Peace and Wisdom
More “respectful dialog” from McCain
Attacking your opponent for being willingly complicit in genocide, while he’s at Yad Vashem:
John McCain 2008 - Obama on Genocide
Obama today at Yad Vashem:
“Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim ‘never again.’ And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us and who have become symbols of the human spirit.”
Obama on July 20, 2007:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.
It doesn’t get any classier than that. Really dignified. I like the “TRUTH” and “HONOR” part.
Abusing the memory of six million Jews who died in the Holocaust to try to score a cheap political point.
Let’s do the time warp again
Can something that happened in 2007 be the cause of something that occurred in 2006?
Hilzoy has it all on McCain’s latest confusion (or lie or stupidity or hackery):
In an interview on CBS News:
“Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?
McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlan[d] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.
Let’s see this, from September 29, 2006
Presenter: Army Col. Sean B. MacFarland, commander of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division
“With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda — actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.
This is a different phenomena that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the — well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result.
There are many other contemporary news reports of the Anbar Awakening in late 2006. In 2008 McFarland described the events:
“On 9 September 2006 Sittar organized a tribal council, attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade commander, at which he declared the “Anbar Awakening” officially underway. The Awakening Council that emerged from the meeting agreed to first drive AQIZ from Ramadi, and then reestablish rule of law and a local government to support the people.
The Surge started in 2007. As you can read at Hilzoy’s link up top, McFarland’s unit left Anbar about the same time as the Surge started.
Friggin’ Time Travel in McCain-o-verse. It’s a wonderful thing. The Surge defeated Nazi Germany! “That’s just a matter of history.”
McCain is unfit to lead our country
John McCain said this today in Rochester, New Hampshire:
This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.
This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.
McCain explicitly called Obama a traitor; he is a disgrace.
A nation of whiners?
I just got this email from the McCain campaign:
McCain Team -
It’s pretty obvious that the media has a bizarre fascination with Barack Obama. Some may even say it’s a love affair. We want you to be the judge. We’ve compiled two videos of the more outrageous moments of this not so secret love affair. Follow this link to watch the two videos and vote on which one you think is better. Your vote will determine which video we put on the air.
The media is in love with Barack Obama. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.
Regards,
The McCain Campaign
It’s so childish and whiney, I’d almost suspect it’s a spoof or a set-up. And coming from McCain, whose relationship with the media is so cozy, he once called them his “base.”
Who was the genius at the RNC who suggested, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to go after Obama for not visiting Iraq?”
Cart ride!
But the cart is mis-labelled. It should read “Property of #43.”
I know John Cole doesn’t like the ‘old’ stuff, but sheeshh. McCain and Bush 41, rolling off into the sunset
in their golf cart. Like “The Political Bucket List.”
The Iraq-Pakistan Border
If he meant the “Iran-Pakistan” border, I wouldn’t have bothered to linked it.
But he’s talking about the “Afghanistan-Pakistan” border.
Panzerfahrtsverlangen
The American Spectator - Obama’s Tank Ride
Barack Obama’s handlers had obviously wanted the candidate’s appearance in Germany to invoke comparisons to presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Yet their original choice of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate — venue of Reagan’s historic 1987 “tear down this wall” speech — was rejected by Germans who noted that Obama is merely a candidate, rather than an actual president, and objected to the Democrat’s appropriation of their symbol of national unity for a political campaign event.
Foiled in their original quest for an iconic backdrop, Team Obama accepted as an alternative speech location the plaza adjoining the Siegessaule (”Victory Column”) about a mile west of the Brandenburg Gate. Alas for the apostles of Hope, the symbolism of this site has proven “problematic,” as a spokesman for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats told Der Spiegel.
…
In the worst-case scenario — a gaffe or blunder that exposes the Democrat to criticism or ridicule — this overseas odyssey could go down in history as Obama’s equivalent of that fateful 1988 tank ride by Michael Dukakis.While Obama has far more charm than Dukakis, what made the image of Dukakis in that tank so potent was that it showed the Democrat straining to seem what he so obviously was not — a credible candidate for Commander-in-Chief. It was the transparent phoniness of the gesture that hurt.
They want their tank ride, and they want it now! Must have TANK RIDE!!! TANK RIDE!!! .. We wantssssss it, yes, my Preciousssssssssss …. Tank Ride.
Dabbagh escapes from CENTCOM!
Iraq official says US troops could leave by 2010
Iraq’s government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.
Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day.
July 2008 + 16 months = November 2009. Looks like Obama was wrong again. 
What Maliki actually said
Comment Stings Maliki as Obama Arrives in Baghdad - NYTimes.com
Last time we checked, a particularly humorous, and vaque denial was being touted by the right wing bloggers:
“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone [from inside the American Embassy]. “I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation.” [in a statement distributed by the U.S. military]
But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.
The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”
Do the troops hate Obama?
Photo from Barack Obama - Yahoo! News Photos1
I do not think that the troops hate Obama. And I am certainly not displaying this image to claim that they all support him.
Rather, this post is in the manner of a prediction. Here goes …
Over the next week Obama will be photographed about 10,000 times, many times with U.S. troops. Should even one of those photos show any service members with anything less than adulation on their faces, I predict the usual suspects will be howling, “See, see, see … The troops hate Obama. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.” If we are very unlucky, we will be treated to another tiresome excerpt of Col. Nathan R. Jessup’s tirade along with it.
I give them three days.
And, if no such actual photograph emerges, and they have to resort to Photoshopping, then it might take them a week.
Update: So, as soon as I wrote this post, I fired up Google Blog Search to see what i could find. To my dismay, it was worse than i thought. Read what the “not racists” at Power Line Forum have to offer:
Power Line Forum | Video: Obama Visits BLACK Troops in Kuwait2
Power Line Forum | Don’t white troops support Obama?
More on Maliki’s quote/non-quote, correction/non-correction
Ben Smith’s Blog: Political News about Democrats and the 2008 Election - Politico.com
So while there’s been some suggestion that Maliki was playing domestic politics, this seems like the opposite. (Who plays domestic politics in the pages of Spiegel?) Maliki is playing international politics, American politics even. While some may object to that, it may be a sign that he intends to be a player in the American election from now until November, and realizes how much more leverage he has now on the next president’s stance toward his country than he will after our election.
Too many ins and outs. Everyone is gonna get way, way in the weeds, and pick out what they want.
Me? I must point out that the correction or clarification released through CENTCOM by Ahmed Chalabi’s buddy, Dabbagh, struck me as the most humorous aspect of this whole business. “Humorous,” not necessarily “of zero credibility.” But couldn’t they have done better? I wonder what time it was in Iraq when they trundled Dabbagh down to the CENTCOM press office. I envision the middle of the night, but I don’t really know.
At any rate, in all fairness, in a kerfuffle that is cloudy at best, Ben’s take seems the best that anyone can draw: Maliki’s comments were meant for U.S. domestic (i.e. political and electoral) consumption.
While the obvious take would be that he favors Obama, I really don’t know. Further, if Ben’s analysis is correct, even if Maliki was trying to help out McCain, by some less obvious path, would it matter much.
Update: As I read more, and a couple more stories appeared today, I want to revise my thoughts. First, it’s becoming quite clear that Maliki is trying to 1) play in U.S. elections, and/or 2) gain concessions from the Bush administration. (See this AP story.) Second, the “denials” are pretty weak. (See Yglesias.) The main point of my revision is that I think this story, i.e. Maliki’s statement, does have meaning. Also, I recommend my readers take the “Aha, see, he didn’t mean it” with a grain of salt. I’m not in the mood to link & argue all the details, but anyone who wants can follow them from easily.
Personal Update - Greek
A while ago, I was blogging Xenophon’s Anabasis here, but stopped, and have been absolutely quiet about Greek. I’ve still been studying Greek, but found that the labor of translating into readable English and posting it to the blog demanded too much time. Also, I suspect that forcing myself (an intermediate Greek student, at most) to re-work every phrase I read back into English might even be counter-productive.
At any rate, Xenophon’s Greek mercenaries (or somewhat more than half of them) made it back to Greece. What remained of the army was absorbed into a Spartan expedition against Persia. Xenophon himself was exiled from Athens, but apparently lived out an otherwise prosperous, comfortable life, and wrote several other books, besides the Anabasis. As I remarked earlier, the ability of a small, disciplined, trained Greek army to slice through the Persian Empire was noted by Alexander the Great, who did that quite successfully 70 years later.
I’ve been reading Plato, who, despite the egg-headed reputation of being a philosopher, wrote in a Greek style no more difficult than Xenophon’s. I read Euthyphro, and am almost finished with the Apology.
For my friend Tom Roper, here is a snippet of Greek text, typed into Wordpress: ἄλλοι δε ἄρα αὐτὰς οἴσουσι ῥαδὶως
I didn’t try to get every accent right, but it demonstrates the concept.
Maliki agrees with Obama’s 16 months’ proposal
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
Fundamentally, Maliki’s comment is evidence of what the Iraqi government sees as the primary impediment to their government attaining real legitimacy: Us. The American occupation is hugely unpopular, and if Iraq is to truly stabilize, its government needs to be seen as independent from the occupiers and opposed to their continued presence.
McCain needs to either come out with a new Iraq plan featuring a withdrawal component tomorrow, or explain why he believes America should fight for continued military dominance in Iraq over the objections of the American people, the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi government.
Why do I suspect the rightwingers will declare that this has been their position all along? …
On second thought, they won’t. They’ll come up some other mind-bending, through-the-looking-glass dodge that I can’t envision yet.
Let’s put that shoe on the other foot
“Obama leaks word of McCain Iraq trip - complicating security concerns.”
Ben Smith’s Blog: McCain breaks embargo on Obama’s schedule
Obama, you may have noticed, doesn’t have a public schedule today. The press generally respects campaigns’ and officials’ security concerns, when voiced.
So Josh Marshall is probably right to raise an eyebrow that John McCain — of all people — just said, at a fundraiser, that Obama would be in Iraq with other senators this weekend.
Ironically, McCain and the GOP have been demanding for months that Obama go to Iraq; his comment may have made the trip slightly more complicated.
His comment was reported by Reuters.
The right wing blogs and commenters would be in a frigging UPROAR. OMG, I can hear the howling and gnashing of teeth right now. In this case, though, I am 100% certain that Hot Air and LGF and Malkin and Hewitt and the gang won’t mention it, unless of course, they find some third-rate leftie blogger who claims it was deliberate. Then they will go into an orgy of victimization. Yeah, that sounds about right.
In any case, if McCain did not do it intentionally, might we infer that he was a little “confused,” perhaps slightly not on top of his game to do such a thing? Maybe it was just a tiny error in judgement, for, you know, a guy who has such meaningful foreign policy, defense, and security experience. That’s ‘knowing how to win wars,’ isn’t it, just shooting your mouth off about stuff that even the media knows to keep quiet about.
