Al-Qaeda's favored candidate

John McCain has recently taken to referring to Barack Obama as Hamas' favorite candidate, apparently because Obama has advocating dialog with Hamas leadership to try to further finding a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem. Our glorious President joined in yesterday, equating Obama to Neville Chamberlain attempting to appease Hitler.

Hamas is certainly an unsavory organization, but like it or not it also has a political aspect, and is the party duly and freely elected to head the Palestinian government ... and currently does so in the Gaza Strip. As such, it behooves us to engage them - no peace is likely to be found in the region if we refuse to do so. Even McCain himself recognizes this ... or, at least, he did two years ago:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

That's some pretty bent-talking there, slamming someone for holding the exact same view you have previously expressed ... of course, that was before McCain become the Republican candidate for President and had to sacrifice his actual beliefs to the party extremists.

McCain was right the first time ... only a moron (and our President certainly qualifies on this count) would speak in absolutes about such matters, and fail to recognize the infinite shades of gray in between. Not surprisingly, Eggplant has drawn the wrong lesson from Chamberlain's errors. The mistake was NOT in opening discussion with Hitler's government, but rather in agreeing to Germany's forceful annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia in exchange for "Peace for our time" ... a time which lasted less than 12 months.

Talking to someone or some organization is NOT the same as "giving them everything they want".

Meanwhile numerous studies and stories (here, here and here for just a few examples) have noted how the US presence in Iraq has helped al-Qaeda garner new recruits (although this appears more difficult now in past years). Bent-talk express himself has voiced his support for being in Iraq 100 years if necessary ... which certainly seems like it would make him al-Qaeda's favored candidate.