McCain's America -- A World Citizen

Senator John McCain addressed the University of Colorado yesterday on his presumptive nuclear strategy if elected the next U.S. president. His address is laced with similarities resembling a continuation of George W. Bush's foreign policy. The full transcript of his address can be found here.

There is such a thing as good international citizenship, and America must be a good citizen of the world--leading the way to address the danger of global warming and preserve our environment, strengthening existing international institutions and helping to build new ones, and engaging the world in a broad dialogue on the threat of violent extremists, who would, if they could, use weapons of mass destruction to attack us and our allies.

McCain is using the same fear tactics that the Bush administration has successfully implemented since September 2001. His definition of a "good international [citizen]" is one that works with other nations on making a safer world from "violent extremists". Good citizens will use international institutions and agencies to confront extremists, and in some cases, create new alliances to help preserve the world from evil. Yet, based on his senatorial record, his declaration is inconsistent with his platform.

Senator McCain's inconsistency is twofold: at the core, the underlying problems are his vote to authorize the Iraq war in 2002 and his continued support of the war (and subsequent surge). The "good" citizen, as he notes above, works to "strengthen existing international institutions". The United Nations (U.N.) is an example of an international institution and on numerous occasions before the start of the war, the U.S. repeatedly defied the U.N. Leaders from France and Germany attempted to stop the run up to war but were unsuccessful in their bids. By invading and occupying Iraq-with only 40 nations in the U.S. coalition- the U.S. was acting at odds with the U.N. and the international community. This act by the U.S. illustrates the Bush administration's disregard for the international community. McCain reaffirms the Bush doctrine and the administration's disregard of the international community by voting to authorize the war in 2002 (H.J. Res, 114).

Furthermore, his continued support of the war and the surge demonstrates his lack of understanding of the realities in Iraq. This disillusionment is just another example of McCain's inconsistent promise that the U.S. will be a good citizen of the world. His response to interrupting protesters is a glowing example of his doublespeak:

McCain promises not leave to Iraq until the U.S. achieves its mission. A good citizen of the world includes international institutions and neighboring countries in the rebuilding effort of Iraq; a good citizen does not allow a civil war to break out between Shi'as and Sunnis; as journalist Nir Rosen notes, a good citizen of the world will not allow (under her watch) a country to cease to exist:

I don’t think Iraq even—you can say it exists anymore. There has been a very effective, systematic ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad, of Shias—from areas that are now mostly Shia. But the Sunnis especially have been a target, as have mixed families like the one we just saw. With a name like Omar, he’s distinctly Sunni—it’s a very Sunni name. You can be executed for having the name Omar alone. And Baghdad is now firmly in the hands of sectarian Shiite militias, and they’re never going to let it go.

(read full transcript here)

McCain would like you to believe that he is bringing a fresh new approach to foreign and nuclear policy. Yet, as just shown, his record proves otherwise. A McCain presidency is just a continuation of the failed policies of one of the worst administrations in recent U.S. history.

Alan M. Dershowitz -- Another Absurd Comment

Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama

NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/us/politics/22jewish.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1211468464-h6/RiOTLnGncbjfRaWiUoA

If you haven't already read this article please do. It's very telling how closed-minded people are in their perceptions of Middle Easterners. More importantly, it illuminates the very sad, sad notion of acceptance of comments made by certain individuals that are down right offensive towards people of a certain region:

Israelis fear Iran “could be the first suicide nation, a nation that would destroy itself to destroy the Jewish nation,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

According to Harvard law professor, former O.J. Simpson attorney, and author Alan Dershowitz, the Iranian regime will martyr itself to destroy Israel. I'm not going to waste my time discussing the baseless and illogical statement made by Dershowitz. Instead, I want to address the culture of accepting offensive and absurd comments directed toward an individual or a to group.

Many articles, blogs, and books have been published on the culture of fear that has dominated the U.S. for many years. Countless U.S. administrations have used fear as a tool to promote and legislate certain policies that are not in the best interest of our country. This fear instilled in us has given rise to a new phenomenon that is governing who we are: acceptance. Fear is used to promote negative stereotypes of any given "enemy" (i.e., Native Americans, African slaves, Japanese, communist, Arab and Muslim terrorist, etc). Once the fear is established, acceptance begins to overtake our reason and our humanity, thus marginalizing specific groups of people. "Islam is a religion of hate. It breeds terrorist. Arabs want to kill all Jews." These horrid statements told and retold from officials and the media begins to slowly sway the perceptions of people. You hear it in the news, you read about it in the op-eds, Hollywood begins to produce films and made-for-tv series about terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S., and tons of books are published glorifying these negative images.

After being exposed to these negative images from all angles, acceptance creeps in. You are reminded of your “fear” when coming across absurd and offensive comments directed towards a specific group of people. This fear leads to accepting statements or the nature of events as true. Dershowitz's statement is an example of fear turned into acceptance. The media attention on Iran in the last thirty years has not been a favorable one. Bush has labeled Iran as part of an axis of evil and some in the media have even compared Iran's president Ahmadinejad with Hitler (this blog does not endorse Ahmadinejad nor does it agree with his policies, but to compare him with Hitler- the architect of the holocaust- is illogical and absurd). It plays into the fear card that is constantly being used and reused against Iran. Therefore, it becomes acceptable (and sadly by some, believable) to hear statements that imply Iran's, as a nation, willingness to attain martyrdom by destroying the state of Israel.

I use the word acceptable to explain this phenomenon because of the consequences (or lack thereof) of publicly making offensive comments. Very few, if any, public apologies have been given when comments of these sorts about Middle Easterners are made. When offensive comments about African Americans and Jewish Americans are made, public apologies are quick to follow. This happens when offensive and absurd comments are unacceptable by the public. Yet, I want to remind the reader that even though such comments become unacceptable, it does not mean the negative stereotypes have ceded to exist.

This way of governing, vis-a-vis fear of specific groups is a cycle that needs to be broken. It does nothing but divide people and create an atmosphere of hate that is neither desirable nor productive. The next time an offensive and absurd statement is made about any specific group (American, Arab, Black, Iranian, Jewish, etc.), it is vital that we all take a step back and really listen and decipher to what is being said. It's time to stop accepting insidious statements and start making an effort not to reinforce negative stereotypes and marginalizing specific groups.