[PAA-Discuss] Annapolis Hopes Withered by Gaza Crisis

[Ron and Kris Graham]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/07/6912/ 

There are NO peace negotiations going on between the Israeli government and
Palestine. Israel refuses to recognize Hamas as the legitimately elected
government of Palestine. Look into the eyes of the injured child whose photo
is posted within the article. The Israeli government is evil beyond belief.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support the Israeli government without
question. Neither of them deserves to be president of the United States.
Look at the letter that Barack Obama sent to Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S.
Representative to the United Nations:

http://jewishstandard.net//content_images/ObamaLetterbig.jpg
<http://jewishstandard.net/content_images/ObamaLetterbig.jpg> 

Look also at this post from Left I on the News:


The Nation on Obama


 

Christopher Hayes, the DC editor of The Nation, has an article
<http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080218&s=hayes>  in the recent
issue described on the web as "Here's why Obama is the left's best chance to
take back the country" and in its subhead in the print magazine, "Why Obama
is more likely than Clinton to bring about a new progressive majority." In
it, he writes this:

 

But while domestic policy will ultimately be determined through a
complicated and fraught interplay with legislators, foreign policy is where
the President's agenda is implemented more or less unfettered. It's here
where distinctions in worldview matter most--and where Obama compares most
favorably to Clinton. The war is the most obvious and powerful distinction
between the two: Hillary Clinton voted for and supported the most disastrous
American foreign policy decision since Vietnam, and Barack Obama (at a time
when it was deeply courageous to do so) spoke out against it.

 

And here's the letter I just sent off to them, which summarizes a lot of
things that have appeared here in previous posts. Since it undoubtedly won't
be published (for starters, it's way too long), I might as well post it
here:

 

Whether or not it was "deeply courageous" for an Illinois state Senator to
speak out against the invasion of Iraq is debatable, but what isn't
debatable is that Obama's opposition to that invasion has been unprincipled
from the start. Here's how he himself described it at a campaign rally last
year: "I am proud of the fact that I opposed this war from the start. In
2002, I said this was a bad idea. It's going to cost us millions [sic] of
dollars and thousands of lives. We don't have a strategy for getting out."
The fact that this would be an unprovoked invasion of another country in
violation of U.S. law and international law didn't enter into his
calculation, nor did the potential cost in Iraqi lives; if it could have
been done on the cheap and without losing too many American lives, he would
have been all for it. Watch for more invasions of countries like Panama,
Grenada, and Haiti under "antiwar" President Obama.

Obama's nominating speech for John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic Convention
is also instructive: "When we send our young men and women into harm's way,
we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth
about why they are going, to care for their families while they're gone, to
tend to the soldiers upon their return and to never, ever go to war without
enough troops to win the war, secure the peace and earn the respect of the
world." Once again, entirely tactical reasons for opposing the invasion. Not
to mention that the truth was not "shaded," it was a complete fabrication,
as we all know, and as any serious opponent of the war knew before the
invasion, and everyone in the world knew by July, 2004.

Recently, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama had what many
thought were overly charitable words to say about Ronald Reagan. But most
missed this from the same interview, a rather instructive view about how
Obama views the movement against the Vietnam war: "My frame of reference is
'what works.' Even when I first opposed the war in Iraq, my first line was,
'I don't oppose all wars,' specifically to make clear that this was not just
an anti-military, 70s love-in kind of approach, rather, that I thought
strategically it was a mistake for us to go in."

In the most recent Democratic debate in Los Angeles, Obama shed even more
light on why he opposed the invasion of Iraq: "If we were concerned about
Iranian influence, we should not have had this government installed in the
first place. (Applause.) We shouldn't have invaded in the first place. It
was part of the reason that I think it was such a profound strategic error
for us to go into this war in the first place." Once again, the idea that a
U.S. President actually has to obey U.S. law (including ratified treaties
like the Geneva Conventions) doesn't seem to enter into his calculation.

Then there's the potential war against Iran. In a Democratic debate last
year, he asserted that "Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major
threat to us and to the region." When interrupted by Dennis Kucinich
protesting that Iran has no nuclear weapons, Obama pressed on with the
standard Bush line, the one that served so well in Iraq: "I understand that,
but they're in the process of developing it. And I don't think that's
disputed by any expert."

Finally, and also recently, there was Obama's letter to the U.S. Ambassador
to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, in which Obama asserted that Israel had been
"forced" to impose the current blockade on Gaza, and astonishingly claimed
that it was "seeking to minimize any impact on civilians," as if the
collective punishment being imposed on the people of Gaza was not precisely
aimed at impacting civilians.

And this is the man whom Christopher Hayes wants us to believe is going to
bring about "a new progressive majority."

Eli Stephens
Left I on the News

 

// posted @ 2/07/2008
<http://lefti.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html#7006635638812961177>
03:57:00 PM //   <javascript:HaloScan('7006635638812961177');> Comments (7) 

People need to wake up and realize that Barack Obama is a corporate tool who
doesn't give a shit about the people of Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine.
Don't vote for him!

Kris

 

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