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05.07 YouthWorks Campaign Needs Support for Summer Jobs
04.14 The High Cost of School Violence
04.30 A Litany of Horrors
04.17 Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" (Part II)
04.14 Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" (Part I)
Ref. : Letters to the editor
04.28 Green Scare State Terrorism
04.21 Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World
04.16 WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT
Ref. : Single-Payer FAQ
Ref. : Environmental Health News
Ref. : Sundance Channel's THE GREEN
Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it?
Ref. : Global Warming Links
Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links
05.06 US Media Trivializes Campaign 2008
05.06 Death's Factotum: Michael Gordon and the Times Pour Pentagon Poison into Nation's Ear
05.05 TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits
05.05 Color-Coded: Jeremiah Wright and the Real Deal on Race
05.02 The Right's America-Hating Preacher
04.23 Pentagon Pundits
04.22 US News Media's Latest Disgrace
04.18 ABC's Debate Debacle
04.16 Reprising the Genocidal Fury of Thomas Friedman
04.11 The Very Annoying Washington Post
04.10 BBC: Imperial Tool
05.09 The Democratic Presidential Race: A View from Pennsylvania
05.08 Serving the System: Corporate Control of U.S. Would Continue Under Obama
05.06 A Republican for Barack
05.05 Thinking About Voter Registrations
05.05 'Beware the Terrible Simplifiers'
05.01 U.S. Military Coordinated Day Of Prayer Events With Christian Right Group
04.30 John McCain Won’t Be Looking for the Union Label
04.30 Put Him Out With the Pastor!
04.25 Clinton Courted Racists in the Pennsylvania Primary
04.24 Groundbreaking Book Documents Widespread Election Fraud; Warns Elections Vulnerable to Theft
04.24 Triviamongering in the U.S. presidential race
04.24 Campaign 1988 Lives!
04.23 Hillary Clinton's Monstrous Threat
04.21 Brilliant Disguise: Bush Torture, Obama and The Boss
04.19 The Clintons, Triangulating with China
04.18 American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed
04.18 Are the Clintons Playing Joe McCarthy?
04.17 The Weather Underground 'Theme'
04.15 Political Log Rolling in Clinton Country
04.15 Clinton's Experience: Fact and Fancy
04.14 Bill and Hillary's 'Stockholm Syndrome'
04.14 Finding Voters “Bitter and Frustrated,” Obama is Sounding Like Nader
05.09 Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City
05.09 Shoot, Kill, Lie, Repeat: America's New Moral Universe
05.07 Willing Executioners: America's Bipartisan Atrocity Deepens in Somalia
05.05 The Terror Master: Bush Orders Covert 'Surge' Against Iran, with Dem Support
05.01 American and Israeli War Crimes: Same Atrocities, Different Responses
04.30 Halliburton Bribe Case Haunts Cheney
04.29 Getting Over Scalia
04.29 The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iranian War
04.28 The Torture Election
04.28 The Clock is Ticking for A US Attack on Iran
04.28 The Bush Team's Geneva Hypocrisy
04.25 New Terror War Atrocity: Beheading the Innocent for Bush in Somalia
04.23 Glorious Fruits of the War for Civilization
04.22 VA Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows
04.21 What About the War, Benedict?
04.18 Updating Sami Al-Arian - His Ordeal Continues
04.16 Would Obama Hold Bush Accountable?
04.15 Bush's Torture Quote Undercuts Denial
04.14 Too Much of Nothing: Crime Without Punishment, War Without End
04.11 Capital Crimes: Another Smoking Gun on Terror War Torture
04.10 Catch 2,200
04.10 Yoo's on First?
05.08 Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower
04.28 Thinking About Subtleties
04.23 The Oil Vice
04.22 The US Economy and the Costs of War
04.21 Thinking About Shakiness
04.15 Watching the Dollar Die
05.05 Sixty Years of Palestinian Displacement, Occupation and Suffering
05.02 Feeding Moloch: Last Barriers to War on Iran Come Down
05.01 The Iranian Chessboard
05.01 Blood Diamonds, Blood Oil and Blood Food
05.01 Denying Palestinians Free Movement in the West Bank
04.30 The Ignored Lessons on the Stupidity of War
04.24 Breaking the Silence - Israeli Soldiers Speak
04.23 What the Iraq War is about
MEDIA REVULSION ALERT:
On NBC, 'Expertise' Means Getting Iraq Wrong
Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, "has compared your foreign policy expertise to that of George W. Bush at the same period," Williams said. "Provided you could be going into a general election against a Republican with vast foreign policy expertise and credibility on national security, how were her comments about you unfair?"
In a pre-invasion interview on CNN (Late Edition, 11/29/02), McCain stated:
We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.
He added, "I don't think it's, quote, 'easy,' but I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." On MSNBC (Hardball, 3/24/03), he stated that "we will be welcomed as liberators."
In contrast, Obama made a prominent speech around the same time (10/2/02) that now seems strikingly prescient:
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.The assumption of Williams' question is that the candidate who was completely wrong about the Iraq invasion has "vast expertise" and "credibility" on national security, while the candidate who correctly foresaw the consequences needs to prove his foreign policy qualifications. One wonders whether Williams is using "expertise" as a synonym for "hawkishness."
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al-Qaeda.
ACTION:
Please write to Brian Williams and remind him that expertise and hawkishness aren't the same thing.
CONTACT:
NBC Anchor Brian Williams
Phone: 212-664-4971
Email: nightly@nbc.com
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This story was published on February 29, 2008.
