Thomas Barnett: Look Out, World - Comparing Obama and McCain

[boloboffin]

New article at GOOD magazine by Barnett, in which he encapsulates the race between Obama and McCain thusly:

Barack Obama will make America smarter about the outside world, and John McCain will make the world smarter about America.

There is, of course, lots more, but dang, what a soundbite. Barnett's a conservative Democrat, and author of The Pentagon's New Map. You may have caught his PowerPoint presentation on C-Span (completely the opposite of AE911Truth's snoozefest - intelligent, lots of facts, sharp presentation).

He goes on to give ten criteria to base your choice on. A highlight (and I'm choosing an advantage:McCain deliberately to entice everyone to read it):

Iraq: When do we wrap up? The Iraq “war,” or whatever you want to call it, is clearly a moving target, meaning where Iraq was at the beginning of these campaigns—when positions were initially articulated—and where it is today, are two vastly different things. The criticism now focuses primarily on the high cost involved.

McCain gets credit for advocating the surge and the associated counterinsurgency strategy, two much-needed changes on which the Bush administration wasted many months—and lives—before adopting. Basic lesson? When McCain makes a decision, he follows it through to the end, eagerly seeking out new solutions to persistent problems.

But for those who objected to the war, Obama also gets credit for opposing the invasion from the start. As for opposing the surge, Obama now appears less flexible than McCain in admitting his party’s past mistakes and moving on to better solutions.

In political terms, the problem McCain faces is that improvements in Iraq favor all the positions Obama has long advocated. So again, we see the essential difference emerge. McCain’s approach has the value of concentrated effort, but suffers the dynamic of “one damn thing after another,” meaning: Just after you fix one thing, you’re on to the next. Obama is less likely to suffer big losses in any single situation, but he’s also less likely to score any big wins.

As for wrapping up America’s combat involvement in Iraq, the differences between the two candidates have narrowed dramatically: Obama calls for a withdrawal of combat troops by 2010, while McCain targets 2012. The major difference concerns the pace of withdrawal: Obama says the Iraqi government should decide; McCain says our generals should decide. In reality, it’ll be our generals right up to the point when the Iraqis decide for themselves. This “war” stopped being America’s to “win” or “end” a long time ago—to wit, Iraq’s government wants us gone by 2011.

ADVANTAGE: Obviously McCain, because of his courageous call on the surge.

Enjoy.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

"Obviously McCain, because of his courageous call on the surge."

Staying longer and sending more troops is better than having been against the war in the first place?

There's something to be said for making the best of a bad situation, but this is not it.

 

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Being against jumping off the cliff only counts before you all jump off the cliff. After that, you need to be talking about somewhere safe to land or where the parachutes are, and who has them.

The reason it's bad to have a firm deadline is shown in the application of torture in Vietnam.

When someone starts pushing bamboo splints up under your fingernails, it's not to convince you to tell them what you know. It's to convince you that they can continue to do it, unrelentingly.

It's that, "unrelenting," bit that gets the job done.

As soon as you accept that there is no end to the pain and degradation, and lose hope, that's when the torturer tells you that there is an end: "Just tell us what we want to know."

To that end, I was told to hold out for 72 hours; Just three days. That would give the folks that knew I was gone enough time to change all the details that I had access to, making my intel pretty much useless.

I had to hold out for three days, then I could sing like a cross-tabulating, indexing, and alphabetizing bird.

See: If you know exactly how long you have to resist an overwhelming desire, like the desire to not have bamboo splints under your fingernails any more, or surrender to a lawful but alien way of doing things, you don't lose that hope that you need to continue.

Alcoholics Anonymous does this with, "on day at a time."

You know that you're going to break down and start drinking again. It's absolutely inevitable. You just say to yourself, "yeah - but not today!" All you have to do is not get drunk for one day; 24 hours; 1440 minutes.... You can count them as they go bye, and know that you can go for THAT LONG without a drink, anyhow.

Give a guy a deadline, after which he can do whatever he wants, and you guarantee that he will be able to make it to, and just a bit past that deadline.

Torture... laying off the booze... maintaining an insurrection... attending high school... whatever... anything intolerable suddenly becomes tolerable if you know exactly when it will end.

I was against going into Iraq before it started. Once you've jumped onto the tiger for the ride, though, you can't just step off. You kind of have to ride it until one of you gives up.

Me, I want the bad guys to give up first.

To that end, I say, don't ask them to please give up their foolishness before we have to go home. If they really want us gone, let them know exactly how to get rid of us.

Tell them that we are there, all up in their grill, until they give up.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Hi

Being against jumping off the cliff only counts before you all jump off the cliff. After that, you need to be talking about somewhere safe to land or where the parachutes are, and who has them.

The reason it's bad to have a firm deadline is shown in the application of torture in Vietnam.

When someone starts pushing bamboo splints up under your fingernails, it's not to convince you to tell them what you know. It's to convince you that they can continue to do it, unrelentingly.

It's that, "unrelenting," bit that gets the job done.

As soon as you accept that there is no end to the pain and degradation, and lose hope, that's when the torturer tells you that there is an end: "Just tell us what we want to know."

To that end, I was told to hold out for 72 hours; Just three days. That would give the folks that knew I was gone enough time to change all the details that I had access to, making my intel pretty much useless.

I had to hold out for three days, then I could sing like a cross-tabulating, indexing, and alphabetizing bird.

See: If you know exactly how long you have to resist an overwhelming desire, like the desire to not have bamboo splints under your fingernails any more, or surrender to a lawful but alien way of doing things, you don't lose that hope that you need to continue.

Alcoholics Anonymous does this with, "on day at a time."

You know that you're going to break down and start drinking again. It's absolutely inevitable. You just say to yourself, "yeah - but not today!" All you have to do is not get drunk for one day; 24 hours; 1440 minutes.... You can count them as they go bye, and know that you can go for THAT LONG without a drink, anyhow.

Give a guy a deadline, after which he can do whatever he wants, and you guarantee that he will be able to make it to, and just a bit past that deadline.

Torture... laying off the booze... maintaining an insurrection... attending high school... whatever... anything intolerable suddenly becomes tolerable if you know exactly when it will end.

I was against going into Iraq before it started. Once you've jumped onto the tiger for the ride, though, you can't just step off. You kind of have to ride it until one of you gives up.

Me, I want the bad guys to give up first.

To that end, I say, don't ask them to please give up their foolishness before we have to go home. If they really want us gone, let them know exactly how to get rid of us.

Tell them that we are there, all up in their grill, until they give up.

So even though it's a pointless, stupid war and neither the American people not the Iraqi people want us there, we should try to outlast fanatical religious extremists with no regard for for life, even their own?

 

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

So even though it's a pointless, stupid war and neither the American people not the Iraqi people want us there, we should try to outlast fanatical religious extremists with no regard for for life, even their own?

Either that, or it proves to them that all they have to do is kill a few folks a day in such a way that it makes our evening news, and the entire country will roll over for them once we get bored of it, yes.

You win a battle by attaining your goals. You win a war by getting the other guys to figure that it's hopeless to resist before you start to figure that way.

Was it a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place? I thought so. I said that it looked to me like President Bush was pursuing private vendetta with public assets.

But we did go in.

Now, unfortunately, right or wrong, we have to prove to every damned bunch of nutcases with a fatwa, someone to follow it, ten pounds of Comp-B, and three cups of ten-penny nails that we will not roll over for them.

Welcome to the 21^st Century. Please enjoy your stay.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Either that, or it proves to them that all they have to do is kill a few folks a day in such a way that it makes our evening news, and the entire country will roll over for them once we get bored of it, yes.

Ah, thanks. I hadn't recieved my FDA daily recommended dose of false dichotomy at breakfast.