Lobotero’s Info Ink

Sen. John McCain’s trip to Colombia and Mexico this week made one thing clear: The shape of the United States’ relationship with Latin America will hinge on the outcome of the 2008 election.

The Republican presidential candidate and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, have outlined sharply contrasting visions of how they would conduct relations in the hemisphere. McCain is committed to putting a new emphasis on the region but would pursue many of the policies followed by President Bush in Latin America, with a heavy emphasis on counternarcotics efforts, free trade and a push to curb illegal immigration. Obama has sketched a broad approach that relies more on diplomatic efforts and expression of soft power, through more foreign assistance, an infusion of Peace Corps volunteers and a willingness to meet with hard-line leftist leaders.

The two men’s backgrounds have helped shape their divergent perspectives. McCain has visited Latin America dozens of times and took part in the bitter U.S. policy fights over the region in the 1980s, while Obama has yet to visit a single country there. But both senators are arguing that the United States needs to pursue closer ties with Central and South America to address some of America’s most pressing problems, including illegal immigration, drug trafficking and terrorism.

For decades, U.S. leaders used Latin America as a key battleground in the war against communism, supporting some regimes while seeking to undermine others based on their ideological tilt. It was only in the 1990s that American politicians began to adopt a less explicitly interventionist approach, shifting to a more collaborative relationship based more on economic than political interests.

President Clinton’s two significant accomplishments involving Latin America during his tenure were pushing the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress and helping to establish the Summit of the Americas. While President Bush pledged to emphasize relations with the region, the bulk of his foreign policy has focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain has made a point of stressing his intimate knowledge of the region during his three-day tour, lavishing praise on Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and Mexican President Felipe Calderón for their efforts to combat drug trafficking and terrorism. In a news conference Thursday at the command center for the Mexican federal judicial police, McCain lauded Uribe for launching a successful raid this week to free 15 hostages held by Marxist rebels, and welcomed a recent anti-narcotics agreement between the United States and Mexico as perhaps “the most important agreement” the two nations have signed.

Some Democratic lawmakers have privately expressed concerns that McCain’s trip may give him an upper hand on Latin American issues, an advantage that seemed to get a boost from McCain’s presence in Colombia on the same day that the 15 hostages were rescued from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Plans are being made to try to persuade Obama to visit the northern city of Monterrey, one of Mexico’s industrial capitals.

I understand the necessity for good PR, but going South of the border does nothing in the election, other than providing someone with a photo-op.  I would suggest that they concentrate on becoming president and then worry about who does what south of the border.

For many months the threat has been there, some sort of action against Iran, but what would the consequences be for Iraq if such an action was begun.

Iraq will be plunged into a new war if Israel or the US launches an attack on Iran, Iraqi leaders have warned. Iranian retaliation would take place in Iraq, said Dr Mahmoud Othman, the influential Iraqi MP.

The Iraqi government’s main allies are the US and Iran, whose governments openly detest each other. The Iraqi government may be militarily dependent on the 140,000 US troops in the country, but its Shia and Kurdish leaders have long been allied to Iran. Iraqi leaders have to continually perform a balancing act in which they seek to avoid alienating either country.

The balancing act has become more difficult for Iraq since George Bush successfully requested $400m (£200m) from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership. Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran. The most effective of these opponent groups is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which enraged the Iraqi government by staging a conference last month at Camp Ashraf, north-east of Baghdad. It demanded the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian agents in Iraq. “It was a huge meeting” said Dr Othman. “All the tribes and political leaders who are against Iran, but are also against the Iraqi government, were there.” He said the anti-Iranian meeting could not have taken place without US permission.

May I suggest that a rethink should been done on any action against Iran, the region cannot stand another upheaval like the one began by the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  The troops may NEVER come home it the ignorance prevails.

How long will this continue? This is very old news, but yet they just keep firing away at it. Is there any intelligent people left that does know how badly the Iraq situation was handled? If there are, please, just leave them under their rock, we do not need them out and about.

A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the Army found that “in the euphoria of early 2003,” U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.

The report said it wasn’t until July 16, 2003, that Franks’ successor, Gen. John Abizaid, said coalition forces were facing a classic guerrilla insurgency.

Even so, the coalition made some progress, only to have its optimism dashed after the insurgency boiled over in April 2004, when Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militias launched violent assaults in many parts of Iraq, the report said.

The authors said the Army had considerable experience and training for guerrilla wars but had not been in one like Iraq since 1992 in Somalia. They said former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Franks “that he thought too few troops were envisioned in the (invasion) plan.”

Some commanders told the authors they asked about plans for making the country stable and got no answers.

The “post-war situation in Iraq was severely out of line with the suppositions made at nearly every level before the war,” the report said.

Its writers said it was clear in January 2005 that the Army would remain in Iraq for some time, the writers concluded. The report covered the period from May 2003 to January 2005.

OKay, we now know that the invasion and occupation were f*cked up! Can we please move on to solving the problem? Restating the obvious, over and over and over, does nothing to stop the killing of Americans in Iraq.

HA! HA! HA!  Bush and the Boyz are scrambling around trying to find some form of legacy for this lame duck president.  Now they seem to think that they can find this elusive positive legacy, somewhere in the Middle east.

The US has proposed new talks in a push to reach a deal on the Palestinian statehood before President George W. Bush leaves office in January.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurie said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had invited the Israelis and Palestinians to a series of trilateral discussions in New York and Washington.

At a US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis in November that was attended by the Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, the two leaders agreed to calls to halt violence against Palestinians and freeze settlement construction.

However, Israeli officials said this month that they had approved a plan to build 40,000 new homes in al-Quds over the next 10 years, including the annexed Arab eastern sector of the city. Israel also stepped up military operations against the Palestinians in recent months, which has resulted in many deaths and injuries among civilians.

May I suggest that the admin just look elsewhere for some of positive news or better yet let the Egyptians handle the talks, they were instrumental in the Gaza Deal.  They seem to have a much better batting average than the present administration.

According to a report issued last week by the human rights organization Amnesty International, the plight of nearly 5 million Iraqis displaced from their homes since the American invasion of 2003 is worsening in nearly every respect.

The report cites the atrocious living conditions in most of Iraq as an additional factor driving people to flee the country. According to Oxfam, in 2007 70 percent of Iraqis had no access to clean drinking water and 43 percent were living on less than a dollar a day. Child malnutrition has increased from 19 percent in 2003 to 28 percent last year.

About half of Iraqis who have fled their homes remain in other parts of Iraq because of the increasing restrictions on leaving the country. Denial of access to refuge abroad is at least in part due to the actions of the Iraqi government, which—along with its American masters—has a vested interest in reducing the number of people fleeing the country.

The report, for example, notes that one factor in the Syrian government’s decision to introduce stricter visa requirements for Iraqis crossing the boarder was “the request of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.”

Iraqi refugees in Syria have access to the public health system, but the system itself cannot meet their needs. Iraq families are often required to make a financial contribution for treatment that they cannot afford. In addition, Iraqis in Syria suffer from a much higher incidence of trauma because of their experiences in Iraq and have complex psychological needs that go untreated.

Five hundred thousand Iraqi refugees reside in Jordan (8 percent of the population). Here, if anything, the situation is even worse than in Syria. Access to Jordan is also highly restricted. The report observes that young men in particular are turned back at the border. In May the Jordanian government instituted new visa requirements, forcing Iraqis to apply for visas before they travel to Jordan.

Most Iraqis in Jordan have no legal status. Iraqis with no residence permit must pay US$761 for every year that they are without official status. Further, Iraqis are not permitted to work. As in Syria, Iraqis in Jordan are becoming poorer every week. Some work illegally, the report says, “where they are reported to be vulnerable to low pay, exploitation, and arbitrary dismissals.” Rents are also on the rise, and Iraqi families are now sharing apartments and, in many cases, rooms with others.

In a related report issued last week, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights documented an increase in the number of global refugees and internally displaced persons to 67 million in 2007, up 2.5 million from a year before. About half of these have fled their homes because of natural disasters (or the inability of states to deal with disasters), and the remainder because of armed conflict. Iraq and Somalia saw some of the largest changes between 2006 and 2007 in the numbers of internally displaced persons.

Asked if the surge is working, most American politicians will say yes, but ask that same question to an Iraqi and you will most likely get a different answer.

Back in the waning days of 2001, Pres. Bush labeled some of the enemies of the US as the “Axis Of Evil”, they were Iraq, North Korea and Iran.  We bombed one off the list at a cost of 4000+ and counting lives, the other we talked and negotiated with at a cost of no American lives.  The Axis has been broken leaving only one remaining, Iran.

No one in the Administration wants to talk with the country, but they have no problem thumping their chests about the possibility of an attack.  Let us look at the equation, one cost lives, the other did not.  Which one is more preferable?

Removal from the terror list would pave the way towards lifting many of the most stringent sanctions, and enables Pyongyang to start receiving low-interest loans from the World Bank and other international lending agencies.

While making these pledges, Mr Bush emphasised that moves to take the country from the terror list would not begin for 45 days, and would start only if the North’s claims were verified.

But stop!  Do not keep thumping your chest and calling an Obama proposal as appeasement, when you are doing the same thing.  BTW, diplomacy cost few if any lives.  I would say that is far more preferable than a war that cannot be afforded.

This is one way to make global warming a prime program for funding–looks like an extension of the well used fear card.

Global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments and could add to terrorism, all of which could threaten U.S. national security, according to an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

“Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated (by climate change) would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism,” said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, who testified before a joint House committee hearing Wednesday.

Climate change alone would not topple governments, but it could worsen problems like poverty, disease, migration, and hunger that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Fingar told the committee.

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies “may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself,” he stated.

“The operative word there is ‘may,’ we don’t know,” Fingar said.

“Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror,” stated Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, who commanded U.S. and allied peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1996.

“Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” the previous report said. “The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations,” stated the report, which drew on 11 retired generals and admirals.

California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said Congress’ call for the intelligence agencies’ report was “a dangerous diversion of intelligence assets.” He said the issue should be studied by climate scientists, not intelligence agencies.

Republicans on the committee used the hearing to argue for domestic oil drilling and nuclear power to reduce reliance on foreign energy.

Amazing how they trot out this after the calls for more offshore drilling.  I ask, if the proposal had not been made, would this report have been released?

No! Really! Sen. McCain are you truly experienced?

Gen. wesley Clark Weighs in on the experience thingy that McCain and his entourage are claiming.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post, Clark offered opinions on the current state of American foreign policy, the Democrats’ emergence as a more “full-service” party on security issues, and — lest anyone doubt his potential use as a running mate for Obama — the shortcomings of Sen. John McCain.

“I know he’s trying to get traction by seeking to play to what he thinks is his strong suit of national security,” Clark said of McCain while speaking from his office in Little Rock, Arkansas. “The truth is that, in national security terms, he’s largely untested and untried. He’s never been responsible for policy formulation. He’s never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or [in managing] his own congressional staff. It’s not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is.”

Resume aside, though, Clark also took issue with the Arizona Republican’s instincts on national security. “McCain’s weakness is that he’s always been for the use of force, force and more force. In my experience, the only time to use force is as a last resort. … When he talks about throwing Russia out of the G8 and makes ditties about bombing Iran, he betrays a disrespect for the office of the presidency.”

Citing the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, Clark suggested a prime window of opportunity may have been missed early in the Bush presidency, before the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “I think Iran has come out of the Bush administration as a much stronger power,” he said. “First of all, we eliminated the primary blocking force to their west in Iraq. Secondly, we have been ineffective in using the broader tools of U.S. diplomacy and moral suasion in the region — and that’s allowed Iran to capture Hamas, displace Fatah and strengthen [its] grip on Hezbollah. … Without effective diplomatic engagement of Iran, we’ve allowed them to pursue a nuclear program that is likely aimed at achieving nuclear weapons. But we’ve refused to sit down and talk to them about it. … I still favor an effort to engage Iran, but the clock is ticking on their probable nuclear program. This makes everything much more complicated and difficult now.

Gen. Clark is becoming an outspoken critic of McCain and his claims to experience. Does he, Clark, have a plan for the future; maybe VP or Sec of Defense?

Barack Obama and John McCain turned up the heat on their debates over energy and terror Tuesday, with some calling on the Republican to fire a top aide who suggested another attack would be a political boon.

McCain adviser Charlie Black has expressed regret for telling Fortune magazine that another terrorist attack “certainly would be a big advantage” to McCain.

But regret wasn’t enough for some, including an umbrella union group with some 6 million members, Change to Win, that has backed Obama and called on McCain to fire Black.

This comment ping pong is truly irritating.  Thanks to youtube and the like, no candidate or surrogaste can say anything without it streaming on the web.  How long will this game continue?  There are more important issues at hand than the he said, they said game to continue.

Personally, I think that Black is dreaming.   Why?  The Bush Administration has thumped its chest about there have been no new attacks on our soil and the McCain campaign is tied large to the Bush policies and the statement on national security.  An attack before the election would likely favor Obama and not McCain.  Obama could point to the attack as proof that a new thinking was needed in foreign policy and that he would have kept the US safe.

The issue erupted after Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show that the timetable for U.S. forces to come home from Iraq is not of great concern as long as U.S. casualties in the Middle East fall to levels comparable to those in allied countries where U.S. forces have been stationed for decades without incident.

“That’s not too important,” McCain said, when asked by host Matt Lauer if he could better estimate when U.S. forces would come home. “What’s important is the casualties in Iraq,” he said. “Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.”

McCain has long emphasized bringing U.S. military casualties down in Iraq to bolster the American public’s commitment to stabilizing Iraq. But even if McCain’s statement yesterday differed little from his past pronouncements, it came at a delicate diplomatic juncture. The Bush administration is trying to hammer out bilateral agreements governing the future status of U.S. forces in Iraq, to take effect when the current U.N. mandate expires at the end of December. The two accords — a status-of-forces agreement and a broader security “framework” — have come under sharp criticism in Iraq because of administration proposals to retain unilateral control over U.S. military operations as well as the ability to detain Iraqi citizens while providing legal immunity for U.S. security contractors. Iraqi politicians have also charged that the United States plans to maintain up to 60 military bases there.

I guess I am looking at it differently, if the US pulled forces from Korea, Germany or Japan there would be NO violence, but I guess that is part of the argument, that if we had left too early from aforementioned countries they would not be as stable as they are today…..Now I am looking at other statements…like the US has a duty to bring stability to Iraq..well yes and no..first we caused this massive f/up so there can be a position made that we need to fix it.  But also, the US cannot bring something that the people do not want.  It depends on your thought process.  There is NO easy answer to the Iraq situation.  My biggest problem with the war is that the squandered funds that could be more expertly used in the US.  I also have a problem with this war because they were told what would happed if the US invaded, especially by Dr. Zbig (and I wish I could spell his last name), when on the day of the invasion he told the media what would be the outcome.  Everything else is hindsight and once again the powers that be do not have foresight.