Who’s the better candidate on terrorism?
Okay, who’s the most qualified to lead the country on national security issues? Let’s think about this for a second…
McCain wanted to attack Iraq preemptively in 1998, he voted to attack Iraq in 2003 and he now advocates staying there for as long as it takes. Not sure what that means, but maybe 100 years? Now, in 1998 keep in mind the fact that bin Laden issued his first fatwa against the west, which declared that killing North Americans was the “duty of every Muslim.” Following the fatwa, still in 1998 now, was the U.S. embassy bombings orchestrated by bin Laden’s network. So, in 1998 John McCain was fixated on Iraq while bin Laden was killing Americans and after 2001 when bin Laden killed more Americans and openly taunted the U.S. afterwards, John McCain authorized the invasion of Iraq. Amazingly, bin Laden and his network still exist today 7 years after the WTC attacks, yet McCain stays fixated on Iraq. Anyone want to talk judgment and experience now?
Yesterday, Barack Obama reaffirmed his views on Iraq, highlighting the fact that this misguided war is not the central front of the war on terror - Afghanistan/Pakistan is. But John McCain disagrees, Iraq is the central front he says, because bin Laden says so. Awesome, so now U.S. foreign policy is directed by Osama bin Laden? Ironically, McCain is the guy who says he will follow bin Laden to the “gates of hell” every chance he gets on the campaign stump. Is bin Laden in Iraq, though? Isn’t the guy who attacked us and his entire network still in the Afghanistan region near Pakistan?
So, tell me who has the better judgment when it comes to the priorities of our foreign policy? Obama has the same view as the current Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullen, our nations highest military officer, when it comes to sending more troops to Afghanistan. The Taliban is moving back in, so what’s McCain’s plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan? I still haven’t heard what he wants to do there because he’s made Iraq the central front of his campaign. It’s tragic and it’s offensive. When Obama declared in a Democratic presidential debate that he would launch an attack inside Pakistan if they would not act upon intelligence of Al Qaeda’s whereabouts, McCain called Obama naive. Fascinating.
In my judgment, McCain is bin Laden’s candidate in this election because he serves bin Laden’s interests. He flexes his muscles when he says he’ll follow bin Laden to the “gates of hell” but ultimately he helps bin Laden in many ways and even McCain himself has admitted in the past, ironically, that bin Laden helps the Republican Party. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, I guess, since McCain helps bin Laden sell Iraq as the central front in the war on terror, which only distracts the U.S. from capturing him and fuels recruitment efforts by legitimizing bin Laden’s propaganda efforts, and on the flip side bin Laden supposedly helps Republicans win elections.
It’s time for a change in judgment.
Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, bin Laden, John McCain, war on terror
July 19th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
At this point, I’d have to say neither candidate looks promising.
In the 1950s, in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan, Pakistan obtained a 125 megawatt heavy-water reactor from Canada. After India’s first atomic test in May 1974, Pakistan immediately sought to catch up by attempting to purchase a reprocessing plant from France. After France declined due to U.S. resistance, Pakistan began to assemble a uranium enrichment plant via materials from the black market and technology smuggled through A.Q. Khan. In 1976 and 1977, two amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were passed, prohibiting American aid to countries pursuing either reprocessing or enrichment capabilities for nuclear weapons programs.
These two, the Symington and Glenn Amendments, were passed in response to Pakistan’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability; but to little avail. Washington’s cool relations with Islamabad soon improved. During the Reagan administration, the US turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon’s program. In return for Pakistan’s cooperation and assistance in the mujahideen’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Reagan administration awarded Pakistan with the third largest economic and military aid package after Israel and Egypt. Despite the Pressler Amendment, which made US aid contingent upon the Reagan administration’s annual confirmation that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons capability, Reagan’s “laissez-faire” approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program seriously aided the proliferation issues that we face today.
Not only did Pakistan continue to develop its own nuclear weapons program, but A.Q. Khan was instrumental in proliferating nuclear technology to other countries as well. Further, Pakistan’s progress toward nuclear capability led to India’s return to its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, an endeavor it had given up after its initial test in 1974. In 1998, both countries had tested nuclear weapons. A uranium-based nuclear device in Pakistan; and a plutonium-based device in India.
Over the years of America’s on again- off again support of Pakistan, Musharraf continues to be skeptical of his American allies. In 2002 he is reported to have told a British official that his “great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.” Musharraf was referring to Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia … etc., etc., etc.,
Taking the war to Pakistan is perhaps the most foolish thing America can do. Obama is not the first to suggest it, and we already have sufficient evidence of the potentially negative repercussions of such an action. On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid. Pakistan has 160 million Arabs (better than half of the population of the entire Arab world). Pakistan also has the support of China and a nuclear arsenal.
I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?
The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty. Beyond being wrong, it just isn’t very smart. We all agree that slavery in this country was wrong; as was the decimation of the Native American populations. We all agree that the Holocaust and several other acts of genocide in the twentieth century were wrong. So when will we finally admit that American military intervention in the Middle East is wrong as well?