Organizing for America | Chris Scott's Blog: John McCain Makes Career of Foreign Policy Gaffes

John McCain Makes Career of Foreign Policy Gaffes

By Chris - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm EDT

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Those of us who have been following the campaign so far know about John McCain's big gaffe on Iran. He made the claim that Iran's regime is supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq. The problem with this, as Barack Obama pointed out, is that the Iranian regime is Shi'ite and Al Qaeda is Sunni. Shi'ites and Sunnis form the two main rival sects of Islam and fundamentalists on one side certainly would not be supporting the other side. This might seem to be a bit of arcane knowledge, unimportant in the day-to-day lives of most Americans, but for somebody like John McCain, who is running for the position of Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the United States, this kind of thing matters, especially since our country is extremely involved in that part of the world.

This wouldn't be alarming if it had been an isolated incident, but it appears that McCain has a history of establishing conspiracies where none exist. Here is another example. Like many of the hawks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, he was vocal about Saddam's regime and al Qaeda being in cahoots, even declaring that they shared ideological goals. Again, if I, a college undergraduate at the time, knew better, why didn't McCain, a U.S. senator, whose job it was to make important decisions on the matter?

Again, this boils down to simple ideological mathematics. Osama bin Laden is a militant Islamic fundamentalist and Saddam was a secularist Arab nationalist and the apparatus of his regime was run by the Ba'ath Party, which had been consciously modeled on the Soviet Communist Party of Stalin's time. In fact, if there were any ideological commonalities at all, it was because the United States and Saddam's Iraq had a common enemy in al Qaeda. In fact, Osama was quite vocal on several occasions about his desire to destroy Saddam's Iraq.

Of course, McCain's ignorance about the world at large doesn't stop at the Middle East. He also referred to Fidel Castro as "one of the world's most brutal dictators". This, of course, is a baseless exaggeration. True, Castro was a dictator who restricted the rights of his people to leave Cuba, and true, the regime continues to imprison dissidents. The brutality of this, however, pales extremely in comparison to the overactive death machines of Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il. Fidel Castro is certainly no advocate of Jeffersonian democracy, but it is seriously doubtful that he belongs in the company of those villains.

So here is where the fear factor of a possible McCain administration lies: He will be making crucial foreign policy decisions based on faulty reasoning and premises drawn from the land of make-believe. And, to top things off, McCain is no dove. At the first sign of war fever, he's out there beating the drums and waving the pom-poms. Do we need a president who dispatches our young men and women to their deaths based on his lack of knowledge and/or over-exaggeration of the real situation? In other words, he famously declared that he would hunt Osama bin Ladin to the gates of Hell, and Obama retorted, quite correctly, that it would be better to hunt bin Laden down to where he actually is.

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Chris for Vice President.... | Report to Admin

By Balloons Across America Mar 30th 2008 at 8:33 pm EDT

You're on point Chris!!! I sincerely don't think mccain is in his right mind.

Re: Chris for Vice President.... | Report to Admin

By Chris Apr 1st 2008 at 10:43 am EDT

Yeah, I was reading crooksandliars.com this morning ("Renewing the 'presidential temperament' question") about how McCain was in Germany back in '06 and started berating the foreign minister for not being tough enough on Belarus. His pal Joe Lieberman had to step in and diffuse the situation.

Okay, so on top being a damn fool of a warmonger, our walking volcano of an opponent isn't much of a diplomat either.

***

Well Kelly, I can't be Vice President this go around because I'm not 35 yet, but I'd be thrilled to serve for Obama's second term! :)

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