New School Politics

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With Mitt Romney out of the picture (giving McCain a virtual lock on the Republican nomination), Obama and Clinton are left to duke it out in a prolonged struggle for the Democratic nomination that might very well end in a skirmish on the floor of the convention. Although both candidates are very intelligent and appealing, exit polls suggest that most young voters are leaning towards Senator Obama. But before we, the proud Democratic youth of America, get behind the charismatic, well-groomed superstar senator, it is imperative that we stop and consider the consequences of putting this guy behind the big desk.

As someone who voted for Barack Obama in the Connecticut Super Tuesday primary, it’s my duty, and the duty of my fellow Obama supporters, to remind ourselves what we’re getting into. “Change We Can Believe In,” and “Spread Hope” are taglines, not policies. And although these messages may sound positive, the ideas of Change and Hope are really negative campaigning and attack advertising at its finest. Obama isn’t here to talk about what change he is bringing to the White House, he’s talking about what we as a nation are looking to get away from: the Bush administration’s failed policies. Running against the backdrop of Bush’s presidency is a lot easier than running against the experience and hardened policies of either Hilary Clinton or, down the road, John McCain. But let’s face it, for a junior senator, this method is the smartest method, and perhaps the only way to win this political competition.

Obama’s got some good policies: his ideas about healthcare are more fiscally sound and realistic than Clinton’s, his populist tendencies and promises of a transparent government give the impression of a man with nothing to hide; his position on the war, while perhaps a little naive, still stands to be very appealing to Americans who have never felt that turning the Middle East into a love-fest of Western Thinking is possible, or even a good idea, and his background as a community leader gives him a strong moral high ground.

But regardless of his policies, any newly minted American president as inexperienced as Obama has a good chance of being put under the microscope, especially in the area of foreign policy. Nations who have not been so fond of American neo-imperialism, such as Russia and France, will undoubtedly issue litmus tests in one form or another. Outright hostile nations such as Iran and North Korea might test the new administration’s diplomatic skills through aggressive acts of escalation. Senator Obama’s calls for diplomacy, and offers to sit down with Iran and others, may well come back to haunt him, paralyzing the beginning of his presidency while he fends off one challenge after another. George Bush was tested a year into his presidency, and that test defined his two terms in office, which are now widely viewed as a failure. As Obama supporters, we must ask ourselves if his offers of diplomacy are so very different from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s ideas that appeasement might achieve “peace for our time,” an irony that has echoed throughout history. Is the young Senator from Illinois too young and too naive to hear those echoes?

I believe he is not. Barack Obama is an “A” student, and despite a having a few sadsacks from the Carter administration hanging around his advisory room, I have confidence in his ability to stock the new ExComm with smart people to help him out with foreign policy. And though the proponents of radical Islam may issue a lot of ultimatums, in the end, I have to believe that there are people in Middle Eastern nations who are looking for a U.S. leader who will reach out to them, rather than cast them into the same lot with Al Qaeda, and chase them to the “gates of hell,” as John McCain has promised to do.

That’s putting a lot of “hope” into “change,” and if you don’t have that kind of faith to spare in Senator Obama’s abilities, then you should be voting for Senator Clinton, whose chances at winning a general election are slimmer, but whose foreign policy is well worn, and whose husband showed a good deal of competence concerning foreign affairs while in office.

This is Ben’s first post at New School Politics. To find out more about him, please visit the about page.

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As January comes to a close, the Obama campaign has easily surpassed a fundraising goal set earlier today. In a mass e-mail from the Obama campaign earlier today, the campaign stated that they were looking for more donors to boost their current 242,000 individual donor count above 250,000. Tonight, their website shows that they surpassed that milestone and had approximately 253,198 supporters [as of this writing] during the month of January. Obama’s e-mail touts the wide variety of donors, and mentions the fact that Obama has received donations from more than 500,000 individual donators [a figure he surpassed in the hours before the Iowa caucuses]. Obama, ever the politician, attributes this “unprecedented base of individual donors” to his rejection of special interest money.

We rejected donations from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs and relied on ordinary people to take ownership of this campaign — and the result was more donors than any presidential primary campaign has had in history.

During the last three months of 2007, Obama raised approximately $23.5 million. In January alone, however, the candidate has raised in excess of $32 million. This is a record for candidates still faced with a primary challenge. For all those who thought Hillary was sure to win the nomination following her victory in New Hampshire, Obama’s fundraising successes should give them second thoughts. Obama may not have the richest supporters, but he has among the widest networks of individual donors, and it’s the number of people, not the size of their donations, that counts when the Democrats will be picking a presidential candidate. MSNBC is reporting that the Republican candidates didn’t even come close to the massive figure released by the Obama campaign, and the Clinton camp has yet to release their figures for January.

Scores of Obama Supporters Have Rallied Around Their Candidate

Obama’s “Yes We Can” slogan seems to be convincing America that he’s electable as well, as he’s been victorious in several early primaries. With Edwards out of the race, it will be interesting to see where his supporters end up. Both candidates are vying for his endorsement, and many unions and organizations that once backed Edwards have now switched their affiliation to Obama. Whether or not Edwards will endorse either Democrat before Super Tuesday remains to be seen.Tonight’s Democratic debate, called a “love movie” by the Agence France-Presse, saw the start of cordial relationships between the two candidates. This is a marked difference between the finger pointing and negative comments circulating between John McCain and Mitt Romney, who still have other candidates to worry about. Both Democrats made it clear that they’d like to see the Republicans out of the White House in 2009. While their platforms differ only slightly, the CNN-sponsored debate focused on three main areas, healthcare, Iraq, and illegal immigration. CNN’s catalog of quotes from the debate provides a window into the platforms of each candidate, while their Election Center provides further information for undecided voters.

Cordial Relations Marked Tonight’s Democratic Debate

Most pundits, including CNN’s Bruce Schneider, are calling the debate a draw. Schneider said that Democrats are “happy with their choice this year, but they don’t want to have to make it.” Fortunately for the undecided, the coming weeks will shed more light on the records and positions of both candidates. Unfortunately, however, many will have to make their decisions in short order for the primaries on February 5th. Join us for live, broadcasted video coverage of Super Tuesday next week on February 5th for more about the candidates and the status of the race.

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After just over half a year of the troop surge, Bush is bringing soldiers home in limited quantities. Quite frankly, that confuses me. If the seven month surge is beginning to make the situation better in Iraq five year war, why start bringing troops home? It seems like exactly the opposite thing to do if we want to continue to make progress in Iraq.

What more troops gave us in Iraq was more force. Force has also been lacking since the beginning of the occupation in Iraq; we have always been fighting more passively (peacekeeping occupation) than aggressively (total war) and we never had enough troops to maintain the peace in the aftermath of isolated conflicts. We got it, it began to work, and then we toned it down. Considering my assumptions and my present knowledge, the move appears to make very little sense.

The President insisted:

Because of this success, General Petraeus believes we have now reached the point where we can maintain our security gains with fewer American forces.

That may or may not be true. But lets give the General the benefit of the doubt and say it is, say, 80% true–would it still be practical to begin withdrawals? I still say no. For one, there is a remaining possibility that Petraeus is wrong and we loose the ground we gained. And second, saying that maintaining our current levels is satisfactory also implies that we can achieve victory at the present rate. I don’t have any sense that we could achieve a surrender of jihadist forces in Iraq “in due time”. I think that even now, we still have to augment the rate of achievement in Iraq to make progress significant enough for ultimate victory.

If anything, the successes of the surge would tell me that we should maintain the surge itself or continue to inject more force in Iraq. As is I surmise that the present political developments are nothing more than representative of the major flaws of the entire Bush policy: he wants enough force in Iraq to keep the situation in our control, yet he will not raise the levels of force enough to yield the radically destructive change that constitutes victory in war.

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I am currently reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, a book written by the Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post that gives a striking account of the utter failures of the Bush appointed civilian leadership on the ground in Iraq. For those who do not have time to read the book, I just came accross this article from Matt Taibbi of Rollingstone.com that raises exposes (in a somewhat graphic manor) the failures of privatization of the warzone.

As I said before, the article is somewhat graphic in its language, but I recomend that anyone interested in the war read it.

Here is the link followed by the first few paragraphs from the article.

“How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins — he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress — until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.

Now you can finally move out of your dull government housing on Bolling Air Force Base and get your wife that dream home you’ve been promising her all these years. The place on Park Street in Dunn Loring, Virginia, looks pretty good — four bedrooms, fireplace, garage, 2,900 square feet, a nice starter home in a high-end neighborhood full of spooks, think-tankers and ex-apparatchiks moved on to the nest-egg phase of their faceless careers. On October 20th, 2003, you close the deal for $775,000 and start living that private-sector good life…”

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This is an article from todays Financial Times that I found very interesting.

“There has been a striking decline in support for terrorism in Muslim countries over the past five years, according to the annual take on world opinion by the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Of the 16 majority Muslim countries included in the survey, 15 have shown waning enthusiasm for terrorism in general and suicide terrorism in particular, it says.”

You can see the whole article here

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Today President George W. Bush linked the war in Iraq to the fight against Al-Qaida. While he has done this many times before, it was one of his most controversial speeches as he “lashed out at critics who say that al-Qaida’s operation in Iraq is distinct from terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.”

I would briefly like to give our president a foreign policy lesson.

Al-Qaida in Iraq is a separate organization that Al-Qaida; it was formed by now infamous terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad was created in Afghanistan by Al-Zarqawi after the retreat of the end of the war with the Soviet Union. He ran a terrorist training camp that had no correlation to Al-Qaida or Osama Bin Laden and was operating with the intent of overthrowing the Jordanian government (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian who resents the Jordanian Kingdom for not following strict Sharia law).

He left Afghanistan prior to the US invasion and traveled to Iraq where he was famously treated at an Iraqi medical facility. However, this occurred prior to the invasion and he still had no tie to the terrorist organization, which attacked American on September 11th. While he was in Iraq he established ties with a radical Kurdish militant group and also manifested contacts with senior Iraqi intelligence and military officials. It was not until nearly a full year after the invasion (in 2004) that al-Zarqawi announced his coalition with Al-Qaida. Zarqawi allied himself with Al-Qaida with the belief that it would legitimize his guerrilla movement to the rest of the Muslim world and increase his recruitment of foreign fighters. In 2004 al-Zarqawi renamed his organization Al-Qaida in Iraq, note that Al-Qaida in Iraq is a different entity than Al-Qaida with its own separate command structure and military imperatives.

It is true that there is an organization called Al-Qaida in Iraq, but it was not until after the US invasion (a full year after) that there was a correlation between the radical Sunni groups which killed over three thousand Americans in 2001 and the group which is responsible for many of the roadside bombs and beheadings in Iraq.

Today both groups share similar broad goals, however prior to US intervention in Iraq the groups had separate ideologies and goals and were only united in a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

It is true that there is now a connection between the people who attacked us on our own soil and those we are now fighting in Iraq, but to say that Al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden are leading operations in Iraq on a day-to-day basis is plane wrong.

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The Democratic Party cannot win the 2008 presidential election for one simple reason: Iraq. As much as I do not like his show, I caught this segment on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown on MSNBC the other night. In this segment, Keith discusses how the “American people have been betrayed” by the Democrats for “giving in to the president” and not following through with the mandate they were elected to do. He (like most Americans) says that the Democrats were elected in 2006 with the clearest mandate of any new Congress in US history: get US soldiers out of Iraq. Even someone with a moderate understanding of the complexities of government would know how difficult it would be for the Democrats in Congress to pass legislation and to force the president into withdrawal. Of course, the average American would not understand the logrolling and underhand deals that have to be made to pass any sort of bill in Congress and make it so much more difficult for the Democratic Party’s majority to get their way.

All the Democratic presidential candidates (with one exception) were supporters of the war initially and several of them have not overcome that obstacle. However, if the Democrats in the House do not pass a bill (even if it is purely symbolic) that is endorsed by the media (even those on the far left like Olbermann are rejecting the Iraq bill) by the end of the summer, the public will loose any faith it has in Pelosi and her minions.

As someone who watched the Democratic debate and the two Republican debates, I can say that while the Democrats only offered a plan for withdrawal, all of the Republican candidates offered some coherent strategies for stabilizing the country. The Republicans suggested increasing troop levels, bringing in the United Nations, and even dividing the country into three states united by a federal system. My point is that if the Democrats are unable to get US soldiers out of Iraq (which is very unlikely), the American people will look for people with solutions for how to stabilize the country and it is obvious that many of the Republican candidates are waiting to unveil their strategies.

The Republican candidate will have a distinct, if not so obvious, advantage when the national campaigning begins. The Democratic candidate may point out that the Republican Party began the War in Iraq.  Unless, however, the Democratic nominee is Barrack Obama, the Republican front runner can point out that not only did they authorize the war, but when the Democratic Party was elected into power in both houses, they failed to confront President Bush in nearly two years.

Both parties are in trouble, but right now the only thing going for the Democrats is their Iraq withdrawal strategy.  If troops are not pulled out of Iraq by the spring of 2008, mark my words: the Democrats will not win in 2008.

Eftychis

Editor’s Note:  This post was edited for grammatical consistency on May 27th at 12pm.  

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This summer, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization operating out of Lebanon, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed several others. After days of scrutinizing the reasoning and organizations behind the attack, Israel decided to authorize a “severe” response against Lebanon, the country harboring Hezbollah. After the world condemned both countries, Israel continued bombing Lebanon, at one point commencing in a ground campaign aimed at the destruction of Hezbollah. The US tried to remain impartial but couldn’t help but get involved on the side of the Israelis. The “war,” as Israel has just officially declared it, caused grave public relations disasters for both countries throughout the world as images of dead children were broadcast throughout the world by international news agencies. Weeks after intense rocket barrages, Israel decided to end the war even after they didn’t achieve their goals. The conflict should have served as an example to countries around the world about the risks of keeping enemy soldiers as POWs.

Fast forward to March 23, 2007. After British Navy soldiers from the HMS Cornwall boarded a boat in Iraqi waters to search it, they were captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers. Britain has tried to resolve the conflict amicably, but Tony Blair has continually chastised Iran for what he calls an “unjustified and wrong” act. Recent UN sanctions have put Iran under pressure to eliminate their nuclear program. As usual, however, Iran has stood firm, calling the sanctions “unlawful” and “unjustifiable.” With the sanctions adding more fuel to the fire, one must wonder how far Iran plans to go. Will the UK, like Israel, react to the Iranian conflict with force? Senator John McCain suggested that the UK take “very decisive action” against Iran while the US provides “moral support.”
Lire le reste de cet article »

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A new poll taken by a respectable polling organization in Iraq has found that the majority of Iraqis’ believe life is better now than under Saddam. In fact, since the troop surge in Baghdad many Iraqis’ feel that American and Iraqi security forces can control the militias and end the killing. Of course, it is not even possible to find this story in most of the American press(meanwhile it is being reported in the press all over Europe), and it took me almost 3 minutes to find it on FoxNews.com

Why is it that this story, a story about what actual Iraqis believe is happening in their own country, is not reported? I do not think everything is going well in Iraq, but I have said all along that while violence is occuring within the Sunni Triangle, the rest of the country is relitivly stable (Kurdistan is trying to attract money to build up its ski resorts and has rapidly industrialized without the threat of violence). Why is it that CNN.com only has stories of an American soldier accused of murder in Iraq, anti-Iraq War protests, and chlorine gas attacks? If this does not show an obvious bias in the American media, I do not know what will. If anything, it also shows the bias by the press in the Palestinian conflict, they keep on hoping for peace and calling for a Palestinian state when the Palestinians continue to blow themselves up on a daily basis. Yet in Iraq, where people try to work together, they call that a civil war?

If the Bush administration wants to sway any public opinion, they need to start showing the American public poll results such as these.

Editor’s Note: links and punctuation fixed 3/19 6:30pm

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America’s military has been off limits to homosexuals for years.  As part of the famed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy highlighted in American policy throughout the years and proposed by Bill Clinton and Colin Powell, gays have been able to serve as long as they do not disclose their sexual orientation.  The chronology of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell shows the onslaught of criticism the program faced both when it was passed and in the immediate years after.

The question, however, remains:  Why shouldn’t gays be able to serve in the military?  Other minorities fought for years to be able to serve alongside their fellow Americans.  Their victory led to the integration of the military.  Yet homosexual service in the military has been frowned upon since the inception of the United States military.  The dismissal of homosexual soldiers is hurting our military.  The SLDN notes that “during every major military mobilization, gay discharges have dropped.”  Clearly, the military needs our homosexual soldiers.  If not, why aren’t they being dismissed at the same rate during conflict periods?  

The SLDN, along with other legal and gay rights organizations, is ramping up their fight for the repeal of the policy.  This time, Congress isn’t ignoring their pleas for equality.  Last session’s bill H.R. 1059 [commonly referred to as the Military Readiness Act of 2005], sponsored by Representative Martin T. Meehan, calls for replacement of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy with “a policy of nondiscrimination in the military on the basis  of sexual orientation.”  Meehan, along with 122 other cosponsors, supported the bill as it worked its way through the 109th Congress.  Unfortunately, the bill wasn’t passed by the end of the session. 

Representative Gary Ackermann (D-NY) made big news Wednesday afternoon during a Congressional session with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.  Earlier in the month, the Secretary had expressed concerns about not having enough translators in Iraq.  Ackerman fired back, telling Rice that she “might find some of those competent people among those who were recently unemployed over the past several years,” referring to the gays that had been discharged from military service in recent years.  A December 2006 poll has helped to give more backing to supporters of the Meehan policy.  The Zogby poll, available online as a PDF here, shows that 73% of those polled in the military say they are personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians.  Only 20% said they were uncomfortable.  Meehan responded to the survey with strong words, claiming

“These new data prove that thousands of gay and lesbian service members are already deployed overseas and are integrated, important members of their units. It is long past time to strike down ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and create a new policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve openly.”

Zogby International

A Boston Globe poll from May 2005 shows that 79% of American civilians don’t mind gays serving in the military.  In a New York Times editorial, General John Shalikashvili reversed his course

I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.

Op Ed: Second Thoughts on Gays in the Military

Shalikashvili imagines a day when “gay men and lesbians will no longer have to conceal who they are and the military will no longer need to sacrifice those whose service it cannot afford to lose.” America is ready, and the wheels have just begun turning. 

Representative Ackerman helped to fuel the debate once again during hearings earlier in the week.  His tongue-in-cheek rant has since become famous on the internet,

“For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they’re very brave with the terrorists. … If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”

The Frontlines: Ackerman’s Lesbian Platoon

The military must accept gays and lesbians, and the time for the integration is now.  Marty Meehan’s “Dear Colleague” letter has begun circulating around Congress and he plans to introduce a bill overturning the old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as soon as possible.  Meehan’s bill is crucial to the civil rights of homosexuals in this country and to the status of the military in the future. 

If you’d like to take action, SLDN and the Michael D. Palm Center have more information.

technorati tags:military, condoleezarice

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