Why This Fight
Chuck Hagel versus the Israel lobby: a battle that must be won
There has been a lot of pushback against the neoconservatives‘ preemptive smear campaign against Chuck Hagel, much of it illuminating, but none as clear-headed as that by Paul Pillar in The National Interest, who starts out his piece this way:
"The effort to slander Chuck Hagel and to torpedo his potential nomination to be secretary of defense has reached such intensity that there is now much more at stake in this nomination than just who will be running the Pentagon over the next four years."
Entitled "Stand Up to the Intimidators," Pillar’s article trenchantly cuts to the chase with a minimum of wordage: "Intimidation," he writes, "feeds on itself, with successful intimidation encouraging more of the same and failures discouraging further attempts. Neither Chuck Hagel nor anyone else has a right to any cabinet post, but given how this matter has already evolved, if the president now does not nominate him for the defense job it will be universally seen as a caving in to the neocons and Netanyahuites." Worse, "he will have encouraged more such intimidation in the future." Underscoring the significance of this fight, Pillar writes: "It is hard to imagine any future issues offering a conspicuously better place to draw a line in the sand and to start pushing back than this one."
Yes, but why is that? Aside from the sheer nastiness of the neocons’ Two Minutes Hate, and what it portends for the Senate confirmation process, what is all the fuss really about? While the Israel Lobby and its journalistic camarilla have been slandering Hagel with baseless charges of "anti-Semitism," many are scratching their heads over this one, including some of the smartest people inside the Beltway. Brent Scowcroft, for one, the gray eminence of the Republican foreign policy Establishment, is baffled:
"He got two Purple Hearts on the front line. That’s about the best recommendation you can get from somebody whose job would be to advise on the use of troops around the world. I am honestly surprised, even astonished, at the attacks. I do know where they’re coming from, but I don’t understand the genesis of them.
"His view on virtually every foreign policy, of which I know them, is very thoughtful, centrist and pro-America. The attacks have just erupted in the last couple of days, and most of the people that I’ve talked to about it are astounded. I don’t know what’s motivating it and why. It really surprises me."
The anti-Hagel television ad debuting today [Tuesday] in the Washington, D.C. area, should open Scowcroft’s eyes to the underlying issue. Take a look at it, a good look: what is the main issue raised? Why, the prospect of war with Iran, of course.
After a few preliminaries, the ad gets to the meat of the matter. Hagel has said war with Iran "is not a viable, feasible, responsible option." In the view of the ad’s sponsors, the Emergency Committee for Israel – i.e. Bill Kristol and Romney campaign manager Dan Senor – this statement makes Hagel "not a responsible option."
The source of this quote is a 2006 news conference in the course of which Hagel was asked about the possible outbreak of war with Iran. Here is his reply:
"I do not expect any kind of military solution on the Iran issue…. I think to further comment on it would be complete speculation, but I would say that a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option. Iran is a complicated issue. I think that a responsible approach to these challenges is to work closely with our friends and allies, in this case Pakistan, with the United Nations, with the IAEA. I believe a political settlement will be the answer. Not a military settlement. All these issues will require a political settlement."
The prospect of war with Iran was conceivable in 2006, but hardly imminent: we here at Antiwar.com were well aware of the long-term goals of the War Party in this respect, but hardcore anti-interventionist circles – not so much. Of course, everyone in the foreign policy community was well aware of AIPAC’s relentless propaganda campaign, which presaged much of the open warmongering to come. However, at that point we were still in the midst of the neocons‘ disastrous war in Iraq – which Kristol & Co. had been ginning up for years – and hardly anybody anticipated their future war plans.
Hagel was being asked to predict what the outcome of our contentious relations with Iran would be, and he gave his honest – and widely held – assessment. It was apparently difficult for him to believe that the US, already bogged down in two wars, would at that point launch a third invasion, without the military resources to do so.
Unsurprisingly, the ad, by dropping the context of Hagel’s remarks, makes them into something they aren’t: but that is neither here nor there. What’s important is how the Emergency Committee is framing the issue: they are making Hagel’s confirmation battle into a Senatorial referendum on the question of going to war with Iran. The Senate vote on his nomination – if it comes to that – will, in effect, be a dress rehearsal for a future vote on sending in the Marines.
This is the real issue behind their polemics aimed at Hagel’s vote against designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a "terrorist" organization, which the ad also seeks to misconstrue. Hagel and 20 other Senators voted "nay" because they correctly saw it as a back door to war with Tehran: such a move would have given the Bush administration a blank check to attack the Iranians at their leisure, without going to Congress for approval, on the grounds that permission had already been given.
As George W. Bush’s second term neared its ignominious end, the neocons around Dick Cheney were pushing for a confrontation with Iran, but the hapless Dauphin, whom they had led around by the nose for the past five years or so, had apparently had enough of them, and refused to go along with the plan. In the end, the "terrorist" designation was a moot point. The neocons, however, never forgive – and never forget.
This isn’t about Chuck Hagel, a man admired by his colleagues in the Senate, whose military experience and record of judicious independent thought more than qualifies him to head up the Pentagon: it’s about whether we are going to start World War III. It’s about whether a gaggle of discredited ideologues, in alliance with a powerful lobbying group openly serving the interests of a foreign government, is going to be allowed to take us into a war certain to devastate the region, drive us further into bankruptcy, and cause untold human suffering.
That’s why I’m supporting a grassroots White House petition drive urging the Obama administration to nominate Hagel and fight for his confirmation.
This is not the sort of thing I would normally do: but these are not normal times. Our regular readers may have noticed what is more than a mere uptick in the news coming out of the Middle East, and none of it is good. Syria is aflame, and that proxy war – really a conflict pitting Iran against America’s allies in the Gulf, as well as Turkey – could at any moment morph into a wider conflict, one likely to drag in the US. Worse, the drumbeat for war is sounding louder in Washington. Having atomized Iraq, and decimated Afghanistan, the neocons are hungry for more blood, and are moving toward what has been their goal all along: the destruction of Iran.
At a time like this, it isn’t enough to just sit around on my butt writing about – observing, as it were, from a safe distance – the seemingly inevitable drift toward war. Too many lives are at stake. It is necessary for the peace movement to engage – with our friends, as well as our enemies.
With the Hagel issue being framed as a question of war – or no war – with Iran, there is no way to abstain from fighting this battle. To do so would be to abdicate my own personal and political responsibility, and would, in effect, amount to passive complicity with the drive to war.
Yes, but why go to the lengths of supporting a specific nominee for Pentagon chief whose worldview is not the same as my own, and whose future actions I have no control over? For the same reason I would endorse an antiwar rally where the speakers might say things I disagree with. For the same reason I would urge a united front effort to pressure Congress into voting against bombing Iran – precisely the issue that will take center stage at the Senate confirmation hearings, if and when Obama nominates him, and it is the real issue now.
There is always a danger in endorsing a political figure – or group – who could then turn around and do exactly the opposite of what was anticipated. This possibility has to be weighed against the benefits – or, in this case, the necessity – of winning a battle in the present moment. Based on his record, which is by no means purely non-interventionist-as-the-driven-snow, there is every reason to believe Hagel would proffer a counsel of restraint in this administration. We are so perilously close to war with Iran that, in my view, it is worth the risk. It is like being on the edge of a cliff, and noting that there’s just this little bush – no more than a twig – to hold on to. Do you reach for the twig, and hope it doesn’t break – or do you allow yourself to fall into the abyss?
The idea that we cannot get our hands dirty by engaging in the day-to-day maneuvering and back-and-forth of political combat is one the War Party would dearly like us to uphold and put into practice. Because that leaves the field open to them, ensuring that their bullying tactics intimidate our generally craven politicians with little or no opposition. It also ensures that we remain isolated from those Washington "realists," on the left as well as the right, who are belatedly arising from their slumber to defend Hagel and the position that war with Iran is neither inevitable nor desirable.
Hagel’s fate is going to be determined by a very small group of people, ensconced inside the Washington Beltway – and that is a great part of the problem. The positions Hagel has taken – a diplomatic rather than a military solution to the Iranian "problem," and a foreign policy that puts American interests first – reflect the views of the man and woman in the street. You’ll notice no one is marching down Main Street demanding we bomb Iran: the American people oppose going to war with Iran, or anybody else, these days, and they rejected Romney in large part due to their distrust of the Republicans when it comes to foreign policy.
Outside the Beltway, the neocons have relatively little clout: their movement, which consists of a few dozen newspaper columnists, academics, and political operatives, has always been a tiny head on the larger body of the GOP. Having destroyed the Republican party, however, after a decade of Bush II and the Romney disaster, they are more isolated than ever – except inside the Beltway, where they still have some major clout. This was underscored by a recent Washington Post editorial in which Hagel’s views were disdained as "fringe," on the far "left," and outside the "mainstream."
Well, they are outside the "mainstream" of your typical Georgetown cocktail party – and the neocons think that’s all that counts.
I believe – hope, really – they are badly mistaken. In the course of doing my job, and going through all the media attention given to this controversy, I’ve noticed that the comments sections accompanying hit pieces on Hagel are invariably hostile to the author, with hundreds of less than complimentary comments directed at people like Jennifer Rubin, for example, who has been bemoaning Hagel’s unwillingness to bow to every dictate from AIPAC. To give you some idea of just how tone deaf the anti-Hagel propaganda has been, one of the major charges hurled at the former senator from Nebraska is that he said "I’m an American senator, not an Israeli senator." In the comments section, readers ask: what is wrong with that? But of course an American government official is going to put American interests first, before those of any other country. To a normal person, this is axiomatic.
In Washington, D.C., however, it’s out of the "mainstream." And that is precisely what’s wrong with our foreign policy: Hagel’s confirmation will turn this inverted "patriotism" right side up.
Left to those cowards in Washington, Hagel’s fate – and the fate of the US for the next four years – is highly problematic. Which is precisely why we need a populist grassroots movement to take our country back from the ideologues and foreign lobbyists who have hijacked American foreign policy.
That’s the reason I have taken the unusual step of taking up this battle in more than a purely literary way: because it’s a battle we can’t afford to lose – and dare not sit out.
Please sign the White House petition, and – just as importantly – post the link everywhere. It’s time to man the barricades, and fight the good fight. As the wizard Gandalf said to Galadriel and Saruman in The Hobbit movie: there is a Dark Power stealthily invading the Western lands, unwilling to show its full face just yet, waiting for the right moment to strike. The Hagel confirmation battle is an alarming sign that the enemy is about to show himself.
So get over to that White House petition, and bring your friends – because we can’t let those neoconservative Orcs have to the field all to themselves. To heck with the "Emergency Committee for Israel." What we need – and must have – is an Emergency Committee for America.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can follow me on Twitter here.
Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon.
Buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard, here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- The Paranoid Style of the Israel Lobby – December 18th, 2012
- Chuck Hagel: An Unconventional Realist – December 16th, 2012
- The Amash Rebellion – December 13th, 2012
- Destiny and Decline – December 11th, 2012
- ‘He’s Killing His Own People!’ – December 9th, 2012
gemini
December 21st, 2012 at 12:01 am
Justin, I could take out Iran in thirty minutes. Why take a decent man like Hagel and push him into a corrupted position? Would you put Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Gary North, Walter Williams, Yourself into such a position that you know will sink your soul? So why sacrifice Hagel to the state? Those people will do what ever they are going to do, it is time the American people seen the democrats for who they really are.They are not the kind and loving people they pretend to be, they are brutal murderous pigs and its time the American people wised up to it. To include those prison guards in the schools. Considering those prisons are so dangerous, why put your babies back in them?
Mark
December 21st, 2012 at 5:48 am
"The Emergency Committee for Israel". Really? How about an Emergency Committe for the United States? It seems we have just a few problems on the homefront, ya' know. Perhaps an ad could be aired using images of Washington, Madison, etc, quoting THEM on things like entangling alliances and going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
Chuck Hagel & The Israel Lobby « Wim Duzijn
December 21st, 2012 at 6:29 am
[...] Chuck Hagel versus the Israel lobby: a battle that must be won by Justin Raimondo, December 21, 2012 [...]
omop
December 21st, 2012 at 7:00 am
Is it time for Pam Geller ads claiming Hegel is a "jihadist" on buses in all state capitals? Could it that some Europeans are right in whispering that the USA is Israel's bitch? Could it be time for all Americans to be forced to take an oath of allegiance to the star of David instead of the "Stars and Stripes?"
Or stand up for what ostensibly this nation known as the U.S. of America claims to be and in specific words and deeds do the honorable and right thing as a so-called major democratic nation.
abe
December 21st, 2012 at 7:47 am
The "LOBBY" was totally against Obama so Mr. Obama do what Valerlie Jarret says. Time for payback and it will be brutal! The LOBBY is on it's ass with Obama re-election NOW kick them in the nuts and stick in the knife! Hagel for President in 2016!
abe
December 21st, 2012 at 7:57 am
I tried to sign the petition but was unable to. I can just imagine the morons working at the White house e-mail site…you know Wash. D.C! Over paid former welfare cheats!
shame on Y
December 21st, 2012 at 8:26 am
Justin, I could take out Iran in thirty minutes.
another arrogant and the same time dumb person!!!!!
Jeff Albertson
December 21st, 2012 at 8:46 am
Justin – thanks for this. I've been following your dust-up with with Larrison; I had thought he beat you on points, that Hagel IS a conventional war hawk, but this helped clarify why his nomination is important; that the confirmation hearings could break the momentum toward another war. I am exited that this may may open a crack between the "realists" and the neocons such that the latter will "turn their backs" on the unpatriotic CFR, (those well known isolationists) and expel them from the conservative movement, too. What happens when chutzpa collides with cold, intelligent power? Team A back in; team B out. Can no one rid us of these troublesome priests?
check out this list of pre-approved candidates for any office, anywhere. It's like an employment agency for the oligarchs.
http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?l…
PEACE EVER AFTER
December 21st, 2012 at 8:58 am
I too was confused in trying to sign the petition.There were too many hoops to gump thru.In any event even a million signatures would do no good. Writting your senator would probably be far more effective.
sami
December 21st, 2012 at 9:11 am
{That’s why I’m supporting a grassroots White House petition drive urging the Obama administration to nominate Hagel and fight for his confirmation.}
Now, Justin shows his true face and is supporting an ASSASSIN AND A BABY KILLER' list. Obama was selected by the zionist lobby for the sheeples, to wage more wars to protect the interest of Israel meaning the creation of “greater Israel". The most important 'quality' of Obama is HIS BLACKNESS. He has shown he can be as savage as the white if not MORE similar to Condalisa and Susan Rice. Obama is not interested in Chuck Hagel since he is following the instruction from his BOSS to secure a prosperous future for himself and his kids which worth millions of dollars like the Clinton family whose wealth is more than $200,000,000, Obama wants more since he has his blackness in addition to his assassin quality where has killed thousands of civilians including babies in the middle east and Africa. Obama cannot fool people in the target countries and according to many polls he is hated figure in the region.
gemini
December 21st, 2012 at 9:17 am
Muslims love this war….
"The Council on American-Islamic Relations released poll results this week showing that 68 percent of American Muslims support President Obama while just 7 percent support Mitt Romney (1 in 4 remain undecided). " http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/10/25/1085…
So why don't you go tell them about arrogance. Iran is nothing and everyone knows it, except maybe you. The only reason it would be a long war is because the democrats would kill them slowly while telling them how much they love and respect them they just have to accept democracy…American style.
omop
December 21st, 2012 at 9:23 am
I too.
Johnny in Wi.
December 21st, 2012 at 9:33 am
Right on Sammi: Obama has been in the pocket of the Israeli lobby his whole career. The Hagel appointment is all about payback to the rightwing likudniks who have highjacked the foreign policy of the Republican Party. It is just an intermural fight between the liberal interventionists who back Obama and the more radical minority who favor the Republicans. This country can never have peace until we have a real opposition party on foreign policy and much else. 60% of the funding for the Democrat Party comes from leftwing Zionists. There is no sane reason for the Republicans not to follow the foreign policy of realists like brent Skowcroft, Anthony Zinni, and Norm Schwartzkoph. It is time to kick Israel to the curb and run her over. Israel has been a noose around America's neck long enough.
antonio
December 21st, 2012 at 9:46 am
His "purples" are tainted wiyh the blood of the vietnamese people.
Raimondo : Why This Fight | My Catbird Seat
December 21st, 2012 at 10:03 am
[...] by Justin Raimondo [...]
Shame on Y
December 21st, 2012 at 10:52 am
(Iran is nothing and everyone knows) Only ignorant people say that.
Only the ignorant people listen to The Council on American-Islamic Relations to judge A lot of ‘Muslims’ have gone to US since wars and destruction began where is waged by the neocons and their puppets like Obama. But the community of immigrant is represented by RICH among them who have stolen their money from the country of origin. Now, the Zionist film makers present these thieves as ‘successful immigrants’ in US. The latest example is PBS “Iranian- Americans immigrants” represented by the rich Iranian fifth column who love the cliché word “this beautiful country”. Even The Iranian ‘opposition' fools who are in the pocket of NED have said: this is a “cheap propaganda” film has nothing to do with Iranain community. Shame on PBS. Now, the sheeples get their ‘knowledge’ from the ‘documentary’ film on Iran written by the film director, Andrew Goldberg , Zionist lobby, to judge Iranians in the US.
jpbreon
December 21st, 2012 at 10:58 am
The comments show just what is wrong with the anti-war movement (the same problem many libertarians and Rothbardians share) – they don't understand how to deal with a massive problem. We, in the anti-war and anti-intervention movements, are standing at the bottom of Everest, trying to find a way to the top. Yet no one goes anywhere without first putting one foot in front of the other, but people like sami want us to leap in one bound to the summit.
President Obama is not going to put Ron Paul or Phil Geraldi or Scott Horton forward as SecDef, no matter how much hand-wringing and ideological purity you display. The vast majority of American people, while not explicitly for war, are not principled against it, either. All they need to greenlight more killing is a determined government act to deceive them, which Hagel seems unlikely to participate in the way Rumsfeld did. On that basis alone he is worth supporting. No doubt, as well, that Obama intends Hagel's nomination to poke Netanyahu in the eye for meddling in our pretend-elections. Anything that even marginally hampers Israel's warmongering is worth grasping.
I understand disliking practical politics, but we no longer have the luxury of proving our purity to each other while the War Party marches on without an opponent.
Jaime
December 21st, 2012 at 11:53 am
"Muslims love this war". Your fallacy is the size of a cathedral. Have you asked Muslims -over a billion all over the world- if they love "this" or any other war. In South America we swear North Americans love not only this war but there is no war they don't like. After all, Iran is not going around invading, killing, plundering maiming and ruining other nation. What the US does is terrorism.
gemini
December 21st, 2012 at 12:44 pm
I don't want a war, I don't want to bother any of them. I don't want to give them any money either and I don't care about whether or not the women have any rights.
But it seems to me someone in the Muslim world must be quite happy, we have been protecting governments, helping build their armies, installing women's rights, helping move jobs to their countries, getting them more and more money, more aid, and we never seem to run out of people over there willing to fight. Who is fighting in Syria? When do they ever say no? South American? Never see any violence down there…hahahaa c'mon who are you kidding?
mulegino
December 21st, 2012 at 12:46 pm
America held hostage: Year 65
ren
December 21st, 2012 at 12:52 pm
But sanctions have already been put on Iran, isn't that already an act of war? Aren't the sanctions to slowly squeeze them and then demoralize them and make them too hungry to fight. Kind of a slower death. Then we can move in to shovel our virtues onto who ever is left. It appears to me the kindly United Nations is going along with those sanctions. And what of Turkey, another kind muslim country or maybe Saudi Arabia, why are they going along for the ride? Oh never mind it's just us republicans.
Sami
December 21st, 2012 at 1:20 pm
But sanctions have already been put on Iran, isn't that already an act of war?
You are right. It is act of war and illegal
Turkey is chained dog, better known as Trojan hourse of US imperialism and zionism. Turkey is in the service of the apartheid state for the last 64 years. Turkey makes Israeli soldeirs' boots and underwear for the past decades, but Erdugan, a zionist puppet, claims is supporting Palestinians. Only Arab fools living in the West has fallen for his lies.
Toba
December 21st, 2012 at 1:23 pm
The only person who was able to " take out Iran" was that competent Macedonian and the last laugh was on him because he died there in the end, Alexander's success is still an unparalleled feat and it is pure fantasy to think that even with the hardware Uncle Sam has, he could pull it off. It didn't work in Vietnam,Iraq or Afghanistan and will not work in Iran.
Obama has made it clear that he can "play" the American people like a professional and it would do Hagel good to stay away from him. Truth be told the President would't pick him anyway because he will cast a direct glare on Obama's shortcomings. Hagel should keep away and run for the 2016 elections. he seems a principled person and the Executive Branch of this government sorely need such a person since it seems like fate is giving the American people a hand by first sidelining Petraeus and possibly putting Hillary dese in a grave.
David
December 21st, 2012 at 1:25 pm
I think Hagel will not even be nominated. Justin, I'm on the other side of the equation here than thou, but do you really feel Obama is a profile in courage? Susan Rice… under the bus with far less than Chuck. The gay issue will be the final stake in the coffin for Chuck for it will give cover to liberal democrats to abandon ship of the increasingly malodorous Saint Chuck express.
The mistake of you and your ilk, Justin, is you forget Obama is simply a politician. Is there anything in Obama's political history that speaks of political courage? Although, I am opposed to Chuck Hagel at defense, I would have loved to watch the hearings and political posturing that would have occurred.
BTW, Justin, what do you think about Saint Chuck's staff turnover occurred twice a month. He doesn't like the openly, aggressively gay types and he berates his staff so much that his staff turnover was twice a month. But, since he hates Israel, all is forgiven =) LOL.
jpbreon
December 21st, 2012 at 2:41 pm
I doubt you intended it to be so, but you just made the best argument for anarchy that exists. We need perfect people for the roles because of the power they would wield, but since no perfect people exist, such power should never be given. Excellent.
If you want to list all the reasons something shouldn't be done, we will be here for eternity. The simply question is: Would Chuck Hagel be better, or would he be worse, for the goals of the anti-war movement, particularly concerning the most likely war against Iran?
ren
December 21st, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Anytime you folks don't like the reality of the world you bring the chained dog puppet excuses. You try and paper it all over with puppets and zionism, endlessly. You just refuse to look at things for what they really are.
Jaime
December 21st, 2012 at 6:08 pm
And why do you give them money? Why does your government keep sending money that should be best spent in rebuilding the infrastructure or helping the unemployed in your country? Do you think it's out of the good heart of North American politicians? This is the way for Washington to co-opt the elites in those countries. The same has happenes here, and rather than good will, that has created hatred against the powerful groups in South America and their Yankee enablers. You say you don't want a war.but that's precisely what the powerful in your country wants. Maybe you should go out and demand a change from your Congress people. The idea of your protecting, rebuilding, installing whatever is false. The only interest among the elites in Washington is to plunder other countries' resources. Period.
Rich
December 21st, 2012 at 7:17 pm
The Muslims in the seventh century, Genghis Khan and his grandson, Tamerlane, also took out the Persians. Still, a pretty good record of fending off invasion.
James Robinson
December 21st, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Chuck will likely not get the nod. He may, like Chas Freeman before him, eye the prize at the other end of the AIPAC smear gauntlet not worth the running, but there is an encouraging side to this tawdry episode. Read WAPO's editorial board screed opposing Hagel's nomination (or Jennifer Rubin's blog) then go to the comment section. There you will be hard pressed to find among the seven hundred, now perhaps over a thousand, responses more than one percent endorsing WAPO's position. We are slowly winning. The internet has thrown the wrench of truth in the gears of the AIPAC propaganda machine.
dink
December 21st, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Best thought-out comment I have seen here in a long time.
the lion
December 21st, 2012 at 10:57 pm
What better way to prove that there is an Israeli Lobby in Washington than watch all these Israeli Associated groups, tear Hagel to pieces, absolute proof that many politicians in the US Congress are beholden to another country other than that they have sworn an oath to Protect and serve!
gottlieb
December 22nd, 2012 at 12:44 am
a long time reader and first time commenter. I'm a leftist libertarian (whatever the hell that means.) Justin has made the case; in the land of the blind, the one-eyed person is king. Hagel is a hope and we're running out of them.
@Causarius
December 22nd, 2012 at 3:27 am
I'm glad this guy isn't an unabashed neocon fanatic, but why should I have any faith that he would stand up against his superior(s) in the event the decision to go to war with Iran is made? I can't support this guy. He's just another crook.
james
December 22nd, 2012 at 4:09 am
Rich, Genghis and Tamerlane were not muslims.