July 2008 archive

You have a friend or a colleague who has kids?  Or one that has grandkids?  Or is thinking about having kids?

Are they thinking that McCain is “moving to the center” (as I was told by a colleague earlier today)?  Are they considering voting for McCain because Obama “doesn’t necessarily have the right experience” or for some other nonsensical reason?  Do they believe the lies that McCain was “very against the war from the beginning”?  Are they unfamiliar with McCain’s “there will be more wars” comment?  Do they not know about his 100 years in Iraq comment?

If there is no other distinction that people can understand (or care enough about) – even though there are more distinctions than I can easily count to (and I am an accountant), it is this one: if McCain wins, he and his neoconservative buddies will ensure that there are more wars.  Enough of the “more wars” that not only many of us, but our children and grandchildren will be shipped off to fight..

So, I plan on telling one of my closest friends, who is a self described “moderate libertarian” who happens to vote republican because of his wallet (he owns 2 dental practices) that his 7 year old son, 4 year old daughter and 1 year old son (who I am the godfather of) could likely be shipped overseas to fight in one of the many wars that McCain will start or inflame.

And I will tell my parents, who think McCain is not conservative enough that if he wins, they will be setting things up so that my 4 year old niece has a shot at being drafted into the decades long war that he plans on continuing (I will personally flee the country with the little mollusk if need be).  Ditto for my work colleague down the hall who has 2 sons under the age of 6, and all of the people in my neighborhood who have young children, including my next door neighbors who have twin grandchildren who are around 2 years old.

It is that simple to me.  It is that clear.  SCOTUS is of utmost importance, however the damaging impact from McCain SCOTUS picks are not as easy to describe in tangible terms as “McCain would gladly have your kids kill and possibly die halfway across the world – or come back with PTSD or permanent injuries”.

Or the reverse – “Do you want your kids or grandkids to become fodder for McCain’s continuation of failed aggression?”

Either way, it is a very powerful question, and paints a picture in very stark terms of what we can expect under a McCain presidency.  And with there being absolutely no coverage of Iraq on the major news outlets and therefore no talk of the human cost in lost and damaged lives, I can think of no stronger more powerful way to pointedly show what is at stake here.

SAHIMI:There is also no question in my mind that at the bottom the issue is that, as you pointed out, both the United States and Israel do not want Iran to become a major regional power. But Iran is already a major regional power: its enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq have been eliminated; it is on the verge of having complete uranium enrichment technology; it’s making $100 billion a year from exporting its oil; it has a dynamic population of 75 million, two-thirds of whom are below the age of thirty; it has a very highly dynamic and educated population, as a matter of fact, and it is sitting in the most strategic area of the world [inaudible] on the shores of Persian Gulf, where 70 percent of all the oil produced by Middle East passes through Strait of Hormuz that is controlled by Iran. So Iran is already a major regional power.

…

Iran is not Iraq. Iranian nationalism is extremely strong. If Iran is attacked by the United States and/or Israel, Iran will respond and retaliate in a very dramatic fashion. Unlike what some neocons recently said, like Patrick Clawson and people like him, Iran has full capability for retaliation. And if Iran does retaliate-and I believe it will retaliate if it is attacked-then the whole region will be engulfed in war and blood, and will spread to the rest of the world. This is not what we want. As peaceful people, this is what we want: what we want is to keep that region away from the confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States. And the only way to do that is not to threaten Iran, but rather to negotiate with Iran; the way to do it is not to threaten militarily or impose sanctions on Iran, rather to negotiate with Iran. I think Iranian leaders, as bad as they might be internally, are interested in negotiating and reaching a solution with the United States and through the United States with Israel. And I think we should take that path and try to reach an agreement in Iran.