Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Been a while
Sunday, February 24, 2008
War Made Easy
"COERCIVE DIPLOMACY"
"We bombed (Iraq) for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors." --HRC, same debate
not quite it seems. Even I recall we were pissed at the Iraqi Republican Army for flaking our planes in the no-fly zone so we bombed them back. UN inspectors, not wanting to be killed by the Americans, promptly left.
http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/iraq-in-democratic-debate.html
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kNKuqCbN-qoJ:www.fair.org/activism/iraq-myths.html+myth+saddam+kicked+out+inspectors+1998&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Obama's Response:
Obama's used this to his advantage, claiming he is the more diplomatic of the two candidates. Hillary fired back a few weeks ago on ABC:
CLINTON: Senator Obama consistently misstates what I had said and really tries to gloss over his answer to a question in an early debate.TPM media's take (slight lean towards Hillary): http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/hillary_obama_consistently_mis.phpThe question was very specific -- would you, without precondition, meet with five of the worst dictators, including Ahmadinejad from Iran and others, without precondition, personally, as president? He said yes, I said no.
That has nothing to do with whether or not we would have diplomatic efforts with all of the countries. I've been a longtime advocate of having diplomatic processes with Iran and Syria.
QUESTION: So you're open to direct contact with all those countries.
CLINTON: I think it's imperative...with Iran and Syria, most certainly. I have said that. But it would be at low level diplomatic efforts between our ambassadors and between our diplomats, because I don't think a president should put the prestige of the United States on the line to meet with these people unless you have some idea of what is going to happen...
I really hope that Senator Obama will quit deliberately misstating what I said in order to avoid scrutiny for what he says.
Some other random probama blogger:
http://lots-o-thoughts.blogspot.com/2008/02/clinton-on-obama-and-preconditions.html
My thoughts: Teddy Roosevelt said, "Speak softly, but carry a big stick." Obama would leave the club at the door. The Clinton policy is one of, in her own words, "coercive diplomacy" and "use of threat of force" in diplomatic negotiation.
My preference should be obvious.
BOMB BOMB IRAN?
Last September, Sen. Kyl and Sen. Lieberman authored and submitted their ammendmend to a Defense spending bill, labeled "To express the Sense of the senate regarding Iran."
For a bit of background, here's Joe Lieberman's sense of what we should do about Iran: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pBu40kp6Y8g
You can find a bunch of other vids on Youtube of Joe Lieberman essentially saying the same thing
So if Joe Lieberman asks me to support his sense of Iran, that's my cue to run the other way.
ThinkProgress has a good timeline on this:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/kyl-iran-fox/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/webb-kyl-lieb-iran/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/26/breaking-lieberman-kyls-iran-amendment-passes/
Although the most damning language was removed, the bill lacked one essential line that MUST be included in any legislation regarding Iran:
She since signed on to co-sponsor Jim Webb's ammendment from last March which states that the President much seek express authorization from Congress before going to War with Iran. But still, as the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Due to some mix-up, Obama was in NH at the time of the vote. When told he missed it, he was shocked and dismayed and got right to work correcting the mistake by authoring Senate Joint Resolution 23 which states
Clinton calls Obama "Naive and Irresponsible" on Iran: http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/07/24/news/local/doc46a635f210af5541045687.txt
"Naive and irresponsible" eh? Loosening the leash on Bush regarding Iran on the terms of some of the most hawkish members of Congress...what do you call that?
Dear Sen. Clinton: it IS important to be ready on day one. But it's even more imporant to be RIGHT on Day One. Unfortunately, voting 'Yea' on this garbage was a huge lapse in judgement and, at least for a moment, you sided with these people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I
For more reading, here's Dodd, Edwards, and Obama's FP adviser weighing in: http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/10/going_after_clinton_over_iran.html
Finally, as a side note: Seymour Hersh who, in 2006, called out the Bush admin on trumping up charges against Iran and predicted 2007 NIE, asserts that Cheney and the CIA is supporting jihadist groups to combat Iran.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/hersh-iran-agent/
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/25/hersh-qaeda/
Very serious s*%# indeed.
CLUSTER BOMBS
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SP4882:
Easy enough, right?
Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.
Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.
...
As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.
But Senator Obama did the right thing.
...of the two remaining Democratic candidates, one decided her vote on Amendment No. 4882 according to a political calculation. The other used a moral calculation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-rees/clinton-obama-and-clust_b_84811.html
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW..."
Back in August, Barack took lots of heat for this little tibit:
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." --http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/the_war_we_need_to_win.php
The political world said: "You can't say that! That's outrageous! Silly Obama."
BHUTTO: Well, I wouldn't like the United States to violate Pakistan's sovereignty with unauthorized military operations. But the issue that I would like to stress is that Barack Obama also said, if Pakistan won't act. And that's the critical issue, that the government has to act. And the government has to act to protect Pakistan's own serenity and integrity, its own respect, and to understand that if it creates a vacuum, then others aren't going to just twiddle their thumbs while militants freely move across the border.
I think General Musharraf did the right thing recently in admitting that militants are using our soil, but he said the army has nothing to do with it. But nonetheless, the issue for me is that we cannot cede parts of Pakistani territory to anybody; not just the Taliban, to anybody. That in Pakistan we have one army, one police, one constitution, one government. We cannot allow parallel armies, parallel militias, parallel laws and parallel command structures. Today it's not just the intelligence services, who were previously called a state within a state. Today it's the militants who are becoming yet another little state within the state, and this is leading some people to say that Pakistan is on the slippery slope of being called a failed state. But this is a crisis for Pakistan, that unless we deal with the extremists and the terrorists, our entire state could founder.
To me, Hillary implies that she would deliberately keep such plans obscured from the world and her constituents. That is until the operation has already been executed and reported by the media. Kind a like what happened on January 31, 2008:
That's the way its been done in the past, thats the way its being done now. Barack Obama was truthful, honest, and forthright about it. That's CHANGE I can believe in.
This vid sums it up quite nicely from the AFL-CIO debate last year: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v0tgxVmVQpw
authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our
generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not
the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.
But the fact of the matter is that when we don't talk to the
American people -- we're debating the most important foreign policy
issues that we face, and the American people have the right to know.
It is not just Washington insiders that are part of the debate that has to take place with respect to how we're going to shift our foreign policy.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/08/sweet_dem_aflcio_forum_special_4.html
Anyone who knows me has some idea of what a political/historical/economic junkie I am. It's a hobby. One day, maybe even a career. But for now, I'm just a citizen and when it comes to the debate in Washington on the future of Foreign Policy: I want in!
Obama 08
Friday, January 25, 2008
That's it! I'm done with the Clintons!
With emphasis added to the shear stupidity:
(CNN) — Days after she was the only major presidential candidate to appear on Michigan’s Democratic primary ballot, and four days before Florida’s voters head to the polls, Hillary Clinton has released a statement calling on her party to seat both states’ delegates at the national convention this summer.
Both Florida and Michigan had lost that privilege because of penalties arising from their decision to schedule their primaries in January, in violation of national party instructions.
“I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee,” Clinton said in a statement released by her campaign.
“I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan,” she added.
“I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.”
The major candidates, including Clinton and rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards, had promised not to campaign in either state following the Democratic National Committee’s decision, and Obama and Edwards did not appear on Michigan’s primary ballot. Despite calls from her opponents to remove her name from the ballot, Clinton did not follow suit, and she won the state’s primary January 15, with 55 percent of the vote.
On Monday, Clinton’s campaign condemned Barack Obama for running an ad on national cable news networks, including CNN, saying that the spot would air in Florida and violate the no-campaign pact agreed to by most of the Democratic field.
In Friday’s statement, Clinton called on her fellow nominees to join her – but said she would continue to abide by that pledge, and expected the rest of the presidential field to, as well.
The Obama campaign released a statement from campaign manager David Plouffe criticizing the move.
“When Sen. Clinton was campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, she made it clear that states like Michigan and Florida that wouldn’t produce any delegates, ‘don’t count for anything,'" he said.
He said Clinton was trying to "assign meaning to a contest that awards zero delegates and where no campaigning has occurred. Sen. Clinton’s own campaign has repeatedly said that this is a ‘contest for delegates,’ and Florida is a contest that offers zero."
This is the worst case of double-speak I have heard in a VERY long time. God dammit Hillary! I'm not an idiot!! Stop treating me like one!
You're gonna blame Obama because CNN happens to broadcast in Florida?! Oh noes!
god dammit... >_<
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Audacity of Hope
The generations that came before us were up to the challenge. And now its our turn. So lets give it our best shot, shall we?
Let's go change the world ;)
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Nuklear Energy
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GE claims they can build a reactor in 3 years. I've seen lifetimes range from 30-60 years.
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/nuclear_energy/en/new_reactors/esbwr.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2003-12/danl-nr031804.php
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6344.html
"Nuclear power will figure into our energy strategy"
I definitely think so too. Our energy strategy will be comprehensive and broad, which I don't think is a concept a lot of people understand.
This is Shell's prediction back in 1997:
http://www.t21.ca/energy/shell7.gif
from
http://t21.ca/energy/index.htm
Its all REALLY old data (I got it from my Solar Cells class), but still an interesting read.But as I travel across the internet reading sweet articles on Solar, Biomass, Wind, etc. a comment I constantly see it "Great, but it won't solve our energy problem." I really hate that. If they're waiting for Cold Fusion, they're gonna be waiting a looooong time...