<p>I don’t mind McCain’s several regerences to Czechoslovakia, remembering how long it took to change from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, Congo to Zaire, and so on. </p>
<p>They are both engaged in extremely tiring campaigns. Some slip-up is inevitable. I don’t dwell much on their misstatements. I worry more about their policies.</p>
<p>Both during the Clinton Administration before 9/11 and after 9/11. It took just one to get through, and this happened when the Bush Administration brushed off warnings by the Clinton Administration. It just wasn’t important, what the Dems had to say about al Qaeda…</p>
<p>Talk about cult membership. You mindlessly blather on Bush talking points when it’s clear to more than 65% of the American people that his Adminstration has been a disaster. Talk about a cultish inability to see the reality in the face of evidence.</p>
<p>Not sure if this will be a big deal but I spotted this during his interview on Larry King last night.</p>
<p>McCain suggests he would still vote for the Iraq war knowing what he knows now and says that we had an “easy win.”</p>
<p>KING: If this would go back, start all over again, would you go into Iraq if you could go back?</p>
<p>MCCAIN: I think the world is better off knowing what I know at the time and the fact that Saddam Hussein was bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, $12 billion Oil for Food scandal. American airplanes were being shot at. Sanctions were breaking down. It’s clear that he wanted to go back and acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them. I don’t think there is any doubt. I think we did the right thing. I think that it was a colossal intelligence failure on the part of the United States and every other county as to whether he had them or not. But again, I would remind you, I said we would have an easy victory. We did.</p>
<p>I am not so sure whether or not Kennedy did the “wrong” thing by talking with Khrushchev. Judging by how things turned out in the end it seems as though he did the right thing.</p>
<p>I like that column, too, but I have different takes on some of the stances that McCain and Obama have taken.<br>
I don’t think it was courageous, for instance, for a Republican to oppose the drug prescription program. There were plenty of commentators who pointed out the cost of the program. I admire McCain for his work on campaign reform, though in retrospect, it did not go far enough in reining in special interest groups and was overtaken by new technology, as the Obama supporters have been able to show. Still, if we are going to discuss political courage, it’s one for McCain.
I don’t think it was courageous of him to advocate for more troops; however, given that he supported the war, it was the wise thing to do. Wars should not be waged on the cheap. I still don’t know what his benchmark for victory is, however, and while the surge has reduced violence, it has not paved the way for a political solution. It has been reported that there are 96,000 Iraqis on the US payroll, many of them Sunnis who have been bought off. How long will this last?</p>
<p>As for Obama? I credit him for working in the Illinois senate for passing a bill about taping police interrogations. It took a lot of efforts to get the police to see the usefulness of such a move. I credit him for opposing the war in Iraq. Did either of these moves show courage? Probably not. But they show wisdom.</p>
<p>In the end, the column asks us to think back. And on that count, McCain, having a longer record, has more to be credited and to be attacked for. That goes with the territory. IF we look forward, however, I like Obama better, and most of all, I like his advisors better. As I wrote in a different post, Randy Scheunemann scares me.</p>
<p>This may be true, but I am pretty sure they both hated us more and sometimes that makes bond.</p>
<p>Perfect example, Iraq and Iran @25+ yrs ago. We weren’t fond of Saddam, but hated Iran more so we supported Iraq in their war. Pretty much true about Afghanistan with Russia. Or what about Haiti?</p>
<p>There are many examples of how politics make strange bedfellows!</p>
<p>BZ you were a faster typer…I was trying to remember that clche and answer a pm at the same time!</p>
<p>So we should invade any country that doesn’t like us because sooner or later they’ll start harboring terrorists because, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”</p>
<p>Using the bz2010 doctrine, we would have invaded or would have considered invading the vast majority of countries at one point or another.</p>
<p>Lastly, I want to point out that the application of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”-mentality to foreign policy is probably directly responsible or indirectly responsible for the vast majority of conflicts in the world. In case you didn’t know, Osama bin Laden was an American ally at one point.</p>
<p>Let’s remember the Iraq invasion also occurred because of not allowing the IAEA into all of the facilities. Before you hit me with it was flawed info…Saddam even stated during his trial that he fed false info to the inspectors. Had he allowed the inspectors full access and didn’t play chicken we might not be there right now. We did invade, but Saddam added into the equation.</p>
<p>That’s a “straw man argument”. I’m talking about two specific groups in a specific situation at a specific time. I have no doubt that Saddam would’ve gleefully contibuted to the effort against the U.S. by al Qaeda sooner or later (and I’m not convinced that he wasn’t already doing so).</p>
<p>b&p: The irony is that Saddam’s main target was not the US, but Iran. That’s whom he was trying to fool. We have weakened Iraq and immeasurably strengthened Iran, not only in terms of having nuclear capabilities, but also in terms of Iran being aligned with the Shiite majority in Iraq.</p>
<p>Al-Qaeda in Iraq, with allegiance to Bin Laden, was created on October 17th, 2004, about the time that Petraeus was busy ensuring they were armed.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. But the difference between Shia and Sunni should have been known just as the immediate consequences of de-Baathification should have been plain. I have in the past, compared the US in Iraq with Vietnam in Cambodia, but I’ll repeat the parallel. The Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, thinking to get rid of Pol Pot and get out quickly. They ended up staying for over ten years. At first it was because there was no one to whom they could turn over the governance or administration of the country; people were scared to even admit they could read and write. The same reasons for the administrative void in Iraq did not exist: the US created that void by de-Baathification.</p>