Don't Tread on Me - I am off Limits!

Change will leave you with pocket change. Obama's object is "fairness." An Obama government will decide what is fair. Socialism also crushes incentive to achieve. (See 1 below.)

U.S. officially involved in direct talks with Iran. Is GW gutting the ground out from Obama? Will Iran delay and give little,as they have been, and gain more through doing so? I would bet on that.

In the end the West will get little, at most, empty promises. Iran will develop their nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Then Israel must decide what they can tolerate and beg the West to be allowed to try and degrade Iran's nuclear capability. It's Chamberlain all over again.(See 2 below.)

Israel gets bodies back and gives live terrorists in the trade. One more nail in Israel's own coffin as their move will be interpreted as simply another sign of weakness. Hezballah wins round two or is it three since they have re-armed under the nose of UNFIL 2? (See 3 below.)

Lee Cary on Obama and education. Obama proposes getting the government more involved in education. Education began declining when government got more involved. Why do voters believe bureaucratic government solutions work? Haven't they learned anything from the current financial mess, government oversight, regulations and bail outs?

The Federal Reserve System was established so Congress could keep on spending and offload their responsibility. How many more disasters have to occur before we learn government solutions are not the answer but the problem? (See 4 below.)

Richard Baehr reviews a former Hippie and Viet Nam war protester's new book. David Horowitz, eventually saw the light and has railed against the Left and their failed policies ever since. Now he writes about the party of defeat. (See 5 below.)

From the Messiah's own pen! Obama bathes us in more words while reminding us only his words count, only he has the answers. Why? Because he is a Harvard Law Graduate, community activist, former church goer, still a family man who became a Senator Wunderkind! (See 6 below.)

But then even Maureen Dowd is beginning to discover Obama's Achilles Heel - he is a humorless - don't tread of me type politician.

Would I want Obama sitting down and negotiating with my adversary or John Bolton? If is wanted to create the appearance of a "soft" victory I would go with the former. If I wanted to come out with all my fingers and be left with hard reality I would go for the latter.

Negotiating from weakness is not a sign strength. (See 7 below.)

Dick

1) If you want 'CHANGE' this will do it.

CAPITAL GAINS TAX

MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples) McCain does not propose any change in existing
home sales income tax.

OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL home sales

How does this affect you?
If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes.
If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.

DIVIDEND TAX

MCCAIN 1 5% (no change)

OBAMA 39.6%

How will this affect you?
If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement
accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money
earned on taxes if Obama become president. The experts predict that 'higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.

INCOME TAX

MCCAIN (no changes)

Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

OBAMA
(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - t ax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

Under Obama your taxes will more than double!
How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty straight forward.

INHERITANCE TAX

MCCAIN 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)

OBAMA Restore the inheritance tax

How does this affect you? Many families have lost businesses, farms and ranches, and homes that have
been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax.
Those willing their assets to loved ones will not only lose them to these taxes.

NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA

* New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet
* New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already)
* New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity)

* New taxes on retirement accounts
and last but not least....

* New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!

2)High US official to attend nuclear talks with Iran, capping secret US-Tehran diplomacy


The announcement that US Under Secretary of State William Burns will join the meeting the European Union’s Javier Solana holds with Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva this week makes official the secret diplomatic track afoot between Washington and Tehran.

US sources confirm that this step distances the Bush administration still further from Israel’s policy position, which calls for the curtailment of Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb by all means, including military action. It leaves Jerusalem alone in the arena against Iran on the nuclear and other security issues, such as Hizballah, Syria and the radicalized Lebanese government.

The Washington announcement came a day after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama reiterated he was willing to engage Iran’s leaders in direct talks.



This secret dialogue had yielded deals on pricing oil up to a $150 ceiling and a helping hand from Tehran in Iraq.

Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers serving under cover in Iraq were instructed to hold back radical Shiite militias from attacking US forces and to share intelligence with the American military.

This did not stop Hizballah cells in Iraq from going for American targets. One of their operatives, trained in Iran as an explosives expert was captured in Iraq, according to a disclosure on Tuesday, July 15.

The understandings US and Iranian diplomats achieved in their undisclosed talks over several weeks were far-ranging. Our Middle East sources reveal they included Lebanese political stability under a new national government in which Iran’s surrogate, Hizballah won veto power and Syria’s violent proxy a ministerial seat; and Syrian ruler Bashar Assad’s restoration to center position on the Middle East stage with honors heaped on him by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

This new White House orientation has thrust Israel to the outer edge of its Middle East policy in favor of placing its most extreme enemies at the center. Prime minister Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and defense minister Ehud Barak find their foreign policies bankrupted.

The indirect peace talks Olmert initiated with Syria through Turkey are now revealed as a smoke screen which he laid down unwittingly to cover Washington’s pursuit of a secret rapprochement with Tehran and Damascus.

A further sign that the secret US-Iran dialogue was about to surface came from a surprisingly mild statement by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Monday that his government is willing to hold direct contacts with US officials on the understanding that Iran retains the right to enrich uranium.

Last week, William Burns told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that he was optimistic about the prospects of nuclear negotiations with Iran. He played down the fact that Tehran had not given an inch on the enrichment issue or halted its advance towards nuclear weaponization.

The official US statement Wednesday said Burns "will be there [at the big power talks in Switzerland] to listen, not negotiate."

The real negotiations are still going forward in the realm of secret diplomacy.

3)Israeli army confirms identities of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers



Hizballah delivered the remains of Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, whose kidnap triggered the 2006 Lebanon War, Wednesday, July 16, in return for 199 bodies, most of terrorists, and five live prisoners, including Samir Kuntar, the Nahariya murderer. Hizballah delayed informing Israel whether the two soldiers were alive or dead for two years up until the 0900 Wednesday handover.

The IDF command posthumously promoted the dead soldiers to master sergeant major and first grade sergeant major.

The five Hizballah prisoners and 199 bodies are on their way to Lebanon, including the Nahariya murderer Samir Kuntar, imprisoned for the brutal murder in 1979 of a 4-year old Israeli girl, her father, a policeman and another civilian. He awaits a heroes’ welcome in Lebanon. Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank joined the celebration.

Israeli forces are on high alert in the north for a fresh Hizballah attack after recovering its prisoners. The deaths of the two soldiers raise the Lebanon war death toll to 121.

Knesset foreign affairs and security committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi criticized approval of the deal, brokered by the UN-appointed mediator Gerhard Konrad, as exposing Israel’s weakness and Hizballah’s strength and resolve.

The Israeli cabinet approved the exchange by 22 to 3 Tuesday, July 15, over the objections of Israeli security chiefs, who stated Hizballah had cheated on its promised report on the fate of the Israeli navigator Ron Arad, taken prisoner in Lebanon 22 years ago and never heard of since. They recommended rejecting the swap since Hizballah had provided nothing new and therefore not kept to its side of the bargain.

The prisoner deal came under heavy fire from many quarters:

By accepting dead soldiers for live terrorists in a prisoner swap, the Olmert government was accused of not only giving up on the Israeli navigator, but putting the life of another abducted Israeli soldier, Gilead Shalit, in Hamas’ hands, at grave risk. Terrorists’ will henceforth have more incentive to abduct Israelis and less to keep them alive when their government is prepared to pay a high price, including murderers, for bodies.

The cost to Israel’s worth as a force in the region and loss of deterrent strength are incalculable.

Objections were filed against the release of five Hizballah operatives, including Samir Kuntar, the convicted Nahariya murderer, who previous Israeli governments had pledged to release only against solid information on Arad.

The family of Eliahu Shahar, the policeman who was one of Kuntar’s victims, unsuccessfully petitioned the High Court against his release.

The families of three men who missing in action from the Sultan Yakub battle in Lebanon 26 years ago added their protest.

4) Obama and the Independent School District
By Lee Cary

"I don't want to send another generation of American children to failing schools." (Barack Obama, Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Des Moines, Iowa, November 10, 2007)

The signature initiative of an Obama campaign for a second term would be nationalizing public education, kindergarten through grade 12. If it happens, say goodbye to the Independent School District (I.S.D.) as we've known it.

The Obama campaign document entitled "The Blueprint For Change: Barack Obama's Plan For America" continues to be ignored by the old media news. The section entitled "Plan To Give Every American Child A World Class Education," was profiled earlier in much of its mind-numbing detail in American Thinker. Of the fifteen topics in his Blueprint, "Education" is arguably the most thoroughly articulated, with community "Service" a close second. (In comparison "Veterans" is a flyby.)

Barack Obama has clear and audacious intentions concerning public education in America.

On November 20, 2007, in a speech entitled "Our Kids, Our Future," he said,

"A truly historic commitment to education -- a real commitment -- will require new resources and new reforms. It will require a willingness to break free from the same debates that Washington has been engaged in for decades - Democrat versus Republican; vouchers versus the status quo; more money versus more accountability. And most of all, it will take a President who is honest about the challenges we face -- who doesn't just tell everyone what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.

I am running to be that President. And that's why I'm proposing a comprehensive plan to give every American child the chance to receive the best education America has to offer - from the moment they're born to the day they graduate college. As President, I will put the full resources of the federal government behind this plan. But to make it a reality, I will also ask more of teachers and principals; parents and students; schools and communities." (emphasis added)


If you couple the scope of that statement with details outlined in his plan, the unavoidable message is that he would, as president, move toward federalizing public education from K-12, and greatly expand Washington's role in the pre-school arena.

In a February 19, 2008 speech in Wisconsin he stated,

"If you're ready for change, we can assure that every child in America has the best education this country has to offer from the day that child is born to the day that child graduates from college. The problem is not the lack of plans, [or] the lack of good ideas. The problem is a lack of political will, a lack of urgency."


"Political will" is about provoking the will of the people to give the federal government the authority to education America's children. Obama sees himself as the Chief Education Officer of the United States. His Department of Education will manage one large, nationwide, public school district with a unified federal budget. Here's how Obama would position this initiative.

Public education is too important to the nation's prosperity and security to leave in the hands of essentially volunteer school boards. Just as it doesn't make sense in the modern world for each community to have its own postal system, or its own military, likewise it no longer makes sense for each community to struggle to support their own educational enterprise in a world growing more complex and competitive by the day. It's time the government of all the people takes responsibility for educating all the people's children, regardless of how affluent or poor their individual community happens to be. All the children, after all, are our nation's future. We can no longer afford Corridors of Shame anywhere in these United States of America.

Before you dismiss this notion as fanciful, consider likely responses from those most directly involved in public education.

* * *

Teachers' Unions: The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers would gladly become federal employees. It would standardize pensions and benefits, equalize pay scales nationwide, ease teacher transfers from state-to-state, offer greater job security, and allow poorer districts to raise teacher salaries. Plus, it would enhance union influence and grow the power of union officials.

Administrators: Many School Superintendents would welcome becoming federal employees. It would rescue them from the oversight of school boards and make them as locally unaccountable as their town postmaster.

Today, administrators seek to mitigate the risk of lawsuits from angry parents. With federalized schools that risk disappears. Who sues the federal government? Assault on a teacher would be a federal offense. School Security Administration (S.S.A.) personnel would, akin to the T.S.A., enforce school safety. Meanwhile, local police officers could leave school and go fight crime.

Parents: They'll support anything that promises their kids a better education. Most parents couldn't name two of their school board members to save their lives. They won't fight for the independence of their I.S.D. Plus, transferring their children from state-to-state will be less traumatic when every kid in the 4th grade nationwide marches lockstep in academic cadence.

State Education Departments & Bureaucrats: State education employees would welcome federalization the same way that workers at Small Grocery Store, promised job security by the new owners, welcome a buyout from Big Mega Market. State legislators responsible for budgeting state support for education would gladly surrender that chore.

University Education Departments: The academy leans left and won't oppose federal public schools. Professors would salivate at the thought of a boom in consulting opportunities, federal research grants, and nationwide distribution of their curriculum materials.

Text Book Publishers: Big publishers could cut sales staff by dealing with a single buyer. Plus, they won't need to placate the politically correct agenda of individual states. The intelligent design vs. evolution debate will end inside the Beltway. Louisiana, California and Rhode Island will use the same earth science textbooks.

Rank & File Taxpayers: Taxpayers won't care whether their school taxes go to the local I.S.D. or Uncle Sam. Plus, nationalization will promise to reduce school taxes overall. When the feds buy millions of 5th grade math books, the contract is negotiated by a U.S. Department of Education Undersecretary for National Textbook Acquisition. Per-unit cost declines with economy-of-scale purchases. Same for materials and supplies.

Students: These, the real customers, will parrot what their teachers and parents say. They're just kids. Don't expect demonstrations from High Schoolers chanting "Free Our Local School Board."

I.S.D. Board Members: Urban school boards have presided over a continuous train wreck for decades. Most will gladly surrender and let the feds take over. Some suburban and rural school boards might resist, futilely.

Home Schoolers: They'll see nationalization as a threat to their independence, because it is. But they're dedicated and resourceful people. They'll survive, and perhaps even flourish after a favorable court decision. (Maybe)

* * *

There's one powerful point that would make the idea of federalizing schools a seductive lure. Nearly all agree that the I.S.D. system isn't adequately preparing America's children to compete in a global economy. In short, they're failing the nation. But imagine the consequences if your children's school teachers and administrators become accountable to Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile,

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." Will Rogers

5) The Party of Defeat
By Richard Baehr

Party of Defeat by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson, 224 pages, Spence Publishing

David Horowitz has written many books and articles that deal with the topic of American political warfare. Horowitz has often argued that the left is much more resolute, serious, and focused in its efforts, which has enabled it to win political victories over an often dispirited, and less focused conservative opposition. Horowitz's new book Party of Defeat, co-written with Front Page Magazine managing editor Ben Johnson, offers chapter and verse in how this fight between an aggressive anti-war left, and the Bush administration and its allies, played out over the Iraq war.

The book has, of course, not been reviewed by the New York Times nor the Washington Post, but surprisingly, has also been ignored by the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal as well. This is unfortunate, since the message this book delivers is an important one in the current run-up to the Presidential election in November. In essence, the Democratic Party, and its allies on the left have chosen to win a political war at home, at the expense of winning wars in which the country was engaged overseas.

In fact, the political success of the effort by the "Party of Defeat" was tied to creating a story, repeated constantly by members of Congress, former political figures (e.g Al Gore) and cooperative journalists, that the Iraq war was a mistake, that it was sold" to the country with hyped ("bogus") intelligence, and that the war proved a diversion from the "real war on terror" in Afghanistan). As the initial success in removing Saddam turned into tough fighting with a well-armed Sunni insurgency, and Shiite militias armed and funded by Iran, the left and the Democratic Party called for an admission of defeat and a withdrawal. To add to the negativism of the message about the Administration, major news organizations, especially CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post, revealed various secret programs implemented by the Bush administration, including tracking the conversations and funding of suspected terrorists overseas, and presented the boorish behavior of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib as representative of the behavior of our soldiers overseas ( "a pattern of abuse", also seen supposedly at Guantanamo).

As recently as this past Sunday, Frank Rich, author of one of the many remainder shelf screeds on the horrors of the Bush administration (very favorably reviewed in the New York Times of course), wrote a particularly hysterical column even for him, predicting that there would be war crimes trials (justified of course) for the President, and others in his administration for acts of torture and murder.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Horowitz and Johnson book is the way the authors document the various charges leveled at the Bush Administration by the Democrats and the media and demonstrate how in each case they were either false or greatly exaggerated, often using as evidence the reports of various independent or Congressional committees appointed to examine the charges. Each time one slander was knocked down, the left was back with more. But the news stories that got the attention were the charges, not the acquittals.

In large part, the media and political war was so one sided because the Bush Administration was so weak in its response to the assault on its policies, and the leaks coming from the State Department and the intelligence agencies. A war against the war was being fought within the Administration, and the Bush team ignored the misconduct and crimes committed by those on the inside. The real huckster of the last few years was Joseph Wilson, who on the recommendation of his wife, Valerie Plame, was sent to Africa to determine whether the Iraqi government had been shopping for yellowcake and aluminum tubes in Niger. Wilson's oral report to the government upon his return did nothing to quell any suspicions, and if anything, confirmed them. But once the war began, he became a key player in feeding false stories to the New York Times, especially to the ever gullible Bush hater Nicholas Kristof, that Wilson had conclusively determined that the Iraq shopping in Africa story (that the British intelligence services are still defending today) was mythology. Wilson, an obscure retired State Department official, was suddenly the glamour boy, and part of the new glamour couple on the left. When his wife's non-covert job was revealed by Robert Novak, an anti-war critic from the right, it created a several year firestorm. Novak allowed Scooter Libby and Karl Rove to be accused and attacked for a leak of Plame's identity, which Novak knew came from Richard Armitage. Novak is not called the prince of darkness for nothing. One gets the sense reading this book that the administration expected the other side to play fair, or that all good Americans would support the war once we were engaged, and given the high stakes involved.

As Victor Davis Hanson has often written, war is ugly and uneven, in the best of circumstances. There is certainly room for debating the wisdom of the war in Iraq, and there have certainly been missteps in the conduct of the war. The authors readily admit this, though they believe the war was justified, and that Saddam's failure to abide by 17 UN resolutions after the Gulf War, his history of development of WMD programs and use of such weapons on his own people and Iran, and his links to and support for terror groups made removing Saddam the risk-averse strategy. The invasion came but 18 months after 9/11 and continued the effort by the Administration to take the offensive overseas, rather than allow terror groups and terror supporting nations (all part of the same global jihad) to take the battle to us, as Al Qaeda had repeatedly done during the Clinton years, with virtually no response by that Administration..

In any case, despite many early missteps, the surge strategy, initiated by the Bush administration, and backed by Senator John McCain, and opposed by virtually all Democrats including Barack Obama, has been skillfully carried forward under the leadership of General David Petraeus, and has substantially changed the course of the war in our favor. Horowitz and Johnson lay out the reluctance of the Democrats and their media allies to admit they were wrong, and that the war is now being won. That of course, is because the left and the Democrats have too much invested in our failure in Iraq, since that failure is directly related to their perception of their own party's recipe for electoral success. The Democrats never accepted the Bush Presidency as legitimate after the virtual tie in the 2000 President contest in Florida, and Gore's thin popular vote plurality.

The attacks of 9/11 created a rare bipartisan unity. Democrats really had no choice since the country was so angered and unified behind the President and his response in Afghanistan. But Iraq offered an opening to undermine Bush. More than half of the Senate Democrats and 40% of House Democrats supported the President's Congressional resolution on Iraq in the fall of 2002 (the war had high support in America, when it was launched in March 2003), and even more had backed the occasional few days of bombing runs by President Clinton during his administration (the fiery anti-Saddam rhetoric by Democrats in 1998 is of course all on the record).

But the anti-war left was fiercely opposed to the Iraq war (quieter on Afghanistan), and many Democrats in Congress were now on their side and became bitter opponents of the war. As the war dragged on, many more Democrats in Congress came to regret their initial support, and bought into the "I was duped by misleading intelligence" line. And soon it became apparent that the war could be used as a cudgel to undermine the Bush administration and weaken it politically on all fronts.

Hence we have the Party that bought into defeat in Iraq as a strategy for victory in the elections.

In 2006, unhappiness with the Bush Administration over the response to Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, spending, and corruption, led to major defeats for the GOP in the mid-term elections. This year, we are selecting a commander in chief, not just 435 members of the House and 35 Senators. It remains to be seen whether Americans will elect as their commander in chief, a man who has been so heavily invested in his party's strategy of defeat from the beginning of the Iraq war.

6) A New Strategy for a New World
By Barack Obama


Sixty-one years ago, George Marshall announced the plan that would come to bear his name. Much of Europe lay in ruins. The United States faced a powerful and ideological enemy intent on world domination. This menace was magnified by the recently discovered capability to destroy life on an unimaginable scale. The Soviet Union didn't yet have an atomic bomb, but before long it would.

The challenge facing the greatest generation of Americans - the generation that had vanquished fascism on the battlefield - was how to contain this threat while extending freedom's frontiers. Leaders like Truman and Acheson, Kennan and Marshall, knew that there was no single decisive blow that could be struck for freedom. We needed a new overarching strategy to meet the challenges of a new and dangerous world.

Such a strategy would join overwhelming military strength with sound judgment. It would shape events not just through military force, but through the force of our ideas; through economic power, intelligence and diplomacy. It would support strong allies that freely shared our ideals of liberty and democracy; open markets and the rule of law. It would foster new international institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the World Bank, and focus on every corner of the globe. It was a strategy that saw clearly the world's dangers, while seizing its promise.

As a general, Marshall had spent years helping FDR wage war. But the Marshall Plan - which was just one part of this strategy - helped rebuild not just allies, but also the nation that Marshall had plotted to defeat. In the speech announcing his plan, he concluded not with tough talk or definitive declarations - but rather with questions and a call for perspective. "The whole world of the future," Marshall said, "hangs on a proper judgment." To make that judgment, he asked the American people to examine distant events that directly affected their security and prosperity. He closed by asking: "What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?"

What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?

Today's dangers are different, though no less grave. The power to destroy life on a catastrophic scale now risks falling into the hands of terrorists. The future of our security - and our planet - is held hostage to our dependence on foreign oil and gas. From the cave-spotted mountains of northwest Pakistan, to the centrifuges spinning beneath Iranian soil, we know that the American people cannot be protected by oceans or the sheer might of our military alone.

The attacks of September 11 brought this new reality into a terrible and ominous focus. On that bright and beautiful day, the world of peace and prosperity that was the legacy of our Cold War victory seemed to suddenly vanish under rubble, and twisted steel, and clouds of smoke.

But the depth of this tragedy also drew out the decency and determination of our nation. At blood banks and vigils; in schools and in the United States Congress, Americans were united - more united, even, than we were at the dawn of the Cold War. The world, too, was united against the perpetrators of this evil act, as old allies, new friends, and even long-time adversaries stood by our side. It was time - once again - for America's might and moral suasion to be harnessed; it was time to once again shape a new security strategy for an ever-changing world.

Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.

We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.

We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.

We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.

We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.

We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.

We could have secured our homeland--investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.

We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.

We could have done that.

Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats - all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Our men and women in uniform have accomplished every mission we have given them. What's missing in our debate about Iraq - what has been missing since before the war began - is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq and its dominance of our foreign policy. This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.

I am running for President of the United States to lead this country in a new direction - to seize this moment's promise. Instead of being distracted from the most pressing threats that we face, I want to overcome them. Instead of pushing the entire burden of our foreign policy on to the brave men and women of our military, I want to use all elements of American power to keep us safe, and prosperous, and free. Instead of alienating ourselves from the world, I want America - once again - to lead.

As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy - one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin. I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

My opponent in this campaign has served this country with honor, and we all respect his sacrifice. We both want to do what we think is best to defend the American people. But we've made different judgments, and would lead in very different directions. That starts with Iraq.

I opposed going to war in Iraq; Senator McCain was one of Washington's biggest supporters for war. I warned that the invasion of a country posing no imminent threat would fan the flames of extremism, and distract us from the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; Senator McCain claimed that we would be greeted as liberators, and that democracy would spread across the Middle East. Those were the judgments we made on the most important strategic question since the end of the Cold War.

Now, all of us recognize that we must do more than look back - we must make a judgment about how to move forward. What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done? Senator McCain wants to talk of our tactics in Iraq; I want to focus on a new strategy for Iraq and the wider world.

It has been 18 months since President Bush announced the surge. As I have said many times, our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence. General Petraeus has used new tactics to protect the Iraqi population. We have talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America, and supported their fight against al Qaeda. Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire. Those are the facts, and all Americans welcome them.

For weeks, now, Senator McCain has argued that the gains of the surge mean that I should change my commitment to end the war. But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face.

In the 18 months since the surge began, the strain on our military has increased, our troops and their families have borne an enormous burden, and American taxpayers have spent another $200 billion in Iraq. That's over $10 billion each month. That is a consequence of our current strategy.

In the 18 months since the surge began, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. June was our highest casualty month of the war. The Taliban has been on the offensive, even launching a brazen attack on one of our bases. Al Qaeda has a growing sanctuary in Pakistan. That is a consequence of our current strategy.

In the 18 months since the surge began, as I warned at the outset - Iraq's leaders have not made the political progress that was the purpose of the surge. They have not invested tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues to rebuild their country. They have not resolved their differences or shaped a new political compact.

That's why I strongly stand by my plan to end this war. Now, Prime Minister Maliki's call for a timetable for the removal of U.S. forces presents a real opportunity. It comes at a time when the American general in charge of training Iraq's Security Forces has testified that Iraq's Army and Police will be ready to assume responsibility for Iraq's security in 2009. Now is the time for a responsible redeployment of our combat troops that pushes Iraq's leaders toward a political solution, rebuilds our military, and refocuses on Afghanistan and our broader security interests.

George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq - they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops "surrender," even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government - not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq's borders.

At some point, a judgment must be made. Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don't have unlimited resources to try to make it one. We are not going to kill every al Qaeda sympathizer, eliminate every trace of Iranian influence, or stand up a flawless democracy before we leave - General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker acknowledged this to me when they testified last April. That is why the accusation of surrender is false rhetoric used to justify a failed policy. In fact, true success in Iraq - victory in Iraq - will not take place in a surrender ceremony where an enemy lays down their arms. True success will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future - a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the al Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge. That is an achievable goal if we pursue a comprehensive plan to press the Iraqis stand up.

To achieve that success, I will give our military a new mission on my first day in office: ending this war. Let me be clear: we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 - one year after Iraqi Security Forces will be prepared to stand up; two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, we'll keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq: targeting any remnants of al Qaeda; protecting our service members and diplomats; and training and supporting Iraq's Security Forces, so long as the Iraqis make political progress.

We will make tactical adjustments as we implement this strategy - that is what any responsible Commander-in-Chief must do. As I have consistently said, I will consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government. We will redeploy from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We will commit $2 billion to a meaningful international effort to support the more than 4 million displaced Iraqis. We will forge a new coalition to support Iraq's future - one that includes all of Iraq's neighbors, and also the United Nations, the World Bank, and the European Union - because we all have a stake in stability. And we will make it clear that the United States seeks no permanent bases in Iraq.

This is the future that Iraqis want. This is the future that the American people want. And this is what our common interests demand. Both America and Iraq will be more secure when the terrorist in Anbar is taken out by the Iraqi Army, and the criminal in Baghdad fears Iraqi Police, not just coalition forces. Both America and Iraq will succeed when every Arab government has an embassy open in Baghdad, and the child in Basra benefits from services provided by Iraqi dinars, not American tax dollars.

And this is the future we need for our military. We cannot tolerate this strain on our forces to fight a war that hasn't made us safer. I will restore our strength by ending this war, completing the increase of our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines, and investing in the capabilities we need to defeat conventional foes and meet the unconventional challenges of our time.

So let's be clear. Senator McCain would have our troops continue to fight tour after tour of duty, and our taxpayers keep spending $10 billion a month indefinitely; I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That's victory. That's success. That's what's best for Iraq, that's what's best for America, and that's why I will end this war as President.

In fact - as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain - the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was. That's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia. If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.

Senator McCain said - just months ago - that "Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq." I could not disagree more. Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that's why, as President, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.

I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, and use this commitment to seek greater contributions - with fewer restrictions - from NATO allies. I will focus on training Afghan security forces and supporting an Afghan judiciary, with more resources and incentives for American officers who perform these missions. Just as we succeeded in the Cold War by supporting allies who could sustain their own security, we must realize that the 21st century's frontlines are not only on the field of battle - they are found in the training exercise near Kabul, in the police station in Kandahar, and in the rule of law in Herat.

Moreover, lasting security will only come if we heed Marshall's lesson, and help Afghans grow their economy from the bottom up. That's why I've proposed an additional $1 billion in non-military assistance each year, with meaningful safeguards to prevent corruption and to make sure investments are made - not just in Kabul - but out in Afghanistan's provinces. As a part of this program, we'll invest in alternative livelihoods to poppy-growing for Afghan farmers, just as we crack down on heroin trafficking. We cannot lose Afghanistan to a future of narco-terrorism. The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring, because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared.

The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.

Make no mistake: we can't succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of the Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost the confidence of his people. It's time to strengthen stability by standing up for the aspirations of the Pakistani people. That's why I'm cosponsoring a bill with Joe Biden and Richard Lugar to triple non-military aid to the Pakistani people and to sustain it for a decade, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda. We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam.

Only a strong Pakistani democracy can help us move toward my third goal - securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states. One of the terrible ironies of the Iraq War is that President Bush used the threat of nuclear terrorism to invade a country that had no active nuclear program. But the fact that the President misled us into a misguided war doesn't diminish the threat of a terrorist with a weapon of mass destruction - in fact, it has only increased it.

In those years after World War II, we worried about the deadly atom falling into the hands of the Kremlin. Now, we worry about 50 tons of highly enriched uranium - some of it poorly secured - at civilian nuclear facilities in over forty countries. Now, we worry about the breakdown of a non-proliferation framework that was designed for the bipolar world of the Cold War. Now, we worry - most of all - about a rogue state or nuclear scientist transferring the world's deadliest weapons to the world's most dangerous people: terrorists who won't think twice about killing themselves and hundreds of thousands in Tel Aviv or Moscow, in London or New York.

We cannot wait any longer to protect the American people. I've made this a priority in the Senate, where I worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law accelerating our pursuit of loose nuclear materials. I'll lead a global effort to secure all loose nuclear materials around the world during my first term as President. And I'll develop new defenses to protect against the 21st century threat of biological weapons and cyber-terrorism - threats that I'll discuss in more detail tomorrow.

Beyond taking these immediate, urgent steps, it's time to send a clear message: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we must retain a strong deterrent. But instead of threatening to kick them out of the G-8, we need to work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert; to dramatically reduce the stockpiles of our nuclear weapons and material; to seek a global ban on the production of fissile material for weapons; and to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global. By keeping our commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we'll be in a better position to press nations like North Korea and Iran to keep theirs. In particular, it will give us more credibility and leverage in dealing with Iran.

We cannot tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of nations that support terror. Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a vital national security interest of the United States. No tool of statecraft should be taken off the table, but Senator McCain would continue a failed policy that has seen Iran strengthen its position, advance its nuclear program, and stockpile 150 kilos of low enriched uranium. I will use all elements of American power to pressure the Iranian regime, starting with aggressive, principled and direct diplomacy - diplomacy backed with strong sanctions and without preconditions.

There will be careful preparation. I commend the work of our European allies on this important matter, and we should be full partners in that effort. Ultimately the measure of any effort is whether it leads to a change in Iranian behavior. That's why we must pursue these tough negotiations in full coordination with our allies, bringing to bear our full influence - including, if it will advance our interests, my meeting with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing.
We will pursue this diplomacy with no illusions about the Iranian regime. Instead, we will present a clear choice. If you abandon your nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives. If you refuse, then we will ratchet up the pressure, with stronger unilateral sanctions; stronger multilateral sanctions in the Security Council, and sustained action outside the UN to isolate the Iranian regime. That's the diplomacy we need. And the Iranians should negotiate now; by waiting, they will only face mounting pressure.
The surest way to increase our leverage against Iran in the long-run is to stop bankrolling its ambitions. That will depend on achieving my fourth goal: ending the tyranny of oil in our time.
One of the most dangerous weapons in the world today is the price of oil. We ship nearly $700 million a day to unstable or hostile nations for their oil. It pays for terrorist bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut. It funds petro-diplomacy in Caracas and radical madrasas from Karachi to Khartoum. It takes leverage away from America and shifts it to dictators.

This immediate danger is eclipsed only by the long-term threat from climate change, which will lead to devastating weather patterns, terrible storms, drought, and famine. That means people competing for food and water in the next fifty years in the very places that have known horrific violence in the last fifty: Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Most disastrously, that could mean destructive storms on our shores, and the disappearance of our coastline.

This is not just an economic issue or an environmental concern - this is a national security crisis. For the sake of our security - and for every American family that is paying the price at the pump - we must end this dependence on foreign oil. And as President, that's exactly what I'll do. Small steps and political gimmickry just won't do. I'll invest $150 billion over the next ten years to put America on the path to true energy security. This fund will fast track investments in a new green energy business sector that will end our addiction to oil and create up to 5 million jobs over the next two decades, and help secure the future of our country and our planet. We'll invest in research and development of every form of alternative energy - solar, wind, and biofuels, as well as technologies that can make coal clean and nuclear power safe. And from the moment I take office, I will let it be known that the United States of America is ready to lead again.

Never again will we sit on the sidelines, or stand in the way of global action to tackle this global challenge. I will reach out to the leaders of the biggest carbon emitting nations and ask them to join a new Global Energy Forum that will lay the foundation for the next generation of climate protocols. We will also build an alliance of oil-importing nations and work together to reduce our demand, and to break the grip of OPEC on the global economy. We'll set a goal of an 80% reduction in global emissions by 2050. And as we develop new forms of clean energy here at home, we will share our technology and our innovations with all the nations of the world.

That is the tradition of American leadership on behalf of the global good. And that will be my fifth goal - rebuilding our alliances to meet the common challenges of the 21st century.

For all of our power, America is strongest when we act alongside strong partners. We faced down fascism with the greatest war-time alliance the world has ever known. We stood shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies against the Soviet threat, and paid a far smaller price for the first Gulf War because we acted together with a broad coalition. We helped create the United Nations - not to constrain America's influence, but to amplify it by advancing our values.

Now is the time for a new era of international cooperation. It's time for America and Europe to renew our common commitment to face down the threats of the 21st century just as we did the challenges of the 20th. It's time to strengthen our partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the world's largest democracy - India - to create a stable and prosperous Asia. It's time to engage China on common interests like climate change, even as we continue to encourage their shift to a more open and market-based society. It's time to strengthen NATO by asking more of our allies, while always approaching them with the respect owed a partner. It's time to reform the United Nations, so that this imperfect institution can become a more perfect forum to share burdens, strengthen our leverage, and promote our values. It's time to deepen our engagement to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, so that we help our ally Israel achieve true and lasting security, while helping Palestinians achieve their legitimate aspirations for statehood.

And just as we renew longstanding efforts, so must we shape new ones to meet new challenges. That's why I'll create a Shared Security Partnership Program - a new alliance of nations to strengthen cooperative efforts to take down global terrorist networks, while standing up against torture and brutality. That's why we'll work with the African Union to enhance its ability to keep the peace. That's why we'll build a new partnership to roll back the trafficking of drugs, and guns, and gangs in the Americas. That's what we can do if we are ready to engage the world.

We will have to provide meaningful resources to meet critical priorities. I know development assistance is not the most popular program, but as President, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world. That was true with the Marshall Plan, and that must be true today. That's why I'll double our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to halve global poverty and to roll back disease. To send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, "You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now."

This must be the moment when we answer the call of history. For eight years, we have paid the price for a foreign policy that lectures without listening; that divides us from one another - and from the world - instead of calling us to a common purpose; that focuses on our tactics in fighting a war without end in Iraq instead of forging a new strategy to face down the true threats that we face. We cannot afford four more years of a strategy that is out of balance and out of step with this defining moment.

None of this will be easy, but we have faced great odds before. When General Marshall first spoke about the plan that would bear his name, the rubble of Berlin had not yet been built into a wall. But Marshall knew that even the fiercest of adversaries could forge bonds of friendship founded in freedom. He had the confidence to know that the purpose and pragmatism of the American people could outlast any foe. Today, the dangers and divisions that came with the dawn of the Cold War have receded. Now, the defeat of the threats of the past has been replaced by the transnational threats of today. We know what is needed. We know what can best be done. We know what must done. Now it falls to us to act with the same sense of purpose and pragmatism as an earlier generation, to join with friends and partners to lead the world anew.


7) May We Mock, Barack?
By MAUREEN DOWD


When I interviewed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone a couple years ago, I wondered what Barack Obama would mean for them.

“It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?” Stewart scoffed.

Then he and Colbert both said at the same time: “His dad was a goat-herder!”

When I noted that Obama, in his memoir, had revealed that he had done some pot, booze and “maybe a little blow,” the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator’s familiarity with drug slang.

Colbert: Wow, that’s a very street way of putting it. ‘A little blow.’

Stewart: A little bit of the white rabbit.

Colbert: ‘Yeah, I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a prostitute blow it in my ear, but that is all I did. High-fivin.’ ’

Flash forward to the kerfuffle — and Obama’s icy reaction — over this week’s New Yorker cover parodying fears about the Obamas.

“We’ve already scratched thrift, candor and brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle, so why not eliminate humor, too?” wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times, suggesting “an irony deficiency” in Obama and his fans.

Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.

“There’s a weird reverse racism going on,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

Carter also observed that there’s no easy comedic “take” on Obama, “like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic personality.”

At first blush, it would seem to be a positive for Obama that he is hard to mock. But on second thought, is it another sign that he’s trying so hard to be perfect that it’s stultifying? Or that eight years of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor?

Certainly, as the potential first black president, and as a contender with tender experience, Obama must feel under strain to be serious.

But he does not want the “take” on him to become that he’s so tightly wrapped, overcalculated and circumspect that he can’t even allow anyone to make jokes about him, and that his supporters are so evangelical and eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any razzing is a sanctimonious: Don’t mess with our messiah!

If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles, and if the dominant perception of him is that you can’t make jokes about him, it might infect his campaign with an airless quality. His humorlessness could spark humor.

On Tuesday, Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject. He said that Obama, sympathetic to comics’ attempts to find jokes to make about him, had put out a list of official ones, including this:

“A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, ‘I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.’ Barack Obama replies, ‘She’s not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream.’ ”

John McCain’s Don Rickles routines — “Thanks for the question, you little jerk” — can fall flat. But he seems like a guy who can be teased harmlessly. If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he needs to be.

He’s already in danger of seeming too prissy about food — a perception heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama’s convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to “measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed.”

The “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried food and instruct that, “on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include ‘at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation.”

Bring it on, Ozone Democrats! Because if Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him, it won’t be the economy that’s depressed. It will be the rest of us.