“Obama Kool-Aid” is a sample graphic from a new Flash animated movie absolutely guaranteed to offend everyone. Scheduled release date is October 4, 2008. Watch this space for details which will be made available as they are provided to us. In the meantime, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”
“I’m the only real gangsta in this election! Let’s see that oreo Barack represent up in here now!”
John McCain
Trinity Church of Christ, Chicago, 6/8/08 - Having accepted an offer from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to address the congregation, Republican presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain caused a near-riot today when he approached the pulpit attired in gangster rapper garb.
Members of the church security staff scuffled briefly with U.S. Secret Service Agents as both groups attempted to remove the Arizona Senator from the altar while congregation members expressed their displeasure with the would-be speaker with vociferous shouts of indignation that included references to Senator McCain’s ancestors and his personal reproductive preferences.
The move was seen by political pundits as a bold albeit misguided attempt to bolster his popularity amongst African-Americans, young voters, and elements of the criminal sub-culture — all groups with which he is trailing badly in the polls.
As he was being physically removed from the church, McCain shouted, “I’m the only real gangsta in this election! Let’s see that oreo Barack represent up in here now!”
An anonymous source within the McCain campaign told Fox News that image make-over was the candidate’s own idea, and included a memo instructing staffers to publicly refer to him as, “Mac Daddy” or “Ice Pops.”
Senator Obama was unavailable for comment, but an unnamed source close to the campaign told CNN that it was a pleasant departure from stereotype to see old Republicans trying to hang themselves for change.
Mr. Bush must acknowledge that there is no military solution for Iraq.
New York Times Editorial; NYTimes.com; 1/09/07
If one were naïve enough to rely solely upon what is reported in the mainstream American media, one would undoubtedly believe all of the following: that the war in Iraq is a hopeless quagmire; that the surge in U.S. troops has to failed to produce palpable results including the reduction of American casualties; that sectarian violence there remains at an all-time high; that al-Qaeda has expanded its influence in the region and is as powerful now as it has ever been; and that the economic outlook for Iraq remains poor.
We are pleased to inform you that you would be wrong on all counts.
In a nationally televised speech on January 10th, 2007, President Bush unveiled a new plan for Iraq. While acknowledging mistakes in his administration of the war, he proposed a new solution based largely upon the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. He had also considered the studies provided by the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In his address Bush insisted that failure to quell the violence and premature withdrawal of American forces would not be in the best long-term security interests of the United States.
“The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.”
President’s Address to the Nation; 1/10/07
He reasoned that many of the previous failures in Iraq were not due to the American military’s inability to eradicate threats from insurgent enclaves, but from a shortage of manpower that prevented coalition forces from maintaining an effective presence in these areas to which the insurgents would invariably return after the Americans had moved on to the next flash point. The plan would change from “clear and move on” to “clear and hold.”
This new strategy would require increased troop levels, and so he committed 20,000 additional U.S. forces to Iraq, the majority of which would be deployed to Baghdad, as 80% of sectarian violence was occurring within 30 miles of the city.
Further, while receiving accelerated training and support for its armed forces, Iraq would deploy 18 military and national police brigades in and around Baghdad. Using local police stations as operational bases, these forces would conduct patrols and man security checkpoints while making efforts to gain the trust of the Iraqi people by ensuring the safety of their neighborhoods.
Bush’s new plan had been highly anticipated and widely debated prior to his address to the nation. Almost unanimously, Democrats decried it as doomed to failure.
Obama said he wouldn’t support a troop increase. “I said definitively that I thought it was a bad idea,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Bloomberg.com; 1/5/07She said the US president was “taking troops away from Afghanistan, where I think we need to be putting more troops, and sending them to Iraq on a mission that I think has a very limited, if any, chance for success.”
Hillary Clinton; Guardian.co.uk; 1/17/07Yes, and, hopefully, the next president will understand that what we’ve been doing is not working. And I actually, myself, believe that this idea of surging troops, escalating the war, what Sen. McCain has been talking about, what I would call now the McCain doctrine… He’s been the most prominent spokesperson for this for some time… I’m just telling you it’s his thing, and I know John McCain very well; he and I are friends, but I think he’s dead wrong about this.
John Edwards to George Stephanopoulos; ABCNews.Go.com; 12/31/06“Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain,” the top two congressional Democratic leaders wrote in a letter to Bush. “It would undermine our efforts to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; CNN.com; 1/5/07Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that a troop surge would be a “tragic mistake.”
NYTimes.com; 1/07/07A spokeswoman for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who, Tuesday, urgently called for Congress to vote on — and reject — the proposed surge, told ABC News that the arrival of additional soldiers “underscores Sen. Kennedy’s point that Congress must act immediately.”
ABCNews.Go.com; 1/10/07“President Bush and McCain, the front-runner for the party’s 2008 presidential nomination, will have trouble finding support from more than 12 of the 49 Republican senators when pressing for a surge of 30,000 troops. “It’s Alice in Wonderland,” Sen. Chuck Hagel, second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, told me in describing the proposal. “I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.”…Just as the president is ready to address the nation on Iraq, Biden next week begins three weeks of hearings on the war. On the committee, Biden and Democrats Christopher Dodd (Conn.), John Kerry (Mass.), Russell Feingold (Wis.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) will compete for intensity in criticizing a troop surge.”
A ‘Surge’ Faces Trouble in the Senate by Robert D. Novak; WashingtonPost.com; 1/1/07
Even France’s much-esteemed leader insisted on adding his voice to the debate.*
In a scathing attack of the American-led war in Iraq, President Jacques Chirac said Friday that his predictions that the war would spread chaos and more terrorism had come true.
NYTimes.com; 1/07/07
Nearly 17 months have passed since Bush announced his plan to the nation, and nearly 12 months have passed since the 28,500 additional troops allocated to the surge have been deployed. The results may surprise you.
There were 19 U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May of 2008. This is the lowest monthly total since the invasion of March 2003. And while there are no guarantees that the trend will continue, it would certainly appear that attacks against American troops and sectarian violence are both waning. See Table 1.
Further, as Iraqi forces continue to take back their cities and towns from the genocidal gangs of insurgents, the looming threat of civil war has been all but eradicated. This is a remarkable departure from the general prognosis of only twelve months ago when the prospects of a viable sectarian peace seemed remote at best. See Table 2.
Originally a Sunni cause célèbre after naming Iraq as ground zero for Jihad against the western crusaders, al-Qaeda in Iraq appears to have worn out its welcome as former Sunni insurgents in ever-increasing numbers are now siding with their own government and coalition forces and against Bin Laden’s dwindling barbaric horde whose leaders are now more concerned with keeping their butts out of the cross hairs of the U.S. military, than funding, organizing and executing attacks against the Great Satan. Long gone are the good old days when Osama and the boys could kick off their sandals and lounge around brainstorming spectacular atrocities against the West while the President of the United States played hide the cigar in the White House.
Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
WashingtonPost.com; 5/30/08
As far as Iraq’s economic outlook is concerned, just this past month oil production reached 2.5 million barrels per day for the first time since the 2003 invasion, and is remarkably at its highest point since 2000. Prewar production (in 2002) was 2.03 million barrel/day. Continued increases in production will likely raise the number to 2.9 million BPD by the end of 2008.
Further, during the past eighteen months, the much-maligned Iraqi Dinar has gained 20% in value against the U.S. dollar. Continued increases are expected as the Iraqi economy stabilizes further.
What if Bush was actually right? Could it be that the surge has allowed coalition forces to simultaneously diminish the insurgent threat while training the Iraqi forces to do the same?
Trends such as these are certainly not good news for office-seeking Democrats who almost universally declared that the surge (a/k/a the McCain Doctrine) would be akin to throwing good money after bad. What they assumed would be an albatross for McCain may yet prove to be a winning issue. And once again, they will have no one to blame but themselves.
As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines. Want a real “inconvenient truth?” Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating. But that fact isn’t helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily. You won’t see that above the fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks — they’ve adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.
Success in Iraq: Media Blackout by Ralph Peters; ExileStreet.com; 5/26/08
As much dangerous work remains to be done, young Americans will continue to sacrifice their lives in Iraq. However, the future of democracy there looks brighter than ever. Maybe the media should clue in the American public — after all — we’re the ones paying the tab.
Additional Sources/Acknowledgements: Wikipedia; iCasualties.org; Forbes.com; The Quit-Iraq Time-Travelers by Ralph Peters, The New York Post, 5/29/08.
*Editorial aside to Mr. Chirac: Hey Jacques, please make every effort to stay out of our business. A sideline player should know his place. Just keep making that wine and cheese. If we need anything else, we’ll let you know.
As long as there is a Republican in the White House, Art Sulzberger, Jr., Publisher of The New York Times, can hear no good, see no good, and speak no good — at least not above the fold.
The last thing The New York Times will tell you.
Beginning with the revolutionary patriots who dared to stand against the tyranny of King George, through this very day on which many of our finest young men and women serve far from home so that others may benefit from the same freedoms and opportunities that have made us the envy of the world, we take this one day to pause and reflect upon a debt that can never be repaid, and for which we are all forever accountable.
We give thanks for those who gave more than could be asked, but not less than their love for our nation would allow.
You are not forgotten.
In an effort to put herself at the forefront of the issue, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi unveiled the Democrats’ now official Iraq Strategy — codename: “Operation Big Mama Sheehan.”
