Joesph Wilson: Obama's Illusions on Foreign Policy

[Freddie Stubbs]

Sen. Barack Obama declared in Pennsylvania on March 27 that his foreign policy would "return" to that of George H.W. Bush and that Sens. John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton both had strayed from that model. Having served in the first Bush administration, as acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War, and subsequently as ambassador to two African nations, I cannot fathom what Obama is asserting.

His entire foreign-policy claim that he would be a better president than Hillary Clinton rests on the slender reed that he possesses intuitively superior judgment, which would have led him to vote against the Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq had he been in the U.S. Senate in October 2002.

The first President Bush (Bush 41), of course, has publicly supported his son (Bush 43) throughout the second conflict in Iraq.

When Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990, I was in charge of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, responsible for the safe release of Americans held hostage, and I personally confronted Saddam to persuade him to depart Kuwait peacefully. It was axiomatic in our approach that the only way to influence Iraqi behavior would be to threaten military action in the event Saddam did not respond to diplomatic demands. If we were going to make those threats credible, we would have to be prepared to act on them, which we were, and which we did, with full international backing.

more: http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27376

[anonymous171]

1. No links to RW sites please.

[QC]

3. Yes, only the Obama faction is allowed to post wingnut propagandists. n/t

[papau]

6. LOL - yep - Obama makes the rules for DU - or so some think

[QC]

11. Haven't you heard? This is ObamaUnderground now. n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. Perhaps you should alert the mods, as linking to RW wibsites is against DU rules

Go ahead. I dare you. ;)

[Tom Rinaldo]

30. Oh Oh. I just linked to a YearlyKos Netroots Nation Press Release

It boasted about their national advisory panel that included Taylor Marsh. Did I just link to a Right Wing web site also?

[indimuse]

41. LOL!

pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzze.... you people are too much! KEEP POSTING FACT!!! NO matter were we get it! When I come here, I get nothing but Hillary made stories disguising itself as fact. At this point..does it matter where the facts are coming from?

[JoFerret]

75. Uh oh - wipes out

links to obama campaign sites. He is so middle of the road milquetoast on so many issues he sounds like a nice polite r/w.

[leftofcool]

2. good post

[Alter Ego]

4. Ah, Taylor Marsh...the Ann Coulter of the left.

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. Whatever your feelings, she isn't quoted. Only Ambassador Joe Wilson

And as for Taylor Marsh being the Ann Coulter of the left. Funny, that doesn't seem to be what kos thought last summer:

"We are proud to announce today the twelve individuals serving on the Advisory Board for the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum to be held August 4 in Chicago.

Advisory Board members are: Sen. Gary Hart; Vice President Walter Mondale; Sen. George McGovern; strategist Donna Brazile; John Aravosis, AmericaBlog; Eric Davis, Democracy for Illinois; Adam Green, MoveOn.org; Taylor Marsh, TaylorMarsh.com; Ari Melber, The Nation; James Rucker, ColorofChange.org; Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute; and Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake.com."
http://www.yearlykosconvention.org/node/380

[JimGinPA]

5. In A Related Story - Joe Wilson In The 14th Minute Of Fame

It's about up Joe.

[cali]

7. ack. that's weak, Joe, really weak

wriggling kind of desperately there trying to say that bush sr's policies were the same as jr's, but then supporting the very policies that Obama praised. Of course you were a bush sr appointee.

[babylonsister]

8. Bwhahaha! Taylor Marsh, Ms. Porn?? Joe needs a better

outlet for his rants, methinks.

Here's someone's opinion that's a worthy read:

Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy In Focus analyst, is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco.


http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4940

Behind Obama and Clinton

Stephen Zunes | February 4, 2008

Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org


Voters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rightly disappointed by the similarity of the foreign policy positions of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. However, there are still some real discernable differences to be taken into account. Indeed, given the power the United States has in the world, even minimal differences in policies can have a major difference in the lives of millions of people.

As a result, the kind of people the next president appoints to top positions in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs is critical. Such officials usually emerge from among a presidential candidate’s team of foreign policy advisors. So, analyzing who these two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination have brought in to advise them on international affairs can be an important barometer for determining what kind for foreign policies they would pursue as president. For instance, in the case of the Bush administration, officials like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle played a major role in the fateful decision to invade Iraq by convincing the president that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and that American forces would be treated as liberators.

The leading Republican candidates have surrounded themselves with people likely to encourage the next president to follow down a similarly disastrous path. But what about Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? Who have they picked to help them deal with Iraq war and the other immensely difficult foreign policy decisions that they'll be likely to face as president?
Contrasting Teams

Senator Clinton’s foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor - and her likely choice for Secretary of State - is Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke served in a number of key roles in her husband’s administration, including U.S. ambassador to the UN and member of the cabinet, special emissary to the Balkans, assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, and U.S. ambassador to Germany. He also served as President Jimmy Carter’s assistant secretary of state for East Asia in propping up Marcos in the Philippines, supporting Suharto’s repression in East Timor, and backing the generals behind the Kwangju massacre in South Korea.

Senator Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers, who on average tend to be younger than those of the former first lady, include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democratic administrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navy secretary Richard Danzig. They have also included some of the more enlightened and creative members of the Democratic Party establishment, such as Joseph Cirincione and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. His team also includes the noted human rights scholar and international law advocate Samantha Power - author of a recent New Yorker article on U.S. manipulation of the UN in post-invasion Iraq - and other liberal academics. Some of his advisors, however, have particularly poor records on human rights and international law, such as retired General Merrill McPeak, a backer of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, and Dennis Ross, a supporter of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

more...

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4940

[Tom Rinaldo]

24. Yep. Taylor MArsh. National Advisory Panel member to 2007 Yearlykos Netroots Convention

"We are proud to announce today the twelve individuals serving on the Advisory Board for the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum to be held August 4 in Chicago.

Advisory Board members are: Sen. Gary Hart; Vice President Walter Mondale; Sen. George McGovern; strategist Donna Brazile; John Aravosis, AmericaBlog; Eric Davis, Democracy for Illinois; Adam Green, MoveOn.org; Taylor Marsh, TaylorMarsh.com; Ari Melber, The Nation; James Rucker, ColorofChange.org; Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute; and Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake.com."

http://www.yearlykosconvention.org/node/380

[babylonsister]

29. So? I'm still not impressed, AT ALL. She's a Hill shill through and

through.

[Tom Rinaldo]

31. It's fine to not be impressed by her.

There are plenty of netroots bloggers highly partisan to Obama who no doubt are more to your liking.

[Cha]

58. I'm thinking joe wilson really really likes

it how the old DC is run and doesn't welcome a change in Washington..what do you think?

[jackson_dem]

73. How dare some on the "netroots" not accept the messiah!

[Hawkeye-X]

9. Great. You're posting from a confirmed liar in regards to being a radio host?

Great. No wonder no true media is picking up Taylor Marsh - because she's a confirmed liar, podcaster, and a porn hack.

Hawkeye-X

[Cha]

59. A "confirmed liar" like hilary..how

cozy.

[truebrit71]

10. Wow, what a steaming pile of shit THAT website is...

...:puke:

[SeaLyons]

12. Joe Wilson and his wife

are American heroes, and anyone that doesn't believe what he says is a fool.

[whatchamacallit]

19. Don't they call John McCain an American Hero?

I guess you'll be voting with your flag then?

[SeaLyons]

27. I'll be voting for the most

qualified and experienced "democratic" candidate. That would be Hillary Clinton.

Thanks,

:hi:

[whatchamacallit]

28. Not in the GE you won't

:hi:

[SeaLyons]

33. We'll see....

:hi:

[whatchamacallit]

40. Yes, yes we will...

:hi:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

37. Do you believe everything John McCain says? nt

[JoFerret]

74. Wilson and Plame are people of courage

and integrity.

[whatchamacallit]

13. Joe Blow

No matter what he says about Obama, he still can't point to any meaningful FP accomplishments by Hillary, so what's the fucking point?

[JoFerret]

76. Silly

.

[ProSense]

14. Has Joe Wilson written anything about the Bosnian snipers or the Colombian connection?

Has he explained Hillary's silence before the invasion and in 2004 when Bill was defending Bush "against the left on Iraq"?

Add another person to the pile of Hillary hacks (putting their credibility on the line with lame stories).

[zulchzulu]

22. Oddly, Joe Wilson has mentioned NOTHING about the Heroine of Tuzla

Wow. What a surprise? Hmmm... Wes Clark seems to be mum on the subject as well.

Gee, I wonder why...

[NJmaverick]

15. History has shown JUDGMENT is the major factor

When predicting a president's success. Experience has not been a very good indicator. So much for Joe Wilson's judgment.

[DemGa]

17. A good read --

"Obama claims that an antiwar speech he made while running for state Senate in the most liberal district in Illinois is proof of his superior intuitive judgment. But if Obama had been in Washington at that time, participating in the national debate, he would have come face to face with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the same Colin Powell who, as Gen. Powell, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the first Bush administration, the one Obama wishes to emulate.

Powell would have told him, as he told the other senators he briefed at that time, including Sen. Clinton, that the president wanted to use the Authorization for the Use of Military Force resolution not to go to war but, rather, as leverage to go to the United Nations to secure intrusive inspections. George W. Bush repeated this claim publicly."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080406_Obama_s_illusions_on_foreign_policy.html

[Infinite Hope]

18. They both possess Senate foreign policy experience and nothing else beyond indirect experience. n/t

[zulchzulu]

20. I like the snarky "he possesses intuitively superior judgment"

Yes, Joe. He, um... figured it out, buddy. Was he a sucker for Chimpy? Um...no, Joe...he wasn't. Guess who was...

[PBS Poll-435]

32. I forgot! You are sooo right. I remember it like this, don't you?

Congress was on a field trip that week. (They went to museums and STUFF on the Mall.)

Ol' Denny Hastert & Dr. CatKiller had a great idea - let the state legislatures vote in their stead!

No one will notice, and it will give an aspiring state senator from Illinois valuable experience.

So...that fateful day, State Senator Obama did, in fact, vote on the issue of the AUFM.

He said -

"For too, people have played gotcha on the important and complicated issues that come before us."

"Not this time, not this year."

"For too long, Senators have been rushed into voting one way or another before reading the bill."

"Not this time, not this year."

"For too long, the national media has tried to pigeonhole us based on one or two votes out of thousands cast."

"We can stop that now!"

"Yes we can. Yes, we can."

"With one simple word we can stop all of this. We can turn the page and write a new chapter."

"Yes we can. Yes, we can."



"Present!"

[zulchzulu]

42. So Obama's use of the "present" vote to stop bad legislation = Hillary's IWR vote?

:rofl:

Is "Desperado" the new Hillary Clinton theme song?

[PBS Poll-435]

43. No....

I just don't remember Obama voting one way or the other. He sure continues to fund it without a fuss though.

[grantcart]

21. Thursday already? - thanks for the reminder

[olkaz]

25. Love ya, Joe, but expecting a father to not support his son, is, well...

Junior has said multiple times that he appeals to a "higher father". He doesn't ask his dad about being president, ever. Bush I has had zero input in the administration.

With that said, expecting a father to denounce his son publicly is not going to happen.

[oviedodem]

26. I know this is a hard thing to accept BUT the 1st Iraq war was warranted. You cannot

invade a sovereign land like that and expect everyone to be OK with it. If you remember,Powell and Bush Sr. DID NOT push to take over Iraq because the GOAL was to remove them from Kuwait. Now maybe daddy Bush regretted it but it was the right decision. What I don't like about Hillary with respect to foreign policy is that she and others in her campaign are pushing (even slightly) the Iranian influence/nuclear concept.

While it may be real there is not an eminent threat much like Iraq was not and look what happened there. It is actually OK for a Dem or Republican to acknowledge the good in the other. What Taylor glosses over is that Obama may agree with Bush on the first but CLEARLY does not agree with his support for this war.

[ieoeja]

38. Correct. But we did do one thing wrong regarding the 1st war.

We stayed. After the liberation of Kuwait we should have pulled out. Instead we established camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, a virtual occupation of southern Iraq, the no-fly zone, etc. Which is the reason the Muslim Brotherhood cited for attacking the WTC in 1993, and Al Qaeda cited for attacking it in 2001.

"They attacked us first," the rightwinger cries in defense of the 2003 war. "Actually, no, we have occupied portions of Iraq since 1991," comes the silent response to rightwing ignorance.

[cooolandrew]

Whoa that is a heavy duty attack. Why does Obam reject the DLC and PAC money if this were so.

[cooolandrew]

34. Whoa that is a heavy duty attack. Why does Obama not belong to the DLC and PACmoney if this were so.

Now let me remember who stood against the war in 2002?

[Justitia]

35. So, how does Wilson sell his soul to support someone who ignored his advice and voted us into Iraq?

I will never, never understand that.

If Joe Wilson had the courage of his convictions, at least those he alleged in his Op-Ed "What I Didn't Find in Africa";

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?ex=1208242837&ei=1&en=cbe01e6837e87a80

how the hell can his conscience do a complete 180 and allow him to support the candidate who not only dismissed his clarion call, but absolutely ran over it to drag the nation into the biggest foreign policy blunder of our time?

I can only surmise that Joe Wilson, like Hillary Clinton, has an uncanny ability to shape-shift the core of his personal integrity in the name of political expediency.

Sorry Joe, like Hillary before you, I can never have confidence in the judgment of someone who can so easily discard reality to meld themselves to a craven political perspective.

What a supreme disappointment you turned out to be.

[MyNameGoesHere]

36. george "field marshall" bush 1 gave us Grenada,

Iraq 1, and Somalia. I hope Obama really did not say this.

[Freddie Stubbs]

39. The invasion or Grenada was in 1983, six years before Bush became President

[MyNameGoesHere]

45. Yes and he was vice president. your point? Oh yeah that's right

raygun, another republican that Obama seems to admire was president. See that's the thing, my image of raygun was when he was probably shitting his pants and drooling on himself, in a constant state of dementia. That's MY admiration for him and very comforting indeed. i do not admire, respect or even want to consider going back to the ideas and ways of these people like Obama seems to want.

[burythehatchet]

44. Fuck. You. Joe. Wilson. Get yourself a job. Nobody but Taylor Marsh cares.

[depakid]

63. Now, that was insightful.

[Barack_America]

46. Sorry, but I'll take Susan Rice over Joe Wilson anyday.

Obama's foreign policy team is top notch.

And I'm pretty shocked to find Democrats criticizing reduction of America's bullying interest on the rest of the world.

[burythehatchet]

48. I can't wait until that lady who stepped aside comes back. She is great

[PBS Poll-435]

49. Ms. Power?

She made such a contribution last time and all...

[Barack_America]

50. Lol. You have no idea who Samantha Power is, do you?

At her young age, she has made more of a contribution to this world than most of us ever will.

Why did you assume that she's not accomplished anything? Did her gender have anything to do with that assumption?

[PBS Poll-435]

52. I never said that she was unaccomplished.

She is a VERY accomplished author and scholar.

I would just wait to bring her back until the election is over...

[cali]

54. ignorant

aren't you?

[PBS Poll-435]

56. Rude and Wrong

aren't you

She is brilliant. She is a great scholar and writer.
Too good for politics, IMHO.

[wowimthere]

64. Amen... I'll take Susan Rice and Samantha Powers over anybody...

Hillary has to offer.

[depakid]

65. delete

[burythehatchet]

47. transcript of the phone call

JW: Hello
TM: Hi Joe, It's Taylor
JW: Oh jeez...what do you want?
TM: ...another hit piece
JW: Just recycle my old crap Taylor, I'm busy
TM: I need you to write something Joe..Hillary's tanking nationwide
JW: What the hell do you want me to do about it?
TM: Write another hit piece on Lord Obama
JW: How much?
TM: You know we can't discuss that on the phone...the usual
JW: Fine, I'll have Wolfson...I mean I'll type something up
TM: Thanks Joe, you're a life saver
JW: Yeah, at one time I was
TM: You still can be Joe, we're trying to save our gal's political life
JW: Too late for that...see ya.

[samsingh]

51. i respect the Wilson's. it does concern me that they

don't support Obama.

i have to wonder why - what is the weakness they see.

[Cha]

55. Or what is the "weakness" they 're

fucking making up outta straw because that's what hilary's surrogates do.

[samsingh]

67. yes, but are the Wilson's their surrogates?

[samsingh]

68. Zidzi - you've got almost 64,000 posts!!!!

good stuff.

clearly you've had a lot to say.

[hulka38]

53. Joe is in the tank for Hillary. I think it's more about past political alliances and potential

positions than him being worried about Obama's foreign policy positions. Joe did a great thing in standing up to the Bush administration and blowing the whistle on the yellow cake speech and I admire his wife a lot. But his words cannot change the fact that Bush I got it right diplomatically in 1990, and his candidate Hillary got it wrong on the IWR in 2002.
The nature of the threat from the 1990 Saddam was far worse than the 2002 Saddam. In fact, it turns out that Saddam was not a threat to America what-so-ever in 2002. That's not a small point, it's the whole enchilada. That Wilson decides to omit that from the equation tells me that he knows he can't make a strong case here but is trying to advocate for the Clintons in whatever way he can. That's unfortunate because it doesn't help to educate the undecided voter with respect to U.S.-Iraq policy the past two decades.

[newmajority]

57. The fact that all the CIA hacks are supporting Clinton is one more reason to not vote for her.

Maybe those rumors of Bill (and possibly Hillary herself) being part of the Langley mafia were true after all?

While it was wrong for the Bush Crime Family to do what they did to Valerie Plame and her associates at "Brewster Jennings", that doesn't make the CIA heroes. For the most part, they are thugs who have manipulated the Cold War, created terrorism, escalated international drug smuggling (to fund themselves) and kept the "defense" industry alive.

Harry Truman called them a "tool of Wall Street bankers" back in the 40's, and he was correct. The CIA was founded by the very same cabal of Prescott Bush and his friends who funded Adolf Hitler.

So fuck the Wilsons, fuck Larry Johnson, and every other CIA tool who is somehow promoted as a "hero" by some in this party. They are nothing of the kind.

Oh, and fuck Taylor Marsh too. With a rusty chainsaw.

[PoliticalAmazon]

60. taylormarsh.com? More harm to Hillary than benefit. n/t

[still_one]

61. hmmm, I don't buy it, but what he did say is that he would open a dialog with Iran

saying that refusing to talk with our advasries has propelled us to where we are today

[wowimthere]

62. you know you can't take someone like Wilson and Davis and Rendell seriously...

when they can't answer to all of the lies of the candidate they support. Have you heard them? They are all smooth talkers who do one thing perfectly... Talk Bullshit!

[zulchzulu]

66. Looking at Obama's ACTUAL quote, Joe Wilson is really out on his ass on this

Here's what Obama said in a recent speech:

"The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Bush that's been naive and it's people like John McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naive ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation around the world," Obama said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/03/29/2008-03-29_obamas_foreign_policy_role_models_george.html

So Joe, are you saying that having a foreign policy that is more bipartisan is a BAD THING? Should the Goldwater Girl, the Heroine of Tuzla, the Poor Sport of De-Coronation...should she only get her way like some chimp in the Oval is doing now?

Maybe Joe gets a table dance from Taylor Marshall if he submits a blog entry... Joe...Joe...Joe...

[jillan]

69. Obama recently praised George H W Bush on Larry King, so this is no surprise to me.

[ShortnFiery]

70. Not this recycled bullshit again. Come up for air Taylor Marsh?

:crazy:

[OzarkDem]

71. Obama wants to return to George HW Bush's foreign policy?

Why?

Any answers Obama supporters about why you think he should do that?

[hulka38]

72. Because the 1990 diplomatic effort by H.W. will be the gold standard for U.S. Presidents

for decades to come and the 2002 coerce, bribe, lie, intimidate and finally go it alone policy of W will live in infamy as exactly what not to do. I am dismayed by the lack of historical perspective by some Democrats.