[Marxism] "Foreign policy" debate: McCain more hawkish on Iraq., both on board in Afg., Obama more openly warlike in Pakistan

[Fred Feldman]

One thing this shows is that anyone who votes for Obama because he will
really be a "peace" president, is kidding themselves, not being deluded by
Obama "demagogy," because he frankly tells them what he thinks his policies
will be, and they are not peace policies.

The differences are marginal, though not necessarily irrelevant. 

My position on this election is not based on any such illusions. I am pretty
hard-boiled. My position starts with the motion of section of the masses in
opposition to the bourgeoisie (no longer just a French word, Shane, and not
for a long time -- in terms of the range of terms it absorbs to describe,
with all kinds of subtle nuances, different phenomena, there is nothing
quite like the English language, a product obviously of the US ruling class'
world role. (This does not mean, as the late (as a revolutionary) Jack
Barnes used to say, that English is THE international language -- it was the
only one he really new, like me until relatively recently and quite
limitedly.

Generally speaking, Obama tells people the truth as far as he understands it
practically, as a bourgeois politician. He does not try to kid them about
what (and ultimately, even who) he stands for. His refusal to take advantage
of the Palin vulnerabilities and make this a campaign issue is of a piece
with this slightly more honest approach to being an imperialist politician.

Of course, all this has something to do with the fact that he is a Black
candidate, with a real base in the Black community. 

Frankly, I have no doubt that his election will be a gain for the working
people of the world, a change for the better, even though I expect NOTHING
from him in terms of the interests of working people.

Of course, electing McKinney would be much, much better -- much more like
electing Chavez or the magnificent Morales. It simply cannot happen in the
existing order, but I vote for what I want and I will do so.
Fred Feldman


Fred Feldman


September 27, 2008
Iran and Pakistan Issues Split Candidates 
By DAVID E. SANGER
For months, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have argued over whether
Iraq was the right war to fight in 2003. On Friday night they delved for the
first time into the problems one of them will face on Jan. 20: Whether
America has to be ready to carry out military action inside Pakistan, an
important ally, and against Iran's nuclear program. 

Curiously, there was more than a little role reversal in the first
presidential debate. It was Mr. Obama who seemed more aligned with President
Bush's current policy of authorizing American special forces to cross the
Afghan-Pakistan border into Pakistan's tribal areas that Al Qaeda and the
Taliban have used as a sanctuary. 

In one of the more heated moments of the debate, Mr. Obama, the Democratic
presidential nominee, argued that he would take the war to Osama bin Laden's
cave door, whether Pakistan cooperated or not. And it was Mr. McCain, the
Republican nominee, who argued that without Pakistan's cooperation, any such
operation was doomed.

Mr. McCain took the position that Mr. Bush had taken until this summer, when
the president gave up on the Pakistani government in frustration. With no
public announcement, Mr. Bush loosened the reins on American forces to go
into sovereign Pakistani territory. Mr. Obama essentially argued on Friday
night that Mr. Bush should have done that years ago, ridiculing the $10
billion that the administration had paid to the Pakistani military with
little result.

At its core, the candidates' argument is about the "central front" in the
war on terrorism. Mr. Obama said it was, and always has been, Pakistan's
tribal areas and the neighboring areas of Afghanistan. Iraq, he argued, was
a dangerous distraction. Mr. McCain made the case that Iraq was the central
front, noting that Mr. bin Laden himself had declared that the battleground
with America.

The debate over Iran became the testing ground on where the candidates stood
on pre-emption and engagement. Mr. McCain repeatedly referred to Iran as an
"existential threat" to Israel. But curiously, given his hawkish statements
in the past, Mr. McCain did not repeat his previous argument that it might
be better to attack Iran than to live with an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Instead, he called for more-effective sanctions, suggesting that he does not
think Mr. Bush ever really rallied the United States' allies, namely France,
Germany and Russia, to pressure Iran. 

Mr. Obama shot back, arguing that the war in Iraq has empowered Iran. And he
pointed out that the Iranians have built 4,000 centrifuges during the Bush
years. (The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest number is slightly
lower: 3,800.)

But Mr. Obama turned the discussion to argue that even while pressing Iran,
the United States has to engage the Iranians directly. On this, he is in
agreement with many in the State Department, though not Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

Mr. McCain echoed the Bush administration's argument, that negotiating
directly with the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would "legitimize"
him, and that you do not sit down with Iranian leaders until they first meet
"preconditions." That has been American policy since 2006. The Bush
administration has refused to sit down with Iranian leaders until they
suspend building the centrifuges that produce uranium.