DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: fatman on July 27, 2008, 11:42:26 AM
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The more that I read Buchanan's opinion pieces, the more that I find myself in agreement with him.
Honorable Exit From Empire
By Pat Buchanan
Fri Jul 25, 3:00 AM ET
As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, Lee's retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur's retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 — and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued.
France's departure from Indochina was ignominious, and her abandonment of hundreds of thousands of faithful Algerians to the FALN disgraceful. Few American can forget the humiliation of Saigon '75, or the boat people, or the Cambodian holocaust.
Strategic retreats that turn into routs are often the result of what Lord Salisbury called "the commonest error in politics ... sticking to the carcass of dead policies."
From 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the U.S.S.R., America had an opportunity to lay down its global burden and become again what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "a normal country in a normal time."
We let the opportunity pass by, opting instead to use our wealth and power to convert the world to democratic capitalism. And we have reaped the reward of all the other empires that went before: A sinking currency, relative decline, universal enmity, a series of what Rudyard Kipling called "the savage wars of peace."
Yet, opportunity has come anew for America to shed its imperial burden and become again the republic of our fathers.
The chairman of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Party has just been hosted for six days by Beijing. Commercial flights have begun between Taipei and the mainland. Is not the time ripe for America to declare our job done, that the relationship between China and Taiwan is no longer a vital interest of the United States?
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government wants a status of forces agreement with a timetable for full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Is it not time to say yes, to declare that full withdrawal is our goal as well, that the United States seeks no permanent bases in Iraq?
On July 4, Reuters, in a story headlined "Poland Rejects U.S. Missile Offer," reported from Warsaw: "Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil. ...
"'We have not reached a satisfactory result on the issue of increasing the level of Polish security,' Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference after studying the latest U.S. proposal."
Tusk is demanding that America "provide billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade Polish air defenses in return for hosting 10 two-stage missile interceptors," said Reuters.
Reflect if you will on what is going on here.
By bringing Poland into NATO, we agreed to defend her against the world's largest nation, Russia, with thousands of nuclear weapons. Now the Polish regime is refusing us permission to site 10 anti-missile missiles on Polish soil, unless we pay Poland billions for the privilege.
Has Uncle Sam gone senile?
No. Tusk has Sam figured out. The old boy is so desperate to continue in his Cold War role as world's Defender of Democracy he will even pay the Europeans — to defend Europe.
Why not tell Tusk that if he wants an air defense system, he can buy it; that we Americans are no longer willing to pay Poland for the privilege of defending Poland; that the anti-missile missile deal is off. And use cancellation of the missile shield to repair relations with a far larger and more important power, Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Consider, too, the opening South Korea is giving us to end our 60-year commitment to defend her against the North. For weeks, Seoul hosted anti-American protests against a trade deal that allows U.S. beef into South Korea. Koreans say they fear mad-cow disease.
Yet, when a new deal was cut to limit imports to U.S. beef from cattle less than 30 months old, that too was rejected by the protesters. Behind the demonstrations lies a sediment of anti-Americanism.
In 2002, a Pew Research Center survey of 42 nations found 44 percent of South Koreans, second highest number of any country, holding an unfavorable view of the United States. A Korean survey put the figure at 53 percent, with 80 percent of youth holding a negative view. By 39 percent to 35 percent, South Koreans saw the United States as a greater threat than North Korea.
Can someone explain why we keep 30,000 troops on the DMZ of a nation whose people do not even like us?
The raison d'etre for NATO was the Red Army on the Elbe. It disappeared two decades ago. The Chinese army left North Korea 50 years ago. Yet NATO endures and the U.S. Army stands on the DMZ. Why?
Because, if all U.S. troops were brought home from Europe and Korea, 10,000 rice bowls would be broken. They are the rice bowls of politicians, diplomats, generals, journalists and think tanks who would all have to find another line of work.
And that is why the Empire will endure until disaster befalls it, as it did all the others.
Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080725/cm_uc_crpbux/op_336840;_ylt=AlkaGZ9XbYY2dYqy1PAeVa_9wxIF)
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I can agree that the era of empire is over, and if the US does not withdraw gracefully, it will be awkward and humiliating when it is forced upon us.
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"I can agree that the era of empire is over"
I disagree, I think it is quite possible it may be just the opposite and
it may happen sooner than we think. God forbid if something like the
picture below ever happens. But if it does the major powers will quickly
return to the days of some type of colonialism. If major cities are being
destroyed by the IslamoWhackJobs the people will demand it. We'll see.
(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa56/USA2008/Politics/article-1022840-0168F03500000578-2.jpg)
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A great many empires were destroyed by the very people that they assimilated or extended citizenship to.
I worry less about the Islamists than I do about a crippling debt that will leave this nation at the mercies of its creditors.
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The more that I read Buchanan's opinion pieces, the more that I find myself in agreement with him.
You beat me to posting that one. It's also posted at Takimag (http://www.takimag.com/), which is another good paleo-con blog.
Ten years ago, I would have told you Pat Buchanan was a bat-shit insane paranoid. Even five years ago, I was still inclined to take him with a grain of salt. Curiously, events had a way of unfolding just as he called them. After he'd amassed a track record of considerably more hits than misses, I had to conclude he wasn't as nuts as I thought.
A new-found respect for Mr. Buchanan in these quarters, as well.
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I really like his foreign policies, I'm not as wild about his domestic/social commentaries, though most of them are sensible. I just disagree with those.
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God forbid if something like the
picture below ever happens. But if it does the major powers will quickly
return to the days of some type of colonialism.
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This must be true, because you have this phony picture to go with it.
Buchanan is basically a somewhat bright guy with a number of flaws. He is anti British because he is an Irishman, he is anti gay because of his having overdosed on catechism at parochial school.
Surely you have to recognize that the more of an empire a country is, the more government is requires. The more an empire spends on keeping its colonies in line, the less it can afford to provide a decent life for its people.
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Pull the Plug on the War State
by Charley Reese
Hopefully, the next president, whoever he is, will have sense enough to realize that an anti-missile site in Eastern Europe is not worth rekindling the Cold War with Russia.
Though the press pays little attention to it, the Bush administration has already practically wrecked relations with Russia by insisting on adding the Eastern European countries to NATO and siting his anti-missile system in the Czech Republic and in Poland. The Russians are right that it represents a threat to their security.
President Bush's lame excuse that the system is designed to protect Europe from Iranian missiles is no doubt another deliberate lie. I can't think of any reason whatsoever for Iran to attack Europe, and I'm sure the Iranians can't, either. Iran hasn't attacked anybody for more than 100 years. They would have absolutely nothing to gain by firing a few missiles at Europe. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Nor does it make any sense to add the small countries of Eastern Europe to NATO. This was a war-fighting alliance set up at the end of World War II specifically to deter and, if necessary, go to war with the Red Army. The Soviet Union set up its own alliance, the Warsaw Pact.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia withdrew its army from Eastern Europe and dissolved the Warsaw Pact. The United States should have dissolved NATO. Its sole purpose vanished with the Soviet Union. It has no enemy, unless fools in the U.S. create one. The American politicians have used it in the Yugoslavian Civil War, and now has it involved in the Afghanistan insurgency. Why the Europeans put up with this nonsense is beyond me.
As for including little countries, that's a strategic blunder. Do you think that if the Russians one day launched nuclear missiles at the United States that Poland and Lithuania would go to war against their large neighbor? Will France become a nation of teetotalers?
In fact, including small countries in military alliances is worthless posturing. All you do is allow the little country to get you into trouble by its bad behavior. The little country is confident that its big ally will rescue it if it goes too far in antagonizing its larger neighbors. It's like a spoiled brat with a bodyguard. Sixty years after its founding, Israel is still at war with most of its neighbors precisely because it has no incentive to make a sensible peace. Why should it? It has its American attack dog. The only peace treaties it has signed are with Egypt and Jordan, both of which the U.S. bribed to make peace. Bribe or not, in both cases it's a cold peace.
Believe it or not, we are not at war with any nation at the present. We made war on Iraq, but that has long since become nothing but an occupation. We are occupying or trying to occupy Afghanistan, but other than that, we are not at war. Why then do we need military alliances? Why do we need troops in Korea, Japan and Germany? Or, I hasten to add, Iraq and the Persian Gulf?
President Bush's war on terror is a false metaphor, and a dangerous one at that. There is no terrorist army or air force. There are some gangs of criminals. What the president did when he adopted this specious metaphor about a war on terror was to commit the United States to perpetual war. Ask your local warmonger how he defines victory in the war on terror. Ask why when Iraq was very violent we couldn't leave, and now that it's less violent, we can't leave. Ask him how he defines victory in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
We really have neither a republic nor a democracy. We have a war state and an empire. We should pull the plug on both.
via Antiwar.com
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But Christians has (have?) scary pictures. He wants less government AND an empire, and ooo,ooo get this; he thinks the US should be an empire, because if it isn't the rest of the powerful countries will reestablish colonialism.
Mind like a steel trap, that lad.
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<<Ten years ago, I would have told you Pat Buchanan was a bat-shit insane paranoid. >>
TEN? Try TWO years ago. And now I like him. Go figure. The Buchanan article AND the Charlie Reese article posted in this thread make excellent sense. They'll be buried in the mainstream dialogue, marginalized as usual while the "permissible" viewpoints (should we spend billions to subdue Iraq or should we spend billions to subdue Afghanistan?) are endlessly debated. Is Pakistan a bigger threat than Iraq? Is Bin Laden a bigger threat than Ahmadinejad? Are we in greater danger from Islamofascism than we are from Islamofascism or from Islamofascism?
I'd like to see a study of how many Americans are accurately aware of the Middle East views of (a) Pat Buchanan? (b) Hillary? (c) Obama? (d) Bush? and (e) John Insane? How is it that a POV which makes so much sense is hardly ever mentioned on the MSM? How is it that Buchanan, who seems to me now to be one of the brightest and most sensible commentators on international affairs, is hardly ever heard from on the MSM? Is there some kind of Talking Heads ranking showing numerically where Buchanan is in terms of average hours per week over the past two years, one year and six months?
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XO read the book "War Against Islam" by George P. Robertson: The newly-elected President meets his promises: he nukes many of the Muslim-heavy countries, helps Israel consolidate Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt into its territories, turns large chunks of the Middle East and Africa into European colonies, kicks all Arabs and Muslims out of the US, outlaws gas and oil-based automobiles, and reneges on the US debt to China.
War Against Islam
By George P. Robertson
(http://www.createspace.com/Img/T334/T01/T15/ThumbnailImage.jpg)
This novel is a fictional depiction of the rise of a right-wing Presidential candidate who wins the 2008 election, takes measures to reduce American dependence on Middle Eastern oil and then wages unfettered war on Islamic nations.
The story weaves imagination and reality. There are many references to current and historical events. The principal characters resemble actual politicians and world leaders. Astute readers will be able to make the necessary connections, if they so wish. Nonetheless, the fictional equivalents are probably more extreme than similar figures in the real world.
Accomplished authors of political thrillers, as well as television shows such as 24, usually venture to the brink then retract. This book goes beyond the precipice, that's what makes it unique.
Publication Date: Apr 07 2008
ISBN/EAN13: 143820227X / 9781438202273
Page Count: 308
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 6" x 9"
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Related Categories: Fiction / Thrillers
http://www.createspace.com/3340115 (http://www.createspace.com/3340115)
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The newly-elected President meets his promises: he nukes many of the Muslim-heavy countries, helps Israel consolidate Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt into its territories, turns large chunks of the Middle East and Africa into European colonies, kicks all Arabs and Muslims out of the US, outlaws gas and oil-based automobiles, and reneges on the US debt to China.
Are you an advocate of this scenario?
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"Are you an advocate of this scenario?"
It depends what the future holds.
If a few American cities or Western capitals are vaporized with terror nukes or hit with germ warfare
and our survival is threatened then I advocate to do "whatever it takes" to destroy the enemy.
But Fatman I think it really will not require nuking a bunch of muslim countries like the author implies.
I think if there is regime change in Iran that could go a long way towards a much more stable middle east.
BTW: I think an attack on Iran is imminent and I actually believe thats why gas has fallen so much in the
previous two weeks. I think the "behind the scenes powers" have "forced" oil down because they know
when Iran is attacked oil will shoot up. So they are getting it back down before they attack and it will
have that buffer once Iran is given it's spanking in the next 6 months. We'll see wont we?
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XO read the book "War Against Islam" by George P. Robertson: The newly-elected President meets his promises: he nukes many of the Muslim-heavy countries, helps Israel consolidate Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt into its territories, turns large chunks of the Middle East and Africa into European colonies, kicks all Arabs and Muslims out of the US, outlaws gas and oil-based automobiles, and reneges on the US debt to China.
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Now that I know what it is about, why should I bother? This is, by the way, beyond bad science fiction.
Israel (with 6 million people) could not possibly "consolidate Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (population over 100 million) into its territories. There wil be no nuking of anyone, and no one, president or not, could outlaw gasoline-fueled cars.
There won't be any war with Iran.
Many Iranians are not fond of their government, but the one thing they hate far more is the US screwing around with Iran.
The days of empire are OVER. All we can choose is whether the fall will be pleasant or unpleasant.
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maybe your boy NoBama agrees!
(http://i340.photobucket.com/albums/o331/old_ez/obama-reads-533.jpg)
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Given your history of posting altered images, you expect us to believe that one is unaltered?
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I am not going to get anything useful out of a fiction novel that advocates genocide, so excuse me while I leave this trash to you.
Obama can read whatever he pleases, as can you. I doubt that the book you allege he is carrying is in any way as unfactual as the piece of crap you seem to worship, with flames on the cover.
We have reached the point in history where the 1/2% that are the oligarchy that rules the 6% of the world population cannot expect to dominate the entire world. If this were possible, Juniorbush would not have to borrow from the Chinese and beggar the dollar to subdue Iraq. I don't think it was ever possible for the US to rule the world, but it certainly isn't possible now.
The Spanish tried to convert the planet for the Holy Mother Church. The British tried to make everyone admire Queen Victoria. Hitler told everyone that Germans were the Master Race, and failed to convince them, even with the help of Mussolini and Tojo. Now that they have given up on this nonsense, Spain and the UK are respected, and everyone likes Mercedes, Lexus and Vespas. But they were stupid and had to try to dominate with wars. Now the time has come to learn from the past experience of others' failures and give up the entire imperial idea.
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About that book, "The Post-American World", by Fareed Zacharia:
rom Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China and Indonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
After the Iraq war, Fareed Zakaria argued in his Newsweek column that the world's new organizing principle was pro- or anti-Americanism. But as the Iraq muddle drags on and China rises, the larger story of the post-Cold War era has come into sharp relief: We are not the center of the universe. It matters less that particular countries are pro- or anti-American than that the world is increasingly non-American. We need to get over ourselves.
Zakaria's The Post-American World is about the "rise of the rest," a catchy phrase from one of the most widely cited writers on foreign affairs. His prism is correct: We should focus more on the "rest," even if America is still the premier superpower. But within this broad approach, Zakaria leaves policy-makers to figure out how to rank challenges and restore U.S. legitimacy.
Zakaria zooms in on Asia, especially India and China, which he uses as proxies for "the rest." The first third of the book sets out his thesis -- "For the first time ever, we are witnessing genuinely global growth" -- and the next third describes how China's economy has doubled every eight years and how India may have the world's third largest economy by 2040.
This year has brought a flood of books on Asia's rise, including Bill Emmott's Rivals and Kishore Mahbubani's The New Asian Hemisphere. For the most part, they embody the "world is flat" thesis -- lots of economic statistics, little geography. But geopolitics is about more than growth rates. It matters that China borders a dozen more countries than India does, isn't hemmed in by a vast ocean and the world's tallest mountains, has a loyal diaspora twice the size of India's and enjoys a head start in Asian and African marketplaces. Zakaria's chapters on China and India, though of equal length, should not connote equivalency, and all "the rest" cannot be happily lumped together. Does China's example tell us what has gone wrong in Venezuela and Pakistan, and could go wrong in Egypt and Indonesia?
Ironically, the final third of The Post-American World, which focuses on us rather than on "the rest," is the strongest. Zakaria argues that America's world-beating economic vibrancy co-exists with a dysfunctional political system. "A 'can-do' country is now saddled with a 'do-nothing' political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving," he writes. That makes it hard to devise a grand strategy, and Zakaria offers just a few "simple guidelines" on the need to set priorities, build global rules and be flexible. But in this non-American world, it may be too late to restore U.S. leadership. "The rest" is moving on.
So sure, I am GLAD Obama is reading this in lieu of some asshole POS novel about the nuking of Muslim cities.
I doubt any of you "Christians 4 Less Government" have even heard of Zacharia, but he is one of the best writers and idea guys that writes for Newsweek.
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not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers
Sounds good , perhaps the USA has performed its role as everyone eleses papa long enough , in the future we can look after ourselves as one nation amoung equal nations rather than spending ourselves to rescue and support all the rest.
But is this transition still going on? Is there still a need for thousands of Americans to be based in Europe? This need was severe at one time but is rapidly becomeing a redundancy.
Does the Middle East need American influence the way that Europe used to? Seems that they do , but their maturity will come .
The Far east includes China and India wich are both too big for us to rescue militarily from any troubble , but not to big for us to influence with our tremendous economy, it may be in the near future that both India and China have economys equal to ours , at that time we had best remove the bottle from the beard and start competeing with them as if they were adult business rivals rather than our own troubblesome teens .
All the world rising might be good news , especially if it releives us of some of our load, People mock Kipling nowadays , but will there ever be a brown mans burden|?
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Has the transition even started?
It doesn't appear that way to me, with proposed long term troop commitments in the Middle East. Are we going to be cutting garrisons in other nations (Germany, Korea, etc)? Because if we are, that's maintaining the status quo, not a transition.
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All the world rising might be good news , especially if it releives us of some of our load, People mock Kipling nowadays , but will there ever be a brown mans burden|?
Make it happen.
Vote for Obama.
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It doesn't appear that way to me, with proposed long term troop commitments in the Middle East. Are we going to be cutting garrisons in other nations (Germany, Korea, etc)? Because if we are, that's maintaining the status quo, not a transition.
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Stationing troops in Germany saves the Germans money, because they pay the US less to have US troops there than it would cost to maintain their own troops. The German people fear militarism, curiously. It also enables the US to have a larger army without having to hit the taxpayers for the bill, since the cost is paid by the Germans.
The troops in Korea are needed to provide a major force on the DMZ. The North Koreans are too close to Seoul for comfort. I suspect that the Koreans pay for this as do the Germans.
The troops in Iraq are there because the occupation of Iraq is neocolonialism. It keeps Big Oil and the Israelis happy.
The American people are largely OK with the forces in Korea and Germany, because they are not getting killed, and they have become accustomed to their being there.
Most Americans are unaware of many other military missions: Diego Garcia, Manta, Ecuador, Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, and others.
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<<Sounds good , perhaps the USA has performed its role as everyone eleses papa long enough , in the future we can look after ourselves as one nation amoung equal nations rather than spending ourselves to rescue and support all the rest.>>
LOL I'm sure all the Vietnamese, Iraqis, Dominicans, Panamanians, Indonesians, Cubans, Iraqis, Iranians etc. will be greatly relieved when the day finally comes that they need no longer fear, uh, I mean look forward to, your "rescue" and "support."
Never heard such self-serving, delusional misrendering of the past. You sure you didn't write for the old Pravda?
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"the world is increasingly non-American. We need to get over ourselves"
God I hope NoBama makes this a central theme of his campaign!
Oh but wait a minute I forgot he can't say what he really believes.
Thats the way a "trojan horse" works.
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God I hope NoBama makes this a central theme of his campaign!
Oh but wait a minute I forgot he can't say what he really believes.
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Is McCain advertising that he wants to start yet another war with Iran?
Or do you think he should take his foreign policy from some trashy fanatic novel and advocate nuking several Muslim cities?
Let's see, the holiest is Mecca, then Medina, but I'm afraid the third holiest city is Jerusalem. Let's just use a really small bomb there, and just make the Dome of the Rock glow in the dark.
I'm betting that would put his candidacy over the top...