On last night’s first debate at Ole Miss:
I don’t think either McCain or Obama helped or hurt themselves all that much, especially among undecided voters. I say that for one prime reason — the debate was on a Friday night. Who is the moron that decided to put a debate on Friday night? TV networks don’t put their highly rated shows on Friday or Saturday night for a good reason.
Even if this debate were on a night that people were actually watching TV, I would still stand by my contention.
All I heard was slobbering over Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but both of them dumped over poor little ole Russia. Why are these clowns trying to make non-white countries better and insult a fellow white country?
That said, both of these clowns are dangerous on foreign policy, but Obama is marginally worse than McCain, mainly because of Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan bellicosity. First off, if you think Iraq is an impossible imbrogliana, Afghanistan is even worse. No white country has ever successfully occupied Afghanistan. Not the Brits, not the Soviets (though, their failure was largely because we secretly helped the Afghanis), and not us. And I’m of the school of thought that, if we knew in 1980 what we know now, we should have actually helped the Soviets overrun Afghanistan. Our secret resistance inadvertently created OBL, AQ, Taliban and 9/11. Nevertheless, putting more American men in Afghanistan would be even a bigger blunder than Iraq.
Then there’s the issue of Obama’s bellicosity towards Pakistan. I have stated in this medium that the Democrats are obsessed with the person of Osama bin Laden as a singular solution to the “War on Terror.” I think they have it in their heads that if we get OBL and send him to his 72 virgins, that the “War on Terror” will be over, the Republicans lose their national security advantage, and we go back to a world of September 10, 2001 where Gary Condit and Britney Spears were cutting edge poltical issues. The trouble is, their obsession is leading their Presidential nominee to start something we might eventually wish he never would have.
Obama doesn’t seem to mind the prospect of engaging in a major incursion into Pakistani territory, across from Afghanistan, in order to apprehend OBL. Based on the theory that OBL is hiding out in the mountains of northwestern Pakistan; we don’t even know if he’s still alive. Here’s what Obama doesn’t realize about Pakistan: One, they have nuclear weapons. Two, they have a tenuous political situation. The political party and movement of Pervez Musharraf and the Bhuttos does run the country, but it’s hanging on by a thread, and constantly having pursued by pro-OBL and pro-AQ parties. The Pakistani equivalent of the FBI is somewhat pro-American and anti-AQ, but their CIA equivalent, the ISI, is AQ/OBL all the way. If we march into Pakistan just to get OBL, it’s going to inflame Pakistani nationalism and anti-Americanism, Pakistani voters will topple the Musharraf/Bhutto party, install the OBL/AQ party, and then OBL/AQ sympathists will have their hands on a nuke. You can count the seconds between that and New York City becoming a big deep radiological hole.
(Don’t e-mail me and tell me that Pakistan doesn’t have an intercontinental delivery mechanism. They could easily get one, from the Russians we seem to be so intent to turn into enemies over something that’s none of our business. Speaking of Russia, if we are to continue to have NATO, which is based on an obsolete geopolitical situation, Russia should be part of it. Perhaps move the NATO headquarters to Moscow as a measure of good will. Also, if we’re going to have a missile defense shield, I don’t understand why we’re trying to marginalize Russia in the whole issue. Russia should be a part of the missile defense shield, and as a measure of good will, it should be headquartered in Russian territory.)
Sure, we might apprehend OBL, but we’ll lose NYC. That’s called a Pyrrhic Victory, Mr. Obama. Look it up.
As far as Iran goes, my personal position on the question seems contradictory. I don’t fear Iran getting nuclear weapons. I do fear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting them. Plain words, if a secular dictator like the Shah were still running Iran, nobody would have a problem. But Ahmadinejad is a nutcase, who may not understand mutually assured destruction, and as he has a propensity to run his mouth and let a lot of genocidal anti-Semitism come out of it, he might not care anyway. The goal should not be to prevent *Iran* from getting nukes, it should be to disconnect Mahmoud the Nutty from any pretense of Iranian political power. That would have already been accomplished if we weren’t rattling our sabres at Iran, as Mahmoud the Nutty is unpopular there. But our sabre rattling has caused Iranians to rally around nationalism and thus their President. Pretend to back off of Iran, state publicly that they’re not a threat, and wait a year or two. Mahmoud the Nutty will be out of power, then the new, presumably secular regime in Iran can pursue all the nukes they want, and it won’t bother me any.
