Once again McCain has opened his mouth and proved that he is far from being an expert on foreign policy.

Today on the “Good Morning America” show, McCain downplayed conditions in Afghanistan.  He then went on to say

We have a lot of work to do.  It’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.

In case you don’t know how the borders are drawn in that region of the world, here’s a map I got off of Crooks and Liars.

Looks to me like the Iraq Pakistan border has a very large cushion named Iran.

This isn’t the first time McCain has opened his mouth and shown that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.  During a GOP debate in October 2007, McCain said

The first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don’t care what his objections are to it.

On July 14, 2008, he said

I was concerned about a couple of steps that the Russian government took in the last several days. One was reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia. Apparently that is in reaction to the Czech’s agreement with us concerning missile defense, and again some of the Russian now announcement they are now retargeting new targets, something they abandoned at the end of the Cold War, is also a concern.

Three months before he said that he told Don Imus that he would “work closely with Czechoslovakia and Poland and other countries.”

If he’s a foreign relations expert, McCain should know that Czechoslovakia was split into two countries January 1, 1993.  Neither is called Czechoslovakia.  Instead their names are the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

At a news conference in Jordan on March 18, 2008, McCain said

Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.

Here’s the problem with that statement:  Iran’s population is mostly Shiite Muslim.  Al Qaeda is Sunni Muslim.  Iran views The Sunni’s in Al Qaeda as a threat to their country and have worked very hard to close their borders to Al Qaeda fighters.  Iran has also accused the United State of funding, training and arming Iraqi Shiite militants.

If McCain or anyone else wants to claim that they are an expert on foreign policy, then they can’t keep making stupid mistakes like these.  They definitely shouldn’t be making them over and over and over again (I’m talking to John “Czechoslovakia is still a country” McCain).

If you want me to believe that you’re an expert on anything, you need to actually know what you’re talking about.  John McCain just continues to prove that he is no expert on foreign policy.

Technorati Tags: Czechoslovakia, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, Pakistan

Musharraf benefits from Bhutto’s death.  It gives him justification to post-pone the upcoming elections.  He’s also being accused of not doing enough to provide protection for Bhutto.

Pakistan’s Bhutto killed in attack 

Benazir Bhutto killed in attack 

Technorati Tags: Bhutto, Musharraf, Pakistan

Click on the picture below to go to a link Alternet which has the transcript of Olbermann’s special comment.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Iran, special comment

Hardly.

First off, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not the supreme ruler of Iran. According to Iran’s constitution, Ahmadinejad is responsible for the implementation of the Constitution. He can exercise executive powers as long as they are not in relation to those matters directly related to the Supreme Leader.

One thing that Ahmadinejad doesn’t have control over is Iran’s armed forces, nor does he control the military intelligence and security operations. He can’t declare war.

The Supreme Leader has the final say in all matters. He controls the armed forces, military intelligence and security operations. He is the only one that can declare war.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s Supreme Leader. Unlike Ahmadinejad, Khamenei does not claim that the Holocaust never occurred. Through his top foreign advisor, Khamenei has said that the Holocaust was genocide and a historical reality.

Ahmadinejad may be a scary, crazy president, but he’s not the Supreme Leader of Iran. He’s only slightly better than a figure head of that country.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has a president that does rule that country. His name (in case you haven’t watched the news the past couple of days) is Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf is a scary, crazy president.

Iran may be investigating and trying to develop nuclear energy (according to their Supreme Leader the oil won’t last forever and Iran needs other energy sources) but we have no evidence that Iran is doing more than develop nuclear energy. They definitely don’t have nuclear weapons at this time. Even our government has to admit that fact.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has nuclear weapons. The country is also very unstable. This was true even before Musharraf declared martial law this weekend.

Many of the tribal leaders in Pakistan supported the Taliban. Musharraf has been battling insurgents its largest province, Balochistan, ever since he took over Pakistan in 1999. Musharraf himself took over power in 1999 through a military coup.

Yesterday, November 3, 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emergency. His actions show that this “state of emergency” is in effect martial law. Musharraf’s “state of emergency”

suspending the country’s Constitution, firing the chief justice of the Supreme Court and filling the streets of this capital city with police officers.

The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had been expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president.

Independent and international news stations in Pakistan have gone silent. Police officers surrounded the Pakistan Supreme Court and forced the justices to take an oath to abide by a “provisional constitutional order” that has replace the country’s existing Constitution. Those who did not take the oath were dismissed.

So who should we really fear? A president that is not the Supreme Leader of a country that does not have nuclear weapons? Or a president who is the supreme leader of a country that does have nuclear weapons? A president who can’t declare martial law? Or one who can and has all in an effort to ensure that he stays in power?

I know which one scares me more.

Pakistani Sets Emergency Rule