This entry was posted on 2/17/2008 11:20 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
I have been meaning to put this down for a while, but my cold sort of kept me from doing much.
According to this
Telegraph article, Barak Obama is a West Ham fan. Needless to say, any football fan, and especially a Hammer, in the White House would be a good thing. It also says the Clintons are ManUre fans, so there is reason enough not to vote for them.
On a more serious note, It's looking more and more like the Democratic nomination will still be contested by the convention. This hasn't happened in like 50 for either party. The scary part is that the super-delegates will probably be the ones who really decide who the candidate is. Either that or the courts (look where that got us with Bush) forcing the Democrats to accept the delegates from Michigan and Florida even though those state parties violated party rules and had their primaries too early. I'm not sure about the legal issues involved here, so I can't really comment on it. To me it's scary that someone like Peter Carroon will help to decide the Democratic nomination but there it is. To you RSL fans, isn't that a bit scary?
Realistically, I don't see McCain beating Obama, but I do see him beating Clinton. Hilary is a very divisive candidate, you either love her or hate her. My opinion of her is that she's very smart, very ruthless and very ambitious. Does it scare anyone else that before she met Bill, she was a Goldwater Girl (In your guts, you know he's nuts!)? I am not sure she has the character to do things that will be required of the President. I don't know what it is, but to me she just seems to be yet another politician who, much like Mitt Romney, will tell you what she thinks you want to hear. Those types of people in power scare me, because they tend not to have very many firmly grounded policies which is a liability in things like foreign policy. I do have to wonder about Obama's experience. I am not convinced he has much of a real grounding in foreign policy matters. In some ways, I think he's dead wrong.
For example, according to his website, in January, he sponsored legislation to remove all our troops from Iraq by March. We do not have the transport capacity to even hope to accomplish this. Not to mention, what happens to Iraq then? As Colin Powell warned President Bush prior to the invasion, "It's the Pottery Barn rule, you break it you buy it." We have most certainly broken Iraq and it would be even more irresponsible for us to leave the mess that is there now without a viable solution than it was for us to go into Iraq in the first place. Yes it was a mistake (that most of us as a country made, sorry, but I will admit I thought that Iraq had WMDs as much as almost everyone else). Now there are a lot of good ideas about what to do in Iraq, and hopefully with the impending demise of the neocons and their foolish policies things will get back on the right track. There has been a lot of promise in Iraq, especially recently, but there is no way that the government forces there can take over the job themselves right now. I just love how people think that you can deal with things with "targeted" and "surgical" strikes with air power. Some targets you can, but as was demonstrated in Afghanistan, air strikes are a lot more effective when there is someone on the ground designating targets and directing things. Really, about the only type of unit that's really good at holding ground is infantry with all the support that infantry units have (about every unit in the army that isn't infantry is really intended to support the infantry in some way or another). So the point here is that you need eyes and ears on the ground if you want to be able to project power. So taking out our ground forces there may not be a good long term solution.
I think the biggest mistake of the Bush administration has been not even really trying diplomacy. The Bush solution to Iran has been to not talk to them. We don't like Syria much, so what do we do? Not talk to them. This is just pure insanity. While diplomacy may not be as sexy as dropping laser guided bombs on people, it is a whole lot safer and generally more effective. I do not understand this policy at all and hope that all the candidates will change this.
One other thing I think that needs to be addressed is that the US must adopt the Kyoto Protocols on greenhouse gases. I also think we need to be realistic and promote nuclear energy. It's cleaner, safer (with a modern reactor design) and cheaper than burning fossil fuels like coal. The technology already exists, so there is no long lead up of Research a Development in order to get a benefit. Really, the only problem is really ignorance (yes I have lived next to a nuclear power plant, and no i wasn't scared). Too many people get the idea that there will be another Chernobyl without really knowing the facts of what caused that disaster. More than any other single fact, the design of that reactor was seriously flawed and the main purpose of that type of reactor was production of plutonium for weapons purposes. These designs are inherently dangerous, not just because of the meltdown risk, but also with the plutonium produced. In a pressurized water reactor, by far the most common type of reactor, you solve most of the problems and have a great safety record over all the decades that they have been producing electricity. This is a great way to ensure energy security that everyone needs.
Anyway, I've probably bored you all, so I'll stop.
