OBAMA TAKES THE JOHN MCCAIN CHALLENGE AND WINS BIG
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistI feel sorry for John McCain:
The current lame-duck candidate for the GOP.No one asked him to challenge Obama a few months ago to take a trip to the Middle East–
let alone expect Obama to call John’s bluff.But he did both and now McCain is grinding his government-paid dentures in agitation and frustration over just how
popular Obama was seen over in Berlin this past week.
While John had perhaps a dozen voters join him in a German restaurant in Ohio for a quick photo-op, Barrack Obama had over 200,000
people attend his speech over at the Wall in Berlin, Germany; speaking to a crowd of people whom represented the hopes and dreams of better US-European relations. (Which have soured considerably under the Bush presidency.)
And what does John McCain have waiting for Barrack Obama when he comes back? Nothing but
bitter acrimony and divisive comments about the
same trip he once challenged Obama on the matter of foreign policy.
Why?
Because John McCain was expecting Obama to fall on his face when he went.
He was expecting Obama to eat crow over the recent success of the surge and come back feeling humiliated and subdued; while getting an invigorating boost
in his lackluster polls and standing with most American voters.
That didn’t happen.
What
did happen was the exact
opposite!
Malaki actually
endorsed Obama’s 16-month troop withdrawal plan; rather than give McCain more hate-filled political rhetoric for his GOP campaign!
That in
itself boosted Obama’s foreign policy credentials, while his trip to Berlin shored up his stance as an able-bodied
Commander-in-Chief.
Someone whom could
talk at the same level of everyone else–instead of treating our allies like chumps and every event in the Middle East as some kind of video game that we can
win simply by force and numbers alone.
Neither Bush nor McCain have proven themselves as capable leaders in either field. They still harbor the same Cold War malaise of the past 40 years; with one looking for a pariah-ic victory in Iraq, and the other still fighting the ghosts of Vietnam.
Obama on the other hand? He spoke from the
heart and spoke of everything which has not only kept this country divided for the last 8 years, but of things which most Europeans have long since abandoned since the Cold War ended:
Walls.You won’t hear this kind of talk from John “Lame Duck”-McCain. On his mind, anyone who isn’t with him is a ‘defeatist’ and only looking for America to “surrender” to the same
invisible enemies that he still hasn‘t been able to identify to this very day.
But in the long run, McCain has already surrendered his chances of obtaining the White House Presidency.
While Obama on the other hand–? Has won big by taking the very
risks that McCain simply refuses to candidly embrace as a whole.
Only because he’s plain afraid to.John McCain just simply doesn’t have the courage necessary to face today’s changing world–while embattled with his own fears of the past.
Obama does. And that makes him a more worthwhile candidate for President.Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Barrack Obama, Berlin, John McCain, lame duck, risks, speech, trip
IF THE MILITARY SURGE IS SO ‘SUCCESSFUL’–WHY NOT JUST LEAVE?
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistThe moment this Iraq war started to turn itself around, the military brass started to panic.
What if things do calm down–then what do we do?No one had any answers to that question. Neither did Bush nor McCain–both a strong advocate of ‘staying the course till victory is
declared’.
The military surge was in answer to the spiraling, out-of-control violence that threatened to tip Bush’s Iraq war into complete chaos without any way back.
So in went 30,000 troops whom pacified much of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. And while that did seem to shake things up a bit, there was still no progress on the political front.
Just recently, Malaki demanded that the US draw up a time table by next year–a
withdrawal date for all US troops to leave his country.
That–in effect–set off alarm bells all over the place. Not just for the Bush cabal, the military brass, but McCain’s camp and his supporters.
“We can’t leave!”--was the rallying cry for all involved.
“Setting withdrawal dates just plays into the enemies’ hands!”How odd that they would make such a statement–wouldn’t you think? After all, if the military surge is a ‘success’–why not just take Malaki on his offer and get the hell out of Dodge?
Pull all our troops out and push them into Afghanistan–where the real war is presently?
Trouble is, this would play right into Obama’s campaign strategy of troops withdrawal within a year and a half of him getting elected President; whereas McCain just wants to continue Bush’s feeble excuse for victory–by keeping our troops in a country that wasn’t even a
threat to begin with, but no longer poses much of a challenge for our military forces in the here and now.
And neither Bush nor McCain wants to see Obama get a boost from a viable plan that clearly countermands what they've had in play for the last 6 years.The insurgency has pretty much died out by the time the surge was completed–with no measurable amount of enemy casualties to show for an effective campaign. The only thing that the military brass was using were ridiculous charts and bar graphs to
show our incremental surges of progress–but in the end, it didn’t have that
electrifying of an effect on Congress as it did have on Bush and the war profiteers.
You would think that they would've been happy
by now!But no...they still aren't.
Now–with Malaki demanding that we leave his country far sooner than McCain or Bush would’ve liked–the military brass is now more worried about everything being ‘undone’ by such a withdrawal or even a ‘timetable’ for such.
Why–if things were such a ‘success’? Why worry at all? It’s a bit puzzling how the military should be the exact
opposite instead of fearful and agonizingly uncertain.
As they are now.
Which means, that all this talk of “success” is either vastly overstated, or the plain fact of the matter is that the Iraqis and Malaki have finally grown tired of the US’s mess left at that their doorstop to clean up after 6.5 years of brutal occupation–
and have demanded
that they leave.No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
And we have to leave; having overstayed our welcome.That is the nature of a war-torn country growing fed up with their incompetent occupiers--
is it not? Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Bush, Iraq war, John McCain, Malaki, Obama, timetables, withdrawal
DUMPING THE CONSTITUTION AND RULING BY PROXY INSTEAD
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistWith Bush’s latest move as a lame-duck President, this man has effectively
sealed our fate as a nation governed by rule of law and democracy.
The rules regarding FISA have been tossed out and warrantless spying on the American public is
in.
I’m so excited by this prospect of having an outlaw government run one of the world’s
largest superpowers, I just don’t know who to thank for providing the needed inspiration: Richard M. Nixon or Adolph Hitler!
Naturally, Bush is claiming that this has to be done in order to protect the American public, but the truth
is, is that Bush just wants to know what each and every one of us are doing every waking moment.
And that includes his party opposition as well. Why do you think he went out of his way to shield telecom companies from breaking the law–as they have for the last 6 years?
Whether it’s by product or design, the fundamental declarations made in our Constitution have made it
clear that our rights will
not be violated, nor will they be infringed upon!
But–as you can see–even the US
Constitution is finally no match for a man who has taken it upon himself to declare himself god and king of one of the most powerful nations on Earth.
Nixon tried to–as President–to get above the law precipice; to show to the American public back then that he wasn’t held accountable for his criminal acts.
But Congress reigned him in, slapped him down with impeachment proceedings, and almost had him removed from office–had he not
resigned.
However, Bush is one step above that and on the level of what Hitler managed to accomplish as supreme dictator of Nazi Germany.
Hitler turned that once proud nation into a despotic horror show by stripping their citizens of their rights, jailing or executing the opposition, and making it so that the Nazi Party wasn’t challenged or held accountable by its actions.
Much like the Republican Party has done already.Bush had just simply taken a page from ol’ Uncle Adolph and stripped us of our Constitution and settled on ruling by proxy instead.
And it is all perfectly legal
.And Congress’s reaction to all this?
Nothing.They just do what Bush forces them to do–
without question.Just like good little soldiers.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Congress, Constitution, immunity, imperial presidency, President Bush, proxy, warrantless wiretapping
