Palin Does Better Than Her Interviewers September 13, 2008
Posted by taoist in ABC, Bias, Despicable Liers, Dishonesty, Politics, The Media.trackback
Well, Sarah Palin had a significant interview with Charles Gibson of ABC. She did pretty good. You can watch it here (or read it). By far the biggest buzz on the interview, however, is how much ABC botched it – and they’re not the only ones off their game. The Washington Post is also missing its facts. Its pretty clear by now that one of the major enemies in post-Saddam Iraq is Al Qaeda, and yet the Washington Post is ignorant of this fact, almost certainly willfully. Not only that, but its pretty clear that Sarah Palin is discussing the current situation in Iraq, and not Saddam, who we are no longer fighting (linked in case they really didn’t know that. We need a better educated media, I guess).
Palin botched that interview. She used canned answers and did not show any Foreign policy expertise. She talked about Russia and kept mentioning “Cold War.” It doesn’t matter that she said she didn’t want one, if you mention “Cold War” repeatedly that has got to make Russia upset.
Also she did not answer some of the questions directly implying that we would sit back and watch Israel invade Iran when we would NEVER do that. We held Israel back when they were under attack in the first Gulf War when scud missles were launched at them remember? We do not want Israel invading another Middle Eastern country.
Al Qaeda of course came to Iraq after our invasion. Saddam hated terrorists and had death squads killing any that they found. When we invaded Al Qaeda came in pretty much invited by us by our actions. Al Qaeda has more members now than they did when they attacked us on September 11 due to our invasion of a nation that had nothing to do with them at all.
So…Palin directly saying we do not want another cold war is offensive to Russia?…Hunh…
As for Israel, Palin was talking about what she and McCain would do. Not what we have done in the past. I don’t know why you think that the past necessarily dictates what we do in the future. And who says Israel has to invade Iran to bomb their nuclear facilities? Why wouldn’t they just do the same sort of strikes they’ve done recently against Syria, or previously against Iraq?
Al Qaeda was of course in Iraq before the invasion, as much as you wish it otherwise. Captured Iraq documents clearly provide proof of that. http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/picture-proof-saddam-al-qaeda.html For some reason certain left leaning media organizations don’t widely publicize these documents. Saddam in fact had operational connections with Al Qaeda (although he certainly didn’t have any connection with 9/11 – but the Republicans have never said that he did!), was encouraging their forces, and had funds set up to help the terrorists and their families. The likelihood of him equipping them with weapons was quite high. Al Qaeda did indeed grow strong in Iraq after the invasion, and that was a mismanagement of the war on Bush’s part, but Petraeus’ management of the surge not only drastically turned that around, but has severely crippled Al Qaeda. They are pulling out of Iraq after massive losses of personnel and finances, and trying to regroup in Pakistan. In many ways they are significantly weaker than they were at the time of 9/11 – they’ve wasted all of their top tiers of men in Iraq, significant sources of their funding have been cut off (although that might change thanks to a horrible ruling a certain judge in Europe just made), and they don’t really have any good place to go anymore – with Afghanistan closed off, and Iraq also no longer a haven, they’re in dire straights in many ways. i’m not sure if AQI grew stronger during the start of the Iraq war, or if we just saw how strong they had been all along, but they’re certainly much weaker now.
I can back up all of my claims with real data. How about you?
Thanks for responding I appreciate it.
Firstly using “We don’t want a Cold War” over and over again in an argument is offensive. It is what is known as reverse psychology. The fact that she would even use that term in regards to Russia is amateurish and in International Relations very insulting.
Secondly, Al Qaeda did not go into Iraq into after the Invasion. Bin Laden’s right hand man who is now dead did not start operations until Operation Iraqi Freedom began. You can check the timing of Al Qaeda entering Iraq here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi#Pre_U.S._Invasion_of_Iraq
I looked at your link and the evidence was actually given to find Bin Laden. Saddam did not like terrorists who were religious fanatics. If you look at the comments for the page you linked you can see the arguments debunking the so called evidence.
The reason Al Qaeda grew in Iraq is because we gave them a recruiting slogan. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and here we were invading them.
I do wander how you can be a “taoist” yet seem to be so into warfare. Do you think the war in Iraq was justified? If so please let me know why.
Thanks for listening.
Well, I don’t know how I can argue with you about the cold war statements, I see it as exactly the opposite than you, but I guess that’s just a matter of opinion.
Second, the documents do show direct proof that Al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war, and that Saddam’s government was in contact with them. You’re trying to refute me with wikipedia, but wikipedia is not a quotable source, as any academic will point out. The comments try and say that the claims have been debunked, but the documents still clearly show that Al Qaeda was in Iraq before the Iraq war, regardless of the common knowledge. The common knowledge is also that Iraq had no WMDs, when in fact they did.
Saddam didn’t like religious fanatics? Then why was he was so willing to fund the Palestinian suicide bombers and their families then…
Why does any mention of Al Qaeda and Iraq immediately garner the response, “well, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11″? Yes, we know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. When have I or any other members of the right claimed that it did? It is true that Al Qaeda drastically expanded their presence once Saddam’s regime collapsed.
As my about page says, I am not a Taoist religiously: I merely view Taoism as a useful philosophy for public policy. When it comes to foreign policy the smaller government types such as myself still have to make a decision, hence we have small and big L libertarians.
I am not into warfare, however, I have always supported the Iraq war for a simple reason: the Iraqis. Saddam was killing roughly 100000 a year in his regime, and torturing countless others. His tyranny was clearly immune to diplomatic pressures – which means that force was all that remained. In the case of Iraq, I frankly think that force was the minimalist approach. I do think that we could have handled the situation after the regime collapsed better, however. Mismanagement probably cost us two year’s time after the invasion.