With us or against us

On Saturday, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama announced his intention to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.\nBy Sunday, he was involved in an international incident.\nAustralian Prime Minister John Howard -- a longtime supporter of President George W. Bush -- took an odd transpacific shot at Obama concerning his views on the Iraq war. In his declaration speech, Obama called the war a "tragic mistake" and made it a goal to have American combat troops out of Iraq by March 2008. \nHoward evidently disagrees with that strategy. "If I were running al-Qaida in Iraq," he said, "I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."\nThese are pretty strong words. Howard seems pretty set on keeping American troops in Iraq, which stands to reason -- what with his aforementioned alliance with President Bush.\nHere's the thing, though. Howard sounds very committed to winning the war in Iraq, but Australia has committed only 1,400 troops to the region -- most of whom are in noncombat roles, and some of whom aren't even in Iraq.\nFor comparison's sake, more than 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq.\nLuckily for Obama, his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, is as good at simple math as I am. "It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices," he said.\nObama had a similar retort. He said that if Howard is "ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq," he needs to send about 20,000 troops there.\nI don't intend to belittle the 1,400 Australians who are serving in Iraq. This is not their fault. But it seems to me that if Howard is so committed to this cause, he might be able to spare some more manpower.\nOr, if he's not willing to do that, maybe he should just shut up. As the Republican Party is fond of saying, if you don't have a solution to the problem, you shouldn't criticize policy. In this case, Howard should put Australia's youth on the line if his political beliefs are so strong that they demand his involvement in our primary election process. \nBesides, the truth is that, as Obama said, even President Bush's own intelligence agencies have shown that terrorism threats have actually grown as a result of the American presence in Iraq. In other words, terrorism's red-letter day isn't our withdrawal -- it was the day the war began. \nThe larger issue, though, is that Howard's comments about al-Qaida's rooting for Obama sound ominously similar to Republican rhetoric before last year's midterm elections. The "you're either with us or against us" routine is divisive and helps no one. And judging by how well it worked for the Republican Party, the electorate is tired of it and sees right through it.\nJust as terrorists don't watch "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," they probably don't care who wins the election.