The End Debate On Iraq War

It was a major news event on BBC last night when the three remaining U.S. presidential election hopefuls attended and participated in the Senate Committee Foreign Relations hearing on the war in Iraq, centering on the progress and status of the military campaign being waged by America over there.

Senator John McCain, the Republican’s official nominee courageously contended against any form of troops withdrawal, citing extreme sectarian tensions that could boil over towards a bloody civil war if America lets go of control over Iraq. A ‘precipitous withdrawal’, as they term it nowadays, by U.S. troops would endanger not only the Iraqis but also open up hazards for America.

Both Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party maintained their call for gradual troops withdrawal despite the plea of Gen. David Petraius, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, to have a moratorium in troops withdrawal at the soonest time possible.

Senator Obama is batting for a form or level of “success” in the U.S. campaign in Iraq where troops withdrawal could be well justified but he and General Petraeus could not seem to agree on this.

Senator Clinton’s approval of the war in Iraq, when it was put for affirmation by U.S. President George W, Bush years ago, had become once ominous, thanks to Senator Obama’s rhetoric, and for that, she could possibly take a middle ground as to whether or not there should be troops reduction in the soonest possible time.

Of major note is the so-called recent “surge” in U.S. military operations where it is shown through recent data that the military campaign in Iraq had gained some progress as violence have abated somehow, as compared to last year. This is the “surge” that General Petraeus wants to sustain that he now calls for a temporary stop in troops withdrawal for the moment.

To be sure, if either of Senator Obama or Senator Clinton wins this November, he or she would be in direct confrontation with the present military officials handling Iraq where a McCain presidency would be in the opposite direction.

This now becomes a very grave concern for the U.S. electorate. A lot of Americans want the war in Iraq to end. But the generals want to pursue it to the very end, even if the end means 20 years or 50 years from now, even if everyone agrees that U.S. military resource, as well as the economic whole, is “finite” and not “infinite”. And somehow, John McCain makes sense when he says that a pullout now would throw Iraq into bloody disarray. And to complicate the matter, the Democrats may actually win the presidency.

To stay the course or not to stay the course?

This is one of the main questions that the American people have to consider in their decision as to the next president of America this coming November.

On the ballot sheet, it would be the simple question of whether to choose the Republican way or the Democratic way. But in the whole of things, the fate of the Iraq War as well as that of the Iraqi people (and global stability for that matter), becomes a very complicated question that no amount of hearings could resolve.

They’re Not Birds, Nor Planes…They’re The Superdelegates

THE SUPERDELEGATES—- any of you who have been closely watching the rollercoaster of a Democratic Party primary elections have surely heard about them already. I for one hasn’t had heard of them except for now; despite that I have had great interest in U.S. pre-election contests for many years now.

Of course—- contrary to the way they are termed—- they aren’t newly-invented superheroes with flowing capes and glinting gloves fitted to their hands, but real people who are designated to hold distinguished positions in the Democratic Party organizations and has superior voting preferences in the primaries, that in the Democratic Party convention this coming August, they might just be the ones to put finality as to the person of the party standard bearer, whether Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton.

As of now, Sen. Obama had gained more pledge votes by performing well in a number of primaries and caucuses held earlier in the year, more than what Sen. Clinton had gained that right now, Sen. Obama merely needs 176 pledged votes in the remaining primaries for him to finally clinch the nomination.

But as of now, and despite the magic number 176 of Obama, the contest is still seen by many as tight and could still run wide open as the next state to vote, which is West Virginia, is expected to go largely in favor of Sen. Clinton.

The latest news is that Sen. Obama had finally overtaken Sen. Clinton in the number of superdelegates that are expected to vote in August. Observers have suggested that in order for Sen. Clinton to overturn the overall lead of Sen. Obama throughout the primaries, she needs to win big among the superdelegates in August. A slight margin of win for her among the superdelegates would not matter as much.

There were some early criticisms in fact about how the Democratic Party nomination system could become undemocratic in a certain way, where the superdelegates could decide to set aside the results of the primaries, after hundreds of thousands of Democratic Party members throughout America from East Coast to West Coast, have exerted efforts to voice out their nomination choices, only to be overturned by the superdelegates, who are party stalwarts designated to their position or stature merely because they are party officials and elected officials. They are called PLEO’s.

There is no stopping the superdelegates from going against the will of the majority or results of the numerous primaries; they could vote irrespective of the primary results, especially in a very tight contest like this. That, even if Sen. Obama garnered the most votes in the primaries, the superdelegates could still overturn this and push Sen. Clinton as the party standard bearer by largely voting for her. “So much for democracy”, I have heard one party member quipped over CNN.

So the race they say between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton would most possibly go down the wire, even towards August during the party convention where the superdelegates would finally vote, and this despite many observers had already advised Sen. Clinton to withdraw from the race as the lead of Sen. Obama in the primaries is nearly insurmountable, merely a mathematical possibility.

But because superdelegates could still matter in August, Sen. Clinton is pushing on.

Who the H*ll Is Joe Biden?

I must admit that while I felt that I had been educated enough to monitor American politics reasonably well in recent months, I was actually one of those who got so surprised when Democratic Party presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama had announced Senator Joe Biden of Delaware to be his running mate come November —-not Hillary Clinton as I expected he would be picking or at least John Edwards (if only he wasn’t blotched by an admitted affair.)

So Senator Joe Biden becomes the man of the hour, being set into the middle of the race despite being inconspicuous for most of the much-ballyhooed Obama-Clinton race for the Democratic Party nomination, one that had ended with a little bitter taste in the mouth. He is suddenly into the thick of things like having a bye in Wimbledon or a wild card slot in major league baseball.

Senator Biden is as white as any American could possibly be and I couldn’t help but immediately make out of this as the main quality that had gained him Sen. Obama’s nod. You know, to put a compromise to his being the first-ever African-American presidential nominee, where despite being so fancied for that, is sadly his greatest disadvantage. I felt now, that the contrast might be too obvious for comfort and turn away blue collar votes (where he is seen to be so weak at) instead of gaining them, losing further votes of middle-of-the-road white American workers that had supported Sen. Clinton’s almost successful run, and the vote that is considered to be as prevalent as the white vote itself.

Accordingly, it was Sen. Joe Biden’s competence on foreign policy matters that had earned him the Democrat’s vice-presidential nomination, a field where Sen. Obama is seen to be wanting. In this age of global warming, rising oil prices in the world market, rigid WTO negotiations, and spurts of conflicts in central Europe and the Iraq tension still permeating, foreign affairs would be an immense concern for the next president of America.

And in an ever-expanding global community, where borders disappear from one place and reappear in another, where regionalism is the new game that nations play, foreign policy or foreign affairs should become all the more essential as a national interest issue, now more than ever, and not only for America, but to every state or country there is.

Would The GOP's Palin Gamble Still Hold?

Primarily, Senator John McCain’s and that of the GOP’s bid to retain the US presidency is in great jeopardy at this moment. The main question arising now is whether or not Alaska governor Sarah Palin could weather the media storm that had befell the Republican Party side ever since she announced her 17 year old daughter’s pregnancy to the public. It’s a case for Murphy—-just when they would have thought that nothing could go wrong, something did.

Imagine that Palin is from Alaska and we all know that Alaska does not really get anybody’s attention and interest except for polar bears and melting ice caps. That was the main gamble, Palin being a complete nobody.

But she’s personable enough to withstand that anonymity, as Sen. McCain would hope and I think that’s a fair chance. But despite of this apprehension, the pregnancy issue comes forth. I could almost feel the headache on every Republican Party strategist.

So there’s hope. That’s what is important now. Let us say that ‘nobody’s perfect’ and that this is a ‘brave new world’ where acceptability of norms and mores just got widened and besides, America ought to be the broadest-minded nation in the whole world.

Yet in politics, every candidate should be ‘perfect’. That should be a cardinal rule; to be perfect even if they have to lie or become hypocritical. It’s a jungle ought there.

Now I am reminded by Joe Kelin’s “Primary Colors”. Just when I thought that that the political election book was such a clever and very dramatic work, it pales in comparison to the drama and twists of this year’s US elections.

Sen. Barack Obama’s Main Problem Now Is to State the Very Obvious

Finally, the most singular disputation of the current U.S. Presidential race is finally put forth into the wide open as Associated Press reports how even a substantial portion of the white voters from the Democratic Party could turn away from Sen. Barack Obama and vote for Sen. John McCain instead. I am actually a bit in amazement now about how the early polls show Sen. Obama still toe-to-toe with Sen. McCain, on equal footing, despite the many negativity of the present Bush Administration, the unpopularity of Pres. George W. Bush, the costly Iraq War, the current economic downturn in US economy and the serious Palin debacle.

The answer is merely one thing, and it’s none other than race; just as I thought it would be, or perhaps many of us had thought it would be.

Statistics shows that a third of the white voters from the Democratic Party have deep resentments about the black American community, seeing them as being “lazy,” “violent,” and responsible for their own troubles.

Stamford University in fact has just made a study determining how the number of white voters that might turn away from Sen. Obama could even be larger than the margin of the 2004 US Presidential Elections, where Pres. Bush defeated the then Democratic Party nominee Sen. John Kerry by just 3 percentage point among popular votes and by mere 34 electoral votes of 538.

If the surveys remains as close as this until November then Sen. Obama might just miss the train to the White House as where a third white Democrats could remain anonymous at present and then turn away from him when election day comes.

And that tells us, as many of us still suspected, that America still has problems with race, especially with the African-American sector, fifty years after segregation in America had ended.

08 US Elections: Historic in Every Sense

The polls in America have just closed about minutes ago and early returns have already been released. Soon after, within 24 hours or so, we would know the result of what many see as a very historic vote and unprecedented in every sense. For one, it is already as the first African-American in Senator Barack Hussein Obama has been nominated to be a presidential spearheader of a major political party over there.

The New York Times describe this exercise in this manner:

“It has rewritten the rules on how to reach voters, raise money, organize supporters, manage the news media, track and mold public opinion, and wage — and withstand — political attacks, including many carried by blogs that did not exist four years ago. It has challenged the consensus view of the American electoral battleground, suggesting that Democrats can at a minimum be competitive in states and regions that had long been Republican strongholds.”

While a Bush adviser, Mark McKinnon emphasizes the innovations, where Internet had played a major role in carving the bursting and even celebratory scenario of this year’s elections over there in America:

“I think we’ll be analyzing this election for years as a seminal, transformative race,” said Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to President Bush’s campaigns in 2000 and 2004. “The year campaigns leveraged the Internet in ways never imagined. The year we went to warp speed. The year the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down.”

Rules have been changed. Voting in America, or perhaps in every other nook in the world, would shift forever, never to look back.

So what are your predictions? More or less, mine is just the same as yours—- It’s gonna be Sen. Obama by a considerable margin although early results shows Sen.John McCain leading considerably, where Yahoo! News have opined that early results could foretell the outcome of the entire vote.

Polls have put Sen. Obama up ahead by at least 7 percentage point margin and that’s a huge lead, considering margin of errors could merely be as high as plus or minus 2 percent. But polls are polls. It couldn’t be held as cardinal truth.

In 1948, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was heavily predicted by the Gallup Polls to win over the then running incumbent President Harry S. Truman and New York Times had already carried the famous or infamous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”. But when the smoke had cleared, the results were on the contrary and Truman became president once again despite the lack of support from the major dailies in America and the poll drawback.

In 2000, Sen. Al Gore was a very strong contender even garnering the most number of votes that year. But this very strong run was stymied by President George W. Bush’s winning more Electoral College votes with the key Florida win. It was a heartbreak lost for Gore and an almost miracle win for Bush, when we all thought Al Gore was so poised to become the man in the White House. But it wasn’t to be.

Would Sen. John McCain do a similar “Truman Surprise”, a come-from-behind maneuver? A major upset for the ages?

We’ll know just hours from now.

Sen. Barack Obama Wins

There’s no more need for predictions. Senator Barack Hussein Obama is America’s 44th president-elect and the first African-American to be one.

Change indeed has come for America.

This historic moment reminds me of one Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”, one song that might as well reflect the story of Barack Obama, the struggle of the black people to be free, and even the story of every American—- black or white.

Congratulations to Senator Barack Hussein Obama, a true “champion of the world”.

Here is Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”:

Of Hopes and Fears

Firsts there were the fears where at the start of his inaugural speech, the 46th US President Barack Obama’s voice trembled and struggled a bit more patently that even the crowd, which was so much rambunctious and celebratory just earlier on, had felt an uneasy silence, perhaps reminded all too suddenly that amidst the pomposity and festivity of what could have been the biggest and most spectacular inauguration rites for an America president ever, a heavy gloom is cast all over the sky over America. The caustic financial crisis that had befallen the Homeland is one of such gloomy scenarios plus the overly-problematic US engagements in Iraq and other parts of the world.

I thought then that President Obama had lost so much sleep that he had forgotten that at that event, America should be well glad that he is president and not being wary at all. But then, he redeemed himself as the rest of his speech spoke about hopes and “challenges being met” and leading the nation “to lead once more” in the international scene, perhaps he means in a different direction than what Former President George W. Bush had taken.

President Barack Obama’s speech was so superb overall that I see it as the best speech ever made by a U.S. President after the Kennedy Era, and in the words that contained in it, he showed so much spunk and intelligence that it is clear, President Obama is president now because he is a man, he is one man who has so much gray matters between his ears, one who knows what he is talking about, and one who knows where he is going to go.

To President Barack Obama, congratulations.

Read the full transcript of his inaugural speech.

Barack Obama’s Surprise Nobel Prize Award

It’s being hailed by many as most pleasant surprise. U.S. President Barack Obama’s winning of the most prestigious humanitarian award brings forth a wind of very warm feelings across the world and as of now, the field is yet clear of any criticism.

Except for a few who sees the award as too premature, for a president who is just into his first year of office. They say, he has done nothing yet, at least, not on a long term basis.

Yet, this award is given mostly on not what he has already achieved but on what he intends to gain.

The Nobel Prize award committee in Oslo Norway, states that he is being given the prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.”

While former Nobel Prize awardee, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, sums up Obama’s award as:

“In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself. He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts. He has reached out across divides and made clear that he sees the world as one human family, regardless of religion, race or ethnicity.”

I fully agree with this.

President Obama’s style of diplomacy has won it all for him, reaching out to the Arab world with open palms, signifying am approach of dialogue rather than of rhetoric.

This despite that the irony remains intact, where as a U.S. President at these crucial times in global political environment, he is still so much embroiled in conflicts that has been left on his table by a former administration, with pressure in Afghanistan for surge in U.S. military presence, lest instability would inure in the South Asia region.

And just last month, Pres. Obama had to propose a missile shield of Western Europe, presumably from Russia and its allies.

The peace prize could in fact provide unnecessary pressure for Pres. Obama, now that he is seen as a global peace progenitor, when in fact as the leader of the strongest military power in the world, he is also involved in several wars and conflicts still appertaining today across the globe.

There’s so much good feeling with Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace, yet giving it to a very active and newly-installed U.S. President could bring forth some undeniable irony, if not now, then in some coming years.

Spiralling Obama

US President Barack Obama’s magic finally dwindles down as the GOP took a wrenching hold on US Congress after the US November Midterm Elections. So the honeymoon is over for the top guy, especially now that for such a long, long time, the American leader is not the most powerful person in the world, but Hu Jintao, the venerable top guy of China.

Perhaps, Obama is not a so different political guy afterall, and therefore not exempt from that murphyish law on politics, where an iconic leader usually rockets up to the top of the heap, almost in a mystical way (Bill Clinton, GMA, Tony Blair) only to see their popularity ratings spiraling down just months after they take the helm of governance, and legislative bodies immediately neutralizing or even flipping over as in the present case (predicament) of President Obama.

Some well-known leaders had escaped this rule, like JFK and perhaps British Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. But they are none too many.

In the case of Pres. Obama, the downslide on his popularity or influence had seemingly came much too early and a little bit sharp and fast, makes it a close possibility that he might not be able to proceed to a second term and could go down as merely an aberration in the political history of America instead of being historically numinous, wherein his winning (being an Afro-American person) supposedly signaled a radically more open and mature American society – culturally and politically.

A lot of issues had hounded Obama’s leadership even from the beginning, most actually are not of his own account, like the huge economic recession he had inherited from the former administration, leading to continued high rate of unemployment and lackluster financial environment, as well as the widening government deficit.

The truth is, he Obama had handled the financial crisis quite well and things could have been worse, but the Democrats, according to one critic, was just in such a difficult situation campaigning on a platform of “better than the worst”.

Maybe Obama should put a stop gap measure on government spending, as somehow Keynesian strategies seem to be not too adaptable to the growing globalization of economy. Maybe he should find ways on how to bring back jobs and capital to America, if that is just possible, even if every American business entity is locating somewhere else, mostly in China.

Maybe, he’d still be able to pull it up and be vigorous enough to win another term in 2012.