You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Israel-Palestine-Jordan
McCain visits Sderot
2008-03-20
Bravo.
SDEROT - US Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday showed vigorous support for Israel, where he made a highly symbolic visit to a town hit by near-daily rocket fire from Gaza. “No nation in the world can be attacked incessantly and have its population killed and intimidated without responding,” McCain said in the southern town of Sderot, where he visited a house hit by a rocket fired by Islamists in the Gaza Strip, just a few kilometres (miles) away.

“Seeing it first-hand, the situation here is one that is very compelling,” McCain told reporters in Sderot after touring the town with Defence Minister Ehud Barak. “Nine hundred rocket attacks in the last three months; this puts an enormous strain on everyone here, especially the children.”
Especially when you can't or won't fight back.
Earlier in the day, the senator and his colleagues Joe Lieberman (Democrat) and Lindsey Graham (Republican) were taken on a helicopter tour by Barak, who briefed them on security issues.

McCain warned in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia threatened not only the Jewish state but also US and Western interests. “If Hamas-Hezbollah succeed here, they are going to succeed everywhere.

“They are dedicated to the extinction of everything that the US, Israel and the West believe and stand for,” the Republican candidate added.
I'm hoping that a President McCain doesn't get turned by the State Department.
He also called Iran “a threat for the region”, expressing certainty Tehran was “pursuing nuclear weapons”.
Boy howdy, you let McCain be himself and you end up with a pretty decent statesman. And I like this quote as reported here:
On the topic of Hamas, McCain said, "Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction."
I dunno John, that's a pretty simple idea in a complex world. And this quote:
"No nation in the world can be attacked incessantly ... without responding," he said. "The fact is that I come from a border state, and if people were rocketing my state, I think that the citizens from my state would advocate a very vigorous response," he added.
Posted by:Steve White

#6  On the topic of Hamas, McCain said, "Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction."

Excellent statement Mr. McCain. Now, I would like to get a response from Condi on what you said there, and put it in the record.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2008-03-20 22:03  

#5  One thing I can't complain about McCain, is he hits home runs on foreign policy almost all the time. Domestically, he may be a disaster, but you can't fix the domestic front if it has been overrun. I believe he would at least keep the wolves at the door or far from the door while the dhimocrats would invite the wolves in to dine on our children, then blame us for not understanding the "Root Causes".
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-20 07:49  

#4  I think that was his point, too, Besoeker. Only he presented it in the Socratic mode. ;-)

The point has been made over and over that President Bush is simply too nice, and not blunt enough. I think as president John McCain would not elicit such complaints.
Posted by: trailing wife   2008-03-20 07:37  

#3  "Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction."

You simply "negotiate" THEIR extinction, before they do yours.
Posted by: Besoeker   2008-03-20 04:08  

#2  You know, I've had a lot of disagreements with McCain, particularly over amnesty, but if he keeps saying and doing things like this visit and the visit to Iraq, he can win me over. That's something neither of the other two POTUS candidates have any hope of doing.
Posted by: Thromorong Wittlesbach1916   2008-03-20 03:32  

#1  The honourable Senator McCain may well have different ideas about the correct approach to border-crossing illegal aliens as president of the country than he did as senator of Arizona.

As for the following quote from one of Dr. Steve's links, that was the one I heard yesterday on NPR, to my shock and delight.

On the topic of Hamas, McCain said, "Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction."
Posted by: trailing wife   2008-03-20 02:43  

00:00