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Will TYT Sue John McCain?

2008-07-26T04:44:29Z

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McCain - "I Know How To Catch Bin Laden"

2008-07-26T04:44:29Z

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McCain On Obama - "I Think It's A Pretty Good Timetable"

2008-07-26T04:44:29Z

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Iraq's Prime Minister Implies U.S. Troops Should Go Home

2008-07-25T19:11:06Z

Nouri Al-Maliki and the European Commission President speak at a joint press conference in Brussels and Maliki says that Iraqi forces are capable of dealing with those outside the law - a condition he sets for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The conference takes place, days after President Bush rules out a drawdown on U.S. troops

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Out by 2010? McCain Address Maliki's Withdrawal Timetable

2008-07-26T04:42:04Z

John McCain, July 25, 2008

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Mitchell: Republican Meddling in Obama's Military

2008-07-26T04:42:04Z

Andrea Mitchell, July 25, 2008

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Fighting Terrorism "Indirectly" - Thomas Henriksen

2008-07-26T04:44:15Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Thomas Henriksen argues that indirect diplomatic and military support are a more effective strategy for fighting terrorism abroad than are large-scale military actions.

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Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States has been involved in a string of conflicts, from the Persian Gulf War to Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war.

What are the connections between these various interventions? What common themes emerge through analysis? What missteps were made?

Henriksen notes the use of containment, interventions, regime changes, and even humanitarian assistance as responses to rogue states, civil strife, and militant Islam.

He will also analyze the transformation from Washington's stability-first policy to its democracy-promotion agenda in the Middle East, which threatens this crucial region with instability, he says, necessitating a new grand strategy to confront terrorism - The Commonwealth Club of California

Thomas H. Henriksen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His current research focuses on American foreign policy in the post-Cold War world, international political affairs, and national defense. Henriksen specializes in the study of U.S. diplomatic and military courses of action toward terrorist havens, such as Afghanistan, and the so-called rogue states, including North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. He also concentrates on armed and covert interventions abroad.

Henriksen's most recent book is American Power after the Berlin Wall (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), which examines for the first time, in a single volume, U.S. foreign policy from 1989 to the present through the prism of America’s interventions around the world.

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 07/22/08

2008-07-26T04:23:19Z

John McCain
Town Hall
Rochester, NH - 07/22/08

TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: "Senator, we entered the Iraq war illegally, immorally, and against international law. According to a poll in the Washington Post in May of this year, 81 percent of U.S. voters believe our country's on the wrong track. A majority of Americans prefer a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and now the Prime Minister of Iraq, in response to pressure from the Iraqi people is also calling for a timeline for withdrawal. Given the $720,000,000 million dollars a day we're spending in Iraq, the fact that neither Americans nor Iraqi's support the occupation, that our presence there is in fact enflaming the Muslim world and creating more terrorists, that our money, our tax dollars, [interrupted by boos]

[...]

As I said, our tax dollars are needed here for healthcare, for funding education, infrastructure repairs, and real energy alternatives to combat real climate change. Isn't it time to end the occupation Senator?

MCCAIN: "[...] When I took the position that we needed to have 30,000 additional troops over there, those numbers were a lot worse than the ones you cite. Because my first obligation is my country not my political ambitions. [inaudible due to applause] [...] And again, I respect your view, and I think I understand it. Because for nearly four years this war was badly mishandled. And we failed. And Americans made great sacrifices as you know. I believed that a change in the strategy and the surge would succeed. And indeed it did. Now Senator Obama said that he wanted us out of Iraq and that the surge would not succeed, and it would fail, and he's still saying that it failed. Now I respect Senator Obama's view, I just think it's wrong. The facts on the ground [inaudible due to applause]. [...] the most important part of my response to you is the future. I think the future is very clear. We have succeeded in Iraq and we are winning this conflict. [...] Let me just say to you what I'm confident of, is that we will reduce Iranian influence in the region. We will have a stable and democratic nation there that's flawed but functioning. We will have a Middle East that does not have the disruptive influences that would have resulted from a failure and defeat in Iraq, which then would have encouraged others to do the same thing. And I'm confident that victory, which we are winning and we have succeeded, will bring about a change, not only there but also in the entire region. And it will all be for the benefit of the people of Iraq and the people of this country. And I understand, as you do, the enormous sacrifice that has been made.

QUESTIONER: I believe that you are [inaudible] against international law. The deaths that have happened, those of our dear soldiers there, and Iraqi civilians, are tragedies and may even be criminal because we invaded that country. Now the idea that we might someday have a stable democratic government there is not ours to impose on that country. [...] We need to leave that country, the people of that country are asking us to leave, the Prime Minister of that country is asking us to leave, why do we have the largest embassy in the world there and all kinds of military bases there if we're not there to try to steal their oil.

MCCAIN: Thank you very much, first of all, in all due respect I think that is something that's not what American's are fighting for, in all respect. But the fact is that, everybody recognizes, including Prime Minister Maliki, that we have to have conditioned based withdrawal. And we're going to withdrawal. We will withdrawal. The fact is, whether we withdrawal with victory or whether we withdrawal with defeat. And again, you and I have different prisms, we have succeeded. In Sadr City it is safe, Mosul is safe, Basra is safe, the people of Iraq, and I've been there, are now leading normal lives. [inaudible due to applause]. There will be continue to have spectacular attacks. If I thought that al-Qaeda was completely defeated I would say all of should come home right away. They are not completely defeated. They have been set back enormously, but we have to continue what we are doing with this strategy which has succeeded.
[...]

QUESTIONER: Don't you believe that we are in the inflaming the Muslim world by our presence there?

MCCAIN: Thank you. I do not. I believe that if we had been defeated in Iraq that the radical elements in the Muslim world would have been dramatically encouraged. [inaudible due to applause]

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Obama's ME tour: Afghan policy is more troops

2008-07-26T04:41:38Z

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Phyllis Bennis: You cannot win hearts and minds with ground troops and bombers

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Captain Travis Patriquin Was A Real American Hero

2008-07-26T04:44:30Z

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TPMtv: Just a Matter of History

2008-07-26T04:44:07Z

Your Daily Politics Video Blog: In the past week John McCain and his surrogates have done their best to focus the entire McCain-Obama debate on the question of which candidate was right about the troop surge in Iraq. So it was a little surprising to see McCain on the CBS Evening News last night get a basic historical fact about the surge so plainly wrong.

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 07/22/08

2008-07-26T04:23:20Z

John McCain
Town Hall
Rochester, NH - 07/22/08

TRANSCRIPT:
MCCAIN: "[...] And as you might recall, that Senator Obama, my opponent, said the surge would not succeed, that he wanted us out, if he had had his way we would have been out last March, we would have never done the surge, we would never have succeeded, and we would have had defeat. And my friends, that would have been a catastrophe for the United States of America. He was wrong then, he's wrong now, and he still fails to acknowledge, he still fails to acknowledge that the surge succeeded. Remarkable. Remarkable. And as you know he just received his first briefing ever from General Petraues. And he declared his policy towards Iraq before he left. Before he left. And so the fact is that we have made some progress and we have succeeded."

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 07/22/08

2008-07-26T04:23:20Z

John McCain
Town Hall
Rochester, NH - 07/22/08

TRANSCRIPT:
MCCAIN: "[...] And now he wants to reverse the gains that we have made and set a date for withdrawal, which would endanger our progress in Iraq. And my friends, if we had failed in Iraq you would have seen increased Iranian influence, you would have seen an increase in sectarian violence, we would have seen al-Qaeda establishing another foothold. And by the way, al-Qaeda's on the run but they're not defeated. And this success is fragile, and we cannot reverse it. We cannot reverse it by doing what Senator Obama has said that he wants to do. He refuses to acknowledge the conditions on the ground."

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McCain: The Surge "Began the Anbar Awakening"

2008-07-26T04:42:05Z

John McCain on the CBS Evening News, July 22, 2008

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Joe Felice - "The Surge Has Worked!"

2008-07-26T04:35:58Z

Are reduced American casualties a good excuse to stay in Iraq?

http://www.airamerica.com

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Stephanopoulos: Obama Agrees Now with McCain on Afghanistan

2008-07-26T04:42:05Z

George Stephanopoulos on ABC's World News, July 21, 2008

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Iraqi Government: We Want U.S. Troops Out in 2010

2008-07-26T04:42:05Z

The Associated Press adds some more detail about the quote we noted below from the Iraqi government official saying he wants the troops out by 2010:

Al-Dabbagh said the government did not endorse a fixed date, but hoped American combat units could be out of Iraq sometime in 2010. That timeframe falls within the 16-month withdrawal plan proposed by Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day as part of a congressional fact-finding team.
"We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," al-Dabbagh told reporters, noting that any withdrawal plan was subject to change if the level of violence kicks up again.

We'd like still more direct quotes, please. The paraphrase here says the government wants the troops out by 2010. But the direct quote isn't quite as conclusive.

Either way, however, this is very significant. As TPM alum Spencer Ackerman puts it:

"There's nowhere left for McCain to go here. Either he endorses a timetable for withdrawal, which he has consistently said would be a disaster, and cedes his only big issue to Obama -- and more importantly, concedes that Obama's judgment is sound -- or he deliberately ignores the concerted, expressed wishes of the Iraqi government in order to prolong an unpopular war."

Pretty much, yeah.

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Obama visits Afghanistan

2008-07-26T04:42:22Z

Barack Obama, the White House hopeful, visited Afghanistan to meet Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.
During the meeting, Obama said that Afghanistan is a vital front on the war against terrorism and if elected, he will make sure it gets well deserved attention.
Al Jazeera's James Bayes reports on Obama's tour in Afghanistan in an attempt to turn around a war that Obama says is "often overshadowed by the US mission in Iraq".

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Obama Shoots Hoops with U.S. Troops in Kuwait

2008-07-26T04:42:41Z

Barack Obama shoots hoops with an enthusiastic crowd of U.S. troops in Kuwait, his first stop before heading into Iraq.

"I am just very proud of the extraordinary work that the troops are doing here in Kuwait; you're providing all the logistical support that's needed for folks in the battlefield, and without you, this effort would not be successful," Obama told the troops .

Obama is touring nations in Southern Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 07/17/08

2008-07-26T04:23:21Z

John McCain
Town Hall Meeting
Kansas City, MO 07/17/08

TRANSCRIPTION:

LABEL: JM MO 07-17 (JR#61) - ClipB

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TPMtv at Netroots Nation: Rand Beers

2008-07-26T04:42:06Z

Rand Beers

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Wesley Clark on the Chaos in Afghanistan

2008-07-26T04:42:06Z

Here's another excerpt from one of our interviews at Netroots Nation. Here retired Gen. Wesley Clark discusses the darkening situation in Afghanistan.

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Is Israel Negotiating With Terrorist Groups?

2008-07-26T00:44:03Z

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Majority Of Iraqis Want A Troop WIthdrawal Timetable

2008-07-26T04:44:33Z

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TPMtv: Flip-Flop in the Wilderness

2008-07-26T04:44:08Z

Your Daily Politics Video Blog: Our question of the day: if a flip flops in the wilderness but no one hears, did it really flop? Or in other words, if a news story like John McCain's recent shift in position on troop levels in Afghanistan doesn't fit in with the dominant narrative of the campaign, will any news organizations pick up on it?

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