“McCain Just Can’t Seem To Help Himself”: One Of These Days, The Beltway Will Stop Looking To McCain As An Expert
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran into a little trouble last week. The Republican senator, a little too eager to condemn the Obama White House, complained about the prisoner swap that freed an American POW despite having already endorsed the exact same plan a few months prior. After getting caught, McCain falsely accused his critics of “lying.”
Making matters slightly worse, the Arizona lawmaker, himself a former POW, complained to the media that he hadn’t learned anything from a classified briefing on Bowe Bergdahl’s release, neglecting to mention that he’d left in the middle of it.
Despite – or perhaps, because of – these embarrassments, McCain scored another Sunday-show invitation, where he somehow managed to add insult to injury.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday called the five Guantanamo detainees released in a prisoner swap for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl “hardcore military jihadists who are responsible for 9/11” and said he expects them to return to fighting against the U.S.
In context, looking at the full transcript, it’s hard to say whether McCain believes these five detainees were “responsible for 9/11” or whether he believes all of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were “responsible for 9/11,” but either way, the senator is plainly wrong.
McCain added, in reference to the Bergdahl prisoner-swap, “I wouldn’t release these men, not these men. They were evaluated and judged as too great a risk to release.”
That’s wrong, too. In fact, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay told msnbc’s Alex Witt over the weekend that at first he didn’t even recognize these detainees’ names. “To trade five of them for a U.S. service member, in my estimation, and I’m often critical of President [Barack] Obama, I think they struck a pretty good deal,” retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis said.
What’s more, just a few months ago, McCain personally endorsed the plan to transfer these exact same Taliban prisoners. When he says he wouldn’t have completed the swap for “these men,” he’s neglecting to mention that he’d already expressed public support for swapping “these men.”
And all of this led to the creme de la crème:
“I believe that there are other prisoners, some of whom we have already released, that we could have released that – in exchange,” McCain argued.
If someone could explain what this means, I’d appreciate it. Putting aside the fact that McCain already endorsed the plan to swap these exact same prisoners before he changed his mind and denied changing his mind, it’s not at all clear how U.S. officials could have swapped prisoners “whom we have already released.”
It’s tempting to think that, one of these days, the Beltway will stop looking to McCain as an expert on matters related to national security and the military, but I’ve been waiting for that day for quite a while. It never seems to arrive.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 9, 2014
“Why Is This Issue Going Nowhere?”: How Eric Cantor’s Killing Immigration Reform
“Gentlemen, start your engines.” That message, played repeatedly in a commercial beamed on the Jumbotron at this year’s Indianapolis 500, had nothing to do with race cars. A coalition of faith, business, and law enforcement leaders used the iconic event to launch their call for House Republicans to get moving on immigration reform.
“It’s time for effective, common-sense, and accountable solutions that respect and enhance the rule of law,” says Mark Curran, a Lake County, Illinois sheriff in the commercial.
Unfortunately, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor can’t shift gears. The Virginia Republican won’t allow the most incremental of immigration bills, known as the ENLIST Act, to go forward.
This bill would let immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to enlist in the military. If they serve and are honorably discharged, they would then be eligible for a green card, which would put them on a path to citizenship.
These are young people who didn’t choose to come here. Their parents brought them. An opportunity to serve in the military would give them a chance to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. In the long run, the ENLIST Act would allow these folks to become full, productive members of society.
Naturally, the ENLIST Act has a broad support base. Republican Jeff Denham of California introduced the measure, which 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans co-sponsored.
Conservative commentator Linda Chavez called the ENLIST Act “the right — and principled — thing to do,” in her syndicated column.
When asked about the ENLIST Act, Cantor suggested that he supported it. “If you’ve got a kid that was brought here by their parents — unbeknownst to the child — and that they’ve grown up in this country and not known any other, and they want to serve in our military, they ought to be allowed to do that and then have the ability to become a citizen after that kind of service,” he told Politico.
But actions speak louder than words. Cantor blocked the ENLIST Act from being included in a military authorization bill, and it doesn’t look likely that it will come up for a vote anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the public continues to support an overhaul of our broken immigration system. Even Fox News pollsters find that most Americans support reform, including majorities of Republican voters. In fact, a May poll conducted by conservative advocacy groups found that Tea Party Republican voters favor immigration reform. The Tea Party Express and Americans for Prosperity report that over 70 percent of Tea Party-aligned voters want Congress to pass immigration legislation this year.
It seems like everyone is on board. Why is this issue going nowhere?
For one thing, Cantor isn’t willing to lead on immigration. If he won’t permit a vote on something as narrowly targeted as the ENLIST Act, it’s doubtful that House Republicans will tackle a more comprehensive approach.
That’s a loss for our military, which will lose out on a group of qualified, dedicated recruits. And it’s a loss for the Republican Party, which is destined to win scant numbers of Latino voters in 2016. More importantly, our country as a whole will suffer if our broken immigration system continues to hobble along as is.
Sure, illegal immigration is contentious. Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican, has compared offering undocumented veterans citizenship to “handing out candy at a parade.” But one study showed that non-citizen enlistees were “far more likely to complete their enlistment obligations successfully than their U.S.-born counterparts.”
King himself avoided serving in Vietnam in the 1960s through multiple deferments. How ironic that he and his colleagues are now squashing the military service dreams of others.
Of course, not all undocumented immigrants want or are able to serve in the armed forces. They still deserve a chance to get right with the law, pay fines and back taxes, and become citizens.
But young immigrants who are willing to put their lives on the line for our country should be allowed to do so. It’s time to pass the ENLIST Act, then move ahead with immigration reform.
By: Paul A. Reyes, The National Memo, June 6, 2014
“What Exactly Is Going On Here?”: An Interview, Arranged By Republican Strategists
President Obama made clear this morning that when it comes to rescuing American POWs, the nation’s commitment is unconditional. “Regardless of the circumstances,” he said, in reference to a question about Bowe Bergdahl, “whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop.”
Those comments, however, have not stopped questions about how Bergdahl was captured and whether he deserted his post. The New York Times reports this morning on an account from “a former senior military officer briefed on the investigation into the private’s disappearance,” who claims Bergdahl “had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life.”
The furious search for Sergeant Bergdahl, his critics say, led to the deaths of at least two soldiers and possibly six others in the area. Pentagon officials say those charges are unsubstantiated and are not supported by a review of a database of casualties in the Afghan war.
“Yes, I’m angry,” Joshua Cornelison, a former medic in Sergeant Bergdahl’s platoon, said in an interview on Monday arranged by Republican strategists.
Though we don’t yet have all the details, and some of the allegations may be “unsubstantiated,” the emotional reaction from servicemembers is easy to understand. But it was those other eight words that also raised eyebrows: “an interview on Monday arranged by Republican strategists”?
What exactly is going on here? The release of an American POW from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan has become a political operation in which Republican strategists direct reporters to specific sources?
BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray and Kate Nocera reported this morning on the behind-the-scenes effort.
A former Bush Administration official hired, then resigned, as Mitt Romney’s foreign policy spokesman played a key role in publicizing critics of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the released prisoner of war.
The involvement of Richard Grenell, who once served as a key aide to Bush-era U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton and later worked for Romney’s 2012 campaign, comes as the Bergdahl release has turned into an increasingly vicious partisan issue.
The piece added that similar interviews were arranged with a variety of conservative media outlets, including The Weekly Standard, the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.
One of Grenell’s partner at Capitol Media Partners told BuzzFeed the firm is not being paid for these efforts.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, June 3, 2014
“John McCain Position Switch On Bergdahl Deal”: Is He The Most Disingenuous Member Of Senate Or Simply Unfit To Serve?
It is not uncommon for politicians from all parties to be caught in the occasional act of political hypocrisy.
Still, Arizona Republican and one-time presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, has set a new high watermark when it comes to committing an act of hypocrisy so disingenuous as to raise the bar for all politicians seeking to achieve professional status in the time honored political tradition of speaking from both sides of the mouth.
Appearing this past Sunday on “Face The Nation”, McCain expressed his profound concern for the trade involving five top ranking terrorists for the return of Bowie Bergdahl.
Watch: http://youtu.be/QzFPm3QA568
Nothing much to see there, yes? After all, there is nothing unusual nor surprising in Senator McCain’s words given that there are is no shortage of people on both sides of the political divide who have some serious reservations as to the wisdom of the deal.
Certainly, Senator McCain, who has rarely met a war he didn’t like, would be expected to voice his concern and criticism.
The only problem is that just three months ago, Senator McCain, appearing on CNN, voiced his support for the very same deal that he now finds to be so profoundly disturbing.
Watch: http://youtu.be/8x9PQUBlFYs
While McCain notes that he objected to an earlier proposal that would have called for releasing the very same high value terrorists as an act of “confidence building” with the Taliban, he clearly states that he would support the release of these people if the prize were to be the American soldier being held by the Taliban. He later modifies his response to say that if the exchange were for one of these terrorists—whom he told us just this past Sunday were people responsible for the deaths of thousands—he would support the deal.
Does anyone out there believe that the critics would have been silenced if the exchange had only involved one terrorist…or two…or three? If you believe that our policy of not negotiating with terrorists is the correct policy, does negotiating for the release of one high ranking terrorist make it better? Yet, there is Mr. McCain voicing his support for a deal that , just three months later, he would go on TV to condemn.
I don’t think anything more need be said except that we should all be embarrassed and deeply concerned that this man continues to hold such an important position in our government.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, June 4, 2014
“War Rarely Conforms To Slogans”: Obama Outlines A Doctrine Where Restraint Makes Us Stronger
By laying out a long-term foreign policy vision in a speech at West Point on Wednesday, President Obama challenged his critics, at home and abroad, not to speak in vague terms about U.S. “decline” or “weakness” but to answer the question: Exactly what would you do differently?
This is as close as we have gotten to an Obama Doctrine, and here it is : The United States “will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it — when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.”
But in other cases, “when issues of global concern do not pose a direct threat to the United States . . . we should not go it alone.” Instead, Obama said, “we must mobilize allies and partners to take collective action” and “broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to international law and — if just, necessary and effective — multilateral military action.”
In 2008, Obama won his party’s nomination and the election as a pragmatic antiwar candidate specifically protesting our intervention in Iraq. He declared in 2002 that he was opposed not to all wars but to “a dumb war.” It was clear Wednesday that it remains a source of pride to him that he has brought what he called “a long season of war” to an end.
And he was unabashed in insisting that “some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures — without thinking through the consequences.”
Responding, perhaps in frustration, to a wave of reproach that has descended upon him because of his reluctance to use U.S. military power, he offered this riposte: “Tough talk often draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans.”
Here was Obama throwing down the gauntlet to his foes. His address should force a reckoning with a key issue: Americans, by all the evidence of the polls, are skeptical of military action abroad. They reached this point not because they have undergone some large philosophical or ideological conversion. Rather, they arrived at a practical judgment after the experience of two long wars that failed — particularly in the instance of Iraq — to produce the results their supporters promised. It was the same after Vietnam: Most Americans now have a much higher bar for when they would be willing to commit lives and treasure overseas.
The war-weariness the country feels is thus not Obama’s creation. His election was itself a response to that weariness. His foreign policy reflects a determination to move the country not to isolation but to the more measured approach to military intervention practiced during the presidencies of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Those in the United States and elsewhere who have faulted Obama won’t be persuaded by the pains he took to locate himself in a middle ground between isolationism and hyper-interventionism. They may like hearing him say that the United States is “the one indispensable nation” that “must always lead on the world stage,” but many of them won’t be convinced that he means it.
The president is right to argue that the United States “has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world” and to take on those who “suggest that America is in decline.” Yet the ghost of declinism haunts the international stage and will not be exorcised easily.
This speech should be an opening bid. Obama’s efforts should be aimed less at moving those domestic opponents who will never be assuaged than at making plain to the rest of the world that the United States really does have a vital interest in promoting the “international norms” the president extolled, and in fostering conditions conducive to a “world of greater freedom and tolerance” that “helps keep us safe.” It also means paying close attention to how policy is implemented, avoiding mixed signals of the sort that characterized last fall’s Syrian crisis.
As for the president’s critics, they have an obligation to answer his challenge. Those who believe that the United States should underwrite a world order friendly to our values and interests need to accept that the promiscuous deployment of U.S. troops abroad is the surest way to undermine support for this mission at home. In calling for restraint and realism — and by insisting on raising the threshold for wars of choice — Obama may yet prove himself to be the best friend American internationalists have.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 28, 2014
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