Skip to main content

Howard v Obama: What US bloggers say

From today's Crikey [on subscription only - worth getting by the way]:

"Howard v Obama: what the US blogs say

When Obama's President, We're Bombing Australia: Is there a reason Howard’s so upset about Barry, considering that all the Democrats running for president are running against the Iraq War — including the usually bloodthirsty but ever-adaptable Hillary. Not even Republicans are in line with Bush’s crazy bullsh-t these days ... One reason might be that Howard noticed Barry’s complexion; John Howard’s government doesn’t care much for the dark-skinned folk -- especially dark-skinned Muslim folk, and we all know Barry was raised in a madrassa by his mom, Mama bin Laden ... John Howard’s not exactly a smarty jones. -- Wonkette

President Bush, however, has not spoken with Prime Minister Howard of Australia since Jan. 9, the White House maintains, with a not-so-thinly-veiled attempt to dispute suggestions that Bush had put his good friend from Sydney and ally in the war in Iraq up to criticism for the Illinois senator who announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination over the weekend. -- The Swamp, Chicago Tribune blog

Australia's Slime Minister: We all know the Dems have been in bed with Al Qaeda for years but couldn't do anything about strengthening their alliance until they got into power. But it took the clarity of Howard to sum it up, and when you break his statement down, you can hardly disagree with its validity. -- The Huffington Post

Howard’s position is completely understandable: despite taking risks at home to back America, allies will be abandoned when it’s inconvenient for America. If being a friend of the United States will bring you no rewards and hurt you, nobody will be a friend. Indeed, it pays to be neutral or antagonistic. Nevertheless, Howard was clumsy in his criticism. He didn’t need to mention Obama by name; all he needed to do was note that setting a timetable would encourage terrorists. -- Snarky B-stards

As I headed over to Memorandum today, I expected to see a slew of liberal attacks on Aussie PM John Howard after he had the audacity to speak the truth about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party ... Surprisingly, at least so far today, the lib bloggers don't seem to be up to the challenge. Maybe that's because the liberal activists don't like Obama as much as the Democrats in general or maybe it's just because what Howard said is absolutely true. -- rightwingnews.com

Howard has been criticized as a "chickenhawk," for supporting Australia's military involvement in Vietnam and Iraq while personally passing on the opportunity to serve in Vietnam. So I guess this makes him a "double chickenhawk." -- Mark Weisbrot and Robert Naiman, The Huffington Post

Neither Howard’s use of the word “pray as many times as possible” nor Obama’s characterization of Howard as “George Bush’s” ally can be entirely coincidental. Both men were speaking to a domestic political audience. -- Pajamas Media



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pentagon's eye-popping spending....and waste!

Only a gigantic bureaucracy could get away with spending of such dimensions - and the amazing waste involved in part of that ginormous spend.   Think US Pentagon..... "From spending $150 million on private villas for a handful of personnel in Afghanistan to blowing $2.7 billion on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work, the latest revelations of waste at the Pentagon are just the most recent howlers in a long line of similar stories stretching back at least five decades.  Other hot-off-the-presses examples would include the Army’s purchase of helicopter gears worth $500 each for $8,000 each and the accumulation of billions of dollars' worth of weapons components that will never be used. And then there’s the one that would have to be everyone’s favorite Pentagon waste story: the spending of $50,000 to investigate the bomb-detecting capabilities of African elephants. (And here’s a shock: they didn’t turn out to be that great!) The elephant research, of course, represe...

Video: Israel demolishing a Bedouin village

From Mondoweiss - Israel's supposed "most moral army in the world", the IDF, engaged in immoral, and according to international law, illegal action.... "Israeli forces have demolished every home in the Bedouin village of Khirbet Taha in the northern West Bank district of Nablus during three separate demolitions since the start of the year. Unlike most Bedouin villages, the residents in Khirbet Taha own their own land. However that land falls in Area C, territory in the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control. The village’s only school was also destroyed, leaving children to study in a dilapidated 100-year-old mosque — the only structure left standing in the village. According the United Nations, Israel has demolished half as many Palestinian buildings in the first few months of 2016, as they had in all of 2015. In February alone, the UN found that more Palestinians homes were destroyed than any other month since 2009, when the organization began its docum...

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...