It's going to be fun watching you folks put your feet in your mouth on this one.

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Bamboozler Alert You may have seen the kerfuffle yesterday that arose when the New York Post published an opinion piece by Amer Taheri in which he reported that Barack Obama was secretly negotiating with the Iraqi government to delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The McCain camp (which is, remember, opposed to the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops) seized on this report, issuing a statement by Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser: If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. ... The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment and it demands an explanation. If the news reports are accurate, and therein lies the rub. We'll have more on what exactly Obama has said on this issue, publicly, in a bit. But you need to know a bit more about Taheri, who runs in the same neocon circles as Scheunemann. Taheri was the guy who back in 2006 fabricated the story that the Iranian government was requiring Jewish citizens to wear yellow badges to identify them as such. That story, which also ran in the Post, was completely discredited. As we reported at TPMmuckraker at the time, Taheri has a long history of such bamboozlement, although it hasn't kept him from advising the White House on Middle East issues.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/217250.php

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Noted Bamboozler Behind Latest Obama Smear By Zachary Roth - September 16, 2008, 12:14PM Since yesterday, the right-wing blogosphere has been all aflutter over a report in the New York Post, written by the Iraqi journalist Amir Taheri, that Barack Obama has privately tried to delay an agreement between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration on a draw-down of American forces from Iraq. Here's the key passage: According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview. Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion." Yesterday evening, the McCain camp sought to get some mileage out of Taheri's report, releasing a statement from Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy aide, asserting that: "If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas." But there are a couple reasons why the bloviation looks to be uncalled for. The Obama camp yesterday put out a statement of its own asserting that the story "bears as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial," and charging that Taheri has confused a long-term Status of Forces agreement with negotations over a shorter-term drawdown. It's worth looking at that distinction more closely to get a sense of what the Obama camp means here and where Taheri may have erred. In terms of a Status of Forces agreement, Obama has consistently made clear that he believes any such agreement should be delayed until after the election -- so that a President Obama or McCain would not be bound by an agreement negotiated by a weakened Bush administration. The McCain camp did not object when, in June, Obama told reporters at a press conference that he had made exactly this argument to Zebari in a phone call. The Obama campaign's statement released yesterday in response to the report was consistent with this position: "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi Parliament," though, perhaps unwilling to alienate antiwar voters, it artfully omitted the fact that Obama has argued that this should be delayed until the next administration is in charge. As for a shorter-term drawdown -- which is what Taheri seems to mean by "a draw-down of the American military presence" -- Obama has never suggested that this should be delayed. And again, yesterday's statement backs that up: "Unlike John McCain, he supports a clear timetable to redeploy our troops that has the support of the Iraqi government. Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades." Still, if Taheri's report were accurate, and Obama had indeed talked to Zebari about delaying any shorter-term deal, it would at least represent a change of position for the candidate. But Taheri doesn't exactly have a reputation for care and precision in his work. In May 2006, he published an explosive story in the Post (since removed from the paper's site), as well as Canada's National Post, about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe, stoking fears of a second Nazi Germany. Only problem: it turned out to be a complete fabrication. That turned out to be typical of Taheri's work. A 1989 review of Taheri's book, Nest of Spies: America's Journey to Disaster in Iran, written for The New Republic by noted Iranian scholar Shaul Bakhash and unearthed by TPMmuckraker in 2006, noted that Taheri "repeatedly refers us to books where the information cited does not exist," and is "capable of generalizations of breathtaking sweep and inaccuracy." According to Bakhash, "[Taheri's] interpretations of the documents are often egregiously inaccurate," and he "has trouble transcribing even the simplest information." One Iraq scholar told TPMmuckraker after the false yellow-star report, referring to Taheri: "This is a person who doesn't have any credibility." Doesn't exactly sound like a reliable source.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme...hind_latest.php

Hopefully that teaches y'all not to trust a tabloid paper like the NYPost.

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Originally posted by Q5echo you surely have to know he can not do any of that...AT ALL. he sure as hell can't do it within the confines of a political campaign. do you realize the conflicts of interests at stake here if he had? ffs dude he would be destroyed! thats the reason i'm having doubts about this story in the first place. even i don't think he has the hubris or sheer stupidity to even consider it. God help him if he does

Ronnie did the same.....

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The October Surprise theory refers to a purported deal between high-level Reagan campaign operatives (such as campaign manager and future CIA Director William J. Casey) and representatives of the Iranian government to delay the release of the hostages until after the November 1980 U.S. elections. Although investigations by the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the 1990s declared the allegations to be unfounded, the conspiracy's existence or lack thereof remains a subject of debate. The exact nature of the allegations lies in a potential violation of the International Commerce Acts of 1798, which prohibit any private citizen or party from negotiating with a foreign power in matters of national policy or military action. It is alleged by political opponents that the Reagan campaign, or one of Reagan's election campaign staffers, communicated with the Iranian government and asked them to extend the hostage crisis long enough to ensure that he won the 1980 elections. The main cause for suspicion was the seeming coincidence of his inauguration and the hostages' release six minutes after Reagan was sworn into office on January 20, 1981, as well as the Reagan administration's later decision to provide arms to the anti-U.S. Iranian government, allegedly in return not for freeing the hostages, but for delaying their release.

Last edited by LazFX on Sep-16-2008 at 17:21

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov It's going to be fun watching you folks put your feet in your mouth on this one. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/217250.php http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme...hind_latest.php Hopefully that teaches y'all not to trust a tabloid paper like the NYPost.

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But Taheri doesn't exactly have a reputation for care and precision in his work. In May 2006, he published an explosive story in the Post (since removed from the paper's site), as well as Canada's National Post, about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe, stoking fears of a second Nazi Germany. Only problem: it turned out to be a complete fabrication.

oh yeah, I remember that....

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov It's going to be fun watching you folks put your feet in your mouth on this one.

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“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview, according to Taheri. “However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open,” Zebari reportedly said. … Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.” In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

....which is exactly what Taheri wrote, isn't it? Obama went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government, in a war zone no less, by telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President. How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?

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Originally posted by The17sss ...How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?

Jews and badges man, jews and badges...

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Originally posted by LazFX Jews and badges man, jews and badges...

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov It's going to be fun watching you folks put your feet in your mouth on this one. Hopefully that teaches y'all not to trust a tabloid paper like the NYPost.

You were saying?

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13897

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Opus laid the MUTHAFUCKIN SMACKDOWN on Latin (yet again) on page one. Legendary.

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Originally posted by The17sss You were saying? http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13897

I was saying that a troop drawdown is different than the Strategic Framework Agreement and that the NYPost article is sensationalist journalism.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov I was saying that a troop drawdown is different than the Strategic Framework Agreement and that the NYPost article is sensationalist journalism.

What about the point that he is in no position to be negotiating anything, but he did anyway? His (and democrat) attempts to submarine progress in Iraq failed, so it's obvious to me why he wants to negotiate a troop withdrawel delay now... because he wants to bring them home on his watch and claim success that way

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Originally posted by The17sss What about the point that he is in no position to be negotiating anything, but he did anyway? His (and democrat) attempts to submarine progress in Iraq failed, so it's obvious to me why he wants to negotiate a troop withdrawel delay now... because he wants to bring them home on his watch and claim success that way

What's progress in Iraq? An Islamic state?

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