McCain, Iran, and the Jewish Vote: A
Bush Clone To Pursue US Brutal Foreign
Policies
July 1, 2008
Senator John McCain's favorite
former president is Teddy Roosevelt. However, when it comes to
policy towards Iran, McCain is no Teddy Roosevelt -- he speaks
loudly and carries a small stick. A few days ago, my
organization, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC),
joined Senator Frank Lautenberg, Senator Ben Cardin, and five
members of the House, in a press conference to point out
McCain's hypocrisy when he talks tough on Iran, but votes
against Iranian sanctions in order to protect corporations like
Halliburton.
McCain has run a campaign in the Jewish community in which he
claims to be Iran's worst nightmare while proclaiming Senator
Barack Obama as dangerously naive. In McCain's interview with
Jeffery Goldberg of the Atlantic, Goldberg reported that "McCain
took a vociferously hard line on Iran" and he was applauded by
many of his supporters for a speech he gave to a largely Jewish
audience last month. However, a few years ago, McCain voted
against an amendment (S.Amdt. 1351 to S. 1042) introduced by
Lautenberg that would have made "U.S. businesses and their
subsidiaries liable to prosecution for dealing with foreign
businesses which have links to terrorism or whose parent country
supports terrorism." Instead of voting to strengthen sanctions
against Iran, McCain sided with most of his Republican
colleagues to vote against the amendment and protect the
Republican Party's favorite company, Halliburton (Obama voted
for the amendment). McCain's campaign defends this vote by
claiming that his meaningless support of the Collins amendment,
which had no material impact on Vice President Dick Cheney's
Halliburton, was equivalent to voting for the Lautenberg
Amendment (the neoconservative columnist, Frank Gaffney, and the
Center for Security Policy disagree).
McCain's demagoguery in the Jewish community goes beyond just
charging Obama with being untested. The McCain campaign and its
conservative allies have turned 'guilt by association' into an
art form by detailing the imperfections of every Obama
supporter, adviser, or friend that the community disagrees with.
However, by these standards McCain himself has his own Iran
problems. McCain's Chief Economic Adviser, Carly Fiorina, was
CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) when the company surreptitiously
avoided the trade boycott of Iran. McCain, who has been calling
for further divestment from Iran, picked Fiorina to be his top
adviser on the economy while she is also serving as head of the
Republican National Committee Victory Fund. It was under
Fiorina's leadership as CEO that, according to an April 19,
2004, Forbes article titled "Trading With The Enemy," HP traded
with the Iranians.
If you want to get around export controls, just sell the
product to a front company in Dubai. The middlemen will take
it from there... Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft, among
many other U.S. companies, keep Dubai offices and are
favorites these days among Iranian traders in Dubai. (Swibel,
Forbes, 4/19/04)
If the McCain campaign continues to attack Obama with charges
of 'guilt by association,' they should also address questions
surrounding his Chief Strategist, Charlie Black. Black has
lobbied congress on behalf of companies that do business with
Iran, including Chinese oil conglomerate CNOOC. In fact, the
deal Black lobbied for was defeated by Congress in part because
of CNOOC's ties to Iran.
Charlie Black, working for his firm Black, Kelly, Scruggs &
Healey, was paid $60,000 to lobby the U.S. government on
behalf of the Chinese oil conglomerate CNOOC...But the bid
ultimately fell through, in part because of objections over
the China oil industry's ties to Iran, a country in which it
had already invested tens of millions of dollars. (Stein,
Huffington Post, 6/2/08)
The CNOOC deal even elicited outrage from über conservative
Representative Joe Barton, then Chairman of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee. In a June 27, 2005 letter to President Bush,
he was "compelled to express deep concern about the proposed
acquisition of Unocal by the China National Offshore Oil
Corporation" and that "this transaction poses a clear threat to
the energy and national security of the United States." Given
their roles in the campaign what kind of positions would Fiorina
and Black have in a McCain administration?
McCain and the bully boys on the right employ a strategy to
paint Obama as weak on Iran and an enemy of the Jewish
community. They use 'guilt by association' to scare Jewish
voters. However, the Jewish community has a clear choice in this
presidential election. On the one hand we have two candidates
(based on voting records and public positions) who are
supportive of a strong U.S. - Israel relationship and a
two-state peace process. On the other hand we have a choice
between one profoundly conservative candidate who opposes
reproductive freedom and believes the United States is a
Christian nation and a staunchly progressive candidate who is
pro-choice and a believer in the separation of church and state.
Given McCain's 'tough guy' posturing it is fitting to point
out that Mr. Straight Talk prefers protecting the Halliburtons
of the world to really getting serious about the Iranian threat.
In coming months, the NJDC intends to continue to bring the full
story of Republican hypocrisy and smear mongering to Jewish
voters.
EsinIslamis
pleased to present - from February 2012 - its online
discussion and commenting services through Disqus
These services - for
websites and online communities that uses a networked
platform - provides a platform that includes various
features, such as social integration, social
networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools,
analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting
*Not
every comment gets published on
EsinIslam
*While trying - usually selective - to publish
quality comments, especially those that serve.
purposes of Da'wah, Education, And Relief to
Humanity,
EsinIslam all rights are reserved not to add
abusive comments and/or comments that may harm
the Muslims and their interests.
*No submission of personal details such as
e-mail addresses is required before adding
comments on
EsinIslam
*Irrelevant and/or incomplete comments do not
get Published on
EsinIslam
The new comment
widget from Disqus is written in JavaScript and is
powered by a back end primarily written in Django
