One day before the Iowa caucuses, John Edwards has become the first major presidential candidate to favor withdrawing all American troops, including advisers, from Iraq, doing so in response to queries from a leading military correspondent, the New York Times’ Michael Gordon.
The positions taken by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while favoring de-escalation, would leave tens of thousands of American advisers, special forces and substantial back-up troops in Iraq for five years, at least until 2013. The mainstream media also has promoted the view that there is “no way out” of Iraq, according to a comprehensive survey by Peter Hart in Extra! [Nov.-Dec. 2007]. If these views prevail, the US government will be funding, arming, training and defending a repressive sectarian state in Baghdad for years. Already, for example, there are over 50,000 Iraqi prisoners held in detention by the US and Baghdad authorities, the vast majority of them on no charges. Evidence of torture and ethnic cleansing by the Baghdad regime has been accumulated in numerous official reports as well.
In the front-page Times’ interview, the traditionally-hawkish Gordon questioned Edwards’ whether his proposal would “pull the rug out” from the Iraqi security forces, and pointed out several times that Edwards’ position is at odds with “senior American military commanders.” However, Gordon failed to note that one such military leader, Gen. James Jones, while supporting more training of the Iraqi security forces, has reported that those forces are sectarian and dysfunctional and even called for “scrapping” the national police force now conducting counterinsurgency under Gen. Davis Petraeus’ command.
Edwards’ thinking seems to flow from his populist orientation: “I honestly believe this in my soul, we are propping up their bad behavior”, he told Gordon, “I mean really, how many American lives and how much American taxpayer money are we going to continue to expend waiting for these [Iraqi] political leaders to do something?”
The political impact of Edwards’ statement is unpredictable. It may sway some Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich voters to caucus instead for Edwards Thursday night. It may cause a few defections from Clinton or Obama. It may play out in New Hampshire and later primaries, if Edwards is deemed “viable” by the media after Iowa. And to the extent that Edwards’ campaign continues to be a force in the national election, his Iraq position could become a rallying point in the Democratic platform debate.
http://www.tomhayden.com
After forty years of activism, politics and writing, Tom Hayden still is a leading voice for ending the war in Iraq, erasing sweatshops, saving the environment, and reforming politics through greater citizen participation.
Currently he is writing and advocating for US Congressional hearings on exiting Iraq.
A more comprehensive bio, going back to the sixties, when he co-founded SDS and protested in the deep south
....and just like a bunch of drowning rats, they'll ALL be jumping and flip-flopping onto Ron Paul's bandwagon before it is all over. Sorry Tom........
by
Cap'n Stubbs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 7 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 1:43:46 AM
Is every damn article an opportunity to demonstrate the fanaticism of the Paulistas?
The opposition to this horrid little war is Ron Paul's one redeeming quality. Yet, when matched up to the damage his administration would do to the social fabric of this nation, when considering the real exclusivity, greed and selfishness of the Libertarian perspective it is simply far from enough.
Having stated that, I am really objecting to the nonstop proselytizing of you Paulistas, especially when it leaks over into articles and discussions having little or nothing to do with Pauls candidacy. I trust that others are becoming as turned off to this insanity as well. Edwards is, indeed, the first MAJOR candidate to take such a stance, though Dennis Kucinich, among democrats, led the way.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 1:19:20 PM
The fact that Edwards said it would seem to contradict
...the part about him breaking with the Establisment consensus. If Estulin was right about Edwards being picked by the Bilderbergers as Kerry's running mate in 2004, then Edwards is very much an Establishment candidate.
"In July 2004, Bilderberg members literally chose Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's former rival [John Edwards] as his running mate, after John Edwards, in his first time attendance at a Bilderberg gather, impressed them with his vision for American politics...after hearing John Edwards speak about NAFTA during the second day of the conference, Henry Kissinger telephoned John Kerry with the following comment: "John, this is Henry. We have found your Vice President."
"...The New York Times, July 8, 2004 also suggested the powerful group's involvement..."
Ref. p. 36, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, 2007, by Daniel Estulin.
A postive article about Edwards also just came out in the Wall Street Journal. "FOX News Channel, part of the FOX network, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns a significant portion of the world's media...Murdoch, needless to say, is a luminary in the secret Bilderberg group. He has most recently added The Wall Street Journal to his empire."
Ref. p. 99, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, 2007, by Daniel Estulin.
I just spent the past three days reading this book. It was a eye opener.
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Paul Rye (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 253 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 1:47:43 AM
Behind Lieberman. Maybe if Gore had selected Edwards, they wouldn't have put America to sleep on the campaign trail, and Bush would never have been elected!
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Robert Sargent (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 302 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 10:27:21 AM
...and if so, there might have been some minor differences in how the U.S. handled Afghaniston/Iraq/Iran.However, Al Gore is a member of both the CFR and Trilateral Commission, so it is unlikely that anything substantial would have changed about the general direction our country has gone in the past 7 years, had Al Gore been elected.
Again according to Estulin, although the Bilderberg group may support one candidate or the other, the Trilateral Commission is the direct manager of the U.S. presidency.
My suggestion is that should the U.S. public wish to know what a presidential candidate will actually do in office, they need to know if the candidate is a CFR/Bilderberg/Trilateral-backed candidate or not, and then research the goals of those groups.The more closely a particular candidate’s political philosophy aligns with those groups, or the more corruptible the candidate, the more likely that those groups will stage manage the candidate’s campaign and usher him into the Whitehouse.
As Bush II, the Republicans, and the “Establishment” are so very unpopular right now, it behooves the Establishment to present exactly what the public wants to see and hear, a Democrat who is all of a sudden “anti-Establishment”.Just look where he has been for the past four years:
First, the Washington Post gradually released the negative information about Edwards as gently as possible, then Fox started apologizing for him and building him up again.Graham (Washington Post), and Murdoch (Fox, WSJ, etc) are long-time core members of Bilderberg.
The names are about to change again, but the circus will continue.
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Paul Rye (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 253 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 2:36:47 PM
I'm very much against demonizing people for group membership
... with a few noteable exceptions, I'm not inclined to demonize people for being members of a group. Jimmy Carter is a member of CFR, and his foreign policy bent since FOREVER has been very much anti-war. The following group membership conspiracies are completely unconvincing to me:
1. CFR
2. Bildberger group
3.Skull and Bones
Whenever I see people demonizing someone for being a member of the above, I roll my eyes. Skull and bones is a college fraternity, and its active members are kids from the ages of 18-21 who then graduate and have a life. I almost joined a frat in college. If I had been in Yale and joined Skull and bones, would that necessarily make me a bad person? What if I had joined A E PI (the frat I almost joined) and some people from A E PI did something wrong? Is the whole group and everyone who joined evil?
CFR membership does not seem to imply anything bad OR good. As there are people from various ideologies in the group, it seems to be ideologically neutral. A neocon can publish a work under the CFR banner, and so can a progressive. This is not the same as Project for a New American Century that has a specific bent and general attitude.
The Bilderberg group is basically a fancy name for around 130 people who have a conference once a year and otherwise seem to do not much of anything as a group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group . As wikipedia notes, there are various conspiracy theories out there about them. Might as well attribute theft of the Lindbergh baby.
Thanks, but I am plenty enough occupied by the real and obvious bad people and bad things going on. I dont need to invent additional bad guys from groups just because there are a few groups around that like to keep some of their proceedings secret.
I realize that as long as there are groups that have secret proceedings, there will be people that concoct ridiculous conspiracy theories about them. I guess the best I can do is plead to anyone who is a progressive that, as I said, there is enough to be concerned about and work on/against that we really cannot afford people of good will to go off on a tangent chasing non-existent dragons.
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Steven Leser (193 articles, 38 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1299 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 5:06:44 PM
First, I tend to agree with you in general about demonizing people for group membership, however, I think that there is enough credible information available about the backing, political philosophy, and objectives of the CFR/Bilderberger/TC groups to raise suspicions about the motives of the presidential candidates they back.
Second, I agree that the Skull and Bones membership “conspiracy” lacks credibility. I had been aware of claims that the CFR was a secretive group, but in fact, until about three weeks ago, I had never even heard of the Bilderberg group. So, I asked my daughter to get me Estulin’s book on the Bilderberg for Christmas. Also, in the back of my mind I recognized the name Trilateral Commission but I dismissed it because somehow I associated it with “Illuminati conspiracy theory kooks”. A long time ago, I once did some checking to the “Illuminati” and realized that was a kooky theory about a historically long defunct group associated with Freemasonry.
Third, you make valid points that if you had been in Yale and joined Skull and Bones, or A E PI and some people from those groups did something wrong it would be unfair to judge you for that. Indeed, it is possible that the membership of one particular person in CFR would not imply anything bad or good about that person individually. It is the political philosophy of the groups and their objectives that concern me, a political philosophy that easily straddles both major parties.
I get the feeling that your opinion of the connection I tried to make is based on several factors. Of course, I could be wrong, but I will make a few guesses.You come across people from time to time who get very emotional and try too hard to convince you that something really evil is going on.They make wild claims, make non-sensical connections between people and events, and they simply are not very knowledgeable and logical about history and politics.You find the whole issue somewhat disreputable and are not comfortable associating yourself with ideas that many people labeled kooks believe in with religious fervor.You do not pursue information on this issue.
OK, that pretty much described me too until the last three days, when I read Estulin’s book.Now, I still think that Skull and Bones is a red herring, of which by the way, there is no mention in Estulin’s book.
Yet, it is hard to dismiss the general thrust of his book.Look at the principal backer of the CFR/Bilderberger/TC goups, David Rockefeller.Study his political objectives and find out what the most influential members of those three groups are striving for.If you are not aware of their objectives, it is not necessary to turn to conspiracy-theory-kooks for suppositions.There is enough publicly available information and if Estulin is correct, enough information obtained reliably but without permission from within their secret meetings to know pretty well what they wish to accomplish.
You mentioned Jimmy Carter.Part Three, Chapter 20, of Estulin’s book describes how Carter was discovered, packaged, and sold to the U.S. public.In Carter’s acceptance speech he railed against the Establishment, yet no less than 12 CFR/TC members helped Carter prepare his first foreign policy speech.He screened sixteen prospects for Secretary of State, and gave the job to Cyrus Vance, a Trilateralist.In public, he played the role of an outsider to perfection.In actuality, he appointed fully 40% of the members of the TC to his administration.In all, 291 members of either the CFR or TC or both formed part of the Carter presidency.
Should everyone simply believe the person they vote for will do the public’s bidding and not be concerned about who is backing them and what goes on at these secret meetings?I think everyone is concerned about that, but the people I’m talking about generally do not disclose their true objectives openly and publicly, but manage the information they wish the public to receive via mainstream media.
To be really crass, the question about Edwards should be, “What was Edwards doing since the last election, working for Fortress (a hedge fund); was he simply put on payroll until the next election?”
As H. Clinton is also backed by CFR/Bilderberg/TC, another good question is this, "Would Edwards newly announced position on the war really permit him to overtake Hillary, or is it simply a gambit to keep independent minded Democrats from straying outside the party?"
The ultimate question is why does neither party's candidate, no matter what promises are made to the public, ever really do anything to slow down the accumulation of political and economic power in the hands of the megacorporations, bankers, and globalists? I've said this many times, many ways. We should not look to Government to reign in the super wealthy and corporations, because they OWN our Goverment now. A vote to give more power to Government now, is simply a vote for more power to these groups. We need to get our Government back not hand it to them on a silver platter.
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Paul Rye (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 253 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 6:54:06 PM
"...and if so, there might have been some minor differences in how the U.S. handled Afghaniston/Iraq/Iran.However, Al Gore is a member of both the CFR and Trilateral Commission, so it is unlikely that anything substantial would have changed about the general direction our country has gone in the past 7 years, had Al Gore been elected."
Our mideast policy has been conceptualized, designed, engineered, manufactured, polished, logo-branded, blister-packed, marketed, distributed and sold to the masses by a handful of neocons that concocted there own unique ideology, which turned out to be idiocy, and served that ideology to the point of nearly ruining this country, and may yet get us into world war 3. Gore would NEVER have attacked Iraq in response to 9/11, and there is no evidence such a strategy was ever on his plate, while we know, according to Paul O'Neill, among others, that is was a Bush agenda item BEFORE 9/11.
by
Robert Sargent (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 302 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 6:38:51 PM
... it is amazing how one can wrap their entire belief system around a conspiracy theory likely concocted by one paranoid schizophrenic who decided not to take their meds for a few days.
by
Steven Leser (193 articles, 38 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1299 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 6:43:31 PM
I assume you are referring to Estulin, and if you think he is in the same class as people who I would agree with you are kooks, then to tell you the truth I most emphatically hope that you are right. I'm really not comfortable being put in the position of being accused of believing in a "conspiracy theory."
I am saying that I did not get that impression that Estulin was describing an outright conspiracy. Rather, I would characterize it more as a surreptitious political movement with motives that most Americans would not support. Yet, just try to discuss the actual motives of these groups with almost anyone and see how quickly you are accused of buying into a conspiracy theory.
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Paul Rye (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 253 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 7:18:14 PM
OK, it's always unsafe to try to say what "would'a happened", but I will also admit to having worded the part you objected to very poorly. I'll try rephrasing it, because I did not mean to imply that Gore would have taken the same military actions as Bush II.
Let me try again, "...and if so, there might have been different tactics in the Middle East, but there would have been minor differences in U.S. strategies and objectives. Al Gore is a member of both the CFR and Trilateral Commission, so it is unlikely that anything substantial would have changed about the general intent to strategically control Middle Eastern oil and exploit the "terrorist threat" and the brewing monetary crisis to hasten the direction our country has gone in the past 7 years (reduction of civil liberties), had Al Gore been elected."
Estulin reported that the Prime Minister of France gave Kissinger a dressing down at one of the recent Bilderberg meetings for the Bush Administration's misleading of the EU concerning Iraq. He said France would not have opposed so many of the UN's Security Council resolutions if only they had known the invasion was all about the oil and not weapons of mass of mass destruction.
Estulin also documented quite clearly that disagreements over Iraq almost came to blows between U.S. and EU attendees at one of the recent Bilderberg meetings. So, it is clear that this "conspiracy" is not a conspiracy in the sense of an all powerful mafia that pulls everybody's strings in Government. Bush II and the neocons went too far militarily, so they lost a lot of support. But the goal remains the same, to control Middle Eastern oil and establish a small U.N. tax on oil at the wellhead to set a precedent for a "world tax" to fund a stronger U.N.
So, it is possible that there might still have been military action in the Middle East after 9/11. Who can really say how it might have unfolded or whether it would have taken place or not? Perhaps, with Gore in the White House, the views of the neocons would not have been given such free expression, but the neocons would not have gone away, and not all neocons are Republican. There might have evolved true multinational support under U.N. leadership under Gore instead of Bush II's go it alone policy.
CFR/Bilderberg/TC are more like a politically and economically motivated interest group, very powerful, with a globalist agenda, that holds great influence over top executive leaders in many sovereign nations. The Bilderberger represent the U.S., EU, and Canada, the CFR represents just the U.S., and the Trilateral Commission represents the U.S., Japan, and Mexico.
The secrecy undoubtedly results from the fact that nationalists within sovereign nations would undoubtedly object if they knew how often and to what extent the CFR/Bilderberg/TC acts in opposition to national interests.
The overall point I'm trying to make is that the direction we've been heading does not seem to have changed very much for the past 30 years no matter who was president. Why?
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Paul Rye (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 253 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 8:19:25 PM
He has done this how many times since the Democrats took control of Congress so that we could bring the troops home? And yet he has still failed to organize the Democrats in the Senate to do anything meaningful on the Iraq war.
We voted Democrats and got more troops not less. A SURGE.
We don't expect too much from Harry Reid and we shouldn't expect too much from Edwards.
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Kevin Gosztola (194 articles, 103 quicklinks, 63 diaries, 776 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 8:46:32 AM
No matter what anyone will tell you, you can not win a war that can not be won. Peace can not be won with a gun, but only accomplished with communication.
Woops, oil is at $100. Steal the oil....already doing that..........
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Michael Morris (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 298 comments)
on Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 11:31:51 AM
