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the importance of listening ....

the importance of listening .....

Barack Obama laid the foundations for a new US foreign policy yesterday ahead of his trips to Europe and the Middle East, promising to work with allies to tackle the threats of the 21st century with a push comparable to the Marshall plan.

In his biggest speech on the matter since entering the presidential race in 2007, he said the US had "paid the price for a foreign policy that lectures without listening".

He set out five goals for his presidency: ending the war in Iraq; finishing the war with al-Qaida and the Taliban; ending US oil dependency; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; and rebuilding US alliances.

"As president, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy - one that recognises that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin," Obama told an audience at the Ronald Reagan building in the heart of Washington DC. 

US Election: Obama Offers A Marshall Plan For The 21st Century 

& the value of hearing …..

Tom Friedman is befuddled. He cannot understand "the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush" and is specifically upset about the fact that "China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States." Friedman generously allows that "[a]n America that presides over Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantánamo Bay deserves a thumbs-down" -- a "thumbs-down": what a playful movie critic says about a boring film. In listing America's small imperfections that have caused this worldwide unpopularity, Friedman forgot to mention America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, which Friedman himself cheered on.  

But whatever else is true, when it comes to morally reprehensible and threatening behavior -- to use Friedman's righteous terms: "pure, rancid moral corruption" that is "truly filthy" -- is there anything that remotely compares with what Tom Friedman and his like-minded comrades have said and done over the last seven years? If you're a citizen of just about any country in the world, what would you find more threatening -- the repressive dictator of a small African country, or the world's sole military superpower that continues to listen to and honor a Foreign Policy Expert who utters disgusting sentiments such as this, to justify a war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the displacement of millions more:

What other country in the world has leading members of its political class who justify unprovoked attacks on other countries -- who casually justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- in such depraved and sadistic terms? And, for that matter, what other country has a leading presidential candidate who sings songs about bombing another country and who continues to joke openly about killing its citizens?

If there were a powerful nation (besides the U.S.) that had a leading foreign policy analyst unapologetically justifying the brutal destruction of another country by explaining that its citizens needed to "Suck On This," and had a leading presidential candidate who sung songs about dropping bombs on the U.S. and who told jokes about killing Americans (while his leading ally demands that that country attack even more countries), we would be subjected to an endless array of Op-Eds from Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer condemning them and demanding that "meaningful action" be taken against such a "rogue nation." And Tom Friedman would be righteously and darkly insisting that such a country be "compelled to change its behavior."  

Tom Friedman Doesn't Understand Why America Is Unpopular In The World 

Gus: The world needs dreamers... but …in the words of Jose Marti y Perez …. 

“to change masters is not to be free” …

and good luck...

July 21, 2008 Iraqi Premier Steps Back on U.S. Troops

 

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JEFF ZELENY

BAGHDAD — On the eve of Senator Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq, its prime minister tried to step back Sunday from comments in an interview in which he appeared to support Mr. Obama’s plan for troop withdrawal.

The interview with the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was published Saturday in the online version of Der Spiegel, a German magazine. It was widely picked up by American newspapers because it appeared to give an unexpected boost to Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who has called for an expedited withdrawal.

The interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which called to seek clarification from Mr. Maliki’s office, American officials said.

Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., said that embassy officials explained to the Iraqis how the interview in Der Spiegel was being interpreted, given that it came just a day after the two governments publicly announced an agreement over American troops.

“The Iraqis were not aware and wanted to correct it,” he said. The back-and-forth between the two governments came as Mr. Obama finished a one-day trip to Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai for nearly two hours on Sunday. Mr. Obama said the United States, NATO and Afghanistan must step up their efforts to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda and to encourage Pakistan to eliminate terrorist training camps.

“Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on ‘more for more’ — more resources from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement, which was also signed by Senators Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, who are part of the traveling American delegation.

Mr. Obama, who is on the opening leg of a weeklong overseas trip, said in a television interview that the United States needed to send a stronger message to Pakistan about its efforts to fight terrorism along the Afghanistan border.

nixed...

McCain's campaign team, in a conference call with reporters, yesterday criticised Obama for acknowledging during a press conference in Amman that he is at odds with the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, over Obama's proposed pull-out of US troops. Obama said Petraeus wanted to retain flexibility but Obama insisted that, as president, he had to take a global view of priorities.

McCain's team said Obama should not presume to know better than the general who had fought a successful war.

In the row with the New York Times, McCain had sent in his article in response to one by Obama last week about Iraq. When the New York Times opted against publication, his campaign team leaked the decision to a website, the Drudge Report.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post published the article yesterday and carried an editorial accusing the New York Times of bias: "The New York Times is showing its true colour again (ie cobalt blue): just days after running an essay by Barack Obama slamming John McCain's Iraq policy proposals, the paper summarily nixed the Arizona senator's rejoinder."

The New York Times said it had not rejected the article, only asked for the senator to rewrite it to "articulate in concrete terms how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq".

read more at The Guardian... 

US dillusion

Iraq: Violence is down – but not because of America's 'surge'

If fewer US troops and Iraqis are being killed, it is only because the Shia community and Iran now dominate

By Patrick Cockburn
Sunday, 14 September 2008

As he leaves Iraq this week, the outgoing US commander, General David Petraeus, is sounding far less optimistic than the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, about the American situation in Iraq. General Petraeus says that it remains "fragile", recent security gains are "not irreversible" and "this is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not a war with a simple slogan."

Compare this with Sarah Palin's belief that "victory in Iraq is wholly in sight" and her criticism of Barack Obama for not using the word "victory". The Republican contenders have made these claims of success for the "surge" – the American reinforcements sent last year – although they are demonstrably contradicted by the fact that the US has to keep more troops, some 138,000, in Iraq today than beforehand. Another barometer of the true state of security in Iraq is the inability of the 4.7 million refugees, one in six of the population, who fled for their lives inside and outside Iraq, to return to their homes.

Ongoing violence is down, but Iraq is still the most dangerous country in the world. On Friday a car bomb exploded in the Shia market town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, killing 32 people and wounding 43 others. "The smoke filled my house and the shrapnel broke some of the windows," said Hussein al-Dujaili. "I went outside the house and saw two dead bodies at the gate which had been thrown there by the explosion. Some people were in panic and others were crying."

vaccinated camels

January 31, 2009 Pentagon Memo

After Campaign Push, Obama Cultivates Military

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON — The outreach began more than a year ago when Barack Obama, the antiwar candidate who had never served in the military, turned to a group of young officers just out of active duty for a fresh perspective on America’s two wars.

“He asked a lot of questions,” recalled one of the officers, Craig M. Mullaney, a former Army Ranger in Afghanistan who in campaign travels with Mr. Obama told him how his platoon of 35 men had vaccinated camels, worked with tribal elders and been in charge of security for a province the size of Vermont.

That early outreach has since given way to a carefully planned campaign by Mr. Obama to build trust with the military and avoid the mistakes that hobbled Bill Clinton, the last Democratic commander in chief. By Thursday, when the president met for the first time with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in “the tank,” the secure Pentagon conference room, the campaign had progressed to the point that participants left “comforted,” as one put it, about Mr. Obama’s willingness to work with them.

Pentagon officials say they have been relieved that Mr. Obama has so far proceeded slowly on two campaign promises: to pull all combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months and to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

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read more at the NYT and see toon at top...