Another foreign-policy flap for Obama

August 14, 2007

This seems to have become a weekly occurrence. Obama offers some commentary on U.S. foreign policy, the right pounces, and the facts show that Obama’s right and the GOP is wrong. The latest in the series came this afternoon.

There’s what Obama said:

“We’ve got to get the job done [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there,” Obama said.

There’s what the GOP said:

A spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the comment showed Obama’s lack of experience for the job of commander in chief. “It’s also an entirely inaccurate condemnation of the efforts of the men and women of the United States military who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,” spokesman Kevin Madden told the Washington Examiner.

The Republican National Committee simply repeated the comment as one of their “They Said It!” series used to highlight statements by opponents that supposedly put them in a bad light.

And then there’s the fact-check.

From the AP:

A check of the facts shows that Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents.

The U.S. and NATO say they don’t have civilian casualty figures, but The Associated Press has been keeping count based on figures from Afghan and international officials. Tracking civilian deaths is a difficult task because they often occur in remote and dangerous areas that are difficult to reach and verify.

As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can’t be attributed to one party.

In other words, what Obama said was right. Again.

What’s annoying to me as a political observer is that the questions themselves become self-fulfilling. The media now reports that Obama has had some “trouble” with foreign policy, or perhaps he’s had some “gaffes,” which reinforce the agreed-upon inexperience-narrative.

But to date, the truth is a) nothing Obama has said has proven to be wrong or unpopular; and b) far more obvious mistakes from Republican candidates have gone entirely overlooked, in large part because the campaign narrative is that foreign policy is a GOP “strength.”

It’s another reminder: it’s going to be a long campaign.

I think the GOP translation is that Obama isn’t as good at ignoring the facts and putting out comments that fly in the face of them, like we have seen for the last 6 1/2 years.

What a Mitt Romney doesn’t get is that the people are tired of seeing and reading something with their own eyes, and having someone stand in front of them, look them in those same eyes and lie their asses off.

Obama ought to be starting many of his comments with, “I know many of you are used to having people in positions of power take the facts and make them into the story they want you to know, but I not only think you’re smarter than that, I believe that you, as the people to whom this country belongs, deserve more and better than to be continually lied to. I think at some point, you have to ask who, exactly, is being served by telling lies to the American people. When I look at that same calculation, I see that the lies are serving an agenda. I don’t want to serve an agenda – I want to serve my country, and I want to do it on your behalf. If I can’t do that with honesty, I am serving only myself.”

  • “We’ve got to get the job done [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there,” Obama said.”

    I see his point and it is valid, although I easily see how it could be spun/understood as “Obama thinks that all our military is doing is air raiding and killing civilians.” Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little more carefully so that he shows full appreciation for the military’s efforts while he directly criticizes the Administration’s policy.

  • What Mitt Romney is saying is that it’s a disservice to the troops to say that killing civilians is causing problems. See, Romney believes that killing civilians is not a problem.

  • JRS, I don’t believe there’s any way for Obama to avoid having Republicans (amplified by the media obsessed with Democrats’ “gaffes”) spin his words into an attack on the military. The only alternative is not to mention how bombing civilians affects “hearts and minds” at all. And that’s the goal: to shut him up.

  • This odious false criticism of Obama, which probably will stick in the media the way lies about Gore’s supposed exaggerations stuck to him, comes from Mitt Romney’s people. That would be the Romney who really needs to be more closely linked to his liking of Castro’s inspirational phrase, ‘Patria o muerte, venceremos.’, and to his statement, “In France, for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past” (May 5, 2007), not to mention his comment about Osama bin Laden that “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person” (April 26, 2007).

    Presumably, if everybody was serving their country by campaigning for Gott Mittuns in Kansas, then we wouldn’t be having these problems in Afghanistan.

  • CB – Obama was right on the facts as you point out, but he definitely could have said that better. The Rethugs are going to jump on whatever is said no matter what, but he shouldn’t be saying things that make it so easy for the media to join in and for Joe Couch Potato(e) to think he’s said something stupid.

    This “inexperienced” tag is now Obama’s to bear and he has to figure out how to deal with it.

  • Anne, great reply for Obama, I hope his people see it.

    And CB, wasn’t there an article last week or so how the Brits were thinking about asking the US to leave Afghanistan because we were killing too many civilians and causing the Afghanis to despise and distrust the UK and our other NATO allies?

  • Obama has a way of hitting the jugular, prompting everybody to take a fresh look at the big picture of our foreign and war policies. The usually ignored aspects which Obama draws forth are the very aspects which are bleeding our effectiveness in reaching our goals. When other people of either party attack what he says, that just helps to bring those important issues out of the blurred background for the public. Pretty good leadership, I’d say.

  • “… said the comment showed Obama’s lack of experience for the job of commander in chief. …”
    No matter what Obama says about foreign policy or how he says it this is the comment that will come from his oppopnents. What Obama said was well said, direct and accurate. but it doesn’t matter. His opponents have found a way to use his words against him and they will continue to do so at every opportunity.

    But Obama knew this was coming. That his National experience would continually be used by his opponents in attempts to smear him should come as no surprise. Obama’s experience though continually shines through by his ability to thwart such attempts easily and casually. Good for him. Still, he manages to get more press than his more experienced and better idea-ed co-candidate Dennis Kucinich. Hopefully that will change and I’m sure Obama will bring enthusiasm and great planning to the Kucinich administration.

  • Please, Mittens just had to perform another bout of furious backpedaling for saying his boys don’t need to go to war, by supporting daddy’s bid for the White House they’re doing just as much as the soldiers.

    That is a fucking gaffe, it isn’t his first and it won’t be his last. But I take it as a good sign that he’s reduced to deliberately misunderstanding an easy to understand statement this early in the game.

  • Mittler’s response was quite clever, though.

    Obama was talking about *Afghanistan* where, it’s quite true, we’re killing more civilians than insurgents, via air raids on their villages. And the result is that,even those who didn’t hate us before are hating us now.

    Mittler’s response:
    “It’s also an entirely inaccurate condemnation of the efforts of the men and women of the United States military who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,”

    He not only conflates the two countries, he places Iraq in the first, more prominent, position, with Afghanistan as a tag-along. In Iraq, the situation is not the same as in Afghanistan. In Iraq, while we’re inflicting “colateral damage” also, it’s not as disproportionate. In Iraq, we have more troops on the ground, so we’re less dependent on air-raids.

    And yes, I am aware that English (as a language) likes to put the shorter word first, when joining A and B; in English, “Iraq and Afghanistan” rolls off the tongue more smoothly than “Afghanistan and Iraq”. But, all the same, Mittler has moved the goalposts to where his ball was, not kicked the ball into the goal…

  • DonnaG, over at Election Central on Talking Points Memo, said this, which I think is insightful:

    One interesting thing about Obama’s so called ‘gaffes’: I’ve been noting how his words, and these ‘attacks’ of him for speaking these words, sort of zero attention onto issues that need focus: 1] rethinking foreign policy with respect to diplomacy and nuclear posturing, 2] unfinished business in Afghanistan, 3] Al Qaeda regrouping in Pakistan, and even 4] the issue of what is acceptable ‘collateral damage’ in this form of unconventional ‘war’.

    Call Obama ‘inexperienced’ or call him ‘gaffe-prone’, but I’m beginning to be reminded of the kid who bravely said, ‘The king has no clothes on’.

    BTW, CNN has ignored this story, MSNBC is fronting on its homepage a story about Clinton’s lobbyist bundlers, google news has a piece on this as its 7th story, and the headline is “AP: OBAMA’S RIGHT ON CIVILIAN CASUALTIES “, and that’s behind “Onward Christian Obama” and “Obama Airs Ad in Spanish”. The TV news I saw ignored this for story in favor of, instead, his little dust-up with one supporter who asked him to stop getting into back-and-forths with other campaigns.

    It hasn’t registered as news, in spite of the Right’s efforts to gin up outrage. So that’s nice.

  • Oh, and my local paper, the right-tilting Miami Herald, has the Elizabeth Edwards “holier than thou” piece and the AP Fact Check that dismisses the Republican storyline as “spin” as the top two stories.

    So it really never took off. That’s nice.

  • Obama should have stopped at “We’ve got to get the job done [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops”.

    Because by continuing, what he said was that we are “JUST air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there”, which I sincerely doubt is ALL that we doing there. By saying it is, it is a slam on our military and smacks of anti-Americanism and lack of patriotism to most American citizens whether comprehended as such by those of us who are partisan Democrats or not.

    So, yes, it was a gaffe. And, it was a gaffe caused by inexperience. As such, it does give a validity to those who already harbor a doubt about his seasoning and ability to do the truly very serious job of the presidency. One primary aspect of which is the ability to speak diplomatically, both to other countries and to our own citizens, both of which have been sadly lacking in the current trainwreck administration. No one wants to chance that again.

    I’m just not seeing any “there” there when it comes to Obama. I hope he holds on long enough to snag the Vice Presidency, but if he continues along these lines he’s going to end up as a flash in the pan.

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