Search Results for: blowback

Obama Presidential, Hillary Polarizing, on Chinese Olympics, Petraeus

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In a prepared statement, Hillary Clinton urged President Bush to break his solemn oath to China's Premier that he would attend the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremonies. In this one swell foop, she managed not only to pander opportunistically to a xenophobic American public and carelessly mirror Bush’s light-weight cowboy-style diplomacy, but also offended one-fifth of the world’s population, permanently alienated Chinese leadership (as she recently insulted and dismissed Russian leadership off-handedly), and displayed a profound probity-deficit shocking for a Senator, let alone a Presidential candidate. *********************
Barack Obama, on the other hand, responded to an audience question on the same topic by respectfully highlighting a brief list of legitimate U.S. trade, intellectual property and human rights concerns (including Tibet and Sudan) while diplomatically offering measured support for China’s most-cherished long-term project, and reminding Americans, in his trademark non-polarizing way, that Olympic ideals bring the world closer together. He may even, in those few sentences, have brought his own adopted city of Chicago’s dream of hosting a 2016 Olympics one step nearer to reality. ***************
Now that is political genius. *************************
Another example: Hillary used her brief opportunity to question General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, to deliver a confrontational speech intimidating her perceived political opponents—Republicans of all stripes, war supporters, and others opposed to her Iraq agendas. Obama, on the other hand, listened to the answers to his questions, and then led Petraeus and Crocker so expertly to points of commonality that they were smiling and nodding like bobble-heads in Obama’s direction. Barack concluded by thoughtfully challenging everyone at the hearing to work diligently together to clearly define “success” in Iraq, so that the war could be ended quickly and positively, as desired by all.*********************
Hillary is a famously tenacious in-fighter, which is exactly what we don’t need today or tomorrow. Barack Obama’s whole life has also been about taking on huge challenges, persevering, thriving and prevailing against great odds, but his consensus-building problem-solving approaches to meeting those challenges don't create the blowback that Hillary’s belligerance does. The last thing we need is a paranoid President who bristles at perceived slights, sees enemies on every side, and creates new ones at every turn of events. **********************
We need a President capable of vanquishing America's enemies via the best (and only) permanent approach to conquest, by turning them into friends. Barack knows well that the best way to befriend anyone, whether Iraqi, Chinese, Republican or any other, is to generously support their most cherished projects and goals, and to always treat them with understanding and respect. Hillary knows how to talk tough, but we should all know by now where that will get us.********************************
Americans and others throughout the world need Obama’s statesmanlike vision, his wonderful people-skills and many leadership abilities, so that we can all come together to solve our common pressing global problems—disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself. **************************
Hillary’s down-and-dirty-roll-up-your-sleeves-and-mud-wrestle approaches to resolving conflicts may have served in her old world, but in the new world of tomorrow, such competitive models will be sadly deficient. Unfortunately for Hillary, her street-fighting instincts so overwhelm her peacemaking ones that she can't even enter the brave new world of tomorrow–Barack’s world–not even in her dreams. Continue reading →

Rachel Corrie Uncensored, Bullies and Martyrs, Lambs and Lions, AIPAC, and Messianic Voices Off

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(excerpt): Rachel Corrie had no affection for bullies. Burning with a wish to stand up to power and deadly violence, she seemed born to resist injustice. I think she would have been just as eager to oppose Palestinians attacking innocent Israelis, were she drawn to their plight first. (Excerpt): I was saddened to think that some who cherish holocaust narratives like The Diary of Anne Frank would try to censor Rachel’s inspired voice and words for partisan reasons. I doubt any peaceful Jew seeing this play would urge such censorship. (Excerpt): Peaceful Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other Americans are often so aggressively intimidated by their own extremist factions that they rarely speak out publicly against the vengeful actions, bloody rhetoric, and sheer barbarism of all they see, on all sides. Caught within the context of a violent century’s heightened emotions, most moderates—peaceful Jews and Christians and Muslims and citizens of all nationalities everywhere—are too frightened to say “Enough” against even the extremist voices within their own groups. (Excerpt): As long as demagogues and partisan extremists freely pressure and intimidate moderates, worldwide anti-Islamism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism will continue to grow. And if the hot-blooded AIPAC successfully pushes extremists in America and Israel into another bloodbath, this time against Iran, the potential for anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Islamic blowback upon moderates in all these groups everywhere will be as terrible as the cataclysmic impact upon the direct victims of the war. (Excerpt): Extremist Jewish leaders preaching the wisdom of ten-eyes-for-an-eye, and depicting Israel as a tiny beleaguered island within a vast sea of murderous Muslims all wanting to kill Jews and “erase Israel from the map” are as repellently manipulative as extremist Palestinian leaders claiming to be merely a defenseless band of ragtag refugees confronting the combined wrath of the world’s largest and most powerful military forces, or American Christian-extremists sounding the alarm of American invasion by rapacious outsiders and infidels, or American patriots bristling with nuclear arms , self-righteously claiming to be the victims of nations working frantically to develop even a single one. (Excerpt): Violence, or violent extremism, or terrorism—that is, resorting to violence to resolve conflicts—turns out to be “the problem” itself, and not, as many have tried to persuade us, any particular ideology, ethnicity, religious tradition, or national affiliation. The burning question is always: who is committed to non-violent resolution of conflicts, and who isn’t? Continue reading →

Here's A Blogger's Theory on Our War That's Worth Giving Serious Consideration To…Thank You Corvuswire

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I know that there are a great many peace-loving, non-racist Jews in Israel and the U.S. who would welcome a non-apartheid government with equal civil rights for all people in Israel/Palestine, and who reject war as a way to resolve conflict as thoroughly as they reject terrorism…. I believe that Ahmadinejad has said he wants to wipe the current war-mongering/anti-Islamic regime off the map; he explained to my satisfaction that he was mistranslated–he didn't mean harm to peaceful Israelis who see Palestinians as part of a universal brotherhood…. And I also think we Americans still hope to solve our oil problem by controlling the flow and price of Iraqi (and Iranian?) oil, and that's one reason the oil companies and neocons behind Bush pushed him (sad patriotic misguided dupe that he is) into going to war in Iraq in the first place…. I think some fundamentalist Christian beliefs about Armageddon and the Apocolypse (they are too unloving to give my attention to) are behind much of the support for anti-Islamic-pro-Israel lobbying in America too….I'm sorry to think also that much of the American mainstream media is controlled by people who think like this article describes…. Sadly, most Americans think like this too, because of the brainwashed and brainwashing media…. When America asked, “Why do they hate us?” the media did not tell us…. Our truly inadequate educational system where history and civic curricula are determined by ignorant locals who are equally brainwashed must also be transformed to a more global, caring message, not the empirical, right-makes-might message, the America-is-better-and-thus-must-rule message many schools put out now…. I think all of the forces cited in the article (click on “more” below) are pushing us all to get into a catastrophic war with Iran for all of the reasons given…. But we won't, because we will all join hands around the world and our peace will overcome them….Thank you, Corvuswire, whoever you are, for your courage in writing/sharing your thoughts, most of which I agree with….I hope that the AIPAC/Anti-Defamation League will see that I love Jews but don't love hateful messages…. I believe in non-violent, caring, humanitarian solutions to world problems…. Please read this short piece (click on “more” below) and after you read it, write to njcpace@gmail.com to tell me what you think of it? Thanks…. Nancy Pace Continue reading →

Bad Things That Could Happen If We Ignore the Rumors of a Coming Coup in Iraq

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(Excerpt): President Bush can still redeem himself in the eyes of history as the good old boy he means to be, but first he must stand up courageously and presidentially to his neocon friends and their misguided schemes. (Excerpt): If Mr. Bush wishes to be remembered as a force for good, rather than a dupe for a tiny manipulative clique, he should go to work immediately with Congress and cabinet to cut short any planned coups, and to plan a thoughtful withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases fromIraq.
(Excerpt): During his remaining years in office, he has an opportunity to devote the $2 billion/a day we currently spend on war, toward brokering a lasting Middle East peace agreement. Then he can offer generous support to those regional leaders willing to compromise, together rebuilding a peaceful Middle East to their mutual specifications, not ours.
(Excerpt): If President Bush wades deeper into an exploding Iraq now, to prop up a coup or to attend to certain blowback from it, he will waste his last two years, and all our money, not to mention vast swaths of American and Iraqi lives, on a futile, catastrophic, Vietnam-like last-gasp effort to impose narrow-minded changes upon a very distant, very old, and very dissimilar civilization.
(Excerpt): If the coup rumors are ignored, Americans will wake up someday soon to news that a coup has already taken place (or has been disastrously attempted); that American lives are in danger; and that a far-more massive American military force must be rushed immediately off to Iraq. In just this way have fourteen previous regime changes secretly been engineered by past Presidents and their administrative and corporate cronies, all to American discredit, all at shocking human and material cost.
(Excerpt): Once such jingoistic adventures get started on their mindless juggernauts, once demagogues begin feeding the public imagination with new reasons for new fighting, then an unending toll of new, unforeseen losses and enemies will make the widening conflicts almost impossible to stop. If a few right-wing zealots might welcome an “inevitable” Armageddon in the Middle East, the vast majority of Americans would not.
(Excerpt): It would be wonderful if James Baker could visualize the shape of an eventual compromise following such a catastrophe, and be so bold as to broker that same compromise right now, before any more bloodletting. Continue reading →

A Fog of War Movies and Books

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Excerpt: A few months ago, I decided to watch some of the best-received war movies that came out of the Vietnam war—The Deer Hunter, The Killing Fields, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, and Coming Home, as well as some recent and older ones—The Battle of Algiers, Crimson Tide, Saving Private Ryan, The Enemy Below, and Black Hawk Down. Excerpt: I found amazing agreement in all these books and movies in their moral conclusions about war, even as each offered me a unique personal perspective and story unlike any other. Excerpt: Over and over, every work expressed or implied the point of view that “their” war had been insane, cruel, hard, sad, misguided, and stupid, and that it had seemed to create far more problems than it resolved. Their actual acts of war—the killing parts—were consistently experienced as pointless, chaotic, numbing, unreasonable, inhumane, confusing, wrong–and often thrilling, in that the pointy end of the sword had actually gone into some other man. Continue reading →

Condoleezza Rice Says Global Harmony Is Not the Business of Government

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(Excerpt): At a recent press conference in Great Britain, Condoleezza Rice stuttered uncharacteristically when she was asked about a possible joint commission (of England, Ireland, and Australia) to promote global harmony. Ms. Rice responded that global harmony was not the business of government, but rather, a matter of concern for private citizens. (Excerpt):
I always thought that the primary business of any state department worth its salt in the twenty-first century was global harmony. Certainly a “secure, democratic, and prosperous world” as pledged by the current U.S. Department of State’s mission statement, implies global harmony. Surely the highly-specialized, expensive training of our immense diplomatic corps specifically prepares them for careers of building and maintaining strong, positive foreign relationships. (Excerpt):
Considering the many conflicts that daily arise around the globe, promotion of global harmony ought to be someone’s job, someone who is well-staffed, well-budgeted, and high profile, like Rice. I cannot be the only taxpayer disappointed to find out that, despite all that money we spend on the Department of State, no one in government is currently in charge of pursuing global harmony.
(Excerpt):
Perhaps Rice thinks the State Department is in the nineteenth-century diplomatic business of exclusively looking out for only our own nation’s interests, a childishly narrow, anachronistic, and frankly impossible goal that it is time to put away. Unfortunately, Rice still seems determined to strategically split up the world into enemies and allies, and to go about flexing and flaunting America’s fast-waning military muscle to unkindly wheel and deal in patronage, espionage, economic dominance, and power struggles. Continue reading →