Remember this?
John McCain’s campaign is seizing on a Hamas adviser’s recent “endorsement” of Barack Obama[*], trying to suggest that the Democratic front-runner brought the unsavory praise on himself.
In a fund-raising letter sent out Friday, the McCain campaign excerpted the words of Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef, who in an interview Sunday with WABC radio and WorldNetDaily said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision.
Aaron Klein on FOX News:
I think it’s very legitimate. I think that it’s important to understand how the enemies of the United States of America…how the enemies of the west view the presidential campaign and who they favor. I think it could be legitimate…I think that this is a very legitimate campaign issue.
John McCain at the same link:
It’s…a fact that the spokesperson from Hamas said that he approves of Senator Obama’s candidacy.
Right Wing News chimed in:
Now that prominent members of Hamas are endorsing Obama, can Hizbollah and Al-Qaeda be far behind?
Right Wing News forgot that al Qaeda usually saves its endorsements for the last minute. Surprise.
Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market’s downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America’s economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.
And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
[…] [T]he comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. Site provided translations of the comments to The Washington Post.
“The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful ‘son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”
The idea that we should care what some hate-filled fringe groups have to say about our election is obviously ridiculous. Stormfront probably supports McCain and I don’t doubt that somewhere the Zapatistas have a humorously written communique that offers tepid support for Obama. The only reason I would give a crap what these people think is if, as with the right over Hamas, there is some short-term tactical benefit from ginning up an outrage party. If rightwingers find themselves sitting on a smoking petard it ain’t nobody’s fault but theirs.
***
Incidentally, in this case I don’t think that al Qaeda’s internal conversations are faked for American consumption. They did attack America to provoke another Afghan war. Bin Laden’s group did want America out of the mideast, yes, but they saw a crippling occupation fight as a necessary first step. These guys grew up kicking around Soviets and they thought that they could do the same thing to us. That didn’t work out as well as they hoped, but for reasons that future historians will lose hair trying to puzzle out the Bush administration decided to replace an almost certain win with a magnificent, epic fail.
Five years and eighteen torture scandals later we still have over 150,000 American troops in Iraq. We’re broke. Thousands of Americans are dead and the world hates our guts. The question of whether we caused more death and torture per annum than the guy we replaced is a matter of bookkeeping. We took out one of al Qaeda’s least favorite secular dictators and we keep trying to pick a fight with Shiite Iran, a regime that al Qaeda hates even more.
Osama bin Laden will die of old age. In all it is hard to imagine a credible aternative that would have promoted al Qaeda’s strategic goals (insofar as they had any) better than post-Iraq Bush administration. The president’s extreme advisors, who almost always outmaneuvered cautious voices like Colin Powell, relentlessly advocated poorly planned invasions that would leave blood and American bootprints on Islamic holy sites. So did al Qaeda. The “more rubble, less trouble” line that Glenn Reynolds coined, and which accurately describes the neocon perspective on the mideast, dovetails exactly with what al Qaeda hoped to make us do. For Sunni anarchist cults like bin Laden’s ‘creative destruction‘ is practically a mission statement.
The hysterical broad-brush islamophobia typified by Richard Perle and the Malkinites is incredibly useful if you hate America and want to see it fail. Our best bulwark against domestic terrorism is American cosmopolitanism. It is the main reason why not a single muslim American turned to terrorism [Update: or, to be more accurate, extremely few] while more culturally closed European countries continue to turn out radicals in frightening numbers. The extremist preacher doesn’t have much pull on your average teenager when he can step out the door and be just as American as his neighbor from Vietnam. However, enough hate at school, on the television and in crude epithets spray painted on the family house will eventually make him see things differently.
Hysterical islamophobia blinds us to allies and pressure points. For example, Iran hates al Qaeda as much as we do. They convinced the Northern Alliance (an Iranian ally) to work with us against the Taliban. They offered meaningful support after 9/11. Picking a fight with both at the same time is silly. Dirty icky communism did not keep us from wedging China away from the Soviets.
Still, who gives a shit what online takfiris say to each other. Their vote doesn’t count. The only relevant point is the reminder that the Bushist movement that conquered the Republican party and Rightwing blogs, while no doubt putting first priority on the fight against al Qaeda**, has in effect accomplished the reverse.
(*) Hamas revoked the “endorsement” after Obama reiterated his support for Israel.
(**) A less generous observer would note that GOP policies, banking on fear and dishonest liberal demonization, seem better designed to fight the next election.
The Moar You Know
I was a bit surprised to hear this on the radio this morning, but it is not getting the attention it probably should.
Oh well, we’ve been fighting the media all the way through this election cycle, and I’m sure that won’t stop after Election Day.
r€nato
it drives me NUTS that so many Americans lived through the Cold War as adults – it was not all that long ago! – and completely forget exactly how we emerged victorious without a devastating world war. In fact, those few times we waged actual, hot war against USSR or China-sponsored allies… we ended up 0-1-1.
The fact that we never had a war with the USSR and defeated them peacefully, sticks in the craw of neo-conservatives and they are determined not to repeat that mistake again.
Napoleon
Great post John.
SnarkyShark
We made Bin Laden, watched as he bankrupted the Soviet Union and then proceeded to fall into the same trap.
"I’m stupid and proud of it" needs to come to end. Stupid people are causing the decline of a once great nation and should not be catered to or celebrated anymore.
Lets face it…the terrorists won. They used our stupidity against us. No one could have foreseen of course…..
Punchy
I find it simply amazing that the election for the Most Powerful Person in the World could (luckily, wont) swing based on what one anonymous Muslim says on an almost completely unknown website that absolutely none of us will ever view about something they have absolutely no control over and absolutely none of it can even be verified.
Some clown, Brown and down with a Dell, keystroking either "Obama" or "McCain" after the preface "We prefer….." on the intertubes to determine who runs our country. Un…fucking….believeable.
Thanks, MSM. You worthless fucks.
SGEW
Th’ motherfuckin’ NSA, that’s who. And rightfully so.
jcricket
Sounds like appeasement and French-ification of our fine country.
Why do you hate American bellicosity? It’s as American as mom, apple pie, racial bigotry, jingoism and isolationism!
BTW – I seem to remember a former Democratic nominee for President mentioning something about International cooperation in policing global terror… Not sure what happened to that guy.
But yes, Republican policies make us less safe, both directly and indirectly. Directly through inflaming tensions in already tense regions. Indirectly by making so that nominal allies won’t cooperate lest their innocent citizens get locked up indefinitely and tortured.
We simply can’t be believed anymore. Thanks Bushie.
jcricket
They won a battle, not the war. But that’s only true if the following (this is my umpteenth repeat of this theme) happens after Democrats win:
1) Democrats make sure everyone knows Republicans fucked all this shit up. This includes conducting serious investigations into everything from the Iraq War to the politicization of every government agency, to no-bid contracts. It’s not about punishing Republicans, it’s about punishing the guilty and learning from mistakes.
2) Democrats fix shit. No faux centrism/bipartisanship for its own sake. Promote stuff that will actually work, has accountability and is pragmatic (not bipartisan, but compromise stuff that can see results faster than waiting for the perfect thing to gain support)
3) Democrats make it clear they fixed shit. Get some better marketing. Make sure everyone knows, up and down ballot, federal and state, that you fixed the shit. And, likely, that Republicans opposed you.
We can work our way out of this mess, we just need to avoid appeasing the Republicans and watering down our fixes.
SnarkyShark
Then we better get started ousting the Vichy-crat leadership of Reid and Pelosi.
Appeasement is what they do best.
Douche Baggins
Neocon foreign policy is akin to a martial arts demonstration. America, the 300-pound oaf with brute strength but no grace, gets provoked and rushes towards her attacker, and *wham* gets body-slammed to the mat. America struggles to get up, lumbers back towards the provocateur, and *smack* is back on ground, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. Up, down, up, down. America occasionally lands a blow, and when she does it hurts her opponent — but it’s pretty fucking clear that her strength does her no good when her brain isn’t running the show.
Did I mention that Soulful-Eyes Putin is a Judo master?
Tsulagi
Have said it for years, when bin Laden goes ass up in prayers, he gives thanks to Allah for The Retard. Or when leaving his Paki condo for a stroll gives a Bush pinup poster a loving pat for luck. Easily see how they’d be getting a little nostalgic with Bush leaving. Tears all around.
Stay the Course. Vote The Maverick!
Elvis Elvisberg
What jcricket said.
Yes, these past 8 years have been awful times for America, and full of victory after victory for bin Laden.
But we were in a bad spot in the early 1990s, and as it happened, Japan and Germany didn’t buy up all the world’s real estate and make us vassals.
We can’t lose long term to bin Laden, any more than Republicans can steward the economy. They have no plans or expertise, just a series of rage- and resentment-fueled impulses.
So, let’s get to work. And let’s have Barney Frank run things instead of Nancy Pelosi. He’s a gracious, bipartisan committee chair, but he brooks absolutely no bullshit, and can think circles around anyone else in the House.
David Hunt
I wonder. If they’re really good at appeasement, maybe that will work for an Obama Administration. If their appeasement is toward whatever authority figure occupies the White House instead of false bi-partisanship, Obama could have a very cooperative Congress.
Zifnab
Barney Frank for Speaker? GAAAAAAAAAY!
I don’t know what I think about Frank, to be honest. He’d make an excellent Majority Leader – a thousand times better than sell-out Steny Hoyer. At the end of the day, though, I don’t know if Pelosi is really such a terrible Speaker or whether she’s just playing the hand she is dealt. And I think Pelosi is a little more delicate in her dealings than Frank. She handled the bailout well enough when she demanded 100 GOoPer Congressmen line up behind her.
As for the Senate, I’d be much happier seeing Dodd or even Clinton in the driver’s seat. Reid has been entirely too lackluster. He spends more energy reining in the liberal Dems than he does rounding up the conservative ones.
bedlam UK
I wonder if the ‘country first’ peeps who pop on here could possibly link me to at least ONE of McCains smears that hasn’t been followed by the Republicans being hoisted by their own Patard as John so nicely puts it.
Socialism ? Daily News has McCain saying that those who earn more should pay a little more
Terrorist pals? Libby
Acorn? Yup McCain was there as well
Voter Registration Fraud? Erm, only current arrest has been of a REPUBLICAN
Elitist? McCains 6 Cars to get a Cappacino, Palin $250,000 shopping trip
Terrorist Hamas supports Obama? Osama supports McCain
I ran out of time to add the links, but I think most of them have been in previous posts.
Come on ‘country first’ I would like a link to ONE smear that isn’t reflected straight back at the Rethugs.
Jamey
I have this fantasy–call it the lefty yin to the yang (heh) of Rich Lowry’s Sarah Palin lapdance reveries: Some time in April 2009, President Obama calls Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, and a few other hand-selected right-wingers/war-hawks into the Oval Office. The invitees sit down; all but VP Biden and Sec’y of State Kerry (stay with me here) leave the room, closing the door behind them. President Obama puts a bowling ball bag on the desk, opens it, and pulls out the severed head of Osama bin Laden by the hair. He holds it up, just inches from Sen. Graham’s face, and says, "the rest of you shut the fuck up." President Obama returns the head to the bag, puts it on the floor next to his chair, slaps both palms down on the desktop and announces loudly, "this didn’t happen." He sits, and motions toward the door.
No martyr made, just a point: Money talks, bullshit walks.
Like I said, it’s my lefty version of the red-meat fantasy…
Jim
Bravo! A thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion of the subject matter. Frankly, you’re needed back in the Republican Party. They are completely lacking in anyone making that sort of an argument.
Dennis - SGMM
Zombie Lyndon Johnson, dammit!
jakester
As I said in a comment over at GOS, I think the best use of Al Qaeda in this election would be by the opponents of California’s Prop 8. "Terrorists HATE gay marriage! The fact that we are a progressive nation on these issues drives them craaaaaazy! Spit in the face of the people who cheered 9/11. Vote NO on Prop 8!"
Tim F.
Yer thinking of the other guy. I’m the leftist loony liberal.
jvill
Ha.
No.
It’s pretty clearly been toward false bi-partisanship (or caving to fear and the Versailles on the Potomac Pundit Class).
These congressional Dems have got to be the worst negotiators since Chamberlain.
Every time the Republicans negotiate, they do so from a (real or imagined) perceived position of strength, always putting the Dems on the defensive. Republicans ply all kinds of standard negotiating tactics — pulling the rug out from under the Dems to embarrass them and destroy credibility, waiting until the last minute to throw in a ridiculous condition that the Dems accept just to close the deal, etc.
But we all expect the Congressional Republicans to reassert their new-found respect for the balance of powers come January 2009, and they’ll spook they Dems into line once again.
Unless, as someone above said, the Dems actually get some real leadership to tend these congressional sheep.
"It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions" — Daniel Defoe
So who will be that lion?
Clinton is a really interesting possibility.
Punchy
How many fucking Jakes can one website have?
Va Highlander
I don’t think the US invasion of Afghanistan was ever "an almost certain win", except in the trivial sense that taking Baghdad itself was a "cakewalk". I didn’t believe so at the time and feel that events have borne me out, on this one.
No one has ever successfully invaded and held Afghanistan. The mission was doomed from day one.
Comrade Darkness
They will only be puzzled if they have lost all access to Ancient Greek texts. Start with a nice layer of Oedipus Complex then add on an egotistical need to show up the father who wouldn’t even let you visit the white house when he was in residence there because you were so coked up you were certain to be an epic embarrassment.
jakester
@Punchy: two
Svensker
Not to mention the celibate Jakes.
liberal
Yes, but it took a long time for us to get there, given the actual conditions in the world.
Meaning: IIRC there was a set of border skirmishes between the USSR and the PRC, in the 1960s. Quite a few nutjobs running our foreign policy establishment thought that that was all faked to get us to think they were having a falling out.
BTW, anytime anyone hankers for the "good old days," remember that our involvement in Indochina started in the early 1950s, perhaps even 1940s. Look how long it took the American public to react against that effort. (I’d call it mid-60s, at the earliest.) Now compare Iraq and other more recent interventions.
liberal
@Va Highlander:
Agreed.
It’s time we realized that our only strong interest there right now is that Pakistan doesn’t get destabilized. I can’t see how our effort in Afghanistan is helping with that.
liberal
@Elvis Elvisberg:
One problem w/ BF is that IMHO he’s been a shill for the banks in these past few months.
Of course if we disqualify everyone who’s been a shill for monied interests…
Brick Oven Bill
Well, at least Obama can count on Ahmedinejad as an unapologetic supporter. Those other guys are sell-outs.
John; my guess is that you are basing your view of Islam on Muslim acquaintances. This is the wrong way to assess a belief system. You should make your assessments on the core documents and tenets of Islam. And you should stop putting up pictures of those damned dogs.
liberal
I don’t see why Iran should be a geopolitical enemy right now, period, if we’re talking about the strategic interests of the US itself.
liberal
@Brick Oven Bill:
Fair enough; but let’s apply that to things like Judaism Christianity too, please.
Ever actually read the Old Testament?
Notorious P.A.T.
Tim F, you are absolutely, totally right, but the right-wingers I know can’t get it through their pea-brains that al-Qaeda could or would want us to attack the Mid East. To them, being attacked=bad, so if we attack then that means we’re halfway to winning already.
Put another way: We kill one terrorist and nine innocent people. One relative of each of those innocent people swears vengeance against the US. But to the pea-brained wingnut that doesn’t matter, because we killed us a terrorist.
Who are the homegrown Muslim terrorists? I can’t think of any. Okay, that white guy from Orange County who wasn’t born or raised a Muslim. Who else?
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill:
Firstly, you are a dog-hating unAmerican terrorist.
Secondly, John didn’t write this post. Reading comprehension fail.
Thirdly, why the hell would Ahmadinejad support Obama? He won’t give him that lovely war Mahmoud wants so badly.
Jess
Islam is also based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. The differences between the three religions are more cultural than theological, which of course makes the mutual hatred all the more vicious, as well as ironic.
But you’re right about reading the Old Testament. I keep wanting to ask that same question of the people freaking out about Rev. Wright. How do they reconcile their "Christian" beliefs with all the hate talk and violence in the Bible? Well, obviously, they separate the good from the bad–just like Obama did in his dealings with Wright. Duh.
Brick Oven Bill
I have, as a matter of fact, read the Old Testament. All those books were my homework assignment to myself in 2002. There is no doubt that God in the Old Testament empowers armies and assists in the destruction of cities in isolated cases. The Old Testament also calls for adulators to be killed and defines homosexuals as abominations.
But the majority of that book basically refers to the ideals of sacrifice and the Ten Commandments.
It is a different book than the Qur’an, which says be good to fellow Muslims, and kill, convert, or subjugate everybody else until the earth is yours. Atheists and Freemasons (later guidance for the Freemasons) do not have the option of conversion or subjugation, death to all those guys!
They are two very different texts; everybody should read both and come to their own conclusions. Personally, I like the part about four wives that you can shut up and send to their rooms. Perhaps we could come up with some hybrid religion. Now that would be truly cosmopolitan.
SGEW
And you have now irredeemably labeled yourself as an asshole (as if you hadn’t before). Pie filter, please.
(And speaking of pie, has anyone seen this? Obama’s New Slogan: "I Want Pie!")
Notorious P.A.T.
They sure are. One book posits an invisible sky-wizard who knows everything we do and loves us, but will send us to hell if we even think about disobeying him without repenting. The other book book posits an invisible sky-wizard who knows everything we do and loves us, but will send us to hell if we even think about disobeying him without repenting.
Notorious P.A.T.
Why? Why in the world should we judge a belief system based upon words in a book instead of what those words cause people to do and believe?
SGEW
But one book has a magical flying horse, and the other one has a zombie!
These are crucial differences.
OniHanzo
"My God of Abraham is better!" "No mine!"
Precisely the reason why wingnuts have no business battling religious fundamentalism. It just becomes a pissing contest.
Garrigus Carraig
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Adam Gadahn.
John Walker Lindh.
DonnaInMichigan
Endorsements for the week of October 19th ….
Obama: Colin Powell
McCain: Osama Bin Laden.
bwwwaaahhaaa
SatanicPanic
The Zapatistas are not the same as Stormfront or Al Qaeda. You want an equavalent leftist organization try FARC or the Shining Path.
Tim F.
Only a moron would propose to limit his understanding of muslims to a book written more than a thousand years ago. You apparently do not understand the takfiri movement that splintered off al Qaeda in a manner similar to ELF splintering from Earth First!. Most takfiris understand the Book about as well as Americans have memorized the Federalist Papers. Takfiri extremism is very much a cafeteria Islam. If you think they have anything to do with the Syrian Alawites or the quietist Shia (for example, Ali al-Sistani) then you will understand nothing that happens in that region and every policy that you promote will fail.
The Lebanese Shia, the Iraqi Shia and the Iranian Shia only look the same if you compare them with the Chinese. The Lebanese were cosmopolitan until the civil war, then became radicalized and eventually morphed into a guerilla force rather than a fundamentalist sect. They could care less about converting anyone as long as they militarily expel Israel from Lebanon. The Iraqi Shia are intensely nationalistic and only allow Iranian guidance because the alternatives (Saddam or America) are, from their perspective, worse.
It is a mistake to consider the Iranian Shia to be primarily a fundamentalist sect. The clerics took power for different reasons and they don’t keep it because the average Iranian agrees with medievalist religion. Khamenei stays in power because like most Iranian Persians he promotes a manifest destiny sense of empire over ethnic arabs, a perspective that predates the Ayatollahs, the Shah and Islam itself. The average Iranian remembers events from the early Persian empire and considers them relevant to present day. Zoroastrian thinking pervades Iranian culture in the same way that Maori philosophy is everywhere in nominally Christian New Zealand.
The barbaric practices of Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and Africa that most associate with Islam are in fact tribal traditions that predate Islam, and most likely ancient Greece. It would be impossible to understand those cultures without first learning cultural history that is not written down in Muhammad’s book. By contrast the vicious misogyny of Saudi Arabia is a modern conceit that the al-Sauds traded for permission by radical clerics to continue raping the nation.
Kurds and Turks are both largely secular Sunni muslims. Good luck using that to explain either culture, or why the Kurdistan-Turkey border war will never end. I can wait while you look up in the Koran where it explains why Sunni Kurds have submitted to the control of Shiite Iran rather than the Sunni Turks.
You don’t sound like a stupid person, but your sense of scholarship could use work. Before you understand a group of people, if you ever do, you will need to read more than one book.
liberal
@Brick Oven Bill:
Thanks for admitting you’re wrong.
liberal
@Notorious P.A.T.:
PUH-LEASE! It’s ceiling cat.
Don
It’s interesting that McCain and his bunch claim they can’t be held responsible for the random outbursts of some kooks at their rallies but Obama should be judged based on the opinion of some non-voting foreign jerks.
...now I try to be amused
Bush and the neocons have a symbiotic relationship with bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
If you define the mission as disrupting, if not destroying, al-Qaeda by driving the Taliban and their al-Qaeda guests underground, then the mission can be called a marginal success — for the time being. But yes, we must leave someday. The Afghans outlast all their invaders.
SGEW
Oh my god, that’s the most perfect description I’ve seen yet (disclosure: I have friends associated with Earth First! Obviously, I can never become president).
This particular comment or yours, Monsieur Tim F., should be expanded and front-paged. The bizarre schisms within "fundamentalist Islam" should be more than of "scholarly" interest – they are one of the most relevant factors in our conflict within the Middle East, and the Muslim "street" in general.
Tim F.
Yeh, I have made that point a bunch of times. Sadly, Brick oven Bill is the most coherent response that I have gotten yet. There isn’t much room for sense when demagoguery is so much more fun.
Grr. I hope that you’re the kind of friend who gives wedgies.
SGEW
Naw. I’m the kind of friend who excoriates their friends’ political associations, and makes them squirm.
(I suppose I should have said that I have friends who were associated with Earth First!, once upon a time. Now they (i.e., two particular people) are Greenpeacers . . . not that that means that I give them any more slack than I used to. Bloody Greenpeace*.)
*Note: I have been a volunteer activist for Greenpeace for various Global Warming campaigns – mostly technical support and communications advice. I apologize in advance for this.
Douche Baggins
Have to admit that I started reading Tim’s explanation @46 and started glazing over. Then I said to myself, "Self, soldier on, pay attention and learn something." That’s some complicated stuff there, but as Tim points out in his masterly takedown of DiGiorno Dan, you have to know it to be effective in it.
Now, contrast that with my response to my father’s forwarded "ACORN brought down Wall St" message. "No, I didn’t read it," he said, "but it sure seemed like you were angry." *sigh* Let’s at least hope for 61 D+I on Nov 4 so we can banish Sanctimonious Joe to the hinterlands and Barack can get busy bringing Marxism to Main St.
SGEW
[edit: huh. My links no workee. Weird]
Fulcanelli
@Jess: Ah, the Abrahamic Religions.
Three blind men are wandering in the desert looking for the FSM. Unknowingly, they come upon an elephant.
One grabs the trunk, one a leg and the last, the tail. You know the rest…
Too many dead people for my liking, but there is good money in it, so I hear.
Va Highlander
And don’t forget the Illuminati. Nasty bastards.
Goseph Gerbils
Crematorium Bill:
So did you intend to type "idolators" or "adulterers", or is there really a prohibition in the Highly Boble against obsequious flattery?
You know what else is an abomination? Shrimp.
Va Highlander
@…now I try to be amused:
Granted. They certainly succeeded in disrupting the Taliban.
The US needs to either use Afghanistan to its advantage, if possible, or else prevent it from being used against us yet again. I don’t see that we’ve accomplished either mission and frankly don’t see a clear path to succeeding in the future.
Edward
John Mccain is the manchurian canadate. the communist have been waiting for him to take control sense his release from north vietnam.
Jess
Hmmm…I suppose it would be in bad taste to point out that he LIVED with commie America haters for five years? Or would that piss Comrade Cole off?
Jeffrey
That’s weird, I don’t remember that part at all during Islamic Studies class back in secondary school. I must not be a very good Muslim, I guess.
AnotherBruce
I’m way downthread, but I have to say that this is a brilliant post, to use a cliche, it weaves several threads into a tapestry. A great post Tim.
Our best bulwark against domestic terrorism is American cosmopolitanism.
Yes, it was also our bulwark against the fascist powers in the 1940s. We never lost our cool. Now I ask you, who is the most cosmopolitan man in America right now?
nabalzbbfr
Oh come now, how dumb can you get! Haven’t you heard of reverse psychology? That’s what al-Qaeda’s "McCain endorsement" is all about. This is the stupidity that al-Qaeda is counting on.
bedlam UK
Doesn’t that work the same way for Hamas then nabalzbbfr?
So easy to decide that YOUR terrorist support is a cunning plan, and Obamas Terrorist support is proof of McCains ‘Skillz’.
The hypocrisy. It burns.