U.S. Rep. Steve King(R-IA) on Friday announced his bid for a fourth term in Congress…..
"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name – whatever their religion their father might have been," he said. "I'll just say this: When you think about the option of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States — I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?"
Disparaging Obama for his race, name, ethnicity and religion, is EXACTLY what King intended to do. Then he proceeds to do what he said he didn't want to do….
He continued: "I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror."
The train of reason left the tracks and headed off into fantasyland when King said an Obama presidency would mean a declaration of victory in the fictitiously named "war on terror". Does Steve King base his reasoning on what Obama has repeatedly stated about attacking al-Qaeda, no matter what country they were in? No. The columnist fills in the blanks in reasoning….
King thinks radical Islamists will say the United States has capitulated because the Obama administration would be pulling troops out of any conflict associated with al-Qaida.
Pulling troops out of the American occupied territory of Iraq, a country that never had any real Islamist extremist problem under Saddam….but does now under George W. Bush…..is "capitulating" to some enemy that was never present before we unilaterally attacked. Using reason and intelligence, a president Obama will remove our troops from Iraq in an orderly fashion because there is no military solution to the Iraqi failure to reconcile with one another.
Then the wingnut flaps come off…..
"Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was and because of his posture that says: Pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict."
Put aside for the moment that Obama has never said we should "pull out of the middle east". An Obama presidency will cause Al-Qaeda to dance in the streets in celebration because of Obama's middle name. And because of who his father was. Remember, Steve King actually represents Iowans in the House of Representatives. I'm afraid to even ask…..what goofy group of Republicans in Iowa actually believes in this cartoonish nonsense?
Obama's father was an agnostic, not a practicing Muslim, not religious at all. A middle name?? Bin Laden will be dancing in his cave, if Obama wins, because of the Senator's middle name? Steve King from Iowa may not be sophisticated enough to recognize how stupid this all sounds…..but Bin Laden is.
He continued: "There are implications that have to do with who he is and the position that he's taken. If he were strong on national defense and said 'I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory,' that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror."
Source
The reason I include Steve King's comments in my post today is this……the stuff he says is the same stuff neo-conservative wingers say on Ohio.com. Steve King talks about "victory" and "winning" in Iraq. This, in spite of the FACT that all responsible military folks, including the Immaculately Conceived General Petreaus, have stated for years that there is NO MILITARY SOLUTION in Iraq. Which means that our American military CANNOT SOLVE the Iraqi problems.
That FACT doesn't register in the heads of neo-con fantasists like Steve King. Another FACT not acknowledged in the least by this Iowan is that there is no "global war on terror". Yes, it is a fact that there is no war agaist "terror". Would a "war on laughter" be possible? How about a "war on farting"? "Global war on mean looks"? What about a "global war on snide remarks"?
Bush's totally ridiculous "global war on terror" is only a propagandistic "tool" lifted from the same "toolbox" that produced color coded scare charts and talk of mushroom clouds. The same toolbox in which torture, I mean enhanced interrogations, were taken from. It comes from the same wingnut, Rove-inspired, tactics that would entitle a bill to permit the president to spy on Americans without oversight, the Protect America Act.
No matter that Obama has made it crystal clear that he would order attacks on America's declared enemy, al-Qaeda, wherever that enemy is found. No matter that Obama would order an attack on our enemy, Al-Qaeda, with or without the host country's approval. No matter to Steve King. No matter to the Ohio.com wingers who type away using language identical to Steve King's.
During the Cold War, there were Americans who lived in fear. During the Cold War there was an American enemy capable of destroying the world's population, so fear was a reasonable response to such an enemy. During the Cold War, however, fear never gave way to total fantasy.
Today America is confronted with a small pocket of unsophisticated, stateless, cave dwellers. This enemy is not capable of destroying the worlds' population. This enemy is not capable of overthrowing America. This enemy, compared to the Soviets, is pitifully powerless. Today, Americans on the fringe right are afraid of this enemy for very little reason. Today, neo-conservative converts have given their thought processes entirely over to fantasy.
Steve King(Neo-Con-Iowa), along with likeminded wingers, have decided to live in a fantasy world.
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"…the American occupied territory of Iraq, a country that never had any real Islamist extremist problem under Saddam"
I assume you mean other than Saddam's brutal oppression, mass graves, rape rooms, torture chambers, mass murders, use of chemical weapons on the Kurds, invasion of Kuwait, paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, corruption of the UN Oil-For-Food campaign, harboring of Abu Nidal, shooting at our planes in the no-fly-zone, and stuff like that, right ? None of that stuff could ever be considered extremist, could it ? They were all flying kites in Iraq before we showed up.
Am I really going to have to listen to you call anyone who disagrees with Obama a racist from now until the election ? Oh, joy. Steve King was talking about Obama pulling out of Iraq and thus giving the extremists a victory over america in the heart of the Middle East in the war against terrorism, nothing else.
And when you call the war on terror 'fictitious', it pretty much puts an exclamation point on Steve King's argument about how liberals are not serious about fighting Islamic extremism. Thanks.
King: You see…that's the very problem I posted about.
There exists today in American political commentary two narratives about Iraq, terrorists, foreign policy, Israel, etc…
One is based on fact, objective empirical evidence, accurate accounting of events, etc.
The other is based on partial truth spun emotionally, primarily appealing to fear but also intolerance, and then fantasized into something all consuming and completely misguided.
We are in Iraq because we wanted to place permanent military bases there to project U.S. power over the oil rich region. We are not there because of any fantasy war on terror.
Yes, extremists calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq have formed since Bush bungled everything…..but that is no reason to have 130,000 American troops stationed there permanently. It just isn't. Obama understands that. So do most Americans.
Your comment here…
"Steve King was talking about Obama pulling out of Iraq and thus giving the extremists a victory over america in the heart of the Middle East in the war against terrorism…"
..reflects the fantasy narrative I'm talking about.
Why is it that believers in the Bush Doctrine can't get it in their heads that the extremists declared victory the moment American forces occupied Iraq? They won the moment Bush decided to occupy a Muslim country through unilateral force.
And it's unreasonable to think that al-Qaeda in Iraq are going to control the country of Iraq. The Shi-ites won't stand for it.
You repeat the "war on terrorism" bumper sticker which doesn't help because there is no such thing going on. Iraq has nothing to do with Islamic extremism. Iraq has everything to do with imperialism.
Those are facts, not fantasy. One narrative is true, the other isn't.
Not to worry King, I heard Obama say recently he wouldn't pull all the troops out of Iraq anyway.
It might have been the day he was wearing that cowboy hat.