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WSJ.com Forums :: View topic - Baghdad, Berlin, Barack
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (6 ratings)
"Baghdad, Berlin, Barack."
posting.
to post online.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:58 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (5 ratings)
Here is a timetable to consider for Iraq.
Every time an international (which is to say non-Iraqi) capitalist enters the country,
an American soldier will leave.
Soldiers only have weapons and goodwill.
Capitalists create wealth.
Now there's a stealth weapon that no terrorist can defeat.
Dennis Duggan McMahon
San Francisco
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:11 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (14 ratings)
I am an Italian citizen that lived in US from 1993 to 2007, now I am back in my country.
Yesterday I followed Mr.
Obama speach in Berlin and I felt as, I am sure, many Europeans felt leastening to his inspiring words: <it is so unfortunate that Obama is not our presidential candidate, we would choose him in a heart bit.>Reading your article today I realized that it is true that "Nemo est profeta in patria"...which means that nobody in his own country has is value recognized.
The world, not only the Unided States, needs somebody as Mr.
Obama at this present moment.
I hope, we hope, that the American people will make the right choiche at the right moment.
Elena Zanato
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (13 ratings)
I find it amusing how some can let their own politcal bias influence their comprehension of not-so-subtle inferences.
My immediate interpretation of his comment was that he was drawing a clear reference to Baghdad.
However, Bagdhad is one of many battlefronts (which everyone can agree on).
The message is that today's developed world needs to use its good will that was characteristic of the post WW II era for a multitude of challenges, not just Baghdad.
The comment by the author that Obama thinks Baghdad citizens should "just give up" is a poorly articulated criticism of Obama's view on Baghdad and Iraq by all accounts.
The problem clearly needs to be solved differently, and no one realistically thinks that Iraq can or should be given up on.
I find it shocking that so many educated, "experienced" individuals cannot embrace a thoughtful, more globally-aligned approach to political and economic challenges.
Comments such as those in this opinion piece are out-of-touch, disappointing and push a steadfast independent like myself towards someone who at least thinks before they speak.
Eric St.
Gemme
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:54 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (12 ratings)
Dorothy Wachsstock
Watching the clips of Sen.
Obama, one expected his right hand to go up as he spoke before a "fact finding" trip but could not visit our wounded soldiers because it was a "Campaign Trip".
These two different reasons given by his aides represent the man.
One cannot believe anything he says and that is why he cannot win the upcoming election.
No one knows the core of this Senator that did nothing in his State legislature and after a year in the Senate, he has been running for the Presidency.
What has this man accomplished other than have no judgement in his association with questionable characters and a Pastor Wright, who has made it impossible for Obama's children to get along with white children?
With the media behind him, as if he was already the President, what would be the reaction of many, if Sen.
Obama lost an honest election?
This is what has come to the minds of many because of previous events, yet, one has to choose the person whose policies they agree with and up to now, the only thing that Sen.
Obama has done is to make people want a Pres.
Of Color. There has to be more than that as Martin Luther King said.
"The character of his people not the color of his skin".
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:11 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (11 ratings)
Beneath all the media hoopla, the handshakes, the smiles, the diplomacy, runs an undercurrent that is chilling in regards to Obama and Iraq.
Here is a country he didn’t think worthy of our efforts to free and has chosen to ignore ample evidence that Saddam had an association with al Qaeda.
If we had followed his plan for a precipitous withdrawal after the fall of Saddam the U.S.
Would have suffered a major defeat and Iraq would likely be overrun with much more violence or worse, with little hope of freedom, a concept he claims to prize.
So, despite the rhetoric in Berlin, when it comes to Iraq he is displaying either utter contempt for the concept or ignorance, or both.
Alice Felt
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:37 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (9 ratings)
Obama talking tough in Berlin like JFK or Reagan?
What’s wrong with this picture?
JFK and Reagan were anti-Communists;
Obama is pro-Communist.
Obama and his supporters have stuffed the fact that Berlin was a focal point in resistance to the expansion of Communism down the memory hole and have bought into the myth that JFK was a left-wing culture hero as discussed in detail by James Piereson in Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F.
Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (New York: Encounter Books, 2007).
The Left conveniently ignores the fact that Nixon would have thoroughly trounced their McGovern version of JFK in 1960.
Given that Obama is extreme Left (see http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511), that his American heritage is “progressive,” that he is a member of an ethnic group that, as the 2004 Paul Robeson postage stamp makes abundantly clear, sees Stalinism as part of its heritage, and that he wants to end the mindset of standing up to aggressive dictators, Obama’s appearance in Berlin is, like Teddy, an obscene parody of the real JFK, Vaughn Meador’s “The First Family” gone terribly wrong.
Given that Obama campaigned for the French-looking fellow who notoriously supported the Indochina “war of liberation” Soviet enterprise that JFK was trying to derail, it’s obvious that Obama doesn’t understand “bear any burden.” If Obama was somehow transported back to Berlin on June 26, 1963, he would say something to the effect that our differences with the Soviets would magically disappear once America dispensed with its troublesome Constitution and became a socialist state, as Martin Luther King Jr.
Would soon begin preaching.
Afterwards he would place jelly donuts on top of the Wall as a sign of good faith.
Of course, JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech was itself meaningless bravado—part of the mainstream media’s myth at the time that the Democrats could both prosecute the Cold War more effectively than the Republicans as well as expand the welfare state, guns and butter.
The truth was that, as with any left-liberal, social spending was paramount and that JFK sought to wage the Cold War on the political cheap.
The American people were kept in the dark on this, but Khrushchev saw JFK’s disastrous Cold War missteps—ceding the Laotian highlands to the Communists, failing to back up the Bay of Pigs invasion with American military force, allowing the construction of the Berlin Wall, the disastrous 1961 Vienna summit meeting in which Khrushchev lectured JFK like a schoolboy—for the weakness that it was, and even as JFK was talking tough in Berlin, the missiles were on their way to Cuba.
People familiar with the history of the early 1960s know that Lloyd Bentson complimented Dan Quayle.
Obama’s Berlin appearance is a myth reprising a myth of a myth, showing that Obama is truly Slick Willie in blackface.
In contrast to JFK, when Reagan challenged the Soviets to tear down the wall that JFK had allowed to be erected it wasn’t a pose.
A new sheriff was in town, a straight-shooter who meant business.
Now, there was a president.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:57 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (15 ratings)
Body armor?
Mr. Obama was the safest American in Baghdad during his trip.
Our enemies follow American politics more closely than 95% of American
citizens.
They know perfectly well their best chance of regaining
success comes if he is elected.
Why would they attempt to kill him?
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:17 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (11 ratings)
I get nervous listening to news clips of Barack Obama addressing the people of the world.
It seems surrealistic that this not yet president is acting like one.
Bringing greeting from all of us to the rest of the world, exhorting and urging always in generalities, very light on specifics.
I think a telling thing was observing a picture of him in the New York Times waving his left arm to tens of thousands on Unter den Linden.
It was a reverse negative so his wave would not look like a Sieg Heil salute.
It occurs to me that the fears and anxiousness which accompany this Obama mania might have been felt by the NYT editor who reversed the negative.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:19 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (15 ratings)
Below is an email I am sharing from a friend's son who is serving in Afghanistan wrote of the recent visit Obama took and this solider's impression of Mr/Senator Obama's visit.
It is copied below:
Hello everyone, As you know I am not a very political person.
I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to 'The War Zone'.
I wanted to share with you what happened.
He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet
with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram.
As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand he blew them off and didn't say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General.
As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball.
He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.
So really he was just here to make a showing for the American's back home that he is their candidate for President.
I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you.
I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheer leaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States.
I just don't understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief.
It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.
If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is.
What you see in the news is all fake.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (7 ratings)
Well written.
If you want to see the future of how Mr.
Obama would fight terror witness Bill Clinton, the EU3 and Iran's nuclear ambitions and the UN on just about anything.
If he is elected, batten down the hatches, order everthing online and stay out of public places, if you can.
Mike Falatko
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (7 ratings)
A little Cold War history is in order on this discssion of Obama impersonating JFK in Berlin.
This is from Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp.
237-238:
After the debacle of the Paris summit and his conflict with Eisenhower’s Republican administration, Khrushchev began to root for the Democratic party and its presidential candidate.
As the still unknown Kennedy emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic field, Khrushchev began to view him as a preferred alternative to Richard Nixon.
In July, 1959, during Nixon’s presentation of an American exhibition in Moscow, the Soviet leader clashed with him in a debate on the comparative benefits of socialism and capitalism.
Nixon offended Khrushchev by insisting on the superiority of American technology and consumer culture.
Thereafter the Chairman branded the U.S.
Vice president “a McCathyite.” Any candidate would be better than Nixon.
Never before had Khrushchev followed a U.S.
Presidential campaign so closely.
Alexander Feliksov, then the KGB station chief in Washington under the alias “Fomin,” recalls that “the rezidentura [station] had been instructed to inform the Center periodically about the development of the electoral campaign, and to propose measures, diplomatic, propagandist, or [any] other, to encourage Kennedy’s victory.” A KGB agent, according to Fekisov, even tried to contact Robert Kennedy, but met a polite rebuff.
In the end, Khrushchev did influence the U.S.
Presidential elections by his belligerent rhetoric, as well as by demonstrating that a constructive U.S.—Soviet dialog would be impossible so long as Eisenhower or Nixon remained in the White House.
Twenty years before the revolutionary leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran used American hostages to influence a U.S.
Presidential campaign, Khrushchev did the same by holding captive two pilots of the U.S.
Reconnaissance plane RB-47, shot down in July 1960 over the Soviet North.
Along with fears of the “missile gap,” Kennedy successfully exploited the issue of the captive pilots in his barbs against the Eisenhower–Nixon administration.
When Kennedy won the presidential election on November 4, Khrushchev was delighted, and even joked that this was a present to him on the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
Later, when Khrushchev met Kennedy in Vienna, he did not hesitate to boast that he had helped the Democrat win an extremely narrow race with Nixon.
It seems likely that if Nixon had won in 1960 he wouldn’t have made an “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech because there wouldn’t have been a Berlin Wall.
Nor would Khrushchev been emboldened to put the missiles in Cuba in the first place, assuming that Castro would have been in power in 1962.
Just as JFK was Khrushchev’s favored candidate in 1960, so we can be sure that Obama is favored by the Ayatollah Khamenei and his hand puppet Ahmadinejad.
Osama too.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:55 am Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (8 ratings)
In these days of banal drivel throughout all of the media, it is inspiring and encouraging to read a piece that is pertinent, objective, and cogent.
Thank you for clearly putting forth an opinion that truly speaks to the significant issues of the day.
Whether one agrees or not is irrelevant;
The position is strong and meaningful.
Unfortunately too few will read it.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (2 ratings)
It's amazing to me how you are attempting to rewrite history.
The 'Surge' is a fake.
It was a useless, expensive extravagance.
The truth which you prefer to hide is the change in a hardcore military policy in dealing with Iraq.
The mission of the Army is to go in and blast anything that moves.
This policy alienated even moderate Iraqis and was a disastrous policy.
It almost like the difference between the Hessian British mercenaries of the Revolutionary war against the guerrilla tactics of the American patriots who overcame the British.
The lesson, you can't keep the same tactics in different scenarios.
Things change.
'
'What changed in Iraq and what you fail to grant as the true key to success was a change in basic tactics.
The Special Forces are trained to handle insurgencies that occur during occupation.
It was only when the Army threw away the West Point rulebook and adopted the policy of embedding itself with the enemy and winning over the local population that we see success.
Senator McCain was a bombardier.
He never saw the faces of the people he killed.
Whether through chance or accident, he was shot down.
He was captured. He withstood the pressure and injury of imprisonment.
That was a sort of Sgt.
York heroism. Give me someone who starts life as a dog face and through ingenuity and smarts faces the enemy directly and is able to overcome nd as a result command people.
Give a General Patton.
What Barak Obama has shown is a willingness to change direction as the game of war changes.
I will never forgive the people in Washington who made the same stupid decisions over and over and allowed over 3000 American kids to die and over 35,000 injured to radically curtail their lives.
Bob Dole was a hero.
John McCain is not.
I was a POW in one of Americas misadventures.
I faced overwhelming odds.
Can you say the same.
Talk is cheap.
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Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject: Re: Baghdad, Berlin, Barack (3 ratings)
I expected people here to not be so obviously biased and spiteful, but I was wrong.
This opinion piece abuses the truth and puts words in Obama's mouth he never said.
The worst part is that most posters here are so desperate to hate the candidate and criticize him that they are willing to lie to themselves and remain blissfully ignorant of the facts.
DIsappointing to say the least that people can consider McCain a foreign policy expert in regards to Iraq when the man doesn't know the difference between Sunni Islam and Shi'ia Islam.
He actually argued with reporters during his own "fact finding mission" in March that Iran (Shi'a) supports Al Qaeda (violently Sunni).
I guess such misconstruing of the facts and demonization are what happens when you're afraid of Obama's tax increases for the rich.
Either that or the rest of you don't know anything about foreign policy like your candidate.
That's why I read history books, to understand others rather than remain so oblivious to the differences in cultures.
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