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TechnoratiPalin’s Pet Hoffman Has Taliban Ties
One week before Election Day, the special election to fill a vacant House seat in New York’s North Country is heating up. It’s a three-way split, pitting a Republican, a Democrat, and a Conservative against one another. It’s close.
And the conservative on the ticket has the kind of support the Democrat running against him must love.
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has already received the backing of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the anti-public-spending Club for Growth. On Monday he was endorsed by another beauty: Dana Rohrabacher, the senior Orange County (CA) Republican who began his career as a speechwriter for President Reagan. Said Rohrabacher “We don’t need Tweedle-Dum or Tweedle-Dee, we need Hoffman. He’s not afraid to stand up and speak the truth.”
Like Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et al, Rohrabacher’s of the belief that if Hoffman wins, it will send a message to the GOP establishment that they should run hardliners in 2010 and pitch to the Tea Party crowd on health care, government and everything else.
It’s a great endorsement — as far as Hoffman’s opponents are concerned. As special assistant to Ronald Reagan, Rohrabacher played a key role in the late 1980s getting money and arms to Muslim extremists in Afghanistan. Throughout the 90s, he lobbied shamelessly for the repressive Taliban. A November/December 1996 article in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs said, “The potential rise of power of the Taliban does not alarm Rohrabacher” because the congressman believes the “Taliban could provide stability in an area where chaos was creating a real threat to the U.S.” Nice. In April 2001, Rohrabacher met privately in Qatar with the Taliban’s foreign minister, then seeking increased aid for his country.
Rohrabacher’s railed against the evil Taliban since, but still. The man who once thought the Taliban were good for US interests now thinks Doug Hoffman will be good for his party. If the Hoffman’s opponents can’t make anything of that, they’re not trying.
Having a former Taliban funder joining the rogue’s gallery backing the Hoffman has got to make it easier for his opponents. If the Democrat, lawyer Bill Owens, ekes out a victory amid the Republican infighting he’ll be the first Democrat to win that district in 140 years.
31 Comments so far
Show AllTo RSJ---
Interesting take esp. on Pakistan making "sub rosa deals" with China. We've been sending billions to Pakistan over decades and really have little to show for it.
It's all geopolitical, eh?
Then there's that Pakistan/India mutual nuclear threat. If I have a nuclear bomb in Ohio and you have one in Indiana, who would benefit from dropping one on the other? Merely contemplating the consequences is an exercise in psychosis. Half your relatives live in my state and half my relatives live in your state. Let's kill each other's families.
Somewhat similar issue in the Israel vs Iran debacle. If Iran ever does get the bomb and if they used it on Israel, half the dead, or more, would be Muslim.
It's all a big diversion. Something the Israelis are really good at. But so are the Pakistanis. The chess master remains Russia.
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To OleManRiver:
I agree with your analysis regarding our wasted foreign aid to Pakistan, and the use of nuclear weapons between Pakistan/India or Iran/Israel, but I'm not so sure Russia is the chess master -- China is the big money player in Asia and eastern Europe, and I think they may be the true locus of power. Japan has money, of course, but not much military muscle.
Just as a sidenote, I know of two Americans who are teaching English in China right now and making a better living doing it there then they would here. But they are not merely teaching English; they are also teaching American idioms and how to live in the US culture. At first they thought the focus on America was because China wanted its workers to be able to take service calls, etc. from the US; now they think it's because they want to acclimate the Chinese to being our neighbors, as in next-door neighbors. Also, China is buying up large tracts of land here. Meet the new boss, not quite but almost the same as the old boss. You may have noticed the Republicans no longer refer to the Asian giant as 'Red China' or 'Communist China' anymore although it is still a communist dictatorship that permits some small scale local businesses to exist.
To Paul Revere:
Does your quote need a language correction? "Are" versus "or"?
The Taliban and the Texan were negotiating a pipeline deal. Karzai was in the background. So was Condi Rice.
After 9/11/01, it is on record that Pakistan was told that if they didn't support us they would be bombed to Neanderthal status. Was that Richard Holbrooke making the call? I forget. It was someone of similar State Department stature and it got Sharif to go along with The Great Game. To his demise. I actually found him a very intelligent man. Someday I hope for a chess game with him. One of the FEW survivors.
If I were running Pakistan I'd tell the U.S. to shove it and get the hell out of south Asia, and I'd make pacts with China, and I bet a huge number of "experts" on the Region would agree with that proposition although their academic and NGO positions make that impossible.
The U.S. position in Afghanistan is simply untenable. (Scott Ritter at another CD post pretty much has it right.) Why does America continue to PROFIT FROM ERROR? We are the ones who need to change. We are wrong. The generals are wrong. Strategically and tactically, Afghanistan will remain Afghanistan. Their "backward" culture is brilliant.
They know their sacrifices.
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@ OleManRiver November 1st, 2009 4:37 am; you and Scott Ritter are absolutely right, of course, and the late historian Barbara Tuchman, who was dead before Bush the Junior started these useless wars, provides an answer in "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam," the central premise of which is that all governments eventually work against their own interests. Add to that the fact that Obama has limited military experience and doesn't want to be attacked -- god forbid! -- as some kind of squishy-soft 'liberal peacenik' who surrendered Afghanistan to the terrorists when he runs for re-election in 2012, and you have the perfect storm of idiocy that will keep getting our troops killed and maimed in a venture as vain and stupid as Vietnam.
(Read 'The March of Folly, Continued' by Norman Solomon:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/21 )
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
-- Abraham Maslow
The generals are wrong, but then, as well as being single-minded hammers constantly seeking new nails to hit, they are cynically playing for career advancement after their military days are over with a soft well-paying berth on the board of a defense contractor. Iraq and Afghanistan is using up a lot of America's war materiel and it all is replaced to the tune of hundreds of billions of our tax dollars. Pentagon brass who advise peace and withdrawal are shunned by the Military-Industrial Complex and, hey, when it comes between a general and his post-Pentagon millions in pay, what are the lives of a few thousand enlisted personnel? (Especially if you can convince yourself that the war is necessary?)
I wouldn't doubt that Pakistan is already making sub rosa deals with China; while we pour money into the Pakistan army that they then use to prepare for war with India, I'm sure they are covertly cuddling up to the new world power of the future who just happens to be loaning us money to stay afloat and indulge in this warhawk nonsense. By then, we'll be dominated by the Great Walmart of China and wondering how in hell it happened that we are being required to learn Chinese to get a job in a sweatshop.
To VAGreen---
While I sympathize with your considerations here, I suspect that history supports Laura Flanders.
If memory serves, for example, prior to 9/11 Bush met with Taliban in crawford, TX to discuss Afghan pipelines. After 9/11 the Taliban asked for EVIDENCE that bin Laden was actually implicated in 9/11 as a condition for turning him over to a THIRD COUNTRY for adjudication. Bush offered none. "I'm the Decider," said Dubya.
What we seem to forget is that the Taliban is/are the ONLY organization that actually came even close to creating an Afghanistan STATE after CENTURIES of Western interventions. With the possible exception of the USSR, which had a potentially viable economy there that was actively undermined by Dan Rather and CBS! That's why he just lost his suit against CBS! He was a whore to the CIA. Cronkite was not. But you won't hear this on the evening news.
Get the hell out of Afghanistan. It's a triple threat. And MaChrystal is too ambitious, like Petraeus. The last General who deserved election was Eisenhower of the European theatre in the early 1940s. These guys don't hold a candle. It took Ike nearly another decade to get elected, against the "intellectual," Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. The historical threat here is MacArthur versus Truman.
Afghanistan is a lost cause. The hubris is George W. Bush. Had he gone in and bombed the Taliban (with whom he had allegedly been negotiating) and then withdrawn, that would be one thing. Occupation is a bitch. Esp. when your strategy is wrong. If Obama keeps this up he is just as much an IDIOT. I do not like to say this but he needs to transcend his advisors, sycophants all.
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OleManRiver: Your memory is correct. Prior to 911 the Taliban leaders were flown to Crawford, Texas for a covert and clandestine meeting in which I quote: " WE CAN EITHER CARPET YOUR COUNTRY WITH GOLD ARE WITH BOMBS, THE CHOICE IS YOURS". As for Dan Rather, yes he was a whore for the CIA and the MIC, but I think CBS stands for : Crooked Bull System.
Is this intended to be a satire of the tactics of the wingnuts, or is Laura Flanders actually serious here? I disagree with Hoffman on a lot of issues, but to tie him to the Taliban because someone who endorsed him once supported them in the past is silly. Sort of like using Bill Ayers against Obama.
I agree, VAGreen October 30th, 2009 12:17 am, it is a tenuous connection, but I think that was Laura Flanders' point -- this is the sort of thing that the GOP has done to the opposition for years.
The thudding irony here is that it's a 'win-win-win' situation for the liberals. If Doug Hoffman wins, he's an ideological bonehead who couldn't even be bothered to find out much about the problems in the district he wants to represent. The guy's another Junior; a puppet on a string for the Armey's and Palin's to use to make their point. NY's 23rd will quickly tire of this vacuous idiot, opening the way for a Dem in the next election. If Dede Scozzafava wins, she's no brain trust either, and the wingnut-teabagger GOP of Beck and limbaugh would spend the next two years running her down, guaranteeing she won't be politically viable in 2012. Dem Bill Owens may not be a prize progressive, but he's strong on labor issues and will vote with the liberals on important matters. Let the games begin, as they say -- our side can't lose no matter which way it goes.
Let's blow up another buddha!
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Dana Rohrbacher is a douche bag of the first order who is a consistent embarrassment to the California Congressional delegation. That he represents Orange County is no surprise whatsoever.
The republican will win. That part of NY is staunch, dyed in the wool republican. I know. I have some dimwitted family there.
Sure, Chomp. Usually the neocons are smarter than that - what could they have been drinking or smoking or ingesting through their dorsal orifices to make them split the vote?
Splitting the vote is supposed to be an exclusive, patented leftist maneuver (e.g. Nader, McKinney) and the lefties have every right to write nasty, threatening letters to the neocons, chastising them for stealing their treasured election day tactic.
Even better, I think, is Instant Runoff Voting, where voters can list 4 or 5 candidates in order of preference. If after the #1 votes are counted no one has 50% of the votes then the #2 votes are counted etc, etc until someone has 50%.
A few cities out west have accepted this, including, I believe, San Francisco.
This is an excellent way for third parties to realistically participate in elections, and if enough of us scream loud enough maybe some day we'll have IRV for federal elections..
In Mexico's last election it would have helped if the election commission had not been friendly to right-winger Calderon, and if they had not permitted those famous Diebold-style voting machines in many areas. I've heard that a subsequent analysis of the vote showed, ala Al Gore in 2000, that Obrador actually won the election. A tragedy for the Mexican people he was not allowed to take office. Instead, they are being raped and ravaged by corporatist shill Felipe Calderon.
First of all, Calderon won 'big' in the north partly due to the voting machines I mentioned, clones of the Ohio 2004 machines manufactured by corporations friendly to Calderon's pro-business party. (And it is not true that Calderon won 'all the states' north of Mexico City; Obrador won Baja California Sur, Nayarit, and Zacatecas.)
Secondly, no it is not 'statistically impossible' for a candidate to get 2 percent of the vote. Calderon and his party were roundly despised in that state.
Calderon 'won' by a razor-thin margin of 35.89% to Obrador's 35.31%, or 15,000,284 votes to Obrador's 14,756,350. There were nearly a million votes for Obrador nullified by Mexico's Federal Election Tribunal and there was never any full recount of the vote allowed.
A post-election report issued by the EU's election observer team recommended voting reforms in Mexico, although it did defend the 2006 results, under political pressure from their governments not to stoke a controversy since it wouldn't change the result.
BTW, if there had been a run off between Calderon and Obrador, it might very well have made a difference. The third-place candidate got over 9,000,000 votes.
Before you go responding to my comments, you might better inform yourself, even if that means consulting someone who's intelligent.
dana's a hoot when he comes on bill maher's show. it gives
you insight into just how crazy these folks really are
with a goofy face attached to it. this guy is truly NUTS!
the bigger the pile on from the wingnuts and the easier
the ride for the democrat in this race. can you imagine
these folks coming to town to help them out? palin
newt and dana. rush selling cupcakes for the fundraising
effort. actually rush would be selling oxycodone there's
a whole lot more money in it. now if he can only find some
latina maids to help him out they will all be good to go!
might be a bit of a stretch that far upstate though.
sarah might do a little fishing and have a fish fry which
newt would eat all by himself. any more ideas? some
times a topic needs a little humor instead of a lot
of intellectual debate. i have a feeling that the
good folks of this district can figure this one
out by themselves especially after they see the
crowd that's looking to "help out"
The 'Tea-baggers' and the religiously intolerant who support Limbaugh, Beck et al. are not that far removed from the Taliban in terms of seeing the world through an absolute moral filter of religious extremism.
I remember the Right Wing Christian in Texas while Bush was in power being called the West Texas Wahabi.
Islam is a comparatively young world religion, founded 600 years after Christianity. In the early days of the Christian religion, all sorts of bloody massacres took place, such as those during the Crusades and the Inquisition that purged Spain of the Moors. (BTW, the good Christians of the last administration have brought back some of the tortures of Torquemada for a return performance on the world stage -- just to prove how civilized and how different we are from the dictator we ousted in Iraq.)
Of course, as recently as the 20th century, fine young Christians in the American South were lynching and terrorizing black men on flimsy evidence of wrongdoing and sometimes just for sport. And those guys who tortured and killed Matthew Shepard for being gay were brought up in nice Christian households I've read.
It's true, though, we don't strap on bombs and blow up schools -- that's the pathetic weapon of the poor; we're rich, so we drop cluster bombs from 10,000 feet. It kills even more people and there's no suicide. Oh, and if you don't think we've blown up schools on these missions, as well as the homes of innocent families, I suggest you increase your knowledge of the subject.
If you'd like, I can provide details, or you could look it up yourself.
Or the fundamentalist Mormons who statutorily rape and marry multiple teenage girls, then let them die giving birth because they're afraid of being arrested if they take them to a hospital.
So true. And the "beauty" of the neocon position is that if you pointed this fact out to them, they'd call you a Nazi (another ideology theirs lines up with)!
Actually Laura, you have a lot in common with the bag of hot air from Alaska.
The people that supported Palin in Alaska, called her the the hottest Governor from the coldest state. The pistol packin mama and ex Governor is hot alright; more like you called it, a bag of hot air!
This is just too funny.
According to Glenn Beck's logic, Doug Hoffman has only two degrees of separation from the Taliban. And Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Laura Ingraham, pretty much the who's who of conservative talk radio, have all endorsed him and/or had him on their shows.
I guess that means that conservative talk radio is only three degrees of separation away from the Taliban?