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Ear to the Ground

McCain Talks Tough in Texas

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Posted on Mar 4, 2008

As Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled it out in several states Tuesday, Republican front-runner John McCain sent out a word of warning about the “dangerous” state of the world in trying to win supporters in San Antonio, Texas.


MSNBC’s First Read:

“I’m running for president of the United States because I believe we face a transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism, and we face a very dangerous world,” he said, using a common line from his stump speech to begin his survey of world affairs.

He then began almost 10-straight minutes of foreign policy and military talk—ranging from Israel’s conflict with Hamas to the Venezuelan government’s assistance of the FARC in Columbia, to the recent Russian elections and of course Iraq. The only detour on McCain’s trip around the world was a brief interlude on his favorite domestic issue: ending government waste.

Somehow in the end, McCain tied all of the world’s problems into America’s involvement in Iraq saying, “So we live in a dangerous world, and I believe that the center of that, obviously now rests in Iraq.”

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By DennisD, March 5 at 2:42 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

“I’m running for president of the United States because I believe we face a transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism, and we face a very dangerous world,”

Is McPain talking about our economy or one the many “other” fu*king messes Bu$h Inc. will leave us with. By now they’re pretty much interchangeable as well as connected.

If he really is serious about ending government waste he might as well start with himself.

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By Douglas Chalmers, March 5 at 6:59 am #

Still making naive assumptions, kath? You must have been well and truly brainwashed by the 11 years of the Howard Neocon government in Australia, eh?

Iraq has proven that it can get on just fine without the USA and the visit by Iran’s Ahmadinejad has just proven that.

By the way, they’ve been at this ‘civilization’ thing for 3 or 4 or 5,000 years now - not just 2 or 300 years like the Aussies and the Americans.

The only thing tha needs to happen to “stabilize things” is for the USA to stop military aid to Pakistan and the cash pipeline to Al Qaeda and the Taleban will immediately dry up!

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By Douglas Chalmers, March 5 at 6:52 am #

NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy: McCain talks foreign policy..... “I’m running for president of the United States..... and we face a very dangerous world...”

I think I can explain what “I believe.... we face a transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism...” means.......

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor........ The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an “altered state of awareness,” Shanon hypothesized......

“In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings,” Shanon wrote. “On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being ... many identify this power as God.” http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN04 44950920080304

Thus hallucination takes the place of true spiritual experience (not chemically induced) and the “transcendent” becomes a mere form of inebriation rather than a path to Enlightenment. In the end, the drug is taken to be the source rather than achieving a lasting connection with the Source of all things.

That in itself is a form of radical extremism which is a downwards path, regardless of what you “believe”, uhh. So too is the deliberate distortion of Truth so that everyone else upon the planet appears (or is made to appear) as some kind of threat - simply to induce fear and apprehension in others so that you can then manipulate them.

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, March 4 at 8:00 pm #

Don’t look for the U.S. to pull out any time soon.  That would be unAmerican. And don’t look for those religious-crazed people to “sort out some local factional differences, either.” The kind of stability Iraq enjoyed under Sadaam they enjoyed for one reason only. He told them to enjoy it.

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By kath cantarella, March 4 at 4:28 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

that may help the Iraqis unify themselves into a single force against Al Qaida and co. It’s just possible ‘the surge’ is working because the threat of a Democratic president pulling the troops out in 2009 has driven the Iraqis into a higher gear. They need to stabilize things before you guys go, so if you are threatening to leave, that may help sort out some local factional differences. Has McCain even entertained that idea?

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By PatrickHenry, March 4 at 3:27 pm #

Why isn’t he debating the issues to remind people where he stands.....this week.

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By kdnc, March 4 at 12:09 pm #

McCain is an intellectual lightweight and American “republicans” have proven they are as well by nominating him.

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By felicity, March 4 at 11:57 am #

all the world’s problems to America’s involvement in Iraq.” So, all we have to do is get ‘uninvolved’ in Iraq and all the world’s problems will go away? Amazing. 

So how do we get uninvolved?  We leave.

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By Aegrus, March 4 at 11:35 am #

McCain is so pitiful now. I wish we had the old McCain back. (Pun?) He’s just being used by the Republicans this election.

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