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Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Friday, August 1, 2008
John McCain appears to value nothing beyond sheer military might-- even if it has shady contacts to al-Qaeda - Juan Cole
From Juan Cole's Informed CommentFriday, August 01, 2008
ISI Linked to Indian Embassy Bombing;
McCain client Musharraf Likely Implicated
How much of the $10 billion in aid Bush and Cheney gave to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf after September 11 ended up being used to kill US, NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan?
NYT reports that US intelligence intercepted communications between elements of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's military intelligence division, indicating that they gave support to the Haqqani group of Pushtun guerrillas in bombing the Indian embassy in Kabul.
There have long been suspicions that the Pakistani military was using Pushtun guerrillas to project power into Afghanistan, even as they fought them inside Pakistan itself. The NYT was told by US government officials that this intercept was the first smoking gun proving that active-duty ISI officers were complicit with violence in Afghanistan (and therefore with attacks on US and NATO troops.)
The Pakistani military has tight command and control. ISI's collaboration with the neo-Taliban and other guerrilla groups could not occur without the knowledge and acquiescence of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who was chief of staff until last fall. That is, Cheney, Bush and McCain have backed to the hilt a military dictator who has continued the old 1980s and 1990s policy of supporting Pushtun guerrillas as a way of a) dominating Afghanistan and b) training other guerrillas to hit Kashmir.
Here is what McCain said about Musharraf last winter:
' "I continue to believe Musharraf has done a pretty good job, done a lot of the things that we wanted him to do . . . I would remind some of my fellow Americans that Benazir Bhutto and [former prime minister Nawaz] Sharif presided over failed states, there was corruption, there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf took charge...I would like to give Musharraf some credit for taking the measures that we asked him to do." 'Musharraf's 'successful state' involved dismissing the Supreme Court, provoking massive and repeated demonstrations, violating the constitution, interfering with free and fair elections, and presiding over a virtual national meltdown on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last December. McCain appears to value nothing beyond sheer military might-- even if it has shady contacts to al-Qaeda!
In Full
Thanks For Stopping By
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Today's US Election News - Zawahiri endorses McCain Plan For Iran; McCain seeks Endorsement of Catholic-Haters; 8% Percent of Pakistanis Back McCain
Does America believes in justice for the people of Iraq? An Open Response To Matthew Walleser’s Informed Comment Guest Editorial on Imperilled US Allies (Iraqi Collaborators)Nevertheless, this is too funny to let slide out of a false sense of Buffalo pride.
My perhaps unpublished 2nd try at commenting on Genocide follows.
Zawahiri endorses McCain Plan to Bomb Iran; McCain seeks Endorsement of Catholic-Haters; 8 Percent of Pakistanis Back McCain
Senator John McCain, who seeks endorsements from haters of Roman Catholics, is alleging that Hamas has "endorsed" Barack Obama. He darkly suggests that this means something.
It is a despicable, dirty campaign trick. Who do you think the Ku Klux Klan will be endorsing? And if the Grand Dragons plump for McCain, does that tell us anything about McCain except that he is pasty faced? You can't logically read off anything at all from an unsolicited endorsement.
Actually it occurred to me to ask who is endorsing McCain in the Muslim world.
Well, it turns out that al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared that he is actually on McCain's side in wanting to destroy Iran. Al-Zawahiri is hurt that McCain keeps confusing hyper-Sunni al-Qaeda with radical Shiism: "Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda wants to see the destruction of Iran - a Shiite nation battling the terrorists . . . "The dispute between America and Iran is a genuine struggle, and the possibility of the US striking Iran is real," al-Zawahiri said. . ." Al-Zawahiri hopes that the US struggle with Iran will destroy the latter and weaken the former, putting al-Qaeda in a position to administer the coup de grace.
In essence, al-Zawahiri is endorsing McCain's plan to "bomb, bomb, bomb/ bomb, bomb Iran."
Then, it turns out that 8 percent of Pakistanis support McCain. 30 percent support Hillary Clinton, and she leads in this Muslim country over Obama (13%). But surely it is Pakistani liberals who are favoring Hillary, the sort people who supported Benazir Bhutto.
So which Pakistanis are supporting McCain?
Presumably the conservative Muslims who can't accept the leadership of a woman....
Then, Professor Cole goes on to cover the background of some of John McCain's more 'ardent' U.S. supporters:
But lets consider the people from whom McCain has actively sought an endorsement. Many of them seem to engage in a lot of hate speech against Catholics, Muslims and others.
John McCain's spiritual guides:
John Hagee, whose endorsement John McCain actively sought, compares the Roman Catholic Church to Hitler and depicts it as drinking the blood of the Jews through history:
[Video]
John McCain praised Rod Parsely as a spiritual guide; he is caught on camera below:
[Video]
Parseley accuses the federal government of enabling a genocide against African-Americans.
That's where I attempted to comment, on the casual dismissal of the charge of genocide against African Americans, no matter WHAT the accuser's political background.
I second anonymous' comment in regard to Parsley's statement about Planned Parenthood & Margaret Sanger AND I also am here to say the genocide continues, with more than 40% of male African Americans having been incarcerated in their lives (over 90% of California's prison population is African American and Latino), chemical warfare on their communities in the form of Heroin and Crack Cocaine, much of it imported into the US over the years with the witting or unwitting (I'd be glad to state which I think, but one post on this has already been 'moderated') assistance of the US military and CIA... cf. "The French Connection" Heroin pipeline from the "Golden Triangle" of SE Asia to Marseilles France with the PUBLICLY KNOWN assistance of US Special Forces and the CIA, to the US communities of color in the sixties.
Who would believe that it ever even slowed down since then... and now, the dismemberment of their communities en masse... cf. New Orleans Katrina "reconstruction" (gentrification) and the mass forced relocation of the people who live on 'Hurricane Alley" along the Mississippi coast.
Pardon my analysis...
...but sometime I think we're all actors in an American B Movie
...and we would have much rather had John Wayne...
Y' All know darn well we would have rather had John Wayne than any of the cast of blindly US policy supporting characters currently feeling 'presidential'.
In Full, with videos, at Informed Comment
Thanks For Stopping By
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Battle Rattle - John McCain thinks he's Harry Truman and it's August 1, 1950 in Korea
Informed CommentGlad to see Frank Rich @ the NY Times agrees...
Iraq - Basra Police Mutiny, Refuse to attack Sadrists, Clashes continue in Basra, Sadrists open New fronts throughout Shiite South
Two Words: Tet Offensive
Also see, Stan Goff, Feral Scholar, for a strategic/tactical perspective: Good Morning, Vietnam!
Juan Cole's Informed Comment
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Rich, McCain, and the Coming Heartbreak Ridge
Frank Rich's "Tet Happened . . . and No One Cared" is an elegantly written and argued examination of the current situation in Iraq that seems to me to pretty much nail it.
Rich demolishes so many of the myths put out by McCain and the American Right generally. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Da'wa Party, which back Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, are closer to Iran than the Sadr Movement. It was al-Maliki's parliamentary coalition that sought the cease fire by asking their Iranian patrons to broker it. The main motivation for the attack on Sadrist neighborhoods in Basra was to ensure that ISCI wins the elections in that key oil province in October.
It is so refreshing to see an American commentator who clearly has the facts at hand and a sense of proportion in interpreting them.
Rich begins and ends provocatively in arguing that the charge that Sen. John McCain has advocated a hundred-years war in Iraq is a canard, and takes the focus off much more substantive errors that McCain does make.
The only thing I would say is that McCain's analogy to South Korea, which comes from rightwing imperialist historian John Gaddis of Yale, has two implications. The first is that Bush is Harry Truman and it is July 23, 1950 (just after the US lost the Battle of Taejon and had to retreat) and there is a danger of the Communists overwhelming the South.
In McCain's mind, 'staying the course' and supporting the surge is akin to Truman committing large numbers of troops to make sure that we fight to a stalemate, containing America's enemies in Iraq.
The second implication is that once a stalemate is achieved and acknowledged, as in Korea from 1953, there can be an enduring US military presence in Iraq...
In Full @ Informed Comment
Thanks For Stopping By
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Condi Rice making a VP pitch? - The Swamp (Washington Post)
Condi Rice making a VP pitch?
by James Oliphant
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at a breakfast today of powerful economic conservatives in Washington, say The Huffington Post and The Washington Note. They speculate Rice is courting conservatives to position herself as a possible vice presidential pick of Sen. John McCain." In Full
Tags:
2008 Election,
Condoleezza Rice,
John McCain
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