McCain’s spiritual guide: destroy Islam
By David Corn, Mother Jones, March 12, 2008

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a “war” against the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a “strong, true, consistent conservative.” The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain’s effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a “spiritual guide.”

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the “spiritual desperation” of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual “culture” (“homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree”), the “abortion industry,” and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

In a chapter titled “Islam: The Deception of Allah,” Parsley warns there is a “war between Islam and Christian civilization.” He continues:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

Parsley is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. [complete article]

Senator Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated
By Greg Craig, RealClearPolitics, March 11, 2008

When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she has passed “the Commander- in-Chief test” is simply not supported by her record.

There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton played an important domestic policy role when she was First Lady. It is well known, for example, that she led the failed effort to pass universal health insurance. There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.

When asked to describe her experience, Senator Clinton has cited a handful of international incidents where she says she played a central role. But any fair-minded and objective judge of these claims – i.e., by someone not affiliated with the Clinton campaign – would conclude that Senator Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated. [complete article]

The only way to fight the Clintons
By JoAnn Wypijewski, Counterpunch, March 8, 2008

Talk about the “kitchen sink”! If Barack Obama wanted to throw it at the eight years of First Lady experience that Hillary Clinton has made central to her resume for “the job” she says she wants us to “hire” her for, there is plenty there. People on the left who say he won’t, he can’t because he’s just like her, a creature of capital and empire, may be right in the grand scheme, but they shouldn’t be smug, because there aren’t exactly models of successful radical or even liberal fights against the Clintons. There are barely models of noble but failed fights. And Hillary’s own revamped self-presentation as the populist fighter, sworn foe of big corporations, friend of the little people, ultimate underdog, makes clear that Obama’s ties to Wall Street should be no more an impediment than hers are in the game of political fisticuffs.

Already it looks like Obama’s advisers are getting it completely wrong, though, challenging her for her First Lady papers and her tax returns and, implicitly, the source of her and Bill’s immense wealth. Obama can no more beat the Clintons at this kind of game than the right could. Every small, personal complaint looks petty or desperate or sexist, and only allows Hillary to play the part she likes best, after mud slinger and policy wonk, which is survivor. She played that part in New Hampshire and in Ohio, and she’ll play it again any time she wants to put on the show that “for anyone who’s ever been counted out”, for anyone who’s ever had to struggle against the odds, for anyone who’s ever been treated unfairly, she’s their gal. It’s as phony a show as can be imagined, but it’s the one the Clintons perfected against the right, and their hard core supporters are on autopilot now to respond to it. Likewise, Obama can’t beat the Clintons in pure bloviating wonkery. Some of his advisors are saying he should quit the big inspiring rallies and do small tedious meetings of the type that Hillary’s supporters walk out of, even as they’ll later pull the lever for her at the polls. It’s not her “plans” that draw voters; like Blanche McKinney, most people don’t even know what those plans involve even after reading them. It’s her aura of dogged competence, based on the entirely fraudulent story of “putting people first” and thus widening the circle of peace and prosperity during the Clinton years. It’s also her skin color, and if anyone doesn’t think Bill Clinton knew what he was doing in South Carolina, locking up the white racist vote for his wife, they should talk to some of her supporters in Ohio.

Obama can’t do anything about that last “asset” of Hillary Clinton, and maybe it is her ultimate chip, but it would make for a more interesting campaign going forward if he would challenge that First Lady experience by implicitly challenging the myths on which it stands, projecting an idea of the future unmoored from the Reagan-Clinton continuum, something Hillary is locked into. What drew so many people originally to Obama’s campaign was its call to “turn the page” on past Republican and Democratic politics alike, and its recognition that people are just fed up. But that call could never sustain itself purely on some attacks on lobbyists and the usual timid party nods toward health care, education and the environment. It was always going to need more meat on its bones. [complete article]

Never been afraid to talk about anything
By Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark, March , 2008

I came across something interesting while doing some research on public diplomacy for an unrelated project. Since at least the 9/11 Commission Report, almost every foreign policy blueprint or platform has for better or for worse mentioned the need to fix American public diplomacy and to engage with the “war of ideas” in the Islamic world. I expected all three remaining Presidential candidates to offer at least some boilerplate rhetoric on the theme. What I found was different.

Barack Obama’s counterterrorism plan, as I already knew, prominently features the need for better public diplomacy and engagement with the “crucial debate.. taking place within Islam”. He has advanced some bold ideas such as convening a summit with the leaders of the Islamic world early in his administration and the “America’s Voice Initiative” modeled after the Peace Corps (an idea which I love for all kinds of reasons). He’s making rebuilding America’s relations with the Muslim world a real priority, while putting forward a sophisticated reading of the politics of the Islamic world. Indeed, his discourse about this the other day during a potentially difficult meeting with Ohio Jewish leaders is possibly the best I’ve ever heard from an American politician:

The question, then, is what do we do with the 1.3 billion Muslims, who are along a spectrum of belief. Some extraordinarily moderate, some very pious but not violent. How do we reach out to them? And it is my strong belief that that is the battlefield that we have to worry about, and that is where we have been losing badly over the last seven years. That is where Iraq has been a disaster. That is where the lack of effective public diplomacy has been a disaster. That is where our failure to challenge seriously human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia that are our allies has been a disaster. And so what we have to do is to speak to that broader Muslim world in a way that says we will consistently support human rights, women’s rights…. Those all contribute to people at least being open to our values and our ideas and a recognition that we are not the enemy and that the clash of civilizations is not inevitable.

Now, as I said, we enter into those conversations with the Muslim world being mindful that we also have to defend ourselves against those who will not accept the West, no matter how appropriately we engage. And that is the realism that has to leaven our hopefulness. But, we abandon the possibility of conversation with that broader Muslim world at our own peril. I think all we do then is further isolate it and feed the kinds of jihadist fanaticism….

To me, that’s great stuff. It exemplifies the reasons why I’ve supported Obama, and to the extent that it incites the radical fringe against him, all the better!

John McCain, for his part, talks about creating a “single, independent public diplomacy agency” to reverse our “unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas” (a phrase I seem to recall from the Kerry campaign). He calls understanding foreign cultures a “strategic necessity”, and advocates helping moderate Muslims against extremists. While I think that his vision of public diplomacy is overly militarized, really more about strategic information operations than about dialogue or public diplomacy, at least he’s got well-developed ideas about the subject. We disagree, but there’s something there to have an argument about.

But Hillary Clinton…. nothing. [complete article]

How to lose by winning
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, March 5, 2008

What was the key to Hillary McClinton’s success last night? She proved – again – fear works, thus demonstrating why she’s already conceded to McCain. And she won big where Democrats are sure to lose in November: rural America. That sounds, at least to me, like the definition of a pyrrhic victory.

Some hateful, radical ministers — white evangelicals — are acceptable
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, February 28, 2008

One of this week’s hysterical press scandals was that Minister Louis Farrakhan praised Barack Obama’s candidacy even though Obama had previously denounced numerous Farrakhan remarks and the Obama campaign did nothing to seek out the Farrakhan praise. Nonetheless, Tim Russert demanded that Obama jump through multiple hoops to prove that he has no connection to — and, in fact, “rejects” — the ideas espoused by Farrakhan deemed to be radical and hateful.

Yesterday, though, the equally fringe, radical and hateful (at least) Rev. John Hagee — a white evangelical who is the pastor of a sprawling “mega-church” in Texas — enthusiastically endorsed John McCain. Did McCain have to jump through the same hoops which Russert and others set up for Obama and “denounce” Hagee’s extremism and “reject” his support? No; quite the opposite. McCain said he was “very honored” to receive this endorsement and, when asked about some of Hagee’s more twisted views, responded: “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.” [complete article]

Obama and the ‘Jewish Vote’
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, February 27, 2008

The reason people around the world are excited about the possibility of an Obama presidency is that they see in him a person who appears to live by that credo “neither inferior, nor superior, to anyone.” And that’s in marked contrast to the arrogance with which every U.S. president of the past quarter century has addressed the world.

Hillary Clinton is so imprisoned in this haughty arrogance that she mocks Obama for even suggesting that the starting point in dealing with Iran, or Cuba is to talk to the adversary and understand his concerns. Nope, Hillary is very much part of the bark-into-a-megaphone school of international affairs, of which the Bush Administration has simply been the zenith. [complete article]

America’s ghost story
By James Carroll, International Herald Tribune, February 25, 2008
The unfolding political contest in the United States is a window into America’s soul. The nation is arguing with itself. The candidates embody separate impulses. As voters choose sides, a red state-blue state polarity again takes shape. Within the Democratic Party, the dispute is narrower, but still sharp. Yet in truth, each citizen carries within herself or himself the structure of the conflict: hard versus soft, experience versus change, programmed versus spontaneous, self-interest versus empathy, hope in an open future versus lessons from the past. Politics, by isolating these positions and attributing them to one candidate over against another, parodies the interior struggle of every American.

In this era, humans have been cut loose from ancient moorings of meaning and purpose. The context within which this condition is most manifest in the United States is the debate – or, more precisely, the lack thereof – over what is called “national security.” The phrase is potent because it promises something that is impossible, since the human condition is by definition insecure. When candidates vie with one another over who is most qualified to be “commander in chief,” and when they unanimously promise to strengthen military readiness, they together reinforce the dominant American myth – that an extravagant social investment of treasure and talent in armed power of the group offers members of the group escape from the existential dread that comes with life on a dangerous planet. That such investment only makes the planet more dangerous matters little, since the feeling of security, rather than actual security, is the goal of the entire project.

The most wanted list
By Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch, February 26, 2008
On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hizbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. “The world is a better place without this man in it,” State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: “one way or the other he was brought to justice.” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh has been “responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden.”

Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as “one of the U.S. and Israel’s most wanted men” was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, “A militant wanted the world over,” an accompanying story reported that he was “superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden” after 9/11 and so ranked only second among “the most wanted militants in the world.”

The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines “the world” as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that “the world” fully supported George Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. That may be true of “the world,” but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight. In Latin America, which has some experience with U.S. behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional upon the culprits being identified (they still weren’t eight months later, the FBI reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by “the world.”

Inside a failed Palestinian police state
By Arthur Nelson, Rootless Cosmopolitan, February 26, 2008
The death of Hamas preacher Majed al-Barghouti in a prison cell last week — apparently after being tortured — momentarily shattered the surface calm of news reports from Ramallah. But neither the subsequent rioting nor the fact that the dead man came from one of the most prominent Palestinian families disrupted the ‘democracy versus terror’ agenda that has distorted most news reporting out of the West Bank since last June (when Hamas took control of Gaza).

Martin Luther King once described rioting as ‘the voice of the unheard,’ but despite al-Barghouti’s death, most Ramallans currently seem too depressed to riot. The only events to have lifted spirits in the city lately have been a freak snow storm, and a similarly rare suicide bombing in Dimona — the latter prompting local shopkeepers to cut prices for the morning and, in one case, to waive payment altogether.

More typical events in the last week have included a mysterious explosion, continued Israeli army raids, and a major downtown gunfight between PA ’security’ forces in balaclavas and youths from the city’s Amari refugee camp. The violence, unheard outside Ramallah, is at once cause, effect and byproduct of a pervasive gloom that has settled over ‘Fatahland’ like smog.

Panetta’s lament: they had no plan
By Niall Stanage, New York Observer, February 26, 2008
The argument that the constant carping about Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been a function of an Obama-friendly, process-obsessed media is well and good. But how, then, to explain the deeply held dissatisfaction of an old Clinton loyalist like Leon Panetta?

In an interview with The Observer, Mr. Panetta compared Mrs. Clinton’s top strategist Mark Penn to Karl Rove, suggested that the Clinton campaign had totally underestimated Barack Obama’s appeal, and complained about the overall lack of planning that he said had characterized the former First Lady’s bid to return to the White House.

It’s OK to vote for Obama because he’s black
By Gary Kamiya, Salon, February 26, 2008
I admit it: I’m voting for Barack Obama because he’s black. Yes, I’m voting for him because he’s qualified, intelligent, charismatic and competent — and because unlike Hillary Clinton, he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. But if he weren’t black, and Hillary had opposed the war, I’d probably vote for her because of her greater experience. In any case, it’s a moot point, because if Obama weren’t black, he would not be the Democratic front-runner.

I believe that most of Obama’s supporters are voting for him for the same reason. Like me, they’re drawn to his idealism, his youthful energy, his progressive politics. But it’s his blackness that seals the deal.

And that’s OK. In fact, it’s wonderful.

A war we must end
By John Podesta, Ray Takeyh and Lawrence J. Korb, Washington Post, February 26, 2008
Despite the Democratic presidential candidates’ expressed commitment to ending the war in Iraq, there is unease among the party’s base. Some ardent activists have suggested that upon election, a new Democratic president will come under inordinate pressure to sustain the U.S. military commitment to Iraq, albeit with some modifications. This concern demonstrates both the difficulty of ending a controversial war and the necessity of doing so.

Even a cursory examination of American history reveals the complexity of concluding a war that has taken on such a stark partisan tint. The shadow of Vietnam looms, as it has become standard Republican narrative that back then it was the Democrats in Congress who stabbed America in the back by cutting off funding for a winning cause. The fact that the war was lost in Southeast Asia, as opposed to the halls of Congress, is no matter. The Republican machine will press this same theme should it lose the White House in November. A Democratic administration would be accused of surrendering to evildoers, as once more the dovish successors of George McGovern are wrongly said to have pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Such self-serving claims do not diminish the need and justification for ending one of America’s longest and most misguided wars. Republicans will claim that after four years of disastrous mistakes, the Bush administration finally got it right with its troop “surge.” Yet even despite the loss of nearly 1,000 American lives and the expenditure of $150 billion, the surge has failed in its stated purpose: providing the Iraqi government with the breathing space to pass the 18 legislative benchmarks the Bush administration called vital to political reconciliation. To date it has passed only four. Moreover, as part of the surge, the administration has further undermined Iraq’s government by providing arms and money to Sunni insurgent groups even though they have not pledged loyalty to Baghdad.

Who’s got the power?
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, February 24, 2008
President George W. Bush could be forgiven for underestimating China: He had spent some months there in the mid-1970s, when his father was U.S. Ambassador to Beijing. His firsthand experience of a largely pre-industrial colossus could hardly have prepared him for dealing with the China of today — a China to which the U.S. owes some $1.5 trillion and counting, and to which America’s beleaguered banks turn for the multibillion dollar loans required to keep them afloat.

By the time Bush took office, of course America was well aware of China’s growing economic significance — its ability to produce quality goods at lower prices for U.S. corporations had already largely gutted the U.S. manufacturing sector, and American politicians routinely complained about Chinese currency policy and the ballooning the U.S. trade deficit. (Less is said, of course, about the Chinese credit that allows Americans to consume way beyond their means — by one estimate, Beijing has loaned an equivalent of $4,000 to every person in the U.S. over the past decade alone.)

Honey, I shrank the superpower
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, February 18, 2008
In a snide reference to Bill Clinton’s 1992 promise to “build a bridge into the 21st century,” Barack Obama recently quipped that what Hillary Clinton really offers is a bridge back into the 20th century. Yet, a bridge back into the last century may be what all the major candidates are offering when they promise to restore the American leadership and primacy. The Republicans promise to restore American power by staying the course in Iraq, threatening Iran, and staring down “radical Islamic terrorism,” which John McCain calls “the transcendent issue of the 21st century.” The Democrats envisage turning the clock back eight years, restoring post-Cold War American primacy simply by adopting a more sober and consensus-based style. The problem, of course, is that while Bush’s reckless forays into the Middle East have accelerated the decline of America’s strategic influence, there’s little reason to believe that this decline can be reversed either by more of the same, or by a less abrasive tenant in the Oval Office.

Rising inflation creates unease in Middle East
By Robert F. Worth, New York Times, February 25, 2008
Even as it enriches Arab rulers, the recent oil-price boom is helping to fuel an extraordinary rise in the cost of food and other basic goods that is squeezing this region’s middle class and setting off strikes, demonstrations and occasional riots from Morocco to the Persian Gulf.

Here in Jordan, the cost of maintaining fuel subsidies amid the surge in prices forced the government to remove almost all the subsidies this month, sending the price of some fuels up 76 percent overnight. In a devastating domino effect, the cost of basic foods like eggs, potatoes and cucumbers doubled or more.

In Saudi Arabia, where inflation had been virtually zero for a decade, it recently reached an official level of 6.5 percent, though unofficial estimates put it much higher. Public protests and boycotts have followed, and 19 prominent clerics posted an unusual statement on the Internet in December warning of a crisis that would cause “theft, cheating, armed robbery and resentment between rich and poor.”

The inflation has many causes, from rising global demand for commodities to the monetary constraints of currencies pegged to the weakening American dollar. But one cause is the skyrocketing price of oil itself, which has quadrupled since 2002. It is helping push many ordinary people toward poverty even as it stimulates a new surge of economic growth in the gulf.

Gates’ good advice for Turkey ought to be applied across the Middle East
Editorial, Daily Star, February 25, 2008
US Defense Secretary Bob Gates had something very sensible to say on Sunday, warning his NATO ally Turkey that military action alone is not a solution to the problem of Kurdistan Workers Party rebels based in neighboring Iraq. He stressed that “dialogue” was an under-used tool in the conflict, and specified that this should be an ongoing process rather than an ad-hoc one employed exclusively during crises. “These economic and political measures are really important because after a certain point people become inured to military attacks,” Gates said. “If you don’t blend them with these kinds of non-military initiatives then at a certain point the military efforts become less and less effective.” As for the current Turkish campaign in Iraq, he said, “the shorter the better.”

It is precisely this kind of blunt advice that America’s allies in the volatile Middle East need to receive from the lone remaining superpower, a reminder that many issues simply cannot be made to go away by killing people. Unfortunately, however, the US government has been inured against this kind of logic for years, at least insofar as it regards Israel. That country’s multi-faceted conflict with the Arab and Islamic worlds has long been the prime mover of regional instability, and its habit of resorting to violence only makes the issues at stake more and more complicated. Worse yet, it rarely receives the kind of counsel that Turkey did from Gates.

In Israel, some see no option but war
By Griff Witte, Washington Post, February 25, 2008
Aharon Peretz has spent most of his 51 years in this cactus-fringed, working-class town, and he would like to stay.

But his wife and six children feel differently: Daily retreats to the basement during rocket strikes from the nearby Gaza Strip have frayed their nerves, and an attack that cost an uncle both his legs has convinced them it’s time to go.

Peace will return for his family, Peretz has decided, only if Israel chooses to go to war with his neighbors.

Qatar willing to broker cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas
By Barak Ravid ,Haaretz, February 25, 2008
Qatar is willing to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamed bin Jassem al-Thani, told MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz) in Doha on Sunday.

Beilin, a former deputy foreign minister, met the Qatari at a conference for retired foreign ministers. Al-Thani also acts as his country’s foreign minister.

“You are making a big mistake if you think you can reach an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas without including Hamas in the talks,” said the Qatari premier, according to a report of the conversation received by Haaretz. Hamas, continued al-Thani, “must be taken into account,” because even if talks do progress with Abbas, “he will not be able to sign an agreement without Hamas’s consent.”