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Al Qaeda for McCain

Jill

Kristof is right: A McCain presidency will be the best terrorist recruiting tool around. And it’ll further stoke general anti-Americanism around the world.

Of course, an Obama presidency isn’t going to be the silver bullet that ends terrorism or makes us safe. But it will do quite a bit to restore our credibility around the world, and it will make us a bit more difficult to hate. That’s no small feat.

2 thoughts on Al Qaeda for McCain

  1. I hope you are right, Jill. But I say, “It depends.”

    If President Obama continues, with minor modifications, our current policies in the Middle East and South Asia (Pakistan and Afghanistan), no, I think the world will run out of patience very quickly. We have used up almost all our free get-out-of-jail cards as far as the rest of the world is concerned. It’s unfortunate he is inheriting this mess (which I think many Republican bigwigs are secretively very happy about, for obvious reasons), but I have not been encouraged, and in fact am discomforted, by many of his foreign policy positions, particularly towards the Middle East.

    I think the massive structural problems in our foreign and national security policies cannot be fixed by one man (or woman), especially one (and I am voting for him – I live in a swing state) who has tacked to the right on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding these critical regions of the world. Yesterday we launched a raid into Syria, killing civilians, threatened to shut down services in Iraq if we don’t get our way, and killed another 20 people in Pakistan. This is just in one day. I am very anxious about how he is going to address this catastrophic mess. And while I understand many people placing hope in President Obama as a symbol of a new and positive beginning in our relations with the rest of the world, I just think it may be prudent to lower our expectations about the power of symbols versus the realities of our actions abroad.

    I am just brokenhearted by your last sentence – that an Obama presidency will make it more difficult for the rest of the world to hate us. Isn’t it just devastating that our global credibility has sunk so low that this is the best we can hope for?

    Would love to see more foreign policy analysis from a feminist perspective on your blog! Foreign policy IS a feminist issue, or should be, and we should all be blogging and commenting more on it than we do.

  2. Who knew terrorists recruited? An army of one would be a nice slogan for a strategy involving suicide bombers but it would, perhaps be too absurd and I think it is already in use.

    I wonder if recruitment dilemmas cause the standards to be lowered? Can anyone be a terrorist now-a-days? I remember when it meant something to be a terrorist.

    Seriously–thanks for the Kristof link.

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