Legion of Angels News Archive

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

Senator John McCain says when it comes to foreign policy he’s light years ahead of Barack Obama. Over and over again, McCain has insisted Obama lacks the necessary experience to conduct business with foreign countries on behalf of the United States.

So how do you explain this?

Citizens of dozens of foreign countries prefer Barack Obama over John McCain as our next president by a margin of almost 4 to 1, according to a massive poll conducted by the Gallup Organization. About 30 percent of those surveyed prefer Obama, while just 8 percent favor McCain.

This was no daily tracking poll either. Gallup polled people in 70 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and North and South America, representing nearly half the world’s population, between May and September of this year.

Citizens of the Philippines and Georgia were the only ones who preferred McCain to Obama. Not exactly the super-powers we’re looking to mend fences with.

Here’s my question to you: Why do citizens in 70 foreign countries prefer Barack Obama to John McCain by a margin of nearly 4-1?

Interested to know which ones made it on air?

Justin from North Carolina writes:
Barack Obama is the candidate of reason. Only a fool would think of supporting the ticket with the oldest presidential nominee and a woefully inept vice presidential candidate are in the best interest of America or the world especially when the current disaster of a president proves to be more coherent than the both of them.

Kevin writes:
They prefer him because he’s a patsy and they know he’s going to pander to them. Kennedy was on medication during meetings with Khrushchev and Khrushchev called him a pygmy. No fear whatsoever. Good thing Kennedy did stand up to him during the Cuban missile crisis. Obama needs some testosterone shots. Putin, Chavez, the Castro’s, the Girl Scouts of China…anybody could chew him up, push him around, and spit him out.

F.S. from Rollinsford, N.H. writes:
Jack, just to let you know that from my wife’s and my visit to Europe for 3 weeks just recently, we couldn’t find anyone in 4 countries that wanted McCain for President. They all think he is warmonger and that Palin is a joke. Do they know something we don’t?

Jackie writes:
To be fair, I think McCain’s negativity rests with the “R” after his name. He is a decent man who, because of his age and knowing this is his last chance, sold his soul to the Republican National Committee.

Mike writes:
It’s simple. It may sound racist, but it’s really not. Foreign countries are tired of old white men bossing them around and looking down on them. They finally see someone who will respect & approach them as equals.

Zach writes:
Let’s see, Jack…where to begin…They don’t want to get bombed? They want to work with a well-spoken, even-keel U.S. President for a change? They’re smarter than almost half of the people in our own country?

Source — CNN

WASHINGTON - Senior officials in the Nixon administration discussed a desire to stop the newly elected government of leftist Chilean President Salvador Allende from taking power in 1970, according to recently declassified transcripts of those conversations made public Wednesday.

In one exchange, President Nixon’s former secretary of state, William Rogers, cautioned about secret U.S. efforts to prevent Allende from taking power after the administration had stressed the importance of democratic elections. The CIA ended up supporting the kidnapping of Chile’s top general in an effort to block Allende’s ascendance to the presidency.

“After all we’ve said about elections, if the first time a communist wins, the U.S. tries to prevent the constitutional process from coming into play we will look very bad,” said Rogers, who died in January 2001.

A private nonprofit group, the National Security Archive, published the transcripts on the eve of the 35th anniversary of a coup that resulted in Allende’s death.

Transcripts were made possible because Henry Kissinger taped all his phone calls when he became national security adviser in 1969. His secretaries transcribed the calls from tapes that later were destroyed. The Nixon presidential library declassified the newly released transcripts.

Some of the conversations occurred in 1970 in the run-up to Allende’s inauguration as a democratically elected socialist leader.

In one conversation, Kissinger informed President Nixon that the State Department had recommended an approach to “see what we can work out” with Allende.

“Don’t let them do it,” Nixon replied.

In another conversation, Kissinger told then-CIA director Richard Helms that “we will not let Chile go down the drain.”

“I am with you,” Helms replied.

In a subsequent conversation about Allende, Secretary of State Rogers agreed with Kissinger that “we ought, as you say, to cold-bloodedly decide what to do and then do it.”

Rogers warned that it should be done “discreetly so that it doesn’t backfire.”

“No matter what we do it will probably end up dismal,” said Rogers.

The CIA subsequently acknowledged it supported the 1970 kidnapping of Chile’s top general, Rene Schneider, for refusing to use the Army to prevent the country’s congress from confirming Allende’s election. The kidnapping failed — but Schneider was killed in the attempt — and Allende’s election was confirmed.

Three years later and nine weeks before the coup, Nixon blamed Helms and former U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry for failing to block Allende’s inauguration three years earlier.

“They screwed it up,” the president told Kissinger in another newly released conversation.

In the same call, Nixon told Kissinger, “I think that Chilean guy may have some problems.”

Kissinger responded, “Oh, he has massive problems. He has definitely massive problems.”

The subsequent coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew the Allende government on Sept. 11, 1973.

At least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during Pinochet’s 17-year rule and thousands more disappeared, Chile’s government says.

The National Security Archive is a group seeking to open government records to the public.

___

On the Net:

National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/

CIA files on activity in Chile: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/index.html

Source — Yahoo!