Barack Rocks

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Obama comes up huge!

Have you heard Obama's speech yet? The parts of it that I've heard (thanks, mostly, to Randi Rhodes who played much of the speech this afternoon) "Nailed it perfectly!", meaning that he fearlessly and honestly talked with, and to, we the people,his fellow citizens, about race, racism, prejudice, slavery, his former minister and his (Obama's) respect and affection for the man that Reverend Wright is, the ambience found in many churches with a membership that is predominantly black, and so much more.

To me, his words are moving, they are honest, they are heartfelt, and they undeniably radiate the fact that Obama has it within himself to be a truly great leader who is able to unite the people of our country who are so sick and tired of the usual and customary politics of personal destruction and hate.

His speech was insightful, inspiring, hopeful, courageous, and absolutely awesome. He spoke with passion, intensity, integrity, honesty, and wisdom. The parts of it that I got to hear inform, educate, and moved me to tears.

I feel such a longing in my heart for him to be elected by a landslide. If we, as a nation, are smart enough to elect him as our President, we shall be truly blessed. Not only is he a man who is psychologically "congruent", who is "inner-directed", meaning that he is clearly someone who is comfortable in his own skin. He is also uniquely poised to speak to both black and white Americans, for his father is from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. Who else is so uniquely qualified to speak, out loud in the public forum, that which white people may say in private only to other white people and that which black people may say in private only to other black people? As Barack so wisely noted, one biracial (black) Presidential candidate and one campaign season cannot accomplish the "More Perfect Union" envisioned by our Founding Fathers, but his speech today begins the necessary national dialogue about America's "original sin"; a dialogue into which our country must enter if America is ever to truly become color blind.

His speech reflects a man unafraid to truly be himself, who spoke to us and shared with us, in crystal clear words, his understanding that we are, each of us, imperfect and flawed; people who are capable of saying really divisive things and yet who are, nonetheless, still deserving of friendship and love and acceptance within the human family. How many of us can say that we don't have a family member or a close friend who has said out loud things that are racist that have made us cringe, just as Obama shared that his grandmother had done?

His comments about his church, which is a part of the United Church of Christ denomination, made me proud to have grown up in that faith community and to wish that I could find a church up where I am now that would "hum" for me.

I was so moved, hearing him upon turning on Randi's show, that I HAD to call people up and tell them about it! I hope Keith Olbermann plays it in its entirety, and if not, I plan to look for it on the net.

If you haven't heard it, you absolutely must! It is, as Randi said, a speech that will be taught in Universities in the future. And, I'm betting, that he wrote every single word of it. It rings with conviction and truth.

All of you, of course, already know all of this about him! Do hear it in its entirety, if you haven't already.

Bush Addressing Our Brave Troops (Thursday)

When I first put this up on 13-March, I didn't have anything much to add. Now that the Ides of March have come and gone, I do.

As depicted above, Bush is responding to a recent poll which indicates morale of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, our forgotten war, has dipped significantly lower than for our troops in our Iraq war occupation. In his own inimitably inept, chickenhawkish style, Bush is trying to do a little cheer-leading here. It's all that he has left. That and about ten months. He just has a little more time for them to hold out for him.

Secretary of Defense Gates has gotten 'the memo' from Europe: the cavalry is not coming from Europe to rescue our cowboy war president. Tonight, I heard Gates quoted on Bill Moyer's Journal to the effect that the 'problem' with E.U. governments is that they get confused; that their antipathy for Bush's war in Iraq contaminates their resolution for helping out in Afghanistan. Wow! (That memo has been on my desk for a year or more.)

It's not much of a surprise to discerning Internet readers is it? Consider:

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, the highest ranking military officer overall in the United States Armed Forces, in his recent Congressional testimony:

  In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must.

  America has not been leading by example by committing more of its own resources to Afghanistan from the beginning when Busheney sacrificed their mandated post-911 mission. In case anyone has forgotten, that was to capture Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive'. That mission was abandoned in order to prep-up for invading Iraq. This statement of Mullen comes half a decade later to confirm all European suspicions that we have been expecting, and hoping and relying upon them to pull our chestnuts out of the fire in Talebinistan. NATO populations in Europe and Canada are now convinced that we are not serious about the mission, and that understandably makes them all the more dubious of the whole enterprise. Checkout public opinion surveys in Europe if there's any question of this: you will find approval ratings supporting Afghanistan deployments to be in the twenties.


• From the beginning Busheney's Global War on Terror (GWOT) has ponderously conflated the war in Afghanistan with the war occupation in Iraq. That's been for U.S. domestic public opinion, of course. But we Americans have no idea how much more Europeans read our press and media than we read theirs. They are stakeholders in what goes on within the ex-leader of the free world. So it's natural that keep their eye on our demagogue-in-chief. So, when they hear that the two theaters are like World War III, well, that's not exactly what they signed up for.


• Finally, we have the firing of Admiral William J. Fallon. Fallon as the Commander, U.S. Central Command ranked 2nd only to Admiral Mullen. He was the remaining high-ranking soldier holding Gates' feet to the fire with respect that our global strategic interests are not centered in Iraq. Europeans took note of this, too.

The truth is that NATO governments, being functioning democracies, are attentive to their publics. Furthermore, Europeans have watched Busheney conflating Iraq and Afghanistan in USA's 'global war on terror' (GWOT). They have followed it year after year as Bush has bundled, budgeted and bloviated his Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom as one in the same. Those NATO publics who oppose the war in Iraq have come to view the mission in Afghanistan as guilty by association. No amount of browbeating, cajoling, and guilt-tripping is going to change their mindset on this.

All of this is to say, my fellow Americans, that help is not on the way. The cavalry is not coming. We are the people we have been waiting for.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

What's the big hubbub all about?
Rev. Jeremiah Wright was hired by Trinity United Church of Christ in 1972 when he could find no Baptist church to take him. The congregation on 95th Street had recently adopted the motto "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian" and was at home with Wright's his fiery red Afro and black power agenda. Over the decades since then, Wright has built Trinity's membership into the nation's largest UCC congregation at 6,000. Wright filled his church with his blunt, charismatic preaching, meldings detailed scriptural analysis, black power, Afrocentrism and an emphasis on social justice. Wright is steeped deeply into James Cone's Black Theology of Liberation which interprets the Bible as a guide to combating oppression of African-Americans.

It was a needed prescription in the early 1970's. Many black Christians were leaving the church for other religious traditions, including the Black Hebrew Israelites and the Nation of Islam. Wright recalls,

They didn't know African-American history. They were leaving the churches by the boatloads. The church seemed so disconnected from their struggle for dignity and humanity.

In 1972, he planted a "Free South Africa" sign on the lawn of his church and asked other local religious leaders to follow his lead. None took him up on the invitation. The sign stayed until the end of apartheid. Wright continued to make waves with his own audacity, questioning the common sense of scripture, objecting to mandatory prayer in schools and clashing with clergy who preach prosperity theology. I didn't know what that is. Apparently it's a popular notion among black pastors that God will bestow wealth and success on believers.

Well, fast forward to the new century, as they say. It turns out that Barack Obama had joined Trinity in 1991. He and his wife Michelle Robinson were married in the church and his daughters were baptized. Obama's bestselling The Audacity of Hope is said to have been inspired by one of Wright's sermons. And Reverend Wright is said to have been one of the first people Obama thanked upon his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate. Recently, You-Tube excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons have launched themselves into circulation on Fox news and the Internet. Since the content of these excerpts are considered to be politically incorrect', Barack Obama is deemed to have a 'Pastor problem'.

So what is this all about? In the most widely quoted sermon (April 2003), Wright is shown to have preached:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America.

No! No No!

God damn America … for killing innocent people.

God damn America for threatening citizens as less than humans.

God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme.

Well, in the historical context, let's remember that was in the first month of Bush's un-provoked, unnecessary, largely unilateral invasion and unplanned occupation of Iraq. One can easily see how those words might offend my fellow Americans who were offended by Bush's unjustifiable aggression abroad. Not only were they not offended by it, but they were cheerleaders and still are.

What else? Well, in the days after 9-11 attacks, Wright is alleged to have told his flock,

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America is chickens coming home to roost.

Well, that is harsh, even if true. Under the first Bush, my USA had pulverized the nation of Panama just to make a narcotics arrest. And for decades my country has financed Israel at the tune of $5 billion per year with only a wink and nod at settlement encroachment on Palestinian lands. So, I guess we were all (1) shocked at our vulnerability and (2) enraged at being on the receiving end of mass destruction for a change. Not to mention (3) our fledgling Bush administration, bent on setting up a missile defense, only to be caught with their pants down by 19 A-rabs with box-cutters.

Well, Reverend has retired from Obama's church last month. Via his Huffington Post, On My Faith and My Church, Obama has placed into the record his obligatory renunciations and denunciations of everything his ex-Pastor said that was in the least bit objectionable.

And now that we are assured that Barack Obama is not a Muslim, can we get on with the campaign? Hillary, are you listening?

Senator Lincoln Chafee

This Space Is Reserved for Praising a Redeemable Republican

One day a week, every Friday, we make this effort in behalf of bipartisanship.

In the fall of 2002, Lincoln Chafee was the only Republican Senator to oppose authorization to go to war in Iraq. Serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chafee spoke out against Bush's stampeding America into war. Ironically, with blue dog DINOs who supported Bush's war campaigning against him, he lost re-election in 2006 to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. In 2007, Chafee severed his ties to the GOP.

In this interview with Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, he recounts how, at the time he opposed the initial war authorization, he felt like a lone Progressive among retrogressives.

What was it like to be in the opposition to the Iraq War five years ago, with the drums beating loud and the majority of the public and Congress supporting the rush to war?

When the president first started talking about Iraq, it was just met with incredulity. There was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The intelligence was questionable. But there was all this fear from 9/11.

Colin Powell was the coup de grace with his testimony at the United Nations. And you heard it here in Rhode Island. People were saying, 'Well Colin Powell presented all this evidence about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being a threat.' He sold the war for them.

The administration was just brilliant with their marketing. I still marvel at the weapons of mass destruction. It never got defined. What were the weapons they were talking about? But it worked. People believed these weapons existed. People got the feeling that the [terrorists] were going to come down the shores and onto the main streets and that we were in danger.

What was going on in the Senate at the time? Was there just too much pressure by the administration for a majority anti-war coalition?

We just got through Vietnam. And we were about to do it all again. The Democrats were abysmal. They controlled the Senate in 2002. And none of the right questions were being asked. There was a minority led by Sen. [Robert] Byrd. He was terrific. But the floor was generally silent.

How could that be?

Sept 11th had everyone angry. It was a difficult atmosphere. It was a time you needed cool heads. But we didn't have them. And then you factor in the mistake the Democrats made on the first Gulf War. They didn't want to do that again.

When you think about it, all the leaders who were contemplating running for president - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Tom Daschle - they all voted for it. Why? They all were making a calculated personal decision and didn't want the war hanging over them.

What were your thoughts on the media's role in the run up to the war? Did they do their jobs, or were they too acquiescent to the Bush administration?

I thought The New York Times was good. The Washington Post was okay. But, for the most part, the press went along. I can remember the talk shows, Imus and the like. The only people they were interviewing were war proponents. I used to listen to Imus driving into work and I used to scream: 'Can you get one person opposed to the war?' There were 23 of us in the Senate. You couldn't talk to Barbara Boxer? Russ Feingold? Paul Wellstone?

Was there a point in time during the war where you thought it could be a success? Or did you think, from the beginning, that it was doomed to be a lost cause?

There was a moment when I said to myself, 'You were wrong.' That was a moment right after "Mission Accomplished," right after 2003... [All these regional leaders] were all in the Jordanian seaside town of Aqaba, and they were all standing there saying that with the removal of Saddam Hussein, in Iraq was going to energize the peace process for Israel and Palestine. And I said 'Wow, if this all pans out that would be amazing.' Maybe I had misjudged it after all, Paul Wellstone called it dual victories in the war on terror, the fact that we could take out Saddam and restart the peace process. But it never happened. It never panned out. From that moment on it was just a series of bad decisions and blunders. And we lost any chance for success.

So, five years later, we are still in Iraq. And it seems that, until President Bush leaves office, we will remain there. What does the U.S. need to do in order to facilitate an end to the war occupation?

We need to have stronger efforts on peace negotiations. I also believe that the six countries that share a border with Iraq - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait - those are the key countries if we want to get this thing resolved. They share a border with Iraq. They know the Iraqis. Two of them, people say, shouldn't be at the table - Syria and Iran. But we need to make stronger efforts to get them to share responsibilities if we want to end this war.

It seems as if the war occupation has become almost an accepted reality for the American public. We are not shocked by news of deaths. And in some voter surveys, Iraq registers as the third most important issue.

With no draft it is almost like this is somebody else's war. But when the violence spikes [they pay attention]. And Vietnam is still fresh in people's minds. Yes, the war is down on page 8 [of the paper]. But now with the economy softening, I do think that people will make the connection. They will look at all these proposals and say: 'How the heck can we afford these things.' And they will look at how much money we are spending on the war.

Will our society be divided by this war occupation even after it ends? Will the political and social fault lines be drawn around Iraq - much like they were, in the 80s and 90s around Vietnam?

The president still gets that standing ovation by saying it is the right thing to do. Yeah, that is a different crowd from the rest of America. And it is tied into continued fear about terrorism. So, yes, the potential is there for this battle to be waged for a long time.

I have interposed and exercised my editorial judgment in modifying Sam Stein's phrasing of his questions. Senator Chafee's answers I have to leave inviolate. It's not the Senator's fault the questions were inexpertly put to him.

Hillary Clinton’s Qualifications to Serve as Vice President

are 'just words'?

I hope everyone got this memo today:
When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton's argument that she has passed "the Commander- in-Chief test" is simply not supported by her record.

There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton played an important domestic policy role when she was First Lady. It is well known, for example, that she led the failed effort to pass universal health insurance. There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue - not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.

When asked to describe her experience, Senator Clinton has cited a handful of international incidents where she says she played a central role. But any fair-minded and objective judge of these claims - i.e., by someone not affiliated with the Clinton campaign - would conclude that Senator Clinton's claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated.

• Northern Ireland: Senator Clinton has said, "I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland." It is a gross overstatement of the facts for her to claim even partial credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland. She did travel to Northern Ireland, it is true. First Ladies often travel to places that are a focus of U.S. foreign policy. But at no time did she play any role in the critical negotiations that ultimately produced the peace. As the Associated Press recently reported, "[S]he was not directly involved in negotiating the Good Friday peace accord." With regard to her main claim that she helped bring women together, she did participate in a meeting with women, but, according to those who know best, she did not play a pivotal role. The person in charge of the negotiations, former Senator George Mitchell, said that "[The First Lady] was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved, not the only one."
  
  News of Senator Clinton's claims has raised eyebrows across the ocean. Her reference to an important meeting at the Belfast town hall was debunked. Her only appearance at the Belfast City Hall was to see Christmas lights turned on. She also attended a 50-minute meeting which, according to the Belfast Daily Telegraph's report at the time, "[was] a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times." Brian Feeney, an Irish author and former politician, sums it up: "The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn't on it."


• Bosnia: Senator Clinton has pointed to a March 1996 trip to Bosnia as proof that her foreign travel involved a life-risking mission into a war zone. She has described dodging sniper fire. While she did travel to Bosnia in March 1996, the visit was not a high-stakes mission to a war zone. On March 26, 1996, the New York Times reported that "Hillary Rodham Clinton charmed American troops at a U.S.O. show here, but it didn't hurt that the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad were also on the stage."


• Kosovo: Senator Clinton has said, "I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo." It is true that, as First Lady, she traveled to Macedonia and visited a Kosovar refugee camp. It is also true that she met with government officials while she was there. First Ladies frequently meet with government officials. Her claim to have "negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo," however, is not true. Her trip to Macedonia took place on May 14, 1999. The borders were opened the day before, on May 13, 1999.
  
  The negotiations that led to the opening of the borders were accomplished by the people who ordinarily conduct negotiations with foreign governments - U.S. diplomats. President Clinton's top envoy to the Balkans, former Ambassador Robert Gelbard, said, "I cannot recall any involvement by Senator Clinton in this issue." Ivo Daalder worked on the Clinton Administration's National Security Council and wrote a definitive history of the Kosovo conflict. He recalls that "she had absolutely no role in the dirty work of negotiations."


• Rwanda: Last year, former President Clinton asserted that his wife pressed him to intervene with U.S. troops to stop the Rwandan genocide. When asked about this assertion, Hillary Clinton said it was true. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that this ever happened. Even those individuals who were advocating a much more robust U.S. effort to stop the genocide did not argue for the use of U.S. troops. No one recalls hearing that Hillary Clinton had any interest in this course of action. Based on a fair and thorough review of National Security Council deliberations during those tragic months, there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. military intervention was ever discussed. Prudence Bushnell, the Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa, has recalled that there was no consideration of U.S. military intervention.
  
  At no time prior to her campaign for the presidency did Senator Clinton ever make the claim that she supported intervening militarily to stop the Rwandan genocide. It is noteworthy that she failed to mention this anecdote - urging President Clinton to intervene militarily in Rwanda - in her memoirs. President Clinton makes no mention of such a conversation with his wife in his memoirs. And Madeline Albright, who was Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, makes no mention of any such event in her memoirs.
  
  Hillary Clinton did visit Rwanda in March 1998 and, during that visit, her husband apologized for America's failure to do more to prevent the genocide.


• China: Senator Clinton also points to a speech that she delivered in Beijing in 1995 as proof of her ability to answer a 3 AM crisis phone call. It is strange that Senator Clinton would base her own foreign policy experience on a speech that she gave over a decade ago, since she so frequently belittles Barack Obama's speeches opposing the Iraq War six years ago. Let there be no doubt: she gave a good speech in Beijing, and she stood up for women's rights. But Senator Obama's opposition to the War in Iraq in 2002 is relevant to the question of whether he, as Commander-in-Chief, will make wise judgments about the use of military force. Senator Clinton's speech in Beijing is not.


• Iraq: Senator Obama's speech opposing the war in Iraq shows independence and courage as well as good judgment. In the speech that Senator Clinton says does not qualify him to be Commander in Chief, Obama criticized what he called "a rash war . . . a war based not on reason, but on passion, not on principle, but on politics." In that speech, he said prophetically: "[E]ven a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." He predicted that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would "fan the flames of the Middle East," and "strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda." He urged the United States first to "finish the fight with Bin Laden and al Qaeda."
  
  If the U.S. government had followed Barack Obama's advice in 2002, we would have avoided one of the greatest foreign policy catastrophes in our nation's history. Some of the most "experienced" men in national security affairs - Vice President Cheney and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others - led this nation into that catastrophe. That lesson should teach us something about the value of judgment over experience. Longevity in Washington, D.C. does not guarantee either wisdom of judgment.


• Conclusion: The Clinton campaign's argument is nothing more than mere assertion, dramatized in a scary television commercial with a telephone ringing in the middle of the night. There is no support for or substance in the claim that Senator Clinton has passed "the Commander-in-Chief test." That claim - as the TV ad - consists of nothing more than making the assertion, repeating it frequently to the voters and hoping that they will believe it.
  
  On the most critical foreign policy judgment of our generation - the War in Iraq - Senator Clinton voted in support of a resolution entitled "The Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of U.S. Military Force Against Iraq." As she cast that vote, she said: "This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make -- any vote that may lead to war should be hard -- but I cast it with conviction." In this campaign, Senator Clinton has argued - remarkably - that she wasn't actually voting for war, she was voting for diplomacy. That claim is no more credible than her other claims of foreign policy experience. The real tragedy is that we are still living with the terrible consequences of her misjudgment. The Bush Administration continues to cite that resolution as its authorization - like a blank check - to fight on with no end in sight.

Barack Obama has a very simple case. On the most important commander in chief test of our generation, he got it right, and Senator Clinton got it wrong. In truth, Senator Obama has much more foreign policy experience than either Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan had when they were elected. Senator Obama has worked to confront 21st century challenges like proliferation and genocide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He possesses the personal attributes of a great leader - an even temperament, an open-minded approach to even the most challenging problems, a willingness to listen to all views, clarity of vision, the ability to inspire, conviction and courage.

And Barack Obama does not use false charges and exaggerated claims to play politics with national security.

Based upon the evidence presented in this memo, I conclude that Hillary Clinton should immediately knock off on her campaign for President. Then she could take a couple of crash courses at C.C.N.Y. in international relations and American foreign policy and see if she can't train-up and get up to speed by the third week in this coming August. She could then contend for the position of Vice-President on a slam-dunk winning Democratic ticket. But if she persists in her campaign to run on John McCain's shirt tails ... well, I guess we'll never get a chance to re-start the 21st century.

Admiral William J. Fallon

Commander, U.S. Central Command
"...an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch... You know what choices I have. I'm a professional. There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

--(Anonymous Source)

Retiring?

Resign Spitzer!

Elliot Ness Mess

corruptio optimi pessima

I got nuthin mo' to say.