Tuesday Feb 26th Topic: After Iraq: American Foreign Policy in 2009 and Beyond.

We’re in Mazatlan this day so only late afternoon sessions.
Topic: After Iraq: American Foreign Policy in 2009 and Beyond. Panelists: Randi, Lionel and Richard Greene

Going to be slightly less comedic today.
Mark gives a brief history – 9-11, Bush and Cheney decide to attack a country that didn’t do 9-11. Since then, disaster - and no discussion of any other foreign policy problems. What are
these that have been obscured but will be on the plate of the next president?

Randi
Why do people from Algeria have French accents, people from south Africa have British accents? Colonization. Conquering.

Did they take the opportunity after 9-11 or did they create it? Project for New Amer. Century “what we need is another Pearl Harbor”.

Hegemony. Stealing the resources we don’t have.

The whole world will have to won over by our next pres. We have to have a plan for China. Economic war going on. Free trade sounds good, but a country owns us! We’re broke.
What are we going to do about China, N. Korea? Russia? Terrorism?

Deregulation – no rules. Banks, etc. The plan was just so bad.

China owns our debt, Saudi Arabia owns our resources, etc. What is the next president to do?
Iraq is now #4 on the list of issues for voters.

Lionel
When 9-11 happened I was there. Horrified that it had happened. Cannot explain how surreal it was. Little things – the smell (like a burned motor) – was everywhere, even if you weren’t downtown. For days there was no horn honking. Things needed downtown – baby booties for the search dogs. Then the next question – did you know anyone? Cab drivers wearing turbans had signs in their cabs “I’m Sikh – tell them I’m not an arab”. I thought – whoever did it, get ‘em. For the first time I looked at the idea of being nuked. Bush took my absolute sense of terror and absolute solidarity the world gave us and squandered it. Then he lied “I know things you don’t know” Saddam has wmd’s. And I thought “do it!” I fell for it. And then I started reading. Learned about neocons (like transfats?).

“the power of nightmares” video. Must SEE!

And then – Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, etc. is against the war!

Then this president told us we were going to independently prosecute a UN resolution. And I’m thinking – the rules have changed, we have to do what we need to do to get these things.
Muslims in school are seeing pictures of Lindy England who shamed Muslims and a whole generation is seethingly angry at us.

If the towers had burned but had not fallen we would not be in Iraq.

Looking back – read “The Shock Doctrine”. We want to do something about it. Others are so anesthetized - patriotism, get the terrorists, etc.

It will take decades to unravel everything Bush and his cronies have done.

Richard

Randi’s hair looks great.)

Back to Jan of 2001 – 8 months before 9-11. The neocons were so upset that Clinton wouldn’t invade Iraq, they impeached him.


Paul O’Neill said in the very first cabinet meeting Bush said “find me a way to get into Iraq”.
“After Iraq? Is there an “after Iraq?”
Mark Levin (hates liberals) – why? “Because you don’t want to win? You’re chickens, you want to pull out, you don’t want to win.” That presumes there was something to win.

It comes back to Air America – we need to get people to listen to what we are saying to take away the anesthesia of Hannity or Limbaugh. We need to show them how much the Republicans don’t really care about the troops. Reminder of O’Reilly and the troops. We need to challenge the brand – the Republican brand. We need to expose the fallacy of the Republican brand.

What does the next president do?

Leverage in China? On the Olympics? Do we pay money to the Russians to find loose nukes? Do we armtwist the Israelis and Palestinians to force a peace?

Randi – Europeans, etc. used to say ‘we like Americans, hate your president” But after 2004 they said “how could you re-elect that guy? We hate Americans now, too. We need to go out to the world, one by one – volunteer, aid organizations, etc. so the people around the world know it’s not us.

Questions for the candidates – who will your cabinet be? What will you do with the new embassy, etc. in Iraq? No more private companies doing war, business. New laws – no profit-taking.

It’s all about the oil and we have to go forward knowing what we want. No production sharing agreements in Iraq.

We need to make sure the candidates know what we want them to do.

Define “winning” in Iraq”. Richard – to take an equivalent amount of money and put it into solar, etc. so we won’t need their oil.

Much more discussion about impeachment, indictment, talking points for our side (Randi doesn’t want to stoop to their tactics).


Next up – an unscheduled discussion of 9-11 lead by Richard Greene.