and would you be 1 of those people that claim the

• If McCain/Palin win this election, - then you can pretty much count on
  • Applause!!!!!! - nm
  • you don't know this - this just irritates me - me
    • Christians do that, not Muslims. - Give me a break!
      • no, no, that's not what I meant - sorry, will try to explain myself - me
      • BINGO... that's why the rabid Religious Right does - NOT belong in the White House.
        • The major difference between Christians and... - sam
          • oh, REALLY? So snipers or bombs taking out - OB surgeons doesn't count?
            • Sigh. nm - sam
              • Last-worditis. - (again)
    • Geez.... RANT ON! - i hear Prozac helps this alot. (nm)
      • you agree with the op? - me
        • I agree that if McCain/Palin win this one, - we're all up s___ creek.
          • and others feel the same way with Obama - me
  • and would you be 1 of those people that claim the - other side uses "scare tactics?" -hypocritic
    • I think Palin IS a scare tactic. She & her fellow - Christian soldier goons scare those of us who
      • You need to read up on the forefathers... - sam
        • Christians who had the good sense to MANDATE - secular legislative process...sm
        • HITLER WAS A CHRISTIAN..... - sm
          • If he ever was a Christian, he certainly renounced it.... - sam
            • The Nazis and Adolf Hitler are commonly thought of as representing the antithesis of Christianity an - sm
            • Last-worditis - nm
    • All I'm stating is that this election may determine - U.S. viability in the future.
  • Hear, Hear! - A voice of reason. szq
    • "Voice of reason"? Now, how do you get that out of - the post? Just the opposite in my opinion.nm
      • More like a voice of scare tactics. - ermt
        • No scare tactics. Just pointing out that we don't live - under a big, bulletproof plastic bubble.
  • you got it!! - Sue
    • Amen! Did you see today that the polls...sm - oldtimer
      • Must be the boobs and the lipstick on - that pitbull.........
      • There has been a big swing in past few days of - women going for McCain-Palin. nm
        • Not true. This is the latest poll, figures submitted just today. nm - oldtimer
          • See inside for link. - oldtimer
          • no, not true - sm
            • There has been a big swing to McCain in... - sam
        • Hillary is probably behind the scenes saying. - "I told you so!" nm
  • Republicans - Lee
  • I MEANT 'not LONG after' - I can't type - worth *#s& this morning!
    • All I can say is, I completely disagree with you! - and not just voting for "the woman".nm
      • Actually, I will be MUCH more worried about - National Security if Obama is elected!.nm
        • If the rest of the world doesn't hate us quite as bad, - we probably won't need it as much.
        • At least he won't select the Arab emirates to protect our ports - nm
        • Think diplomacy. Try it. You might like it. - Beats the pants off of war. amfm
          • I dont WANT war. Dont judge me! - but wont negotiate with terrorists either!. nm
            • Since when does talking with other country leaders - equal 'negotiate with terrorists?'
        • Me too! I think Obama is the scary one (sm) - Me
          • I sort of agree with you, but I think.....sm - Me too
            • YOU MAKE OVER $250,000 a year - sm
              • I never said I made $250K a year... where did you get that from my post?...sm - Me too
                • You won't pay more taxes - sm
                  • I understand the payroll tax on only over $250K....sm - Me too
                    • You need to talk to someone who has - sm
            • Then you need to vote for Obama. A vote for McCain will...sm - oldtimer
          • 'Good head on her shoulders?' She can't see past the - windshield of her own snowmobile.
          • You hit the nail on the head regarding Obama. - sam
          • Yes, and Obama has at least 1 friend - who is our enemy. Scary. nm
            • And the Repubs don't? - ?

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I have never claimed that.  Did I vote for him....no.  Have I given him a chance?  What chance is there to give him?  Look at what he has done in this short time.  I don't want to wait another term in office before I see the huge mistakes that are happening now.  And please correct me if I am wrong but I do recall many of you putting Bush down for every little thing that he ever did.  I didn't vote for Bush either and I do believe he made some huge mistakes as well.  You people have no problem cutting people down and not giving them a chance unless we are talking about Obama and then all of a sudden we are all horrible for opposing government spending MORE of our money.  That makes us instantly prejudice.

You ridicule Bush for the war in Iraq and Obama said he would pull our troops out ASAP.  We are still there and Obama has pushed back the time line to pull them out.  Now we are in Afgan fighting the Taliban....which are the same terrorist freaks we ran out of Iraq.  Gitmo is still open with no plan of where to put these terrorists.  The usual rules in bankrupcty were changed in Chrysler's dealings so that the unions came out top dog....which is not supposed to happen like that.  Obama has spent more money than Bush ever did and he wants to spend more.  He promised no taxes of any kind to 95% of Americans and yet he wants to institute cap and trade which will tax everyone.  The jobs that he claims will be created with the spendulous package are not sustainable jobs.  Only 1 out of 10 green jobs are sustainable long term.  He is capping what CEOs can make.  He has done nothing but apologize for the US wherever he goes and yet he fails to comment on all the good things that we have done for other countries or how much we gave relief to people after natural disasters.  A man who gives abortion rights but takes away the rights of doctors and hospitals to deny performing a procedure they don't believe in when those patients could easily go elsewhere for that particular procedure.  Our government is getting bigger and taking over too much.  What right does our government have to cap pay for anyone?  What right does our goverment have to okay bonuses for AIG and then turn around and demand the bonuses be taken away.  I don't agree that they should get bonuses but congress approved it in the first place.  Did you sleep through all of this?  They are talking about taxing health care benefits to help pay for universal health care when Obama ridiculed McCain during the campaign stating how ridiculous it is for McCain to want to tax someone's benefits.....hello? 

ARE YOU LISTENING?  How much more time should I give him because I can say that he sucks?

smoke anywhere but you did mention nonsmokers not being content with banning you from smoking in public places and this is a constant argument I had with my dad for many years.  A lot of smokers are very inconsiderate.  More often than not you see them smoking at ball parks that have no smoking signs just because they think it is their right to smoke no matter how many children are around them at the time.  I've been in my car at a stoplight and my car filled with a smell of smoke and I looked over to see the person in the car next to me smoking.  Smokers just do not realize how far their smoke carries and how really harmful it is to nonsmokers.  Parents who continually take their kids to the doctors for ear infections or respiratory problems and yet continue to smoke around them.  My dad used to smoke in the car with all three of us kids in the back but he thought we would be fine because the window was cracked.  All that did was blow unwanted ashes back towards us.  Amazingly none of us three kids smoke.  We all vowed never to pick up the habit and none of us married a smoker either.

I wasn't trying to be rude.....but smoking is a very sore subject with me.  Not only did I lose one grandpa to lung cancer and another grandpa to emphysema but I lost my dad 2 years ago to emphysema and I just absolutely HATE cigarettes.  To think of the years those stupid things robbed me of my 2 grandpas and my dad.....I just loathe cigarettes.

This morning I was thinking this Rove thing over and the main issue is the deception by this administration over the wanting to buy uranium claim.  When Wilson went to check it out and reported back that the claim was incorrect, it still was included in the State of the Union address, to scare the American people into war.  That is the main issue, the lies for going to war. 

even figure out who's WITH you, as evidenced by the little hissy fit above between you and another CON!!!

Please keep posting.  You're getting whackier with each post and revealing yourself for the nut case you truly are!!!

Plus, I'm intrigued by all the different voices in your head who surface at different times.  I guess tonight TM is doing the talking, and TM seems to be even more rude and angry and hateful than you usually are.

Why so angry, MT?  Roberts was confirmed today.  Why aren't you happy?  Or do you just have a terminal case of chronic bitterness, no matter what? Have you ever been nice to ANYONE?

PLEASE keep posting.  You're quite entertaining, even if in a pathetic sort of way.

...your mind, claim to know how well you "scan," etc.  They're the scariest of all. 

Have fun, kids.  I need another break from the board for a while.

I wonder how Gourd Painter is doing.  Looks like she was chased away by the bullies.  Too bad.  I enjoyed her perspectives. 

After all, you are not GW who can manipulate the truth as he pleases.  But anyway, please provide the "burn in hell for eternity" quote that seems to appear over and over.  I notice that this "quote" also changes slightly each time it is "quoted."

For those who can read and decide for themselves.  http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_bill_clinton_pass_up_a_chance_1.html

that made her well rounded!!!

When a senator sponsor a bill, he originates the concept, surveys the landscape for support or lack thereof, identifies targets for persuasion, and works for bipartisan consensus.  This would involve extensive research on the content of the bill, assessment of benefits versus cost, knowledge of past voting records of constituents and fashioning persuasive arguments using pros and cons, according to who his individual target is and where he or she is coming from.  He determines constitutionality, legality and any possible conflict of interests.  He authors the bill.  He introduces the bill, debates the bill in the chambers, takes and answers criticism, compromises, rewrites and so forth until passage is achieved.  He then turns around and goes through much the same process to promote the bill in the house.  Then he holds his breath and hopes the president from his opposition party does not wipe out all his hard work with the stroke of a veto pen.  When he cosponsors a bill, he does much the same thing with a partner or partners. 

The accomplishments I listed under the state experience section actually were Obama's initiatives.  The US senate list does not just reflect legislation.  It also demonstrates varied committee membership, which reflects a completely different type of experience, much along the lines of study groups and research focused on strategy building of national and internation consequence.   

Two final observations.  Every single item listed under O's experience indicates the issues he takes most seriously and aligns consistently with the platform he now proposes on a national level in the presidential campaign.  Thus, this addresses the trust issue so often raised by his detractors.  O obviously has been a quick study, or he would not have been able to successfully seize the nomination of his party. 

I do not understand how SP's so-called executive experiences trumps this record.  In fact, my question would be where then DID she get her consensus-building experience from if she was so totally in charge of people she expected to simply fall in line.  Lastly, I am still wondering exactly how SP's record is comparable in this regard...or in words of one syllable...how does she stack up?

    Thursday 10 November 2005

The myth of al-Zarqawi, Napoleoni believes, helped usher in al-Qaida's transformation from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement.

The myth of al-Zarqawi, Napoleoni believes, helped usher in al-Qaida's transformation from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement. (Photo: spacewar.com)

    Al-Zarqawi was born Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh in October 1966 in the crime and poverty-ridden Jordanian city of Zarqa. But his myth was born Feb. 5, 2003, when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the United Nations the case for war with Iraq.

    Napoleoni, the author of Insurgent Iraq, told reporters last week that Powell's argument falsely exploited Zarqawi to prove a link between then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. She said that through fabrications of Zarqawi's status, influence and connections the myth became the reality - a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    He became what we wanted him to be. We put him there, not the jihadists, Napoleoni said.

    Iraq's most notorious insurgent, Napoleoni argues, accomplished what bin Laden could not: spread the message of jihad into Iraq.

    In an article of Napoleoni's in the current November/December issue of Foreign Policy, she said, In a sense, it is the very things that make Zarqawi seem most ordinary - his humble upbringing, misspent youth and early failures - that make him most frightening. Because, although he may have some gifts as a leader of men, it is also likely that there are many more 'al-Zarqawis' capable of filling his place.

    The myth of al-Zarqawi, Napoleoni believes, helped usher in al-Qaida's transformation from a small elitist vanguard to a mass movement.

    Al-Zarqawi became the icon of a new generation of anti-imperialist jihadists, she said.

    The grand claim that al-Zarqawi provided the vital link between Saddam and al-Qaida lost its significance after it became known that al-Zarqawi and bin Laden did not forge a partnership until after the war's start. The two are believed to have met sometime in 2000, but al-Zarqawi - similar to a group of dissenting al-Qaida members -rebuffed bin Laden's anti-American brand of jihad.

    He did not have a global vision like Osama, said Napoleoni, who interviewed primary and secondary sources close to al-Zarqawi and his network.

    A former member of al-Zarqawi's camp in Herat told her, I never heard him praise anyone apart from the Prophet [Muhammad]; this was Abu Musab's character. He never followed anyone.

    Al-Zarqawi's scope before the Iraq war, she continued, did not extend past corrupt Arab regimes, particularly Jordan's. Between 2000 and early 2002, he operated the training camp in Herat with Taliban funds; the fighters bound for Jordan. After the fall of the Taliban, he fled to Iraqi Kurdistan and set up shop.

    In 2001, Kurdish officials enlightened the United States about the uninvited Jordanian, said Napoleoni. Jordanian officials, who had still unsolved terrorist attacks, were eager to implicate al-Zarqawi, she claimed. The little-known militant instantly had fingerprints on most major terrorist attacks after Sept. 11, 2001. He was depicted in Powell's speech as a key player in the al-Qaida network.

    By perpetuating a terrifying myth of al-Zarqawi, the author said, The United States, Kurds, and Jordanians all won ... but jihad gained momentum, after in-group dissension and U.S. coalition operations had left the core of al-Qaida crippled.

    In her article, Napoleoni says, [Zarqawi] had finally managed to grasp bin Laden's definition of the faraway enemy, the United States. Adding that, Its presence in Iraq as an occupying power made it clear to him that the United States was as important a target as any of the Arab regimes he had grown to hate.

    ... The myth constructed around him is at the root of his transformation into a political leader. With bin Laden trapped somewhere in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Zarqawi fast became the new symbolic leader in the fight against America and a manager for whoever was looking to be part of that struggle, she wrote.

    The author points to letters between al-Zarqawi and bin Laden that have surfaced over the past two years, indicating the evolution in their relationship, most notably a shift in al-Zarqawi which led to his seeking additional legitimacy among Sunnis that bin Laden could help bestow.

    In late December 2004 - shortly after the fall of Fallujah - the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera aired a video of what was bin Laden's first public embrace of Zarqawi and his fight in Iraq.

    ... We in al-Qaida welcome your union with us ... and so that it be known, the brother mujahid Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the emir of the al Qaida organization [in Iraq], bin Laden declared.

    Napoleoni believes that al-Zarqawi, however, is still largely driven by the romantic vision of a restored Caliphate, and that his motives still are less political than some other factions participating in the Iraq resistance.

    She questions whether he has actually devised a plan for what he will do, if and when, he wins.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=78309

JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim of Kenyan origins who studied in Islamic schools and whose campaign may have been financed by people in the Islamic and African worlds, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said during a recent televised national rally.

"There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama," said Gadhafi in little-noticed remarks he made at a rally marking the anniversary of the 1986 U.S. air raid on his country.

The remarks, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI, were aired on AL Jazeera in June.

The video also has been posted on YouTube and can be seen here:

"All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man," continued Gadhafi. "They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.

"We are hoping that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith, and that [he will know] that he has rights in America, and that he will change America from evil to good, and that America will establish relations that will serve it well with other peoples, especially the Arabs," Gadhafi said.

(Story continues below)

Gadhafi went on to lament statements Obama made at a June 4 address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in which the presidential candidate stated if he is elected president, "Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."

But it seems Gadhafi was not aware that the next day, during a CNN appearance, Obama explained he meant Jerusalem shouldn't be physically divided with a partition and was not referring to the city remaining in exclusively Jewish hands.

Stated Gadhafi: "But we were taken by surprise when our African Kenyan brother [Obama], who is an American national, made statements (about Jerusalem) that shocked all his supporters in the Arab world, in Africa, and in the Islamic world.

"We hope that this is merely an elections 'clearance sale,' as they say in Egypt - in other words, merely an elections lie. As you know, this is the farce of elections - a person lies and lies to people, just so that they will vote for him, and afterwards, when they say to him, 'You promised this and that,' he says: 'No, this was just elections propaganda.' This is the farce of democracy for you. He says: 'This was propaganda, and you thought I was being serious. I was fooling you to get your votes.'

"Allah willing, it will turn out that this was merely elections propaganda. Obama said he would turn Jerusalem into the eternal capital of the Israelis. This indicates that our brother Obama is ignorant of international politics, and is not familiar with the Middle East conflict," Gadhafi said.

Gadhafi went on to express his hope if elected Obama will implement a "one state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, meaning Israel would be flooded with millions of Palestinian Arabs who would terminate the country's Jewish nationality.

Get the book that started it all – Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," personally autographed – for only $4.95, available today, but only from WND!

He said he was worried Obama may have a "black inferiority complex" whereby he may enact "white men" policies to prove he is no different from "white" America.

"The thing we fear most is that the black man suffers from an inferiority complex. This is dangerous. If our brother Obama feels that because he is black he doesn't have the right to rule America, this would be a disaster, because such a feeling would make him act whiter than the white, and go to an extreme in his persecution and degradation of the blacks.

"We say to him: Brother, the whites and blacks in America are equal. They are all immigrants. America belongs neither to the whites nor to the blacks. America belongs to its original inhabitants, the Indians. Both the whites and the blacks immigrated to America, and so they are equal, and Obama has the right to hold his head high, and say: 'I am a partner in America. This is my land as much as it is yours. If it is not my land, it is not yours either. It is the land of the Indians. You are immigrants, and so are we.'"

Obama was 'quite religious in Islam'

Obama repeatedly has denied he is a Muslim. His campaign site states: "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."

But as WND has reported, public records in Indonesia listed Obama as a Muslim during his early years, and a number of childhood friends claimed to the media Obama was once a mosque-attending Muslim.

Obama's campaign several times has wavered in response to reporters queries regarding the senator's childhood faith.

Commenting on a recent Los Angeles Times report quoting a childhood friend stating Obama prayed in a mosque "something the presidential candidate said he never did," Obama's campaign released a statement explaining the senator "has never been a practicing Muslim."

Widely distributed reports have noted that in January 1968, Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta's Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro. He was listed as an Indonesian citizen whose stepfather, listed on school documents as "L Soetoro Ma," worked for the topography department of the Indonesian Army.

Catholic schools in Indonesia routinely accept non-Catholic students but exempt them from studying religion. Obama's school documents, though, wrongly list him as being Indonesian.

After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled "also as a Muslim, according to documents" in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta.

Laotze blog, run by an American expatriate in Southeast Asia who visited the Besuki school, noted: "All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school, and a young 'Barry Soetoro,' being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam."

Indeed, in Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," he acknowledged studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies," wrote Obama.

The Indonesian media have been flooded with accounts of Obama's childhood Islamic studies, some describing him as a religious Muslim.

Speaking to the country's Kaltim Post, Tine Hahiyary, who was principal of Obama's school while he was enrolled there, said she recalls he studied the Quran in Arabic.

"At that time, I was not Barry's teacher, but he is still in my memory" claimed Tine, who is 80 years old.

The Kaltim Post said Obama's teacher, named Hendri, died.

"I remember that he studied 'mengaji (recitation of the Quran)," Tine said, according to an English translation by Loatze.

Mengaji, or the act of reading the Quran with its correct Arabic punctuation, is usually taught to more religious pupils and is not known as a secular study.

Also, Loatze documented the Indonesian daily Banjarmasin Post interviewed Rony Amir, an Obama classmate and Muslim, who described Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

"We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong (waist fabric worn for religious or casual occasions) he looked funny," Amir said.

The Los Angeles Times, which sent a reporter to Jakarta, quoted Zulfin Adi, who identified himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends, stating the presidential candidate prayed in a mosque, something Obama's campaign claimed he never did.

"We prayed, but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Adi.

Friday prayers

Aside from a new website to fight purported smears, Obama's official campaign site has a page titled "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." The page states, "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

But the campaign changed its tune when it issued a "practicing Muslim" clarification to the Los Angeles Times.

An article in March by the Chicago Tribune apparently disputes Adi's statements to the L.A. paper. The Tribune caught up with Obama's declared childhood friend, who now describes himself as only knowing Obama for a few months in 1970 when his family moved to the neighborhood. Adi said he was unsure about his recollections of Obama.

But the Tribune found Obama did attend mosque.

"Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia," states the Tribune article.

It quotes the presidential candidate's former neighbors and third-grade teacher recalling Obama "occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers."

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, notes the Tribune article "cited by liberal blogs as refuting claims Obama is Muslim" actually implies Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim and twice confirms Obama attended mosque services.

In a free-ranging interview with the New York Times, Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

The Times' Nicholos Kristof wrote Obama recited, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent," the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

The first few lines of the call to prayer state:

Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet ...

Some attention also has been paid to Obama's paternal side of the family, including his father and his brother, Roy.

Writing in a chapter of his book describing his 1992 wedding, the presidential candidate stated: "The person who made me proudest of all was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."

Still, Obama says he was raised by his Christian mother and repeatedly has labeled as "smears" several reports attempting to paint him as a Muslim.

"Let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance [to the American flag] and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding," he told the Times of London earlier this year.

You Repubs are really embarrassing yourselves with your childish behavior.  It is so, so sad to see SORE LOSERS!!!  Please, grow up and GET BEHIND OUR PRESIDENT! 

Bushisms

I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.

I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

The law I sign today directs new funds and new focus to the task of collecting vital intelligence on terrorist threats and on weapons of mass production.

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_bushisms.html

Bush was duly elected by electoral vote. The electoral college is the way our elections were designed to be conducted.  Plenty of time to have constitutionally changed the system if that's what we wanted to do.

The 2000 election was the third time in US history the electoral vote trumped the popular vote.  All three ended in Republican victories. The other two were in the 1800s.  How was this stealing?  

The Kennedy/Nixon election was the narrowest popular vote margin in US history (1/10 of a percent in Kennedy's favor.)  Nixon actually won more states (26 versus 22) but Kennedy had more electoral votes.  A real squeaker of a Democrat victory this time.

There has been more than enough time since this first happened in 1877, again in 1889, and almost again in 1961 to amend the constitution.  Don't get into a competition, the rules of which are clear, then whine about those rules when you lose.    

Facts, please. 

(I can't understand why they must keep lying.)

Lawmakers Cite Weapons Found in Iraq

Thursday, June 22, 2006; A10

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.

We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons, Santorum said.

The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

-- Dafna Linzer

Obama started off saying he was confident in his FOREIGN POLICY experience ("Foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain"). He then proceeded to talk about his visit to Pakistan.

SO WHAT? I visited and lived in several foreign countries, too. Does that mean I understand foreign policy better than someone who may have spent less time but has had actual interaction and policy discussions with those countries' leaders? And with the leaders of 80 countries?

If 3 weeks in Pakistan is the extent of Obama's foreign policy credentials, then I am way more qualified on the "foreign policy" front.

My point is that Obama's claim is ridiculous. Better that he stick to his "better judgement" mantra, since the "3 weeks abroad = foreign policy experience" is just pathetically weak.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/obamas-college.html