First Door on the Left

Can you just imagine the screaming and outrage from the right had it been Barack Obama showing this level of ignorance? It seems to be alright, though, when it comes from Senior Citizen McCain.

See also: “McCain shows his expertise on foreign policy.” The old codger also believes that Czechoslovakia still exists.

Our next president met with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai today. Johnny McCain and Rudy Giuliani went to a baseball game.

Obama Meets Afghan Leader and Discusses Terrorism

Karzai and Obama

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 20 — Senator Barack Obama met with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan for nearly two hours on Sunday and “conveyed that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continuing the war against terrorism with vigor,” an Afghan presidential spokesman said.

The meeting, which continued over a traditional Afghan lunch of chicken, mutton and rice, was conducted in a “very friendly environment,” the spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said.

Mr. Obama and the two other senators traveling with him — Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska; and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island — reaffirmed the United States’ bipartisan support for Afghanistan. And Mr. Karzai asked that the senators pass on the “immense gratitude” of the Afghan people to their constituents and the American public, Mr. Hamidzada said at a news briefing after the lunch.

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Mr. Obama said: “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism.”[..]

Mr. Obama’s visit to Afghanistan is part of a weeklong tour that will take him to Iraq, Israel and Western Europe in an effort to build impressions, and counter criticism, about his ability to serve as president in a time of war.

Mr. Obama arrived in eastern Afghanistan, near Pakistan, on Saturday to get a firsthand look at the region where American troops are feeling the brunt of increased attacks from militants infiltrating the border. In selecting Afghanistan as an early stop in his first overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama was seeking to highlight what he says is the central front in the fight against terrorism.

“Losing is not an option when it comes to Al Qaeda, and it never has been,” Mr. Obama told CBS News. “And that’s why the fact that we engaged in a war of choice when we were not yet finished with that task was such a mistake.”

Kudos to His Honor the Mayor for getting Johnny McCain out of the house on a weekend. He usually spends the weekends at one of his wife’s houses recuperating.

To begin the weekend Johnny made a guest appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien where he feigned having a heart attack and keeling over. (The official line is that he was faking falling asleep because, you know, he’s so damned old.) Notice how the audience cheered. Nobody appeared to be awfully concerned that perhaps the old codger was not pretending…

One would think that at least one member of his Secret Service detail would have come running to his aid.

(More here.)

It seems that we don’t hear much about these days, given all else that is going on (like Obama’s preacher and what not), but George W. Bush’s and John McCain’s war of choice in Iraq wages on…

Militants target Green Zone in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Rockets and mortars pounded Baghdad’s U.S.-protected Green Zone Sunday and a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army post in the northern city of Mosul in a surge of attacks that killed at least 57 people nationwide.

The latest violence underscored the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups as the war enters its sixth year and the U.S. death toll in the conflict approaches 4,000.

Attacks in Baghdad probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups — some of whom may have been behind the Green Zone blasts. It was the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission.

Spare a thought today for our brave men and women who are caught up in this fiasco, won’t you? Perhaps soon we can start bringing them home to their families where they belong.

It doesn’t appear so…

McCain Missteps on Iraq; Democrats Pounce

John McCain

Senator John McCain’s trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him in a series of statesmanlike meetings with world leaders throughout the Middle East and Europe while the Democratic candidates continued to squabble back home.

But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the main players in the Iraq war.

Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan — in a news conference and in a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.

Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”

I hope Joe Loserman is at his side when he answers that phone in the White House at 3:00 a.m. (He’ll likely be up at that hour, anyway… going to the bathroom.)

This was all over the place yesterday but I didn’t mention it because, well, everybody else did. Besides, it’s something that’s pretty easy to chalk up to a “senior moment,” and Mr. McCain is likely to have lots of those in the not-too-distant future. It’s becoming too much fun now. I have to record it.

Plus, I have this hilarious picture in my head of a bunch of Democrats pouncing. They have every right to! Here’s Barack Obama pouncing…

“Just yesterday, we heard Senator McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda,” Senator Obama said. “Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.”

I hope folks are paying attention.

Yet another failure in George W. Bush’s (and John McCain’s) foreign policy docket… and this one has nuclear weapons.

Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election

Musharraf and Bush

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, the former speaker of Parliament and six ministers.

Official results are expected Tuesday, but early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a Parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

The early edge went to the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, which seemed to benefit from a strong wave of sympathy in reaction to the assassination of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, on Dec. 27, and may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed Mr. Musharraf for more than six years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

Pakistan’s Bhutto Killed in Attack

Benazir Bhutto

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said.

Bhutto’s supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

The death of the charismatic 54-year-old former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism…

The United States has for months been encouraging Musharraf to reach an accommodation with the opposition, particularly Bhutto, who was seen as having a wide base of support in Pakistan. Her party had been widely expected to do well in next month’s elections.

Pakistan was just emerging from another crisis after Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3, and used sweeping powers to round up thousands of his opponents and fire Supreme Court justices. He ended emergency rule Dec. 15 and subsequently relinquished his role as army chief, a key opposition demand. Bhutto had been an outspoken critic of Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule.

Educated at Harvard and Oxford universities, Bhutto served twice as Pakistan’s prime minister between 1988 and 1996. Her father, who also served as prime minister, was executed in 1979 two years after his ouster in a military coup.

She had to have known when she returned to the country in October that her life expectancy was not all that great. Still, this is not good news. It will only serve to deepen the chaos in Pakistan, a nation with nuclear weapons and one of our key allies in the “war against terrorism.”

At the risk of repeating myself: It is time for the adults to take charge.

Dick Cheney is not a happy camper today.

All his hopes and dreams of a war with Iran have gone out the window…

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to provide a suitable and possibly politically incorrect caption for the following photograph. Good luck.

Pervez Musharraf and George W. Bush in the Oval Office, September, 2006

By the way, here is what Mr. Bush had to say about Mr. Musharraf on that auspicious day (he looked into his soul)…

Thank you very much, please be seated. Laura and I appreciate the opportunity to welcome President and Mrs. Musharraf here to Washington. We remember fondly, Mr. President, your great hospitality in Pakistan and we remember the importance of that visit — it reconfirmed our friendship, gave you and me a chance to discuss important issues. And there’s no more important issue than defending our peoples.

This President is a strong defender of freedom and the people of Pakistan, and I appreciate your leadership.

He understands that we are in a struggle against extremists who will use terror as a weapon. He understands it just about as good as anybody in the world — after all, they’ve tried to take his life. These extremists who can’t stand the thought of a moderate leader leading an important country like Pakistan want to kill the President. That should say things to the people of Pakistan and the people of America, that because he has been a strong, forceful leader, he has become a target of those who can’t stand the thought of moderation prevailing.

I admire your leadership. I admire your courage. And I thank you very much for working on common strategies to protect our respective peoples.

George W. Bush let it be known today that if he does not get his way he could well start World War III…

Bush: Threat of World War III if Iran goes nuclear

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush warned on Wednesday a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War III as he tried to shore up international opposition to Tehran amid Russian skepticism over its nuclear ambitions.

Bush was speaking a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has resisted Western pressure to toughen his stance over Iran’s nuclear program, made clear on a visit to Tehran that Russia would not accept any military action against Iran…

Stepping up his rhetoric, Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a “dangerous threat to world peace.”

“We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel,” he said. “So I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

I have serious concerns about the man’s sanity.

Iran Shows Video of British Crew

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian state TV showed video Wednesday of 15 British sailors and marines who were seized last week, including a female captive in a white tunic and a black head scarf who said the British boats had “trespassed” in Iranian waters.

Britain called the broadcast “completely unacceptable” and said it was concerned that the statements from sailor Faye Turney were coerced. The British government earlier released what it called proof the boat crews were seized in Iraqi waters, and said it was freezing all “official bilateral business” with Iran except negotiations to release them.

Iran’s foreign minister said Turney - the only female captive - would be freed on Wednesday or Thursday, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said it had received no confirmation of that.

The British military said its vessels were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when they were taken Friday, and it released what it said were the GPS coordinates that proved that.

Several hours later, Tehran broadcast the video on an Arabic-language satellite channel, along with a letter from Turney saying the sailors and marines were inside Iranian waters when they were captured.

Here is the video, as posted to LiveLeak.com. Was she coerced? You decide…

Update: Text of Letter Said To Be Written by Turney.