Doubleplus good hopechange we’re all gonna die.
Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, on the vast sucking void of Obama’s knowledge about shit that you REALLY REALLY would like for your president to know:
Barack Obama’s willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea “without preconditions” is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.
Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy’s first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War’s most dangerous crises.
Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.
…An “asymmetric” threat to the U.S. often is an existential threat to its friends, which was something we never forgot during the Cold War. Obama plainly seems to have entirely missed this crucial point. Ironically, it is he who is advocating a unilateralist policy, ignoring the risks and challenges to U.S. allies when the direct threat to us is, in his view, “tiny.”
What is implicit in Obama’s reference to “tiny” threats is that they are sufficiently insignificant that negotiations alone can resolve them. Indeed, he has gone even further, arguing that the lack of negotiations with Iran caused the threats: “And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah.”
This is perhaps the most breathtakingly naive statement of all, implying as it does that it is actually U.S. policy that motivates Iran rather than Iran’s own perceived ambitions and interests. That would be news to the mullahs in Tehran, not to mention the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
There’s more and I got the link from Ace, as per usual.
Once more with feeling:
(You can buy that bumper sticker now, by the way. I ordered 10 and as soon as I get them, I’m going to put it on Sunny. Easy now! Not stick it on her, just put it on her. She’ll hold still long enough for a pic.)
The worst part about the whole thing is you know Obama will still be spouting the same crap even while some evil scumbag is getting ready to saw off his head.
“It’s our fault that they’re doing this to us! They really are peaceful loving people.”
Terrorists and dictators everywhere have their fingers crossed right now hoping that this moron makes it into the White House.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pmI’m going to check the McShame box on my ballot, but I’m going to need a good stiff drink afterward. Hello Eagle Rare!
June 5th, 2008 at 1:20 pmAn Obambi presidency will be one long jibber jabber with our enemies, then a catastrophic attack on America that’ll make 9/11 look like a picnic. We’ll talk, and sit on our hands. They’ll talk, and prepare for war.
Then, while the body parts are still being collected, Obambi and the rest of the useless Donks will somehow find a way to blame “Eight Years of Bush” for the attack.
Obambi isn’t even president yet, and I already despise everything about the fucker’s administration. Definitely holding my nose to vote for McCain.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:23 pmJohn Bolton for president! It’s a shame there aren’t more people like him in politics, but that’s the nature of the game. If you’re incapable of looking a demon in the eye and finding a way to praise its “piquant, yet engaging aroma” or its “intriguing crimson luminosity,” you just can’t be a modern politician.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pmImagine not understanding the fundamental difference between a “cause” and merely something that occurred earlier in time. It’s like saying Neville Chamberlain’s parley with Hitler was
great because it set the stage for the Allies’ triumphant victory of D-Day and beyond.
What a dope.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pmIran will not get the bomb because Israel will act preemptively when the time comes. The U.S. has already shipped to Israel the necessary means in the form of our latest bunker busters. What I don’t understand is why the U.S. under Bush has not taken a more aggressive posture to topple the Iranian theocracy. Iran is an economic basket case. It has no military to speak of except the Revolutionary Guard. It’s not even a homogeneous nation; half the population is something other than Persian. I think if someone bothers to kick in the front door, the entire edifice will collapse. But it won’t be Obama, that’s for sure.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:43 pmDid anyone even read the comments (to the article)- whoa. Those people are down right hostile and somewhat insane I think.
I don’t know why it still surprises me
June 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pmI will buy a T-shirt with a picture of Sunny with a McCain “F&*CK IT ” bumper sticker on her.
And my little girl wants a Saddest Bee mug.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:26 pmAlas, a too large contingent still believe the Emperor has clothes. As everything before, this criticism too will be dismissed as something that ‘distracts’ from the real issue of electing the first black president.
Obama is all form and no substance, and he’s not even trying really hard to hide it. He’s a blank slate for people to project their own needs upon and when they do they are drawn to him because they see their own reflection.
I wish John Effin Bolton’s article would make a difference in how Obama is perceived, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Now if McLame picked Bolton as his Veep, THEN I’d get fired up.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pmI realize that this isn’t a hot button issue for you, but it turns out that Obama think it’s fine and dandy to affirmatively kill babies who somehow manage to be, you know, born.
Time to break out the old D&D books because I need that “Alter Reality” spell something fierce. This election cycle and its piss poor candidates are harshing my mellow.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:37 pmThere’s a newer post by Ace here that pretty much guarantees I’m voting against Obama and for McCain. And by pretty much I mean “if I’m alive and he’s the candidate.” Not only is Obama a damned idiot, he’s also a horrible, inhuman monster.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:44 pmI’m really surprised at the animus against Baracky. He has such a great smile. Why not make him president? Heck, why not make him king? When he’s king, the oceans will part and he will walk through them, leading his people to the promised land: the European Union.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pmI have all sorts of problems with Obama, but can someone explain to me what’s wrong with diplomacy with “the bad guys?” This is a serious question, not trolling.
I mean, sanctions don’t work, and unless there’s a draft, we don’t have the forces to invade. So what else is left if we’re really concerned about their nuke program? So suppose we tell Ahmadinejad, “we’ll send you 10,000 neckties for every centrifuge you dismantle. No ties until we verify compliance.” What’s the harm?
June 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pmCJ, the problem isn’t diplomacy, not at all. It’s the “without preconditions” attitude of Obama. He claims that other great leaders also met without preconditions, but his claims don’t hold up:
Truman and FDR, two he named in a speech defending his stupid, believed in unconditional surrender. JFK met with the Russians and botched it pretty badly by appearing weak. (Which some people, me included, believe emboldened the Russians and led to the Cuban Missile Crisis)
Diplomacy is fine as long as you don’t come off like a puss and lose face/respect. Because nobody is scared of some weakling whiner that just wants to taaalk no matter what.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pmCJ, diplomacy is a difficult art. When Nixon went to China to meet Mao, it was the culmination of years of diplomatic efforts to bring the ChiComs to a point at which they understood that they had to open up to the outside world, and that doing so was in their interests and to their benefit. Ours, too, by the way. Just think what China would be if the old Cultural Revolution Maoists were still in charge.
When Kissinger met with Le Duc Tho at the Paris “Peace” Talks, Tho, and Xuan Thuy before him, had zero intention of giving up anything for peace – you Americans stop bombing the North, and we will “de-esclate” in the south. We did, they did not. They understood, too, our election cycles. They stalled and stalled – what size and shape for the negotiation table, for instance – while we pressed for solutions before the up-coming 1968 and 1972 elections. They took whole apartments on long term leases in Paris, our guys took hotel rooms.
When Reagan met Gorbachev in Reykjavik, and in other summits, tons of groundwork had been laid before they met. At Reykjavik, Reagan held the line putting Gorbachev on notice that he was no pushover and that he meant what he said. Fortunately for all of us, Gorbachev was no old Stalinist like Brezhnev or Andropov, and with Thatcher and Pope JPII, with a lot of help from Solidarity and similar movements, the USSR dies a fairly quiet death.
Saddam was given many chances to come clean and obey the armistice papers he signed in 1991, or pack up and leave Iraq. Idi Amin and Baby Doc Duvallier did so leaving Uganda and Haiti for peaceful wealthy exile. He did not, and he got zapped.
So, talking, as such, is not the issue, rather Obama’s hubris and naivety believing that his cult of personality can extend to genocidal thugs whose aim is to retain power no matter what, or to destroy the world in order to bring about the return of their Holy-Man-In-The-Well or whatever. He will be as bamboozled an Madeleine Albright was by Kim Jung Il, but with far worse consequences.
When bin Laden saw us pull out of Somalia so quickly, and that we’d been so easily snookered by the Norks, he knew Clinton was no Reagan. The rest is, sadly, history.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pmBTW, just 10 weeks after the 4 June, 1961 Vienna Summit where Khrushchev “beat the hell” out of JFK, as Kennedy later admitted, construction began on the Berlin Wall.
What will wily mass murderers like Ahmadinejad or Kim or Assad do after kicking Obama’s little boy ass all over the place at some ill-prepared summit?
June 5th, 2008 at 4:22 pmWhat really scares me is not what Obama will do…but who he will put in power with him. The next president, in addition to appointing all sorts of mid to lower positions (like Mr. Bolton’s), will also get to appoint at least one SCOTUS judge…maybe 2, wiping out any good done by adding Alito and Roberts. A liberal court with a liberal congress and a liberal president gives people of a liberal persuasion a clear path to making laws without recourse.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pmTaylor:
I don’t think America is that liberal to allow such a scenario to happen. RCP average currently shows Obama +2.2 spread over McCain which is within the margin of error. Just wait until the 527s and McCain get after him. The Rev Wrong business alone should sink Obamessiah.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:40 pmHauntingly familiar?
This is from an op-ed piece that ran in the NYT a couple of weeks ago:
And:
June 5th, 2008 at 6:58 pmNothing wrong with diplomacy per se. But exactly what are we going to be diplomatic about? “Mr Dinner Jacket, would you like to nuke all of Israel at once, or just half of it at a time?”
You can be diplomatic if you have things to trade. Mr Dinner Jacket continually boasts that he and his regime will annihilate Israel. How do you “diplomacize” that?
June 5th, 2008 at 6:58 pmActually sanctions CAN work when they’re done right. Part of the reason the sanctions against Saddam weren’t working was because the Euros were actively helping him defy them (such as with the Oil For Food program).
I have a friend who swears up and down that if we only put a naval blockade in the Straits of Hormuz we could completely cripple the Iranian economy.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:27 pmOne of the key things about fighting is not to telegraph your intentions.
But Baracky is doing just that. “I will negotiate without conditions. I will not use force. War never solves problems. Blah blah blah…”
So someone who is not a friend of America can negotiate with Baracky secure in the knowledge that Baracky is the one who has to give everything up. Because what else does he have but words? “I will send a sternly worded letter to these dictators, and they will magically fall down and obey me.”
If I recall correctly, Jimmy Carter was quite surprised when his kissing cousin, Leonid Brezhnev, invaded Afghanistan. “Why, he all but promised me!” What will be Baracky’s Afghanistan moment? The nuclear cloud over Tel Aviv? “Why, Mr Dinner Jacket assured me!”
June 5th, 2008 at 7:37 pmI think I’m going to have to wait and see who McCain picks as VP before I order one of those bumper stickers.
I’ve got a really queasy feeling about that right now. I’d rather not say what I’m thinking, because it would sound totally crazy. And yet strangely plausible.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:32 pmAll right, here goes:
If McCain picks Hillary as his running mate, he wins. Period. Slam dunk.
The radical leftists would vote for Obama; the conservatives would stay home and get drunk or else throw themselves in front of buses.
Everyone else would vote for McCain-Clinton. That ticket can’t possibly lose. It’s a no-brainer.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:41 pmOk, so the commentariat is half of why I come here. Half is Rachel, half is you all being so damn smart. Honestly, I learn more in the comments section here - good facts that can be researched and confirmed - than I ever did in a lifetime of listening to the main stream media.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:56 pmYou know, I always thought this could happen, but I realize now I’ve been in major denial; it not only can happen, if Obama is elected president it will happen. I’m thinking we should break out the Sunny Prayer Book.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:18 amMarla… I come here for the same reasons. Absolutely luv Rachel’s posts - her writing style - along with what she has to say - ALL the dog photos, hers and others; but it’s the commentary that makes everything on this site well worth reading.
Rickvid’s comment, above, was like an entire semester of a Civics or History class - a sort of Reader’s Digest condensed version. [I missed several when I was in school. Those first-period classes just didn't seem important to me at the time. If I only knew then what I know now...]
June 6th, 2008 at 4:22 amI can’t decide it if they’re more likely to celebrate or roll around the floor laughing upon hearing Obama’s take.
Since he loves filling his mouth with “History According to B. H. Obama”, will somebody ever point out to him that Chamberlain thought Hitler’s policies were just a tiny affair? (Sorry for repeating that again)
Are you going to wait until she lays down and then put all 10 stickers on her side? It would look nice
June 6th, 2008 at 4:26 amAND, you can’t argue with “The ‘Stache”!
June 6th, 2008 at 7:58 amKind of like the cloak of roses on Big Brown after the Kentucky Derby…
No no!!! Don’t you see? The Muslim world will be a bed of roses for BHO. He understands them and they will understand him. They don’t really believe in the Koran verses directing them to kill their enemies like so many Christians hold on to John 3:16 as being the one critical verse in the Bible, they have just felt misunderstood by the West. They will come around, BHO feels it. Did you know they are already making a documentary about BHO on HBO? I know, sounds like BS.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:10 amThanks for the answers everyone. I think we’re on the same page. Any negotiation with a hostile entity requires the threat of force as backup.
I still think sanctions are useless precisely because they create a black market that generally benefits the regime you’re trying to squeeze. Also, blockade!=sanctions. A blockade is and has been considered an act of war.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:37 amHello, everyone. I’m from Finland and have been following this blog a couple of months now. Rachel is an entertaining writer and I can see myself in many of her rants. Keep up the good work, Rachel.
But the comment section is very puzzling. Especially regarding these war on terror and presidential election topics. It seems that the world will end if Obama is the next president. And I love the fact that every bad thing is caused by democratic presidents and every good thing by republican presidents. Seems pretty far fetched that Osama Bin Laden cares about who the next president is and if it’s McCain then he will be scared shitless and doesn’t even dare to plan new terrorist acts.
Also one major reason for the Cuban missile crises was the fact that you nuclear missiles on the doorsteps of Soviet Union. They just did the same thing you did. I wouldn’t go blaming it all on Kennedy.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:41 amMarkus:
I’ll be gentle, because you’re new here.
No one said any such thing. What we have been discussing is how we believe that, after lengthy and careful discussion, that Senator Obama is a most unsuitable candidate for President of the United States. Most here strongly disagree with his policies, both on principle and based on historical experience. (In other words, they’ve been tried before and don’t work, or if the do work, have results we don’t like.)
Again, no one here said any such thing. (And we capitalize ‘Republican’ and ‘Democratic’ because without the capital letters, those two words mean very different things in English.)
For the record, Richard Nixon was a paranoid and disgusting crook. How’s that?
The fact of the matter is that Senator Obama is the most leftist presidential candidate we’ve seen in a very long time. (I think ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean roughly the same thing in Finland as in the U.S.; though I suspect the U.S. ‘midpoint’ is to the right of the Finnish ‘midpoint’.)
Most people here are not leftists. (We are a mixture of conservatives, moderates and libertarians; a mixture of religious, agnostic and atheist.)
We disagree with leftist ideas, with the leftist critique of capitalism and the West and with the leftist interpretation of history. Is it any wonder that we don’t care for Senator Obama?
Which is not to say that a leftist can’t be a brilliant politician, a great leader and a patriot. They do exist; my problem with Senator Obama is that he is none of the above.
Go back and look at all the harshly critical things said here about Senator McCain and the deep dissatisfaction with his candidacy - to the point that many who despise Obama say they’ll refuse to vote for McCain. This is no Republican “cheerleading section”.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:17 amYes, yes, and the American missles were quietly removed from Turkey some months after the “Cuban Crisis” passed. Do you think to teach me my own history?
The point was that Kruschev (a brilliant politician, a great leader, a patriot and a leftist, by the way) thought he could get away with it because he saw Kennedy as weak.
To you and I, sitting down to talk about our disagreements is reasonable. I would not think less of you or you of me. But do you think Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah and other leaders from tribal, hyper-”macho” societies in the Middle East or South Asia will respect this young, inexperienced lawyer who will talk with them without precondition?
Still, it’s not the same thing. (I know that Finland lived under the threat of the USSR and still lives under threat of the Russians, so a certain neutrality is part of your outlook but drawing moral equivalents between the US and the USSR will probably anger the regualar readers here as quickly as anything you could say).
Even if it was the same thing, I’d think the reasonable outsider would favor the mostly free, mostly prosperous country with the representative government over the paranoid, insular dictatorship responsible for the deaths of millions of its’ own citizens. But I could be wrong.
Welcome, and I hope you keep coming back.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:29 amThis must be a Russian colloquialism. I like it. (Hmmm, “Jesus on a hedgehog”?)
June 6th, 2008 at 10:37 amMarkus:
It all depends on how you view this time in history. If you don’t think we are engaged in a historically significant struggle with a dangerous and ambitious enemy, then you’re right, an Obama presidency doesn’t sound as risky. However, if we se in such a moment against such an adversary . . .
Imagine how history would be different if Leonidas had not been king of Sparta at Thermopylae? Or if Washington had not been in charge of the Continental Army? Of if Churchhill had not been leading England’s stand against Hitler?
In moments like these against adversaries like these, leaders matter.
Your comparison of US nukes in Europe and Soviet nukes in Cuba ignores one critical difference. Cuba wasn’t standing against an America that had already overrun much of the Caribbean and Central America. Our allies in Europe faced precisely that, as the USSR had overrun most of Eastern Europe.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:41 amAll I know is the last time I told a woman about the intersection of a hedgehog and my pants, I wound up in the HR Director’s office…
June 6th, 2008 at 10:42 amAgain, no one here said any such thing. (We’re far more concerned that whomever is elected President work to prevent attacks and credibly and effectively retailiate if they happen.)
Actually, bin Laden (and others) care a great deal about who is President; bin Laden himself has said so. I am in mind of his famous remarks about the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia. That was when he came to the conclusion that the U.S. was a “paper tiger” and the “weak horse”. Clinton’s rapid withdrawal from Somalia after what was, after all, a crushing defeat for Aidid’s forces, his feckless pursuit of indictments against bin Laden and refusal to strike effectively at al-Qaida led their leadership to joke among themselves in the aftermath of 9-11 that we’d probably sue them over the attacks.
We went through this when John Kerry ran for President. America is a glass house on a hill. Everyone sees what we do and say, and can’t resist commenting on it, even if most Americans pay no attention. What America’s enemies have to say about the candidates should give you some idea of who they favor. The usual suspects have had nice things to say about Obama, which means they think they can get more of what they want (or less of what they don’t) from him.
In fact, that pretty much describes my feelings about McCain: I’m not going to get what I want from him, but I will get a hell of a lot less of what I don’t want from McCain than I surely will from Obama.
I even made myself a bumper sticker back in ‘04: “Terrorists, foreign billionaires and the French can’t be wrong - John Kerry for President!”
June 6th, 2008 at 10:54 amOuch! Seems more like a Krishna thing!*
*Well, Bhishma really, but you get my drift.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pmWell, at least in this comment section sharkman expects a major terrorist attack if Obama becomes the president and Lilya pulls out the Hitler card.
No one said it directly but you think Clinton caused 9/11 and some others blame Kennedy for the Cuban missile crisis. Oh yeah, Reagan caused the collapse of the Soviet Union while I think it was inevitable.
What if Nixon had never got caugth in watergate? I bet you would have a different opinion.
If all of you are really not-left then it’s no wonder. My complain is that the feeling I get from you is that leftist are the “ultimate evil”. Even though, as you say, your left is the moderate of Finland, more or less. You have a strong tendency of demonizing everyone who is not with you. This is of course a consequence of your partisan politics. You really should have more parties than two. This way you always have to find the lesser of two evils.
This leftist interpretation of history? Care to enlighten me a bit?
Just give him a chance. If he messes up then you can kick his ass after four years. In my opinion he might positively surprise you.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pmNo, maybe he just wanted to get rid of the missiles in Turkey by showing you how threatening it is to have enemy missiles next door?
I think they have no respect for anyone. Be it Bush, Clinton, McCain or Obama. They do whatever the hell they want.
Now, this is one the problems. Maybe everyone thinks that his country is the greatest and deserves to be protected by all means. Of course I think too, that western democracy is best at the moment but a citizen of Iran or former Soviet Union cannot really say until he has tried it. It’s not an absolute truth that we have the best system. Depends what you like.
Anyway, I’m not drawing moral equivalents. I’m trying to set myself in other mans shoes and explain their actions that way.
Thank you. I’ll definetly keep reading Rachels entries and maybe open my mouth on occasion.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:22 pmLance:
I don’t think we are engaged in a serious struggle. All we are up against is a bunch of lunatics. There is no perfect solution to fight against them. Dropping precision bombs in the desert or invading countries does not really work.
It can give you a warm feeling inside but that’s it.
You can increase internal security a bit, but without sacrificing freedom, you can only hope for the best.
And if Hitler never existed? Speculating with history is fun but doesn’t really achieve anything. At least you cannot draw paralles to our time with imaginary history.
No, but Soviet Union was facing nuclear missiles 500km from their borders while (Alaska excluded) nearest to you were maybe 5000km away. Gives a bit of an edge, don’t you think.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:52 pmMarkus, you’ve missed the essence of the argument re: JFK and Khrushchev - JFK was seen as weak, and Khrushchev exploited that weakness. The SU wasn’t militarily stronger than the US at that time, and had to use bluster to beat down a young, foolish president.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:03 pmMarkus,
I have noted the similarity between Obama’s stated intention of meeting with Iran and Neville Chamberlain’s actual meeting with Hitler prior to WWII.
As you know, Chamberlain was Britain’s Prime Minister and met face to face with Hitler. The result of that meeting was taking the Sudetenland away from Czechoslovakia and giving it to Germany. Chamberlain came back to Britain and said he had obtained ‘Peace in our time’.
The actual results of that conference was the conquering of Czechoslovakia by Germany, which was made immensely easier because the Sudetenland was mountainous, which had given the Czechs an easily defended border. Without that, they might as well have been Belgium (plains with no militarily useful terrain features), Hitler convinced that the Allied powers would not fight him, and the start of WWII in a few months.
Therefore, you can see my concern that any meeting between President Obama and Iran would result in an emboldened enemy, a perception of weakness, and an increased likelihood of a nuclear-based attack against Israel or the US.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pmMarkus:
So said the Romans, I’m sure. And the Soviets in Afghanistan, too.
Whether the enemy is crazy or not is beside the point. What makes them a serious threat is the combination of intention + capability. The jihadists’ intentions are clear, if only we will take them at their word, and Sept. 11th showed what they are capable of. An exponentially greater capability is only a nuclear device away. This is not the time to play diplomatic patty-cake with a country like Iran which shares in those intentions (again, just take them at their word) and is closest to being able to provide the jihadist world with that nuclear capability.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:30 pmMarkus - I do find it rather interesting that Finland just sentenced a Finnish blogger [one Seppo Lehto] to two (2)years and seven (7) months in prison for writing politically incorrect articles about islam. I’m just sayin’.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:11 am