Nancy Pelosi referring to Maliki's increasingly insistent calls for a timeline for US withdrawal from Iraq says "the end could be in sight" and calls for "a high-level meeting with the Iraqis to work out the terms of our redeployment from Iraq" but cautions that this "will not happen without the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States."
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Pelosi: The End Could Be in Sight
19 Jul 2008 12:02 pm
Comments (22)
Even an end to the Iraq war isn't going to solve the next problem - the imminent Israeli attack on Iran. If that happens, both parties will declare their undying support for Israel (naturally) and the U.S. will jump in with both feet. There's no way in hell we will stay out of a war with Iran if Israel attacks. The zionist/AIPAC/Israel-uber-alles crowd will see to that.
Yes, it is a given Obama's seeming committment to leave Iraq are to be taken at face value. The chances are slim and none he'd waver from a promise given in the heat of poltical battle:
Obama Statement on FISA
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Michael Ortiz, 202 228 5566
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today released the following statement on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Earlier today, Senator Obama voted in favor of the Dodd-Feingold amendment to repeal retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies (S. Amdt. 3907). He also supported other amendments to improve the bill, including the Feingold-Webb-Tester amendment to protect Americans from unwarranted surveillance (S. Amdt. 3979), and the Feingold amendment to protect Americans from the bulk collection of communications (S. Amdt. 3912).
"I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people - we must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law.
"We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties. That is why I am proud to cosponsor several amendments that protect our privacy while making sure we have the power to track down and take out terrorists.
"This Administration continues to use a politics of fear to advance a political agenda. It is time for this politics of fear to end. We are trying to protect the American people, not special interests like the telecommunications industry. We are trying to ensure that we don't sacrifice our liberty in pursuit of security, and it is past time for the Administration to join us in that effort."
steve duncan - Are you Pavlov's dog or something? Every one paragraph from Matt on Obama draws the same 4 paragraph cut-and-paste job from you. One line saying "Obama didn't keep his word on FISA" and link is a litttle more constructive and a lot less 'ME STEVE DUNCAN! ME SAY OBAMA LIAR! YOU MUST BELIEVE STEVE DUNCAN!. Frankenstein made more subtle protests against fire then you make against Obama.
If Israel does support Israel in an attack on Iraq, the consequences will make the current bad patch look like a boom.
Shortages, and $15-20 gasoline anyone?
Obama is a liar. For Matt or anyone else to write anything speculating as to what Obama is going to do if elected is laughable. People want to forget the lies. It hurts for them to ponder their chosen hero, their successor to Bush is maybe no better than what we're leaving behind. We don't even hear talk of Obama and FISA anymore. The Left wants it to disappear into a black hole. As does joejoejoe. I suppose Elie Wiesel was also guilty of a lifelong, monotonous rant. Geez, why couldn't he just move on and let the memory of the Holocaust die a peaceful death?
steve duncan - I want it to disappear down a blackhole so much I told you to write about it and link to it in a thread about Iraq. JUST NOT FOUR FUCKING PARAGRAPHS WORTH OF A BLOCK QUOTE WITH NO ARGUMENT ATTACHED. You last post is perfectly wonderful but your first post isn't an argument, it's a dog pissing in comments to mark territory. Stamping your feet over FISA forever isn't arguing. It's whimpering.
Shorter me: Not everything is about your displeasure with Obama's FISA flip-flop.
PS - Nice escalation from a "stay on topic" reminder to "OMFG you probably totally support the holocaust!". Grow the fuck up.
Yes, duncan, you're a regular Elie Weisel.
Reflexively dismissing everything Obama says is every bit as naive and thoughtless as reflexively accepting it, but it's a good way to pose as a worldlier-than-thou.
Steve D.,
We all get it. You are unhappy about the FISA bill, which personally, I would agree that there are quite a few things to be unhappy with.
Same basic points of reality:
1. The FISA vote is NOT the Holacaust. It is not even the election of Hitler to Channcellor.
2. Elections or sort of like multiple choice exams --you have to choose the best answer from what's offered. Are you really suggesting that John --"Hey, I have principles except when it's inconvenient! and I think tax cuts will fix all economic ills!" --McCain is a Better choice?
Get a grip.
Steve D.,
We all get it. You are unhappy about the FISA bill, which personally, I would agree that there are quite a few things to be unhappy with.
Same basic points of reality:
1. The FISA vote is NOT the Holacaust. It is not even the election of Hitler to Channcellor.
2. Elections or sort of like multiple choice exams --you have to choose the best answer from what's offered. Are you really suggesting that John --"Hey, I have principles except when it's inconvenient! and I think tax cuts will fix all economic ills!" --McCain is a Better choice?
Get a grip.
> 1. The FISA vote is NOT the Holacaust. It
> is not even the election of Hitler to Channcellor.
>
> 2. Elections or sort of like multiple choice
> exams --you have to choose the best answer from
> what's offered.
Your two points interact in a way which I don't think you understand - or choose not to. The fact is that there is an elite group of about 10,000 people that controls Washington DC and national politics. This group changes a bit at the margins, but barring a total upheaval such as the Nixon Constitutional crisis and the 1974 election the core of the group and its balance of power does not change. The FISA capitulation on telecom immunity was this group ratifying the Cheney/Addington theory of unaccountable executive power that supercedes the Constitution. Whether that will lead to long-term consequences similar to those flowing from the historical events you name I (and we) cannot say, but given that peak oil is approaching/here and Obama is now bulking up his core staff with members of that self-same elite group I have to suspect that such consequences will arrive fairly soon. Probably in 2012 when Rove's next protoge takes the Presidency.
Cranky
Whether that will lead to long-term consequences similar to those flowing from the historical events you name I (and we) cannot say, but given that peak oil is approaching/here and Obama is now bulking up his core staff with members of that self-same elite group I have to suspect that such consequences will arrive fairly soon. Probably in 2012 when Rove's next protoge takes the Presidency.
And the election of John McCain in 2008 will produce a different result?
I suppose Elie Wiesel was also guilty of a lifelong, monotonous rant.
Have you heard Elie Wiesel lately?
Cranky Observer:
Two points:
1. Your assumption that you are the only one who has noted the incestuous nature of our ruling elites, and their bi-partisan pandering to the ultra-rich is fatuous. What I didn't notice on your part is any suggestions for "purposeful" action.
2. You made no attempt to demonstrate why electing John McCain would be better --relative to this very real problem --than Barack Obama.
If you have one, feel free to offer it. Just do not tell me there will be no difference. The election of Al Gore in 2000 would have produced substantially different results than the election of G.W. Bush. If you don't grasp that, your examination of the details recent history is flawed.
So elections --even viewed as multiple choice tests set up by idiots -- DO matter.
> 2. You made no attempt to demonstrate why
> electing John McCain would be better --relative to
> this very real problem --than Barack Obama.
Since the subject of this discussion is Nancy Pelosi and by extension the 2006 Congress' failure to take action when there would have been benefit from doing so it is not clear to me why I am under any obligation to do so.
To answer your point, will things be better under Obama from 2008-2012/2016 than they would have been under McCain? Probably, while keeping in mind that it was William Jefferson Clinton who started the process of giving privacy and other civil liberties in the internet age. Will Obama put his political opponents in prison? Probably not. Do you think that Obama will oppose the RIAA's latest goal of eviscerating EU privacy regulations? I doubt it.
But the real question is, will there be forceful action to restore the Constitution during 2009-2012? Obama's FISA vote and rationalization tend to indicate no. In the absence of forceful action to restore the Constitution what will happen in 2012 (or 2016 if the Dems can withstand the Radical Right counterattack that long)? We get another Rove-picked wannabe dictator who picks up right where Cheney/Addington left off and really goes to town on the Constitution. Siegleman-ization here we come.
Cranky
I don't get it. How are you proposing we stop "another Rove-picked wannabe dictator who picks up right where Cheney/Addington left off" from gaining control?
By not letting the Republicans have the presidency would be my answer.
> I don't get it. How are you proposing we
> stop "another Rove-picked wannabe dictator who
> picks up right where Cheney/Addington left off"
> from gaining control?
>
> By not letting the Republicans have the presidency
> would be my answer.
I hate to echo Kevin Drum here, but US politics is cyclical. There is no way to prevent another Republican presidency. The only way to protect ourselves from the consequences is to take forceful action to restore the Constitution including full, deep, and open investigations and prosecutions where appropriate. The telcos would have been a good place to start. Ain't happenen', and Obama has thereby signaled nothing like that will happen.
Cranky
The election of Al Gore in 2000 would have produced substantially different results than the election of G.W. Bush
On certain aspects of domestic policy, I think you are right.
Foreign policy and privacy? No way. Gore had a record and the Gore/Lieberman white house would have been a coffin nail in American left of center politics. See Tony Blair. Did you think he was going to do what he did? I did.
I grouse about Obama's team, but holy shit, Gore would have been surrounded by Pollack, Mylorie(!), and the like telling him that Saddam Hussein was the Unified Field Theory of Terrorism and if he wouldn't do something about it they would walk and talk.
That's what you got out of eight years of triangulation, that's what buried Blair and by extention the labour party. It would have been a bullet dodged if it weren't for the awful, grasping, instincts of the lesser democrats who wanted to emulate their greaters.
The fact that Pelosi can totally ignore the Iran situation while babbling about Iraq pretty much shows how disingenuous - or fucking stupid - she is.
The fact that people take that seriously, ditto.
Right now, Iran has two weeks to make a definitive answer to the "freeze-for-freeze" proposal. They might do it, although I suspect not - because ANY freeze they capitulate to will be a crack in their "red line" about never stopping enrichment. And that "red line" REMAINS the absolute core of the Bush "diplomacy" concept. Therefore, absolutely nothing has changed despite any so-called "diplomatic efforts". The US and Iran remain on an unaltered course for war - whether Bush starts it, Israel starts it, McCain starts it or Obama starts it.
The ONLY way war with Iran can be averted is if the Bush administration AND any following administration BOTH "blink" and accept an Iranian nuclear energy program with enrichment.
And Israel will NOT accept it. Only if the US directly and emphatically tells Israel it will not support - or even oppose - Israel starting a war with Iran will Israel back off from starting one if the US doesn't.
And that notion - that any US administration will oppose Israel over Iran - is simply a fantasy, even ignoring the fact that every US administration is determined to maintain hegemony and control of the oil in the Middle East, as well as responding to bribes from the military-industrial complex to continue war profiteering.
There simply is no possible way to avoid war with Iran, given the realities of US and Israeli governments, and the energy requirements of Iran.
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Comments closed August 02, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
"will not happen without the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States."
Oh, it will happen. The Iraqis will see to that.
The only decisions we can make is whether it happens smoothly or roughly.
And the chances are that an Obama withdrawal would be somewhat smoother than a McCain eviction.
Posted by Duncan Kinder | July 19, 2008 12:32 PM