Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Baghdad, Barack Obama, biden, Congress, David Petraeus, Draft, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, House, Iraq, joe biden, left right paradigm, Military, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, obama, occupation, Pullout, Senate, tax, Troops, UN, War On Terror | Tags: Hoshyar Zebari, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Obama Tried To Stall Iraq Withdrawal
NY Post
September 15, 2008
WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”
“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.
Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.
While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.
Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.
Supposing he wins, Obama’s administration wouldn’t be fully operational before February – and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.
By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.
Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament – which might well need another six months to pass it into law
http://mparent7777-1.livejournal.com/1726422.html
Biden: Paying higher taxes patriotic for wealthy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/biden_taxes
Filed under: 2008 Election, 9/11, bailout, Big Banks, Bill Kristol, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, fannie mae, flip flop, flip flopping, freddie mac, George Bush, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, John McCain, mortgage, mortgage companies, mortgage lenders, neocons, phil gramm, real estate, scandal, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: fa, run on banks
McCain on U.S. economy: from ‘strong’ to ‘total crisis’ in 36 hours
Herald Tribune
September 17, 2008
Early this week, as the American financial system absorbed one of its biggest shocks in generations, Senator John McCain said, as he had many times before, that he believed the fundamentals of the economy were “strong.”
Hours later he backpedaled, explaining that he had meant that American workers, whom he described as the backbone of the economy, were productive and resilient.
By Tuesday he was calling the economic situation “a total crisis” and denouncing “greed” on Wall Street and in Washington. Meantime, he moved from adamant opposition to resigned acceptance of the big government bailouts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igAmVs0cvY8
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/16/mccain-economy-strong-18/
McCain Embraces Government Bailout Of Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/06/freddie-mac-mccain/
Phil Gramm would be ‘just the guy’ to lead us into a Great Depression
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/16/krugman-on-gramm/
Advisor: McCain helped create BlackBerry
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jon..ain_helped_create_BlackBerry.html?showall
John McCain, The Stripper, And Bill Kristol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2COPT6Cxug
Bush: Vote For McCain Because Of 9/11
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bush-vote-for-mccain-because-of-911.html
McCain Manager: ’This Election is Not About Issues’
http://voices.washingtonpost.com..anager_this_election_i.html
Filed under: 2008 Election, alaska, Congress, flip flop, flip flopping, Fox News, House, John McCain, Media, neocons, sarah palin, scandal, Senate | Tags: gravina island, ketchikan, mike wooden, pork barrel earmarks, Pork Barrel Spending, troopergate
ABC Reveals More On Palin’s TrooperGate
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/aip_founder_professed_hatred_f.php
’Palin told AIPAC she wants stronger Israel ties’
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-appearances-cancelled-meets.html
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, ACLU, Afghanistan, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, flip flop, flip flopping, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogations, Iraq, John McCain, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, veto, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding | Tags: Detainee Treatment Act, gitmo
Forgetting His Vote To Allow Waterboarding, McCain Says ‘We Could Never Torture Anyone’
Think Progress
July 28, 2008
In February, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted against a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding and using other torture tactics in their interrogations. When the bill passed, McCain urged Bush to veto it, which he did.
In an interview with Newsweek published today, McCain defended his position, insisting that the CIA plays “a special role” in defending the U.S. and thus should be allowed to use harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding:
NEWSWEEK: On torture, why should the CIA be treated differently from the armed services regarding the use of harsh interrogation tactics?
MCCAIN: Because they play a special role in the United States of America and our ability to combat terrorists. But we have made it very clear that there is nothing they can do that would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits torture. We could never torture anyone, but some people misconstrue that who don’t understand what the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions are all about.
McCain’s vote against the waterboarding ban did make one thing clear: that he condones torture. With Bush’s veto, waterboarding remains a distinct option for the CIA:
Still, waterboarding remains in the CIA’s tool kit. The technique can be used, but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis. Bush wants to keep that option open.
“I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack,” Bush said in a statement.
McCain is either clueless or ignorant about the fact that his vote allows the CIA to waterboard detainees. And as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of McCain’s chief surrogates, has said about waterboarding, “I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place.”
Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Bohemian Grove, Bush Sr., Colin Powell, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, george h. w. bush, Hillary Clinton, Impeach, Iraq, Iraqnam, John McCain, left right paradigm, Military, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, occupation, Pullout, War Crimes, War On Terror, WMD
It should be noted that Colin Powell is attending Bohemian Grove with George H. W. Bush and many others…
Colin Powell Advising Obama
TPM
July 21, 2008
This was reported a few days ago, but it got surprisingly little attention, and it seems worth flagging in light of Obama’s trip abroad. Check out this little nugget buried in that New York Times piece on Barack Obama’s cast of 300 or so foreign policy advisers:
Another person who has contributed outside advice is former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, whom Mr. Obama has been wooing. Mr. Powell, a Republican, has a friendship of decades with Mr. McCain, but friends say he has felt excluded from Mr. McCain’s foreign policy operation and was impressed when Mr. Obama called on him in June. Mr. Powell also met around the same time with Mr. McCain.
Powell recently met with Obama and has made it clear that he won’t let any endorsement be dictated by party allegiance, so neglecting him seems like a pretty big oversight on the McCain camp’s part. Could Obama’s wooing of him eventually pay off?
Obama was never for full withdrawal from Iraq
Guardian
July 22, 2008
As November’s American presidential elections approach, Barack Obama’s message on Iraq is being widely interpreted as “flip-flopping” and a “retreat” from a previously unequivocal stance of fully withdrawing the US occupation forces. This is to misunderstand Obama, who is not someone who shoots from the hip. There is much more to his words than cursory reading could unravel.
His remarks before the 2003 invasion resonated well within the American antiwar movement. His scathing references to the Bush administration’s folly and his demands for “ending the war” were probably decisive in winning him the Democratic party nomination against Hillary Clinton, whose vote for war in 2003 ultimately crippled her credibility as the commander-in-chief who would bring it to an end.
Obama himself has reacted angrily to claims of a policy U-turn: “For me to say I’m going to refine my policies is I don’t think in any way inconsistent with prior statements and doesn’t change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I’m going to end it as president.” Earlier this month he resorted to an op-ed article in the New York Times to emphatically state: “On my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.”
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 2008 Election, 4th amendment, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, amnesty, army, Barack Obama, bill of rights, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Coup, Dictatorship, Empire, enemy combatant, False Flag, federal crime, FISA, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Hillary Clinton, Iran, John McCain, left right paradigm, Military, military base, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, neocons, Neolibs, Nuke, obama, Pentagon, Police State, poll, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Saddam Hussein, Shock and Awe, Surveillance, Syria, Tehran, telco pac, telecoms, Torture, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, WW3, ww4
The Lesson from Obama’s Cowardly Flip-Flop
Jacob G. Hornberger
FFF
July 10, 2008
Those who think that the election of Barack Obama will save the nation from its many foreign-policy/civil-liberties woes got smashed and dashed with a cold dose of reality. Flip-flopping in the finest political tradition, Obama voted in favor of President Bush’s wiretap/immunity bill, after promising to filibuster it before he secured the Democratic Party nomination.
Presumably, Obama’s thinking goes like this: “Now that I’ve secured the nomination of my party, liberals will vote for me regardless because they won’t want John McCain in power. So, I can now flip flop and taken different positions on foreign policy and civil liberties so that John McCain won’t be able to tell people that I’m soft on terrorism.”
Reminding people of what happened in 2002, when the Democrats unconstitutionally and cowardly delegated the power to declare war on Iraq to President Bush because of fear that the president would accuse them of being soft on Saddam Hussein, congressional Democrats voted to give Bush everything he wanted plus more in the wiretap/immunity bill, including civil immunity to private telecom companies for apparent felony offenses committed against their customers.
For an excellent analysis of the cowardly and craven cave-in by Obama and his fellow Democrats, see Glenn Greenwald’s blog and Jonathan Turley’s television interview, which is included in Greenwald’s June 9 blog. (Both Greenwald and Turley delivered terrific speeches at our recent conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.”)
Meanwhile, the president and his associates continue to threaten Iran with a military attack without even pretending that they’re going to first ask for a declaration of war from Congress, which the Constitution requires. Keep in mind that the Constitution is the law that we the people impose on the president and the Congress. That’s the law that the president feels that he can violate with impunity.
The fact is that Americans are living under a lawless regime, one in which the president feels that constitutional constraints are illegitimate during his “war on terrorism,” which he says will last indefinitely given that there are still so many terrorists and potential terrorists in the world. Never mind that the U.S. government’s own policies generate the terrorist threat against the United States, which is then used as the excuse for the president to operate in an omnipotent and extra-constitutional manner.
That’s what his signing statements, illegal wiretaps and other searches, enemy-combatant designations, torture and sex abuse camps, cancelation of habeas corpus, wars of aggression, indefinite detentions, and kangaroo military tribunals are all about — the power to ignore constitutional restraints — omnipotent power.
The battle over the wiretap/immunity bill demonstrates a critically important point, one that every lover of liberty must ultimately confront: It is not sufficient to fight every assault on civil liberties that comes down the pike. The infringements are endless. Even if one civil-liberties battle is won, there are always three more battles to wage.
Suppose, for example, that civil libertarians succeed in getting the Pentagon’s torture and sex abuse camp at Guantanamo Bay closed down. Would that end the torture and sex abuse? Of course not. They’ll simply start sending detainees to torture and sex abuse camps in Afghanistan or to friendly terrorist regimes, such as Syria (which they still claim they don’t talk to despite the fact that the CIA somehow or another made the arrangements with Syrian torturers to torture an innocent man on its behalf).
Thus, what every American who thirsts for the restoration of a normal, free society must recognize is that there is one — and only one — solution: the dismantling of America’s standing army, especially the military-industrial complex and the CIA, which are the center of the rot of the U.S. Empire. This is what should have been done when the Berlin Wall fell and it’s what should be done today.
That’s the root of the weed. That’s what needs to be pulled out of the ground. It’s not sufficient to simply continue trimming its branches.
That would mean the closing of every U.S. military base around the world — Europe, Asia, South America, and everywhere else. It would entail bringing all those troops home and discharging them into the private sector. It would entail closing the multitude of military bases all across the United States. It would entail the abolition of the CIA. It would include the repeal of the deadly and destructive war on drugs. It would entail the end of all foreign aid. It would mean the end of the U.S. government’s meddling in the affairs of other nations. It would entail the repeal of all the taxes that fund these people and their deadly, destructive, and nefarious operations.
Barack Obama’s cowardly flip flop should remind every American that the key to our future lies not in electing different people to public office. Instead, the key to our future lies in a shift in paradigms — from one of big government in foreign (and domestic) affairs to one of limited government in foreign (and domestic) affairs.
The time has come for the American people to do what Americans in 1787 were doing: reflecting upon the principles of liberty and limited government on which this nation should be based. The time has come to end the U.S. government’s role as the world’s policeman, intervener, interloper, aggressor, welfare provider, and sole remaining empire. The time has come for the American people to restore the principles of liberty and limited government that our ancestors bequeathed to us.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Obama’s poll numbers plummet: Apparently betraying Americans does not pay
Newsweek
July 11, 2008
A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama’s glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month’s NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.
Obama’s rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience–an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who’d slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama’s reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.
More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama’s outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters. In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June’s NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/07/14/thi..ager-begs-for-money/
Obama sees three straight months of declining donations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/../2008/07/10/AR2008071002813_pf.html
Filed under: 2008 Election, al-qaeda, David Petraeus, Dictatorship, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, Iran, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, john mcclellan, Keith Olbermann, Libya, neocons, Propaganda, Sanctions, Uncategorized, WMD
McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic..-02-mccain-aipac_N.htm?csp=1
McCain vows tough sanctions on Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/200806..cainiran_080602143826
McCain Reacts To McClellan: ‘Every Intelligence Agency In The World And Every Assessment’ Said Iraq Had WMD
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/29/mccain-mcclellan/
McCain consultant’s wife worked for Libya’s terrorist regime
http://mparent7777-1.livejournal.com/319398.html
McCain Official: Bush Has Near Dictatorial Powers
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/02/goldfarb/print.html
Filed under: 2008 Election, FEC, flip flop, Iraq, jeb bush, John McCain, lobbyist, nation building, neocons, occupation, scandal, special interest, Vicki Iseman, War On Terror
McCain Flip Flops on 100 Years in Iraq Statement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4kWCWjyI00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLfSpYULGXY
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008..ted-mcca_n_87974.html
Files and McCain Letter Show Effort to Keep Loophole
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/politics/23lobby.html
McCain Adviser Does Lobbying Aboard “Straight Talk” Express
http://www.washingtonpost..02/21/AR2008022101131.html
The Real McCain: Senator Gets Millions from Lobbyist “Friends”
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/77541/
McCain defends lobbyist ties
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_lobbyist
Well, well. Jeb Bush is also connected to Alcalde & Fay (Vicki Iseman’s firm)
http://mparent7777-2.blogs..ush-is-also-connected-to.html
FEC Warns McCain on Campaign Spending
http://www.washingtonpost.com..2103141.html?hpid=topnews
Filed under: 2008 Election, army, CIA, flip flop, George Bush, GOP, Guantanamo, John McCain, neocons, Republican Debate, Senate, Torture, waterboarding
McCain Is A Liar He Is A Pro-Torture Candidate
Former prisoner of war and outspoken on the opposition of torture voted ‘No’ against a bill that would ban the use of water torture
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
February 14, 2008
John McCain the corporate controlled Republican presidential candidate voted against a Senate bill that bans the use of water torture. The bill entitled the Intelligence Authorization Bill contained a provision that required interrogations to be in line with the standards of the Army’s field manual which would effectively ban the use of water torture on detainees. McCain’s vote is surprising considering that he has said on numerous occasions that we should not condone the use of torture. It is amazing that McCain would vote against a bill that would ban the use of water torture after he’s spoken out against the use of torture on a frequent basis during his presidential campaign. Clearly the straight talk express doesn’t have a whole lot of credibility when he does the opposite of what he says. How can anyone take McCain seriously after this vote?
The Senate ended up voting in favor of the bill 51 – 45 but in the end the passage of the bill is nothing more than staged theatrics by the establishment. George W. Bush has already said that he is going to veto it because apparently he needs the authority to torture people to keep Americans safe. This is a ridiculous assertion considering that torture is a war crime and it is a proven fact that torture does not mean you’ll get good information from the individual being tortured. Anyone who is tortured will say anything to make the pain stop regardless of if what they say is factual or not.
Giving McCain the benefit of the doubt, maybe there was something else in the bill that he didn’t like which caused him to vote against it. McCain argued on the Senate floor prior to the bill’s passage that the CIA shouldn’t be tied to the Army’s field manual, but this was after McCain stated previously that the Army’s field manual should be the gold standard for interrogations. So apparently the CIA is exempt from McCain’s gold standard? There’s simply no consistency with his argument. Looking at the bill in its entirety, this bill provides authorization for the big government intelligence apparatus that McCain seems to love so much. Also considering McCain’s abysmal track record of supporting big government programs, it seems pretty clear that the main reason why he didn’t vote in favor of this bill is because it limited the ability of the government to torture people. Apparently Bush and McCain agree that the government needs to have the authority to torture people to keep the American people safe. This is of course a lie. The U.S. government has failed to adequately show one case that definitively proves that the use of torture has kept the American people safe. It is nothing more than empty rhetoric.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbQLuZ28EEM
The bottom line is that McCain is a sick individual for saying that he is against torture yet votes against a bill on the sole criteria that it eliminates the government’s authority to use techniques like water torture. This is clear evidence that McCain should be removed from the presidential race and put in a mental institution.
Filed under: 2008 Election, CPAC, Dick Cheney, flip flop, GOP, Iraq, iraq deaths, John McCain, nation building, occupation, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Saber Rattling, Troops, War On Terror, ww4
McCain: Flip Flopping Into the White House
Straight-talk express derails and bursts into flames
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
John McCain Booed at CPAC
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lf2Sekjex7I
Buchanan: John McCain ‘Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi’
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U-ptjl3ZQwM
John McCain is Dr. Strangelove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nqtL-P8kzo
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2..rn-in-us-so-why-is-he.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/artic..608_gook_comments.htm
Conservative leader: I’m not sure conservatives trust’ McCain
http://www.ajc.com/news/cont..conservative_onmccain0207.html
Video: Reasons To Vote For John McCain Corporate Flunkie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPUtJLcaWOQ
McAmnesty’s Aide Is Dual Citizen of Mexico
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/mccain_aide_is_dual_citizen124.html
McCain Claims Iraq ‘Casualties Are Coming Down,’ But Casualties Actually Increased In January
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=41601§i..351020502
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/01/mccain-by-golly-were-winning-in-iraq/
noworldsystem.com 