24 Hours In The Race And Obama Is Hurling Insults At U.S. Allies

 Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of our allies in the GWOT let it be known how he felt about a Barak Obama win, and even though it may not have been nice to hear, a person that talks of diplomacy should at least walk the walk.  Barak isn’t running against George Bush, and our allies are not a part of the partisan bickering.

From Obama via  Fox:

“I think that it’s flattering that one of George Bush’s allies on the other side of the world started attacking me a day after I announced” my candidacy for president, Obama said during a news conference in Iowa, the first state to hold party caucuses. “I take that as a compliment.”

 He added that “the threat of terrorism has increased as a consequence of our actions in Iraq.”

“Howard may have quibbles with our intelligence estimates. Maybe he has better ones?” Obama said.

“I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops on the ground now. And my understanding is that Mr. Howard has deployed 1,400. So if he’s ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest, he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them up to Iraq,” he continued.

From his spokesperson via  Yahoo:

“The United States has sacrificed more than 3,000 brave young men and women and $400 billion, only to find ourselves mired in the middle of a sectarian civil war,” he said. “Even Republicans … know that more of the same is only going to attract more terrorists to Iraq and make our country less safe.”

“If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home,” he said. “It’s easy to talk tough when it’s not your country or your troops making the sacrifices.”

And here is what he had to say on 60 Minutes:

OBAMA: My hope is at that point that we would have done enough diplomatic work that we would actually have a coalition to try to prevent genocide. Part of the problem that we have right now is that there is no coalition left. This is essentially a situation in which the rest of the world has said, “You made your decision. It hasn’t worked out. We weren’t really consulted in the process, and as a consequence, you’re now on your own.”

KROFT: You said you would hope that by that time you would have established coalitions. Coalitions with who?

OBAMA: We still have a lot of allies, not just in Western Europe, but around the world, who I think would be willing to participate, if there is a sense that this is not simply a matter of the United States calling folks in after we’ve made a decision, but where there’s genuine consultation. Reshaping our international institutions I think is going to be absolutely critical. Part of that’s diplomatic. But I think there’s going to have to be a military component to that.

From Dan Riehl who I feel summed it up best:

Howard was talking policy, March 8 is the day Obama put forth as date certain to be out of Iraq. I believe he’s the only candidate to have done that. While some may criticize the Aussie’s only having 1,400 troops in Iraq, it’s 1,400 we need and want.

As the US is clearly the leader of whatever pack there is in Iraq and Howard has “boots on the ground,” if you will, how is it that suddenly he isn’t allowed to comment on the American political leadership which must ultimately manage that war?

I didn’t find his comments irresponsible at all, simply candid. I don’t want to see less of that from so-called leaders, I’d prefer to see more.

From Captain Ed is is not happy with the PM butting in:

That shows why the inexperienced Obama needs to spend another ten years or so getting some seasoning. The Aussies have been one of our strongest friends in the world over a long period of time. They have contributed troops and suffered losses, just as we have, while the Islamist threat sits a lot closer to their nation than it does to ours.

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