Election Thursday: Foreign Policy Missteps
Hey folks! It's Thursday, and that means that it's time for this intrepid blogger to vent about the election. Just a few things today - with events in Georgia taking such a prominent place in the media over the course of the last week, there's been far less attention paid to the election. (Could it be that John Edwards decided to announce his sordid affair when he knew that little media attention would be focused on him?)
Before I actually go into the election bits, I just want to point out: while oil jumped four dollars in the last day, and the stock market took a bit of a hit, the dollar is at the highest value that it's been in months. In fact, looking back at old Fly Reports, this may be the best we've seen the dollar doing in nearly two years. Recession, my ass!
One more thing: Mighty Mo has effectively shut her blog down. She's had a lot of things changing for her in the last few months, and she's at least taking a breather, possibly walking away from blogging. If you've ever read her highly entertaining and insightful posts, do her a favor: go tell her in the comments to her last post.
Okay, now for the election stuff. It's becoming more and more obvious that the majority of the American media - and pretty much all of the foreign media - is in the tank for Senator Obama. This isn't especially surprising, but the level to which they seem to be taking this bias is almost comical. Or at least, it would be if it weren't frustrating. When I took journalism - as a freshman in high school, in 1996 - I was always told that journalists are meant to exercise the highest levels of integrity and objectivity. Save for those pieces that are explicitly labeled "editorial", journalists are supposed to remain dispassionate. Unfortunately, most of the world's journalists were absent during that day that yours truly was in journalism class. Today, I'm going to focus on two such stories: one for Senator McCain, and another for Senator Obama.
A few months ago, Senator McCain caught a lot of flack for claiming that Iran was supporting al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups. According to the media, there was only one problem: Iranians are Shia, and al Qaeda is Sunni! Senator McCain must be a complete moron! O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma! Just one problem: Senator McCain was right: link, link. Not only is there strong evidence that al Qaeda has received support from Iran, but Iran has backed at least two other Sunni terrorist organizations: Hamas, and the Taliban. So while most journalists probably couldn't find Iran on a map, they're trying to call Senator McCain out, when his only real mistake was listening to Senator Lieberman's correction.
Meanwhile, what happens when Senator Obama makes a real mistake? In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on 13th May of this year, Senator Obama said:
You can see the video itself here, but the audio is sort of lousy. At any rate, there's just one problem: they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan. A handful, maybe; but having a bunch of Arabic interpreters in Afghanistan would be roughly equivalent to having a bunch of French-speaking interpreters in Greece - and in fact, that might even be more useful, because French and Greek are both Indo-European languages. Pashtu, Urdu, and Dari, the major languages spoken in Afghanistan, are from the Indo-European language family, while Arabic is from the Semitic family. There are certainly areas of overlap, but to claim that the war effort in Afghanistan is being hindered because the Arabic interpreters are in Iraq? It's ridiculous, and yet Senator Obama claims that he's more qualified to make foreign policy and serve as America's Commander-in-Chief.
To recap: the media jumped all over Senator McCain when he was actually correct in what he'd said, but they ignore Senator Obama when he coughs up ridiculous nonsense? Seems like a double standard to me. You can read more about both incidents here. I also found a rather cutting video a couple of weeks ago that I'd like to share. Senator Obama has espoused a number of high-minded goals with respect to foreign policy; this video, while somewhat inflammatory, contrasts specifics from one of Senator Obama's speeches with events in the recent past. Have a look.
My plan next week is to talk about Senator McCain's faith when he was imprisoned in Hanoi. Discussion of Senator Obama's religious faith has been a bit of a losing issue for the freshman senator from Illinois, but more people ought to know about the faith that John McCain has tried to live. In the mean time, today's Thursday, which means that tomorrow is Friday. Seize the day, dear readers, and check back tomorrow for some lighter notes to take you into the weekend.
Before I actually go into the election bits, I just want to point out: while oil jumped four dollars in the last day, and the stock market took a bit of a hit, the dollar is at the highest value that it's been in months. In fact, looking back at old Fly Reports, this may be the best we've seen the dollar doing in nearly two years. Recession, my ass!
One more thing: Mighty Mo has effectively shut her blog down. She's had a lot of things changing for her in the last few months, and she's at least taking a breather, possibly walking away from blogging. If you've ever read her highly entertaining and insightful posts, do her a favor: go tell her in the comments to her last post.
Okay, now for the election stuff. It's becoming more and more obvious that the majority of the American media - and pretty much all of the foreign media - is in the tank for Senator Obama. This isn't especially surprising, but the level to which they seem to be taking this bias is almost comical. Or at least, it would be if it weren't frustrating. When I took journalism - as a freshman in high school, in 1996 - I was always told that journalists are meant to exercise the highest levels of integrity and objectivity. Save for those pieces that are explicitly labeled "editorial", journalists are supposed to remain dispassionate. Unfortunately, most of the world's journalists were absent during that day that yours truly was in journalism class. Today, I'm going to focus on two such stories: one for Senator McCain, and another for Senator Obama.
A few months ago, Senator McCain caught a lot of flack for claiming that Iran was supporting al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups. According to the media, there was only one problem: Iranians are Shia, and al Qaeda is Sunni! Senator McCain must be a complete moron! O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma! Just one problem: Senator McCain was right: link, link. Not only is there strong evidence that al Qaeda has received support from Iran, but Iran has backed at least two other Sunni terrorist organizations: Hamas, and the Taliban. So while most journalists probably couldn't find Iran on a map, they're trying to call Senator McCain out, when his only real mistake was listening to Senator Lieberman's correction.
Meanwhile, what happens when Senator Obama makes a real mistake? In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on 13th May of this year, Senator Obama said:
"Right now, we don't have enough troops and NATO hasn't provided enough troops because they are still angry about us going into Iraq. So we just don't have enough capacity right now to deal with -- and it's not just troops by the way, it's like Arabic interpreters, Arab language speakers. We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then it's harder for us to use them, and obviously they may not speak Arabic, but the various dialects that they speak in Afghanistan oftentimes people who speak Urdu or Pashto or whatever the languages are, they are going to be needed in those areas and a lot of them have ended up being placed elsewhere. So, we've got to focus on Afghanistan."
You can see the video itself here, but the audio is sort of lousy. At any rate, there's just one problem: they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan. A handful, maybe; but having a bunch of Arabic interpreters in Afghanistan would be roughly equivalent to having a bunch of French-speaking interpreters in Greece - and in fact, that might even be more useful, because French and Greek are both Indo-European languages. Pashtu, Urdu, and Dari, the major languages spoken in Afghanistan, are from the Indo-European language family, while Arabic is from the Semitic family. There are certainly areas of overlap, but to claim that the war effort in Afghanistan is being hindered because the Arabic interpreters are in Iraq? It's ridiculous, and yet Senator Obama claims that he's more qualified to make foreign policy and serve as America's Commander-in-Chief.
To recap: the media jumped all over Senator McCain when he was actually correct in what he'd said, but they ignore Senator Obama when he coughs up ridiculous nonsense? Seems like a double standard to me. You can read more about both incidents here. I also found a rather cutting video a couple of weeks ago that I'd like to share. Senator Obama has espoused a number of high-minded goals with respect to foreign policy; this video, while somewhat inflammatory, contrasts specifics from one of Senator Obama's speeches with events in the recent past. Have a look.
My plan next week is to talk about Senator McCain's faith when he was imprisoned in Hanoi. Discussion of Senator Obama's religious faith has been a bit of a losing issue for the freshman senator from Illinois, but more people ought to know about the faith that John McCain has tried to live. In the mean time, today's Thursday, which means that tomorrow is Friday. Seize the day, dear readers, and check back tomorrow for some lighter notes to take you into the weekend.
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