[Peace-discuss] Will Americans be chumped by Obama's blackness?

[C. G. Estabrook]

As I was waking up this morning, I heard on NPR some chump of a political 
scientist [sic] saying that Obama mustn't go "too fast" at the outset, that he 
has to get re-elected -- and then 2013 will be his year!

I should have stood in bed...  --CGE

Randall Cotton wrote:
> : [This follows on the point Randall made at Sunday's meeting.  But Obama's 
> : probably just saying it to get elected, eh? He'll change in office... --CGE]
> 
> I would like to elaborate on that point I made.
> 
> The question, during Obama's very first news conference, came from Jake 
> Tapper of ABC News. I've clipped below from the transcript. The full 
> transcript is at 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07obama-text.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
> 
> 
> If you would prefer to see the video of this portion of the press conference
> (and don't mind sitting through an auto commercial first), see 
> http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/obamas-presser.html .
> 
> *** Q Senator, for the first time since the Iranian Revolution, a president
> of Iran sent a congratulations note to a new U.S. president. I'm wondering,
> first of all, if you responded to President Ahmadinejad's note of
> congratulations. And second of all and more importantly, how soon do you plan
> on sending low-level envoys to countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela,
> Cuba, to see if a presidential-level talk would be productive?
> 
> PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: I am aware that the letter was sent. Let me state --
> repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign. Iran's development of
> a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount a
> international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of
> terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease. ***
> 
> Now, first understand there is no hidden prior context here - this was the 
> first foreign policy question of his first press conference. Everything up to
> that point in the press conference was about the economy. That is, there was
> no prior mention of Iran or terrorism or nuclear anything. Yet when Tapper
> asked about a letter from Iran's president congratulating him and another
> about the possibility of envoys to various countries, Obama brushed these
> questions aside and went COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS WAY to accuse Iran of
> developing a nuclear weapon.
> 
> "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable."
> 
> Obama spoke as if it was well-understood common knowledge that Iran is 
> developing a nuclear weapon. (compare: "Obama's beating of his wife, I 
> believe, is unacceptable"). Of course, anyone who's been keeping up knows 
> that:
> 
> 1.  The UN's nuclear watchdog arm, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy 
> Agency), despite extensive inspections, has been unable to detect any nuclear
> weapons program in Iran.
> 
> 2. The whole of the US intelligence community has declared that Iran has no
> nuclear weapons program currently and hasn't had one for at least 5 years (as
> per the last National Intelligence Estimate on Iran). Iran insists it never
> had a nuclear weapons program and it has yet to be proven that it ever did.
> 
> Obama's accusation is just as strong, if not stronger, than anything that 
> ever came out of the mouth of Bush, Cheney or McCain.
> 
> ON TOP OF THAT, practically in the same breath, in a pattern we're all too 
> familiar with, Obama accused Iran of supporting terrorism. Nuclear weapons 
> and terrorism. The same terrorist mushroom-cloud nexus specter word 
> association crap the Bush administration used to gin up the Iraq War.
> 
> The election is over. He didn't have to say that to get elected. He didn't 
> have to say that for any reason. No one even asked him about it. He 
> deliberately went out of his way, prompted only by the mention of 
> Ahmadinejad's letter, to engage in what is absolutely indistinguishable from
> an effort to sell war with Iran in exactly the same way Bush/Cheney sold war
> with Iraq.
> 
> And he was only elected 3 days earlier. He doesn't even take office for more
> than 2 months. Is he just getting started?
> 
> And we're giving this guy a break why? Because he's black? Seems to me we 
> would be railing to the skies if those words came out of the mouth of McCain
> (or Hillary) three days after being elected.
> 
> Will we let ourselves be chumped into a war with Iran because Obama is black?
> 
> 
> We should call it what it is, complaining loudly to both him and the public
> at every opportunity.
> 
> R
> 
> PS: Iran insists, unwaveringly, that their nuclear work is for power 
> generation only. Iran, a Muslim theocracy, has also repeatedly declared 
> (through their supreme leader, Khameini) that for Iran to pursue nuclear 
> weapons would be contrary to Islam. Their own population also agrees that it
> would be contrary to Islam (polling has been done on this). Wouldn't the
> religious leadership be setting themselves up for enduring discredit and
> condemnation, within their own country and worldwide if they were, in fact,
> secretly developing nuclear weapons?
> 
> PPS What if Iran isn't, in fact, developing nuclear weapons, and the US (or
> Israel or some combination) were to preemptively attack Iran based on the
> nuclear terrorism smokescreen that Obama and others are peddling? It seems to
> me that could easily be the trigger that causes Iran to embark on a secret,
> accelerated nuclear weapons program, plausibly justifying it to the Muslim
> world under some interpretation of Islam's provision for Jihad warfare. The
> irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.
>