having no idea if you'd be there for another six and a half years or the rest of your life. It is no wonder with such hopelessness that so many prisoners have attempted suicide, and a few have been successful. Just try to put yourself in these people's shoes, and multiple this case by hundreds. Then add countless ultra-secretive "black sites" spread around the world. Then add Abu Ghraib.

And now think of how much anti-American sentiment our policy of indefinite arbitrary imprisonment and torture produces abroad, especially in the Middle East. Ponder how many new terrorists these policies have produced.

And now thank the Republicans.

Hillary Strangelove

When Hillary committed to expanding a nuclear deterrence umbrella over not only Israel, but other allies in the Middle East, something that even Bush and the neocons haven't voiced support for, many people were shocked, yet the media made almost no mention of this fairly insane foreign policy statement. She basically said she would commit the US nuclear arsenal to attacking any country that used weapons of mass destruction against another country in the Middle East. The Middle East, just in case some are unaware, is a giant mess of conflicts. Hillary feels we should throw ourselves and our nuclear weapons right in the middle of it.

Then, just a few days later, she nonchalantly threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran (apparently not realizing that there are millions of innocent civilians in Iran) if the Iranian government nuked Israel. Just imagine, for a moment, if a terrorist group got a nuke from North Korea or a former Soviet republic, and detonated it in Israel. Suddenly there is panic, no one knows where it came from or who was responsible, but Israel assumes it was Iran, whether because they really think it was Iran, or because they want an excuse to annihilate Iran, so Hillary with her finger on the button launches nukes against Iran from submarines stationed in the Middle East. BOOM! Game over. There are countless ways mistakes can be made, and Hillary's willingness to "totally obliterate" Iran turns a bad situation into a nightmare scenario. And not to mention, Israel has its own nukes that it isn't supposed to have (notice, the US doesn't care that Israel have nukes, which only encourage its Arab neighbors to develop them to defend themselves, nor does the US seem to notice that its own bellicosity in the region only proves to Middle Eastern countries that they need a nuclear deterrence if they are to be safe from the US and its allies--just like North Korea is safe).

Anyway, all of these comments show two things: A) Hillary is nearly as hawkish as McCain and the neocons, and B) Hillary, despite all of her bragging about her superior experience, has very short-sighted and naive foreign policy ideas, just like Bush and the neocons. Anyway, at the time all this went down, I wanted to write a blog about it, but unfortunately other campaign coverage took up my time. Here is a repost of an article which mentions some of the reaction to her ignorant Republicanesque bellicosity:



Hillary Strangelove
by The Boston Globe

AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.

This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.

Responding with understatement to a question in the British House of Lords, the foreign minister responsible for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, said of Clinton's implication of a mushroom cloud over Iran: "While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequences of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is probably not prudent in today's world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country."

A less restrained reaction came from an editorial in the Saudi-based paper Arab News. Being neighbors of Iran, the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs have the most to fear from Iran's nuclear program and its drive to become the dominant power in the Gulf.

But precisely because they are most at risk from Iran's regional ambitions, the Saudis want a carefully considered American approach to Iran, one that balances firmness and diplomatic engagement.

The Saudi paper called Clinton's nuclear threat "the foreign politics of the madhouse," saying, "it demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush's foreign relations."

The Saudis are not always sound advisers on American foreign policy. But they understand that Rambo rhetoric like Clinton's only plays into the hands of Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear weapons capability. They argue that Iran must have that capability in order to deter the United States from doing what Clinton threatened to do.

While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in Pakistan, her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to realize that she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian people have been more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the Middle East.

A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.

J Street, A Progressive Pro-Israel Group Launches

So this wouldn't seem that important to most people, and I'm sure most people will never know about this, but it is quite important nevertheless: Today J Street, a new progressive pro-Israel lobbying organization was officially launched, for the purpose of providing an alternative to the hardline rightwing neoconservative (and all powerful) AIPAC lobby, which we can thank in large part for our current situation in the Middle East. Here is their mission statement:

J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.

J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.

J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.

J Street supports diplomatic solutions over military ones, including in Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialogue over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors when conflicts do arise. For more on our policy positions, click here.

J Street will advocate forcefully in the policy process, in Congress, in the media, and in the Jewish community to make sure public officials and community leaders clearly see the depth and breadth of support for our views on Middle East policy among voters and supporters in their states and districts. We seek to complement the work of existing organizations and individuals that share our agenda. In our lobbying and advocacy efforts, we will enlist individual supporters of other efforts as partners.

And here is their introductory video:



I'm sure the progressive community, those who know about this at least, are cheering today, because we know all too well the ills AIPAC, and other rightwing pro-Israel groups, have wrought upon our foreign policy as well as our domestic discourse (or lack thereof). Christopher Hayes of The Nation also breathed a similar sign of relief today:

Israel policy is, of course, the area in which this dynamic has been most destructively evident. It's really remarkable that for the last two decades AIPAC has been allowed to arrogate to itself the role of speaking for American Jews on the topic of Israel, despite the fact its actual positions and staff are far, far to the right of your average Jewish American. Now J Street has, thankfully, joined the scene. As former NYC Corporate council Victor Kovner just put in on a press call introducing the organization, "It's long overdue."

It will probably be a hard haul for J Street, for just like previous attempts at challenging the rightwing dominance of AIPAC it will be met with stiff resistance by entrenched hardline interests. I guarantee some of these hardliners will even try to brand J Street and its supporters as anti-Semites, in order to demonize them, in the same way they try to demonize everyone else who so much as utters a criticism of their policies. How's that for democracy?

And yes, if any of these people are reading this, I too must be a rabid anti-Semite. How dare I speak?

The progressive community needs to give them all the help they need along the way. Don't let the "pro-Israel" label turn you off, because they aren't using it in the same despicable way the neocons and AIPAC use it. They are showing that AIPAC and the hardliners have absolutely no monopoly on supporting Israel, and they are showing that Israel is better served through peace and understanding.

I wish them the best of luck.

And please take the time to check out their site, sign up for their updates, let's give them the support they need to make a difference!

Obama Wins Another: Democrats Abroad Primary

I've actually been waiting for this one for over a week, but it is official, Obama has won another primary: the world. Okay, so not the entire world, just Democrats all over the world, although he would definitely win if the people of the the world could choose. In fact there is a great article at Salon today pointing out the obvious, but virtually unspoken truth that Obama holds the absolute best potential to heal (or begin to heal) the world's antipathy toward the United States, especially in Muslim countries. How the world views the United States is in fact our greatest national security challenge. Despite those like Bush or Hillary, who would rather use the fear of terrorism as a political tool, coupled with strong arm militarism, the truth is all of these issues have their roots in the global perceptions of the United States, and Obama offers the best chance to repair this divide. This for me is reason #4559 why Obama would make the best president. Anyway, read the article.

Update: No doubt Hillary will spin this loss in two ways:

1. Refuse to acknowledge any vote took place*, and
   
2. Democrats overseas don't matter because...Bill didn't win them when he ran because they didn't even have a Democrats Abroad primary back then.
   

Update #2: It is apparently a pretty good day for Obama. He also picked up a big endorsement from Change To Win, a powerful group of labor unions (also opening up the possibility that the United Farm Workers Union might ditch Hillary for Obama), the Mayor of Cleveland, two superdelegates from New Jersey (including one who had previously supported Hillary), one superdelegate from Massachusetts, and the Democratic Party's youngest superdelegate, despite the Clintons sending Chelsea Clinton to woo him (damnit, they would have made such a cute couple too!) (too bad David Shuster didn't save his infamous "pimping out" comment for this occasion, I bet he is really kicking himself now). Oh calm down Hillary, I jest, I jest.

No, but really, they have pretty much been willing to say and do anything to win up to this point (including dropping $5 million of their own cash), so how desperate will they get? Just putting that out there...

*Turns out she opted for option 1, and the media dutifully followed suit.