[Peace-discuss] War candidate threatens Iran
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Thu Jul 24 03:30:19 CDT 2008
Truth's determined not by what's said but by who said it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7520759.stm
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2008/07/taking-aim-at-t.html
Randall Cotton wrote:
> Hi Carl,
>
> Could you tell me what the source of this is (and maybe post it)? Also for
> your previous post (attached)? It helps to know where articles came from
> when evaluating them 8-)
>
> R
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> To: "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:59 PM
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] War candidate threatens Iran
>
>
> : Obama firm on Iran nuclear plans
> :
> : US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said the world must prevent
> Iran from
> : obtaining a nuclear weapon.
> :
> : During a two-day visit to Israel and Palestinian territories, Mr Obama
> warned
> : that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to world security.
> :
> : He held talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
> :
> : The Illinois senator pledged his "unshakeable commitment" to Israeli
> security
> : and to peace negotiations in the Middle East.
> :
> : Hosting the Democratic candidate-in-waiting for dinner, Israeli Prime
> Minister
> : Ehud Olmert said Mr Obama was following a tradition of the "great
> friends of
> : Israel".
> :
> : "I know how friendly you are, and I know how much you care for us," he
> said.
> :
> : 'No retreat'
> :
> : Mr Obama earlier said the global community should offer "big sticks and
> big
> : carrots" to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear programme.
> :
> : "A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent
> Iran from
> : obtaining a nuclear weapon," he said.
> :
> : If elected, Mr Obama said he would take "no options off the table" in
> dealing
> : with the Islamic republic.
> :
> : Iran insists its nuclear aims are peaceful. On Wednesday President
> Mahmoud
> : Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not "retreat one iota" in its nuclear
> activities.
> :
> : Mr Obama was speaking in the Israeli town of Sderot - the target of
> frequent
> : Palestinian rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
> :
> : Mr Obama reiterated his view that Jerusalem should be Israel's capital,
> but
> : insisted the city's final status must be decided through peace talks.
> :
> : He angered the Palestinian leadership last month by saying the city -
> which
> : Palestinians want as the capital of a future state - should be Israel's
> : "undivided" capital.
> :
> : Palestinian appreciation
> :
> : Also on Wednesday, Mr Obama held talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud
> Abbas in
> : the West Bank town of Ramallah, telling him that he would quickly engage
> in the
> : Middle East peace process were he elected president.
> :
> : "Obama confirmed to President Abbas that he will be a constructive
> partner in
> : the peace process," Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat told reporters.
> :
> : Advertisement
> :
> : Barack Obama lays holocaust wreath
> :
> : Mr Obama told Israeli President Shimon Peres he wanted to "reaffirm the
> special
> : relationship between Israel and the United States, [and] my abiding
> commitment
> : to its security".
> :
> : He said it was "my hope that I can serve as an effective partner,
> whether as
> : a... senator or as a president, in bringing about a more lasting peace
> in the
> : region."
> :
> : Mr Obama also met Defence Minister Ehud Barak, opposition leader
> Benjamin
> : Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
> :
> : At the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum, the Illinois senator wore a
> Jewish
> : skullcap as he laid a wreath.
> :
> : "Let our children come here and know this history so that they can add
> their
> : voices to proclaim 'never again'," he wrote in the museum's visitors'
> book.
> :
> : False claims
> :
> : Mr Obama is in the region to reassure American voters, especially Jewish
> : Democrats, of his foreign policy credentials ahead of November's
> presidential
> : election, says the BBC's Middle East correspondent Paul Wood.
> :
> : Barack Obama (R) and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem on
> 23 July
> : 2008
> : Mr Obama said the ties between the US and Israel were unbreakable
> :
> : Our correspondent also says he faces a US electorate which includes 10%
> who
> : think he is a Muslim, according to a recent opinion poll.
> :
> : Some also believe he was educated in a madrassa (Islamic religious
> school) and
> : refused to place his hand on the Bible when sworn into the Senate - all
> false
> : claims, adds our correspondent.
> :
> : Mr Obama arrived in Israel on Tuesday night from neighbouring Jordan,
> where he
> : met King Abdullah.
> :
> : He earlier joined a US congressional delegation on a visit to Iraq,
> where he met
> : Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki
> in Baghdad.
> :
> : He repeated his goal of withdrawing US combat troops from Iraq within 16
> months
> : should he become president.
> :
> : He is due to leave for Germany early on Thursday.
> :
> : Back in the US, Mr McCain said Mr Obama had been wrong to press for
> withdrawal
> : timetables.
> :
> : ###
> : _______________________________________________
> : Peace-discuss mailing list
> : Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> : http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> [Peace-discuss] Which way will the army go?
> From:
> "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> Date:
> Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:47:30 -0500
> To:
> peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>
> To:
> peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>
>
> [Trotsky I think wrote that the final revolutionary question was which
> way the army would go. Perhaps it's more relevant that it was the
> revolt of the US military in Vietnam that largely brought the American
> invasion to an end (after the virtual destruction of Vietnam) -- and
> that the opposition of the officer cadre of the present US military
> seems to be constraining plans for an attack on Iran. Here's some
> information on the present political attitudes of the US military. --CGE]
>
> Taking Aim at the Military Vote
> July 22, 2008 11:10 AM
>
> Barack Obama is playing to a variety of audiences while he travels
> abroad this week, with stops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Europe.
> One of them is an interesting voting group that could pack some
> surprises: Active-duty U.S. military.
>
> Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. service members – including the
> 500,000 currently serving overseas – are a disproportionately Republican
> and conservative group. But that assumption is challenged by a unique
> survey of the U.S. Army done in 2004 by Maj. Jason Dempsey, then of West
> Point, and Prof. Robert Shapiro of Columbia University, via Columbia’s
> Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.
>
> Their data show that the officer corps indeed is disproportionately
> conservative and Republican – but that enlisted service members, who
> make up the bulk of the population, are not. They’re essentially no more
> conservative, and no more apt to be Republicans, than the U.S.
> population as a whole. Fewer are Democrats; more, independents.
>
> On ideology, while 63 percent of Army officers identified themselves as
> conservatives, only half as many enlisted members, 32 percent, said the
> same. The combined total, 38 percent, is very close to the aggregate for
> the U.S. public overall in ABC/Post polls this year, 34 percent.
> Twenty-one percent of all Army service members were liberals – again
> roughly matching the U.S. public overall.
>
> The survey had to estimate partisan identification in a roundabout way.
> It asked respondents to place the Democratic and Republican parties on
> an ideological spectrum, then to place themselves on the same spectrum,
> then asked if they identified with one of the parties (but not which
> one). The answers were used to project party allegiance.
>
> The result: Fifty-one percent of Army officers were identified as
> Republicans, but that fell to 23 percent of enlisted personnel. The net
> was 29 percent – again very close to the public overall, 27 percent in
> ABC/Post surveys this year.
>
> There was a big difference in estimated Democratic allegiance: Only 11
> or 12 percent of officers or enlisted service members were identified as
> Democrats. Instead 37 percent of officers, and a whopping 66 percent of
> the enlisted ranks, were independents, for a net total of 60 percent of
> U.S. Army personnel.
>
> Independents, as it happens, are the quintessential swing voters in
> presidential elections.
>
> Ideology Est. party ID
> Lib Mod Cons Dem Rep Ind
> Officers 14% 23 63 12% 51 37
> Enlisted 23 45 32 11 23 66
> All 21 41 38 11 29 60
>
> Gen. pop. 23 40 34 37 27 31
>
>
> (Army data from Jason Dempsey and Robert Shapiro, survey of U.S. Army
> personnel, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy,
> Columbia University. Gen. pop. data is 2008 ABC/Post aggregate.)
>
> VOTE? – Another question is how many active-duty military actually vote.
> The Pentagon, which runs the Federal Voting Assistance Program aimed at
> encouraging turnout, commissioned a survey in 2005 in which 73 percent
> of uniformed military respondents reported voting in the 2004 election,
> compared with 57 percent in a 2000 study. (See the full report here.) If
> so, that’s better than the 60 percent turnout among all eligible voters
> in 2004.
>
> But the reliability of that survey is in question. Dempsey and Shapiro’s
> Army survey produced a much-lower 43 percent turnout figure for 2000.
> (Full disclosure: Shapiro consults with ABC News on exit poll analysis.)
> Dempsey is skeptical of the FVAP figure for 2004; as he puts it, take a
> bunch of 18- to 24-year-olds, move them around every few years, and it’s
> hard to see three-quarters of them voting.
>
> Moreover, the Government Accountability Office has raised questions
> about the FVAP survey, saying its "estimates and conclusions should be
> interpreted with caution" because of its response rate, which was low by
> GAO standards. Scott Wiedmann, deputy director of the FVAP, told me this
> week that his group agrees with the GAO criticism, avoids projecting the
> survey results beyond the individuals who participated (though the FVAP
> report doesn’t read that way to me), and is reworking the methodology to
> produce better data after this fall’s election. Wiedmann referred my
> detailed methodological questions to others at FVAP; see their reply
> here. (Aficionados will note the creative calculation of response rate,
> as well as the vote question that offers two yesses vs. one no.)
>
> There’s also the question of overstatement of voting in polls, not just
> because of presumed social desirability bias, but also – and for my
> money, more so – because of civic-engagement bias – the fact that people
> who participate in polls are more civically engaged, and therefore are
> also more likely indeed to have voted. In any case, the FVAP reply to my
> questions goes so far as to predict a lower estimate for 2008, simply
> because they’ve tweaked their question wording to make it easier for
> respondents to say they didn’t vote.
>
> The bottom line is that there’s plenty of room to debate both the size
> and direction of the military vote; Dempsey and Shapiro's data suggest
> you could drive a Humvee through the holes in the conventional wisdom on
> the subject. Dempsey will be reporting his full survey results in a
> forthcoming book on the social and political attitudes of the U.S. Army
> – meaning there may be more surprises yet to come.
>
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