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The Republican leadership has done everything possible to discredit President Obama and to portray him as weak, indecisive and impotent as President. As we all know, this is being done for political reasons to ensure that the Republicans can win back control of the Presidency and the Senate in 2012. While this is bad enough in terms of domestic issues, in terms of foreign policy it is dangerous in the extreme.
I'm referring to the recent actions taken by North Korea. Yesterday, November 22, 2010, the North Korean military shelled the South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island killing two South Korean soldiers and wounding 15 soldiers and three civilians. This is the latest in a series of attacks by North Korea on the South. It is also important to remember that according to press reports, North Korea has five or six nuclear warheads.
So why is this important? After all the Korean peninsula is a long way from New Hampshire. There are 28,800 U.S. service members stationed in South Korea, many of them stationed near the border with North Korea. Also there are more than 100,000 American citizens living or working in South Korea, many of them in Seoul which is very close to the border. A war between North and South Korea could kill hundreds if not thousands of Americans.
Is it possible? Currently North Korea doesn't have sufficient food to feed its' population and people are starving. Some of this is caused sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries. It is getting to the point where the population will revolt or starve to death. Second, Dictator Kim, Jong-Il's youngest son, Kim, Jong-un, has recently been made heir apparent and may be trying to prove himself. The North Korean leadership is old and conservative. Kim, Jong-un was picked because he is young and aggressive.
But the third reason is what concerns me in this blog. The Republican attacks on President Obama have portrayed U.S. leadership as spineless and impotent. We have been involved in two wars with two small and weak nations for years without any kind of victory. Our military has been stretched to the breaking point and the North Koreans may believe that it is impossible for us to interfere in their plans for conquest.
Americans have traditionally rallied around the President in times of crisis but that may not happen this time because of the Republican attacks. The Republicans have put all of us at risk and I don't think they really give a damn.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a major foreign policy speech yesterday to the Council of Foreign Relations. The New York Times described the speech as muscular in tone and sweeping in scope.
The speech served to highlight Mrs. Clinton's return to a full public schedule after her elbow surgery and to reassert the United States' role in the world as a concilatory leader of nations with common interests. The phrase "architecture of global cooperation" was coined to describe the new doctrine.
He [President Obama] has launched a new era of engagement based on common interests, shared values, and mutual respect. Going forward, capitalizing on America's unique strengths, we must advance those interests through partnership, and promote universal values through the power of our example and the empowerment of people. In this way, we can forge the global consensus required to defeat the threats, manage the dangers, and seize the opportunities of the 21st century.
It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little...which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we're getting into a proper context.
The goal of today's conversation is to give you a bit more of an "insider look" at today's news; and to do that we'll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we'll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we'll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we'll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.
Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is appearing before the House Foreign Policy Committee today to speak about the overall foreign policy goals of the Obama Administration.
She is taking no prisoners in the answers she is giving to the right wing Republicans on the Committee. She is making them understand that she is part of the team and wasting no opportunity to promote her boss, President Obama
For eight years we heard a lot of bluster about "the axis of evil" but saw precious little action when it came to keeping nukes out of the hands of Iran.
Thankfully, it looks like things are about to change:
What had been a truce between Israel and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip seems to have abruptly come to a halt; with the Israelis blaming Hamas and Hamas blaming Israeli oppression of the displaced Palestinians for the simmering hostilities that are now boiling over into military-scale violence.
Before the recent holidays and an immoderate amount of snow buried me in things that could not be done on the computer we had been having a conversation about the strategic importance of our relationship with Egypt. Within that series of discussions we explored the influence of the political opposition, and we considered the fragility of President Mubarak's hold on power.
We also noted the immediate proximity of Egypt to the Gaza Strip.
Today we're going to tie all of that together-and the end result of all that tying is that we better keep a close eye on Egypt, because trouble in Gaza has spilled over into trouble in Cairo....and that's one more Middle Eastern problem we don't need.
Cross-posted from Blue News Tribune. I might throw it on Blue Mass Group as well.
Facts are not merely stubborn, they are annoying. I don't want to think this is important, but I do.
http://www.mediabistro.com/prn...
Politico reports that Burson-Marsteller and Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates, the market research consultancy of B-M CEO Mark Penn, has resigned the account of a two year client, the Pakistan People's Party, which is the ruling party of Pakistan.
(snip)
Techniques outlined by Javors, according to contract terms with the Department of Justice's Foreign Agent Registration Office, include Burson plans to interview, "100 American political journalists and business elites in Washington, DC and New York, as well as elites in the United Kingdom, the European Union and Pakistani expatriates living in the United States."
Hmmm. Message discipline.
Additional techniques included "'an internal brainstorming session,'" authoring 'white papers' by experts and academics, and drafting and seeking placement of op-ed pieces in newspapers. 'Burson-Marsteller will work with the [Pakistan People's Party] to draft and seek placement of op-ed pieces on the issue and will identify appropriate 'authors,' depending on tone and subject...'"
Also, Burson "promised it would promote credible 'third-party' supporters of Pakistan, recruiting such backers from the ranks of 'former U.S. government officials involved with Pakistan during their tenure;' 'Academics and think tank experts;' and 'Pakistani Americans in influential positions.'"
I'm on the edge of fair use here, but I don't feel too badly, because it's really Politico's item that Mediabistro summarized. And again, why do the cool kids diss Politico? This is valuable reporting I haven't seen elsewhere.
Javors hints that the account resignation was planned to coincide with Senator Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State confirmation hearings.
I'll have to glance at that hint later. Meanwhile my knee jerks, as if to say, "No, really?"
Wow. Somehow this gem passed through the media without much attention, but I cannot believe Hillary Clinton would make a gaffe of this size. Somewhere buried in an article about Clinton's rebuttal against her falling poll numbers:
She did not spare President Bush in her remarks, either. In Hampton on Sunday night, Mrs. Clinton ribbed Mr. Bush for saying he had looked into the soul of President Vladimir V. Putin. "I could have told him Putin was a K.G.B. agent," she said. "He has no soul."
On the second day of the primary Obama gave to me, two cultural backgrounds
and an outstanding orator!
Barack Obama's mixed racial/cultural background has received more coverage than the parentage of any candidate in recent memory. Everybody has heard about his Kenyan father and Kansan mother, his childhood years in Indonesia and high school career in Hawaii.
And, when I say that his background has been covered more than any other candidate, I'm not using hyperbole. Sure, you've heard about Mitt Romney's dad -- but do you know anything about his mother? Was there any discussion about Hillary's mom before she was dragged into those recent commercials? Anybody got the 411 on Rudy's parents? I didn't think so.
Part of this is obviously due to the skin color issue, but it also serves to demonstrate a unique strength that Barack Obama brings to this race: first-hand cultural awareness, insight, and sensitivity.
I understand that for 8 years Hillary lived in the White House as Bill's wife.
But that's not the experience we need.
As a Junior Senator from N.Y she has not shown the type of strengths or conviction that are true to the Democrat party.
In my opinion she has complied with and supported GW Bush in the Iraq war and voted to intensify America's continuing confrontation with Iran. Very hawkish indeed, in my opinion.
Today I looked up information on the internet, to add to what I have listened to in the debates and found written or quoted in books, and the strengths or experience she claims to have just don't add up.
Strength
Something I found today.
As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward. But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.
From the Mark Healey piece 12-26-07
The Long Run
Experience
First, according to Susan Rice, a National Security Council senior aide and State Department official under Mr. Clinton Mrs. Clinton was not involved in "the heavy lifting of foreign policy." Ms. Rice also took issue with a recent comment by a Clinton campaign official that Mrs. Clinton was "the face of the administration in foreign affairs."
"Making tough decisions, responding to crises, making the bureaucracy implement decisions that they may not want to implement - that's the hard part of foreign policy," Ms. Rice said. "That's not what Mrs. Clinton was asked or expected to do as first lady."
From the Mark Healey piece 12-26-07
The Long Run
Mrs. Clinton has declined to divulge any private advice she gave her husband.
With all the back fires Hillary has had during her primary campaign,the Norman Hsu fund raising problem, the pre arranged questions in Iowa by her staff members, the idiotic leaks and attack's on other democratic candidates, all her C+ debate performances, and that she gave the wrong date to caucus in Iowa to supporters, I have come to following conclustion .... Mrs. Clinton got where she is today because she married Bill Clinton.
He opened the doors; she walked through them.
Senator Obama believes our policies are stronger when they benefit from the input, values and common sense of the American people, and that requires an open dialogue. Obama is discussing his foreign policy vision with New Hampshire voters and some of his top advisors in an open, participatory format today in Portsmouth.
Panel one, 9:00 AM:
Renewing American Leadership
Panelists: John Hutson, Tony Lake, Samantha Power, Susan Rice
Moderator: Denis McDonough
Panel two, 10:00 AM:
Strengthening America's Military for the 21st Century
Panelists: Richard Danzig, Ryan Gray, Sarah Sewall, James Smith
Moderator: Denis McDonough
Panel three, 11:00 AM:
A Clear Choice for America: The Obama Foreign Policy
with Senator Barack Obama
Panelists: Richard Danzig, John Hutson, Tony Lake, Samantha Power, Susan Rice
I've spent a career in foreign policy and national security, but it doesn't take an expert to know that after eight years of the Bush Administration's narrow-minded foreign policy and disastrous war in Iraq, our next president will urgently face enormous challenges in restoring America's global leadership.
We must renew America's image and show a new face to the world after eight years of alienating our allies and refusing to engage our enemies.
We must end a misguided war and restore a military stretched to the breaking point by a war that has already cost hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives while distracting us from the real threat of Al-Qaeda and making us less safe.
We must reclaim our nation's values by rejecting torture and the violation of our civil liberties, and by trusting in our Constitution and proud legacy of individual freedoms.
We must proactively and patiently use all of our nation's strength - diplomatic, economic, and intelligence - to lead the world instead of relying solely upon military power because we ignored or rejected other options.
We must rebuild strong alliances and rally international action to combat the common enemies of the 21st - terrorism and nuclear weapons, poverty and disease, genocide and climate change.
We must genuinely redefine American leadership and challenge conventional Washington thinking, so that hope triumphs over fear in a world with real danger and unconventional challenges.
This is what America needs, and it will take bold leadership to meet this challenge.
Today, Chase Martyn of the Iowa Independent reviewed a major policy speech by Bill Richardson earlier this week on how to improve the welfare of the human race and our environment. Martyn is no supporter of Richardson, noting "I expected would be ridden with gaffes, pie-in-the-sky policy proposals, and poll-tested mumbo jumbo. Having not seen Richardson stump in person for a period of two months, I had no idea what I was in for."
Martyn came away highly impressed. Martyn described Richardson's speech as "bold and informative. . . . I dare say he sounded presidential.
In his speech, Richardson set forth a global agenda to address the welfare of the human race, linking climate change, poverty, international disease and war. Richardson stated: "A hungry world will also hunger for scapegoats. A thirsty world will thirst for revenge. A world in crisis will be a world of anger and violence and terrorism."
This diary is part of the candidate series for Bill Richardson on MyDD. I am not part of his campaign.
Congressman, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Energy and in his second term as Governor of New Mexico after a landslide victory in November 2006, Governor Bill Richardson is running for President to heal America and restore our place in the world. He possesses the experience, vision and leadership skills to be a great President.
Richardson is goal-oriented, assertive and confident. He has the ability to quickly evaluate a situation but is not rigid in his thinking and will modify policy when necessary. He takes a practical approach to governing, focusing on solutions to problems rather than ideology.
Senator Dodd will hold a press conference to announce his comprehensive Cuba policy today in Miami, FL at 11 AM Eastern. Dodd, who has led the fight to reform our approach to Cuba to better serve the cause of democracy and American interests, will call for bold, sweeping changes to America's Cuba policy.
I will update this diary with links to the full plan, but for now check out the preview offered by the Miami Herald today:
In a statement given Friday to The Miami Herald, Dodd favors opening a U.S. embassy in Havana, allowing Americans to do business there, and nixing TV MartÃ, the U.S.-funded broadcast routinely blocked by Cuba.
''I believe the time has come to say publicly what many Americans believe -- our Cuba policy has neither served America's interests nor brought democracy to Cuba,'' reads the speech Dodd plans to give in Miami today. ``It has only served to strengthen the current regime. It has been an abject failure.''
Chris Dodd has the boldness to open new doors in our relationship with Cuba. This plan is yet another example of Dodd leading with conviction, experience, and clarity of vision.
UPDATE:
The video of the press conference is embedded above. Dodd was very strong, fluidly answering questions on his Cuba policy in both English and Spanish.
The full Dodd Cuba policy is now online. Read it here.
