Letters to the Editor
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"Naive" translates into "inexperienced"...
....Keep in mind since Obama wants to use a common sense approach to foreign policy, it means he is "inexperienced."
But if you want to use the Sean Hannity/neocon method (a.k.a., the macho, dumbass method) like McCain, then you are "experienced."
Every time Obama presents a wise & common sense approach to foreign policy, (in other words, the anti-Bush/neocon approach), Obama will be labeled "inexperienced."
Yet everytime McCain spouts Bushian/neocon insanity, he will be framed as "seasoned," serious," & "tenured."
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Polling Paks
"But what most American commentators have missed is that however much Pakistanis dislike Musharraf, they are more hostile toward the United States. When asked to name the 'single greatest threat' to their country, 64 percent of Pakistanis name the US. Historic archrival India, with whom Pakistan fought five bloody wars, was second, well behind America.
"Eighty-nine percent of Pakistanis said they disapprove of the US war on terrorism. Eight in ten Pakistanis oppose allowing the US to pursue Al Qaeda terrorists in their country. A similar percentage rejects US pursuit of Taliban forces into Pakistan. In opposing Musharraf, opposition parties call him 'Busharraf,' and accused him of being a 'lackey' of the US in the 'so-called war on terrorism,' which they say is a US-led war on Islam.
"The US military presence in Afghanistan, where earlier Pakistani governments were the primary sponsors of the Taliban, is opposed by 83 percent of Pakistanis. Critics of Musharraf's limited cooperation with the US/NATO campaign should recognize that a government that more closely followed the wishes of its people would be less cooperative in combating the Taliban."
---Graham Allison
---Harvard University
---The Boston Globe, 2//21/08
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Note: Allison appears to average polling numbers in this piece, which he sources to: the Pew Global Attitudes Project, the International Republican Institute, and Terror Free Tomorrow.
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Obama Campaign Responds: Bush Administration is, now, carrying out the policy that Obama advocated in his foreign policy speech in August 2007 -- the policy which McCain now derides.
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/02/20/john_mccain_derides_obama_as_o.php
John McCain Derides Obama As Offering ''Confused Leadership'' Because He Would Take Out High-Level Terrorists Like Bin Laden
February 20, 2008"But we would risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan" John McCain, February 19, 2008
FACT: Barack Obama has never said he would "attack Pakistan"--he has said that he would attack "high-level terrorist targets."
Obama's statement of policy--in his August 1 terrorism speech--dealt directly with high-level terrorist targets like Osama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri, not the Pakistani government. [...] The co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission--Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton--endorsed Obama's stance just over a month after his terrorism speech, writing in the Washington Post: "Pakistan should take the lead in closing Taliban camps and rooting out al-Qaeda. But the United States must act if Pakistan will not."
FACT: The Washington Post reported just yesterday that America is carrying out the very policy that Obama advocated and that John McCain derided as "confused."
John McCain referred to the policy of taking out high-level terrorists in northwestern Pakistan as "confused" – even as the Washington Post reported, just this morning, that:
"In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants[...]"
....Top Bush administration policy officials -- who are increasingly worried about al-Qaeda's use of its sanctuary in remote, tribally ruled areas in northern Pakistan to dispatch trained terrorists to the West -- have quietly begun to accept the military's point of view, according to several sources familiar with the context of the Libi strike.....
FACT: There is a high-level terrorist sanctuary in Pakistan that is serving as a training ground for al Qaeda, and President Bush's own senior military and intelligence community officials are contemplating action against al Qaeda. [...]
The Bush-McCain war diverted resources from the fight against al Qaeda: Substantial military, intelligence, and diplomatic resources were shifted from Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden to the disastrous war in Iraq. These resources shortchanged our efforts to bring to justice the people responsible for 9/11, and have left the American people less safe. [...]
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@Scientician
I liked your post about "fanatics".
One of the points I often finding myself trying to make here is that humans the world over have the same basic wiring. That's why whenever I run into someone spewing about how irrational and impervious to reason our Islamofscist enemies are, I'm always struck that they're viewing the world through a fun-house mirror. There's just enough distortion that they fail to recognize that they're looking at their own image.
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Your countrymen and fellow Democrats abroad...
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama won the Democrats Abroad global primary in results announced Thursday, giving him 11 straight victories in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Illinois senator won the primary in which Democrats living in other countries voted by Internet, mail and in person, according to results released by the Democrats Abroad, an organization sanctioned by the national party.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has not won a nominating contest since Super Tuesday, more than two weeks ago.
More than 20,000 U.S. citizens living abroad voted in the primary, which ran from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12. Obama won about 65 percent of the vote, according to the results released Thursday.
Voters living in 164 countries cast votes online, while expatriates voted in person in more than 30 countries, at hotels in Australia and Costa Rica, at a pub in Ireland and at a Starbucks in Thailand. The results took about a week to tabulate as local committees around the globe gathered ballots.
"This really gives Americans an opportunity to participate," said Christine Schon Marques, the international chair of Democrats Abroad.
There is no comparable primary among Republicans, though the GOP has several contests this weekend in U.S. territories, including party caucuses in Puerto Rico Sunday.
The Democrats Abroad controls seven pledged delegates at the party's national convention this summer. However, the group's system of dividing the delegates is unique, and could create an anomaly in which Obama and Clinton end up with fractions of delegates.
The party will send 14 pledged delegates to the convention, each with a half vote. The primary was used to determine nine people, or the equivalent of 4.5 delegates. Obama won 2.5 and Clinton won two, according to Schon Marques.
The Democrats Abroad will hold a global convention in Vancouver, Canada, in April to select the other five people who will attend the convention. They will represent the remaining 2.5 votes...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_delegates
Usually better informed and more politically sophisticated than your average American.
For whatever it's worth...