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Obama and McCain “debate” over Iran
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Although the Democrats officially have not settled on a choice for president, Barack Obama and the GOP’s likely nominee John McCain have been going at one another as if they had. Over the past few days, the two have “debated” each other over issues such as how the United States should deal with threats such as Iran.
Yesterday in Oregon, Obama said:
“Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’”
In Obama’s backyard, Chicago, today, McCain, reacted:
“Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess. … The threat the government of Iran poses is anything but tiny.”
Then later today in Montana, Obama came back with:
“Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat. [But] the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn’t have one.”
Your turn, Sen. McCain. …
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Soul searching
So, let’s talk to them while they keep working at it, right?
We do talk to them — at a lower level. The question here is whether a president should sit down with Ahmadinejad and legitimize him. The answer is no.
Without the slightest bit of exaggeration the American public should be truly scared at the thought of a McCain presidency.
McCain gave 3 reasons why we should fear Iran:
* Help terrorists in Iraq
* Provide weapons for Iraq
* Threatened Israel
Even if what he said was true look how he insane his comments are. According to McCain we should attack Iran (4 times the size of Iraq) even though Iraq is a complete debacle.
And of course the U.S defense of Israel, always Israel.
Iranian trained killers with Iranian weapons are currently one of the main sources of murderer and mayhem in Iraq. Iran is already killing our service men, in great numbers. Their leaders even speak freely about wiping Israel off the map and deny the holocaust while threatening one of their own. Treat them like a totally untrusted and untrustworthy enemy. Talk with them is fruitless. Only a utopian with no idea about the real world we live in would sit down, without preconditions, with them to try to mutually work out a solution.
We need a leader who realizes that the Iranians are the bad guys, not our military.
I have no named Obama in this post. Please don’t pretend that I did.
I forgot to mention in my previous post how truly nuts (yes nuts) McCain is.
As a Senator from Arizona he did literally nothing as hordes of illegal immigrants came into the U.S. through his home state. Though lately he has given some lip service to secure borders.
Think about that, a man who won’t protect the borders of his own country wants insurgents from Iran not to cross the Iraq border.
McCain is as grossly incompetent as Bush and as most people know has a terrible temper. Four years of McCain making life and death decisions.
Iran is arguably more dangerous than the Soviet Union was since Iran seems to be much more likely to use a nuclear weapon. Their leaders do not seem to value life the way the Soviets did and so MAD does not work with them.
John “W” McCain needs you to be afraid. Be very afraid.
To JP
Thanks for your insight. Yes, we all know how the Soviets value life. The 20 million people Stalin killed will attest to that.
Other than bomb Iran what can we do? Our military is tied up in a pointless, no-win war in Iraq.
That is all we need. For the vile Bush to launch a third unprovoked war against the Islamic world. Or fourth war if you count the proxy war that Israel launched againt Lebanon.
Anyone who would vote for “W” McCain should see this at
therealmccain dot com
“these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us”
Uh-huh. And box cutters are tiny compared to machetes.
Godlumps.
No doubt your unbiased link is full of helpful information.
Please go on. Make the case for the superiority of Obama’s foreign policy.
There’s already a “deterrent” in place for Iran: Israel’s own nuclear arsenal.
People worry about the middle east going nuclear. It’s already happened.
As for the McCain/Obama “feud”, I’m very heartened by it! It shows that Obama isn’t going to roll over and play the helpless little puppy for the Republicans. He hit the Bush/McCain team back hard and he did it quickly on several issues.
This election isn’t going to play out like the last two did.
To Anlir
You are on to something. This is just an attempt by Israel and its’ amen corner in the U.S. to get us to fight their battles for them.
Everyone know Israel could wipe out Iran with WMDs’ they have (thanks to you, American taxpayer).
Israel just wants us to do their dirty work for them.
Obama1: “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.
Obama2: “Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat. [But] the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn’t have one.”
i.e. Obama is confused and contradicts himself on this major issue of national security.
We shall learn over time that Obama at base hasn’t thought through many of his positions on both national security and domestic issues. He has been surfing on waves of frothy rhetoric. McCain, with many years of policy experience, knows the complexity of issues and has arrived at careful conclusions on them.
Obama is basically a political rookie in way over head on international issues. He shall go the way of Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry.
SG-The link is just video of “W” McCain speaking for himself. Vote Bob Barr 2008!
Of course, when Peter’s beloved Bush was running with no foreign policy experience, he didn’t pull the “political rookie” crap. Bush hadn’t even served one day in Washington prior to running.
We expect a ton of hypocritical slurs like this from the Republicans between now and November. They think they can “Swift Boat” their way to the White House again. I think they’re in for a rude awakening. They tried it again last week in Mississippi and it not only didn’t work, it galvanized folk to turn out and vote for the Democrat in a district that gave Bush 64% of their vote in 2004.
” “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book.” John “W” McCain
The lobbying firm run by Charlie Black, John “W” McCain’s Chief Advisor, made millions helping burnish the image of people like:
• Ferdinand Marcos, who executed thousands of his own citizens in the Philippines,
• Zaire’s Mobutu, who publicly hanged his opponents and looted his country’s vast mineral wealth, and
• rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, a mass murderer, who covered Angola with landmines.
ANLIR: He hit the Bush/McCain team back hard and he did it quickly on several issues.
Absolutely. This was a huge miscalculation by Bush-McCain. Instead of shutting Obama out, they made him the focus of foreign policy, a major player. When they realized they had aggrandized Obama instead of diminishing him, they tried to reverse their engines, but it was too late.
We need to provoke Bush into traveling to Beijing to attack Obama, then to Seoul, Baghdad, Islamabad, and Moskva.
PETER LEAVITT: Obama is basically a political rookie in way over head on international issues.
The kid stays in the picture. Truth be told, Bush-McCain are in over their head and too washed out or old to learn better. McCain’s mouth is a catastrophe.
PETER LEAVITT @13. Iran is not an existential threat as the Soviet Union was.
Claiming that talking to enemies is what President’s do, Obama said, “That’s why Kennedy talked to Kruschev…”
Yes, and it did not go well for us either. Kruschev thought Kennedy was very weak and this led to the Cuban missle crises. Kennedy was not as weak as Kruschev presumed, but the talking did convince Kruschev that he was. Only actions work with those who oppose us and hate us, not talks and the Kennedy-Kruschev example only proves that.
Pat Sajak wrote this today in an op-ed:
“It’s a campaign marked by a new paradigm that goes like this: Candidate R questions the wisdom of Candidate D’s fiscal policy, claiming it will damage the economic health of the country. Candidate D rolls his eyes and decries the negative campaign of Candidate R, claiming that Americans are tired of that kind of ‘politics of hate and fear.’ The answer, of course, is ‘hope and change’ which can come about only by tossing out these hateful fear mongers.”
Well, St.Obama is now claiming that Iran is a “grave” threat after earlier saying that Iran is merely a “tiny” country. The point is that the fellow doesn’t really know what he is talking about.
Actually, underneath it all he finds way to find fault with any sort of firm response to Iran. He, of course, will solve the problem with a heart to heart palaver with Ahminejad.
Excuse me, the above should have been Ahmidinejad
This started when President Bush made a strong point about his policy with regard to terrorist leaders. He did not name Obama or any current Democrat.
Today, Mark Steyn wrote; “It says something for Democrat touchiness that the minute a guy makes a generalized observation about folks who appease terrorists and dictators the Dems assume: Hey, they’re talking about me.”
President Bush has a policy. Barack Obama has an attitude.
Obama pointed out that Kennedy talked to Kruschev and Reagan to Gorabchev. So? These are significantly different situations from Iran.
Kennedy did not help the cold war at all by talking to Kruschev. And Reagan talked with the Soviets while building up and deploying Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe big time. He was in a position of great strength, and Reagan was effective in this negotiation beyond that of any President in the 20th century by far. He won the cold war without firig a shot.
Obama is no Kennedy or Reagan. He’s quite a talkier, though.
Terrorists do claim many grievances against us and they would love to talk to us about them. The media would be ready to carry their grievances to America too. The terrorists know that anyone who talks to a US leader, always gets a lot of financial aid in that package. Arafat got very fat on such aid, having talked over and over with naive American Presidents and getting further and further away from real peace or progress.
I have already heard many liberals agree far to often with terrorist’s grievances;
Terrorists and many U.S. liberals all want us out of Iraq, the sooner the better.
Terrorists and many U.S. liberals think it was our foreign policies that provoked 9/11 and other terror attacks.
Terrorists and many U.S. liberals agree that the USA are the “bullies” in the Middle East. For both the terrorists and many US liberals, When innocents get slaughtered by terrorist jihadists, the US military’s presence gets the blame.
Terrorists and many U.S. liberals blame 9/11 and other terrorists attacks on U.S. support for Isreal, as if israel were not a nation with any right to even exist. They consider our support for Israel as a grievance that motivates terror attacks.
Usama bin Laden and Rev. Jeremiah Wright both believe that AIDS is a “Satanic American invention.”
I don’t blame U.S. liberals for perpetrating actual terror and I do blame the terrorists for that. But it still seems to me that too many U.S. liberals actually share many grievances against the USA with some terrorists. Would the USA and our interests even get fair representation if a U.S. liberal talked with terrorists? I fear that there would be a bit to much agreement at such a talk.
We will, of course, see many, many “gotcha” moments in the months leading up to the November election.
It’s a well used campaign tactic: take the words or actions of your opponent, twist them to mean something they didn’t, act outraged, then bat it down with a well played “zinger”.
There’s one small glitch in the plan: sufficient numbers of Americans have wisened up to the tactic and aren’t falling for it anymore.
People are actually listening to what Obama says, even though he doesn’t speak in sound bites. The largest crowd yet of 45,000 turned out to hear him speak in Oregon this past weekend.
When his critics deride his speeches for being short on details, I think they miss the whole point. He inspires people like Ronald Reagan did. Many people liked Reagan, even though they disagreed with his politics. When folks like Peter call him things like “St. Obama” I think they’re letting their anger, bitterness and even some jealousy show.
Obama was not my first choice. It was Kucinich. He wasn’t even my second choice (Biden). I’d be just as thrilled to have Clinton get the nomination. But for a long time I’ve said that I think Obama has “it”. I don’t know how to describe “it”, but I know it when I see it.
You can argue, complain, and even be angry at the fact that Obama seems on the verge of getting the Democratic nomination. A year ago everyone said that it was Clinton’s on a silver platter. Yet somehow the guy came out of nowhere and seems to have wrested it away from her. There were several points when I thought for sure he was gonna fade out or get knocked out. But somehow he’s outlasted all the other candidates (except Clinton). I think people underestimated his determination and his resiliency. He comes across as this mild-mannered (some say weak) guy. His looks, mannerisms, and speaking style are different. But “different” seems to be what people are looking for this time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHliQNZcmi8
Watch and enjoy
HRW-Obama is in good company with Reagan, Nixon, Powell, Baker, and Rice. The ultimate appeasement was Prescott Bush supporting the Nazi Regime. The Bush family has made a career out of profiting from war.
Peter Leavitt keeps bringing up the charge of inexperience, but I would think it is generally the rule for incoming presidents. Few (if any) are really equipped to deal with the international scene. E.g. George Bush claimed that he could get a sense of Putin’s soul after their first meeting. The Kennedy-Krushchev interchange would be another one. I think much of this is due not to the lack of preparation per se, but the singularity of the task itself.
As to the topic: having grown up in an era of 50 megaton tests by the Russians, and the nuclear arsenal of their ICBMs Iran seems really small potatoes; it’s a difference between the minor league team out at the fairground, and the major leagues.
#21 Pat Sajak is a source of wisdom for the right now?
Does he have to buy all his vowels?
Pat Sajak is an authority figure for conservatives. He read questions for a game show you know. And it starred Vanna WHITE.
So the liberal swan song of Bush-McCain is now officially in full force; and this from the chaps 4 years ago who were hoping to get McCain onto their side, and who (until now) labeled him one of their favourite Republicans.
Obama’s years in the senate - half of which he has spent campaigning for President - are not nearly enough experience for for the job, and statements like this show why. Obama is a smooth talker, but behind the charm, the emperor has no clothes.
By November, the American people will see this clearly.
Godlumps,
Still content to lob little rhetorical turds? That may win you points with the KosKids, but doesn’t in any credible way make a case for the superiority of Obama’s foreign policy. Fact is, regardless of what you think of Sajak, you haven’t produced anything to counter the content of what he said. The only thing sadder than the political musings of a game show host is the inability to answer them honestly.
Obama is a smooth talker, but behind the charm, the emperor has no clothes.
Words straight out of the Republican Party election playbook (2008 edition). If one spends anytime at all on political blogs, one sees those exact words repeated over, and over, and over again like a mantra anytime Obama’s name comes up.
I cannot wait to see the explosion of rage on here if Obama wins. Folks like DR, Llam, and Joel Mark are already giving us a sneak preview. And I’m so gonna laugh my head off at them. If man with the funny sounding name pulls it off and makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., I promise to gloat about it on here for a very long time.
SG-I’m voting for Libertarian Bob Barr. You can’t be that bad of a reader. Well maybe you can. You’re a Bushie.
Compounding irrelevance on irrelevance helps your stance how, Godlumps?
Anlire wrote; “If one spends anytime at all on political blogs, one sees those exact words repeated over, and over, and over again like a mantra anytime Obama’s name comes up.”
This is hte most encouraging thing Anlir has ever written. It’s nice to learn that the truth is actually getting out.
Here are the ‘words’ Anlir was talking about; “Obama is a smooth talker, but behind the charm, the emperor has no clothes.” It’s a rather obvious truth, but it’s the truth nonetheless (one might need to know the old Hans Christian Anderson story to get it).
Anlire wrote; “And I’m so gonna laugh my head off at them.”
If it takes the hurt or disappointment of others to get you to laugh, Anlir, you need a serious spiritual check-up.
Anlir continued, “If man with the funny sounding name pulls it off and makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., I promise to gloat about it on here for a very long time.”
Knick yourself out, Anlir, but if Obama makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I promise to continue to be patriotic, to love my country, to communicfate on her behalf, and work to make her as healthy and strong as possible in spite of the obsticles. And there will be much work to do.
And I don’t make promises easily.
Well, what should we do about Iran?
“Talking to them” is an invitation to disaster. Whether military action is a good idea or not, the Public doesn’t have the stomach for it. Is there another option?
SG-Why does my stance need anything. McCain’s record of votes and words speak for him very clearly. No way would I vote for a man like him. He’s a lose cannon and has switched his position like a daisy in the wind so many times it would make John Kerry look good.
Who ever gets the job will have a mess to clean up after Bush is gone. What a disaster he has been.
This past Sunday NYTimes Magazine article on McCain’s apparent changes in approach to foreign intervention is a good read.
You really should consider contributing something other than droppings for folks to step around, Godlumps.
“Diplomacy involves talking to your enemies. You don’t reward your enemies necessarily by talking to them if you are tough and you know what you are doing. You don’t appease them. Talking to an enemy is not in my view appeasement.” — former Sec. State James Baker.
Try scrolling SG. Love your Bush avatar.
“McCain’s stupid.”
“Obama’s stupid.”
“You’re stupid.”
blah, blah, blah.
But, there’s this Iran situation. What do you smarties think the United States should do?
JOEL MARK: You seem to be saying at #26 that because terrorists cause harm, we need to draw lessons from them about how to form judgments about things. That’s why you take inventory of the thought world of terrorists and allow their beliefs to measure the beliefs of others. This surprises me. The minds of people who resort to terrorism work on a different plane of reality than the minds of people who don’t employ terrorism. Our brains are the same, but our minds are different. Comparing Osama bin Ladin with Jeremiah Obama is comparing apples and oranges. It might even be crazy. Shouldn’t OBL’s beliefs be irrelevant to what we think or don’t think? I’d give you the benefit of the doubt, JOEL, if I learned of co-incidents between your opinions and OBL’s, and would not demand that you affirm something because OBL believed the opposite.
Think about it. If your object is to show that the world’s grievances against the US are illegitimate, you have to do more than disqualify an advocate for those grievances. You’re entitled to argue that terrorism doesn’t legitimate grievances, but beware the claim that the existence of terrorism makes the grievances illegitimate. Remember, the thought world of terrorism doesn’t determine our thought world.