1. Reading Stimulants
Here is a list of some of my stimulants for this 'essay-to-be', just purchased this afternoon.
New Books From Chapters
1. Mike Moore, Mike's Election Guide 2008, 2008.
2. Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008.
3. Ronald Wright, What is America?: A Short History of The New World Order, 2008.
4. Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, 2007.
Old Books From The Newmarket, Main Street Used Book Store and Cafe
1. Locke, Berkeley, Hume, The Empiricists, 1961.
2. Edited by Robert Brown, Between Hume and Mill: An Anthology of British Philosophy, 1749-1843, 1970.
3. Richard Norman, The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics, 1998.
4. Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 1990.
..................................................................
2. DGB Opening Comments
When things are going wrong in the world -- or within our smaller and more immediate segment of the world, and of our lives -- it is important, indeed, extemely important, to return to our core values, to re-awaken ourselves to these, and to re-generate ourselves with the 'spirit and the energy' that is contained within these values. Some people may do this within the context of their Community. Others may do it within the context of their Church. Still others may do it within the context of their family.
All of these different 'self and social foundations' -- and the values contained within them -- can be imperatively inspirational in terms of dealing with any type of personal and/or social tragedy, traumacy -- or simply, 'bad times'. I say 'imperatively inspirational' because in deeply bad or tough times, not to have these places of self and social foundation upon which to 're-invest new positive energy into our tired, beaten-up, and demoralized minds and bodies can mean the difference between wanting to go on -- and not wanting to go on. Ultimately, it can mean the difference between life and death, or to be more specific, for example, the difference between a teenage boy or girl who runs away from home, ends up on the street -- and doesn't come back.
Now for those of you who may be unfamiliar with me and my work, my name is David Bain. I am a Canadian -- and yet here I am -- writing to a predominantly American audience. Why? And what possible connection could/can there be between American Politics and my evolving 'DGB Philosophy'?
The connections -- as I see it -- are two or threefold: two in the present, and one in the past.
1. Canada is just as much at war in Afghanastan as America is. And stated quite simply, I don't like war any more than I am sure that any one of you do. War stinks as much as the rotting corpses that are building up in Afghanastan, Iraq -- and now Pakistan.Indeed, war is the worst of all human evils, particularly if you include all of the peripheral evils that go along with war such as torture and rape as men and women become more and more estranged from their humanistic base. War is the epiteme of 'anti-humanism'.
2. Which brings me to our second point of connection. I mentioned three sources of 'self and social foundation' -- family, community, and church. Here is a fourth one: great leaders -- and great sources of philosophical inspiration.
The foundation of American Democracy and the foundation of DGB Philosophy are one and the same: Enlightenment Philosophy and the founding philosphers or 'fathers' of Enlightenment Philosophy, The American Declaration of Independence, and The American (as well as Canadian) Constitution.
I am talking about such great philosophers and/or politicians as: John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Montasquieu, Immanuel Kant, Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and a host of great 'post-Enlightenment leaders' who I would also like to include in this group such as: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower (if only for his most famous speech), John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King...
So what unites DGB Philosophy with America, American Politics, America Democracy -- and The American Dream -- is the same set of humanistic-rational-empirical-Enlightenment values that are the foundation of both.
However -- and this is a big 'however' -- oftentimes, in a world of increasing greed, power, and selfishness -- which I generally summarize under the term 'narcissism' -- we lose these Humanistic-Enlightenment values, and in the process -- we lose our way, we lose the American Dream, and we lose ourselves. The inspiration of these rational-empirical-humanistic values is gone, and in its place, we are confronted with a spiritual, nuclear holcaust.
It's at this time that I say its time to go back to basics: back to our core foundations of support and values; our family, our community, our church, and our core group of inspirational leaders and their philosophical works -- past, and/or present.
That is what I will do here:
.......................................................................
2. The American Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
United States Declaration of Independence
1823 facsimile of the engrossed copy
Created June–July 1776
Ratified July 4, 1776
Location Engrossed copy: National Archives
Original: lost[verification needed]
Rough draft: Library of Congress
Authors Thomas Jefferson et al.
Signers 56 delegates to the Continental Congress
Purpose Announce and explain separation from Britain[1]
The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announcing that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress.
Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was initially published as a printed broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The most famous version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Contrary to popular mythology, Congress did not sign this document on July 4, 1776; it was created after July 19 and was signed by most Congressional delegates on August 2.[verification needed]
Philosophically, the Declaration stressed two Lockean themes: individual rights and the right of revolution. These ideas of the Declaration continued to be widely held by Americans, and had an influence internationally, in particular the French Revolution. Abraham Lincoln, beginning in 1854 as he spoke out against slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act[2], provided a reinterpretation[3] of the Declaration that stressed that the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were not limited to the white race.[4] "Lincoln and those who shared his conviction" created a document with “continuing usefulness” with a “capacity to convince and inspire living Americans.”[5] The invocation by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address of the Declaration of Independence defines for many Americans how they interpret[6] Jefferson's famous preamble:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
By the time the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations between the colonies and the parent country had been deteriorating since the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. The war had plunged the British government deep into debt, and so Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies. Parliament believed that these acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767, were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep the colonies in the British Empire.[7]
Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire. Because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, they argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them, a view expressed by the slogan "No taxation without representation". After the Townshend Acts, some essayists began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all.[8] By 1774, American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the empire only through their allegiance to the Crown.[9] Parliament, by contrast, contended that the colonists received "virtual representation."[citation needed]
To be continued...
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
BAILOUT BACKFIRE
BAILOUT BACKFIRE
McCain's manoeuvring in financial crisis might have backfired
Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent , Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, September 26, 2008
OXFORD, Miss. - John McCain loves to the roll the dice, consequences be damned.
The Arizona senator did it with the Iraq war surge and came out looking like the wise man of American politics when it worked.
He gambled on an illegal-immigration plan that conservative Republicans virulently opposed, and it very nearly cost him the GOP presidential nomination.
People lay underneath the iconic Wall Street bull during a rally in the financial district against the proposed government buyout of financial firms Thursday in New York City. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a political risk this week by slowing high-stake negotiations on the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****"I am a betting man," he told NBC News on Thursday.
But McCain has taken few political risks greater than the one he did this week by thrusting himself into the middle of high-stake negotiations on the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
Did it work?
Not by any tangible measure - including the standards for success set out by McCain himself.
When the 72-year-old senator announced Wednesday he was rushing back to Washington to help resolve a legislative stalemate over the financial crisis, he insisted he would remain in the nation's capital as long as it took to craft a deal.
He promised to suspend his campaign, then appeared the next morning at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. And he called for the postponement of Friday's presidential debate "until we have taken action to address this crisis."
Yet there McCain was Friday night at the University of Mississippi anyway, set to debate Barack Obama though no deal had been struck when he left Washington in the morning.
"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations," the McCain campaign said in a statement.
Translation: Close enough, we're out of here.
So what precisely did McCain accomplish in D. C.?
McCain's chief success was in persuading President George W. Bush to convene Thursday's high-level White House meeting with the presidential candidates and congressional leaders.
Democratic Barack Obama had little choice but to accept Bush's invitation and looked very much like an unwanted guest at someone else's party.
But the meeting itself was an abject failure that descended, by the McCain campaign's own account, into "a contentious shouting match."
Accusations by Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid that McCain's presence was a distraction that helped scuttle a deal should be taken for what they are - pure politics.
But this much is beyond dispute: The lasting impression from the White House meeting was that of a lame-duck president so incapable of forging a consensus on his own that he turned to two presidential candidates for help. Hardly reassuring for Americans in a time of economic peril.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of McCain's closest advisers, told the Washington Post that the Republican candidate didn't take a firm position during negotiations, stressing instead that any deal must protect taxpayers and provide assistance for U.S. homeowners.
Other Republicans said McCain sided with the House Republicans who defied Bush's appeals - both publicly and in private - for a speedy bipartisan compromise.
"Clearly, (Thursday), his position in that discussion (Thursday) was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would've been for," said Roy Blunt, the Republican House whip.
Absent the political achievement he had hoped for - McCain to the rescue! - the Republican candidate's best hope is that Americans will view his intervention as a noble but doomed attempt at bipartisan leadership.
He wants to reinforce his own campaign slogan that, no matter the results, he puts "country first."
But there is a huge potential downside. McCain looked very much like a candidate making it up as he went along - employing political tactics without an overarching strategy.
Obama, by contrast, sought to avoid making any waves at all - leaving the sound and fury to others. But at least he was consistent, saying all along that he believed presidential candidates could debate each other while also playing a role in Washington negotiations.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a McCain supporter, said Friday his candidate made a "huge mistake" by proposing a halt to the debate in the first place.
"You can't just say, 'World, stop for a moment. I'm going to cancel everything'," Huckabee told the Associated Press.
If anything, McCain's actions reinforced the perception - which firmly took hold with his last-minute selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate - that he prefers making decisions more out of gut instinct than cautious deliberation.
For McCain, the stakes couldn't be higher. With the U.S. economy in the tank and Palin's political star dimming, McCain's poll numbers were slipping ahead of his actions this week. The latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows Obama with 50 per cent support to McCain's 45 per cent.
In economically troubled Michigan - a key election battleground - one poll shows Obama up 13 points.
McCain may well have decided he needed another game-changing event to shake up the presidential campaign. It worked, but possibly not to his advantage.
© Canwest News Service 2008
McCain's manoeuvring in financial crisis might have backfired
Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent , Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, September 26, 2008
OXFORD, Miss. - John McCain loves to the roll the dice, consequences be damned.
The Arizona senator did it with the Iraq war surge and came out looking like the wise man of American politics when it worked.
He gambled on an illegal-immigration plan that conservative Republicans virulently opposed, and it very nearly cost him the GOP presidential nomination.
People lay underneath the iconic Wall Street bull during a rally in the financial district against the proposed government buyout of financial firms Thursday in New York City. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a political risk this week by slowing high-stake negotiations on the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****"I am a betting man," he told NBC News on Thursday.
But McCain has taken few political risks greater than the one he did this week by thrusting himself into the middle of high-stake negotiations on the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
Did it work?
Not by any tangible measure - including the standards for success set out by McCain himself.
When the 72-year-old senator announced Wednesday he was rushing back to Washington to help resolve a legislative stalemate over the financial crisis, he insisted he would remain in the nation's capital as long as it took to craft a deal.
He promised to suspend his campaign, then appeared the next morning at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. And he called for the postponement of Friday's presidential debate "until we have taken action to address this crisis."
Yet there McCain was Friday night at the University of Mississippi anyway, set to debate Barack Obama though no deal had been struck when he left Washington in the morning.
"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations," the McCain campaign said in a statement.
Translation: Close enough, we're out of here.
So what precisely did McCain accomplish in D. C.?
McCain's chief success was in persuading President George W. Bush to convene Thursday's high-level White House meeting with the presidential candidates and congressional leaders.
Democratic Barack Obama had little choice but to accept Bush's invitation and looked very much like an unwanted guest at someone else's party.
But the meeting itself was an abject failure that descended, by the McCain campaign's own account, into "a contentious shouting match."
Accusations by Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid that McCain's presence was a distraction that helped scuttle a deal should be taken for what they are - pure politics.
But this much is beyond dispute: The lasting impression from the White House meeting was that of a lame-duck president so incapable of forging a consensus on his own that he turned to two presidential candidates for help. Hardly reassuring for Americans in a time of economic peril.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of McCain's closest advisers, told the Washington Post that the Republican candidate didn't take a firm position during negotiations, stressing instead that any deal must protect taxpayers and provide assistance for U.S. homeowners.
Other Republicans said McCain sided with the House Republicans who defied Bush's appeals - both publicly and in private - for a speedy bipartisan compromise.
"Clearly, (Thursday), his position in that discussion (Thursday) was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would've been for," said Roy Blunt, the Republican House whip.
Absent the political achievement he had hoped for - McCain to the rescue! - the Republican candidate's best hope is that Americans will view his intervention as a noble but doomed attempt at bipartisan leadership.
He wants to reinforce his own campaign slogan that, no matter the results, he puts "country first."
But there is a huge potential downside. McCain looked very much like a candidate making it up as he went along - employing political tactics without an overarching strategy.
Obama, by contrast, sought to avoid making any waves at all - leaving the sound and fury to others. But at least he was consistent, saying all along that he believed presidential candidates could debate each other while also playing a role in Washington negotiations.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a McCain supporter, said Friday his candidate made a "huge mistake" by proposing a halt to the debate in the first place.
"You can't just say, 'World, stop for a moment. I'm going to cancel everything'," Huckabee told the Associated Press.
If anything, McCain's actions reinforced the perception - which firmly took hold with his last-minute selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate - that he prefers making decisions more out of gut instinct than cautious deliberation.
For McCain, the stakes couldn't be higher. With the U.S. economy in the tank and Palin's political star dimming, McCain's poll numbers were slipping ahead of his actions this week. The latest Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows Obama with 50 per cent support to McCain's 45 per cent.
In economically troubled Michigan - a key election battleground - one poll shows Obama up 13 points.
McCain may well have decided he needed another game-changing event to shake up the presidential campaign. It worked, but possibly not to his advantage.
© Canwest News Service 2008
On The 'Flip-Side' of 'Flip-Flopping'...Obama vs. McCain
Both American political parties and presidential candidates have accused the other side of 'flip-flopping'. Flip-flopping is generally deemed to be a sign of philosophical -- and political -- lack of comittment. Or shall we say, often a matter of political expedience. Going with what the American people want to hear, and/or with what is working, and/or changing your political tune from one state to another, or from one audience to one audience, according to the wishes of the particular state or audience you are speaking to...
However, there is another side of 'flip-flopping' as well. Flip-flopping can be a side of 'humanistic, psychological, philosophical and political -- evolution and growth'.
In the world of psychoanalysis, Jungian psychology, Gestalt Theray, and Psycho-Drama, these different schools of psychotherapy all use 'flip-flopping' as a form of 'bi-polar psychotherapy'.
Specifically, a person may be asked to 'dramatically role play one side of his personality (the Hegelian idea of 'thesis'), then dramatically role-play the opposite 'suppressed and/or potential' side of his or her personality (the Hegelian idea of 'anti-thesis') with the result of all this 'internal, back and forth, flip-flopping' -- from 'topdog' to 'underdog'and back again, or from 'Superego' to 'Id' and back again, or from 'Persona' to 'Shadow' and back again -- being the start of a more 'bi-polarity integrated' -- and healthier, more open-minded and broad-minded -- person.
Now, borrowing on this process from 'bi-polarity psychotherapy', can you imagine if, half way through the Presidential Debate last night between Obama and McCain, that the moderator had suddenly asked each candidate to 'switch places' or 'switch hats', and for Obama to argue the Republican line of campaign rhetoric, while McCain took up the Democratic line of campaign rhetoric?
Would this process have messed up the heads of both candidates? Would it have messed up the debate? Would it have messed up the audience?
Or would it perhaps have started America -- and both candidates and political parties -- towards a healthier potential political process? What I call a 'DGB Dialectic-Democratic Bi-Polar-Integrative Political Process'.
Personally, I am sick and tired of McCain and Obama -- and The Republican and Democratic Parties -- 'going at each other, head to head'. It is all about political posturing, political rhetoric, and political sophisms. It is all about 'either/or, right or wrong' politics, and distort the other's political position until you have completely negatively stereotyped and ridiculed it.. This is all wasted time and energy and does little to further the cause of democracy.
It's all about divide and split up America. Compartmentalize America by sending two polarized political parties -- like pitbulls -- at each other's respective throats. Both have important things to say. Both have the capability of adding to each other's perspective. Thesis. Anti-thesis. Synthesis. And both parties have important, intelligent people working in their respective parties.
But the energy -- through two years of 'drag the other down' campaigning -- is all negative, divisional -- and largely non-productive. Government efficiency at its worst.
No wonder why we have so many different types of 'bi-polar pathologies'. People do not know how to integrate opposite perspectives. The whole American Political -- and Economic and Business and Scientific and Religious and Educational -- Process is about 'Polar Divisionism'. 'Divide and conquer'. Or maybe it should be better stated: 'Divide and self-destruct'. Lost in the process, is the 'wholism' of Spinoza, the 'polar unity and wholism' of Heraclitus, the bi-polarity psychotherapy of most schools of psychology, the post-Hegelian, post-Cannon, DGB biological-psychological-philosphical-political evolutionary concept of 'dialectic opposition engaging in a productive, constructive manner with each other, leading to polar unity and homeostatic balance'. Or call this simply 'bi-partisan politics if you will.
Specialization, compartmentalization and reductionism are nothing without -- Re-Unified Dialectical-Democratic Wholism.
Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of 'Divisionist, Either/Or; Right or Wrong' politics.
For one time in his 8 years of being in power, Bush finally got it right when he invited both Presidential Candidates into the 'Emergency Wall Street Bailout Meeting'. (I think McCain went there a little easier and got more involved than Obama. Political expedience and consequences are still playing a part in their respective behaviors.
Personally, I would prefer to see a united 'Republican-Democratic Party' working together for the good of America.
The best politicians and economists in America -- regardless of partisan political beliefs -- working together in the best board room in America aiming to get this economic nightmare and disaster on Wall Street fixed to the best of their combined abilities, and/or at least heading back in the right direction.
To be sure, one man -- or woman -- has to call the final shots.
And it is a horrible time for this Wall Street Disaster to happen -- less than six weeks away from the election. But Wall Street will not wait. Let's get a united bailout with conditions into effect almost immediately.
Gentlemen. Senator McCain and Senator Obama. We know your respective arguments. And we know your counter-arguments.
The real test is at the 'Wall Street Financial Negotiating Table'. Can either of you -- or ideally, both of you in conjunction with Bush and the other people at the table -- be able to get a deal done that will restore the confidence of Wall Street investors, not benefit unethical, greedy CEOs, and protect the rights and interests of taxpayers and homeowners in the same way that Wall Street Banking and Mortgage Institutions are being protected and kept alive when they would otherwise die and leave America in financial shambles.
Anyway, enough is enough. Enough of the political posturing, grand-standing and negative advertising. Let the real President stand up and stand out.
Let's elect a new American President and get on with the task of re-uniting America, striving for new heights in 'ethical idealism', work at reducing the national debt, improving the national health and education system, getting out of wars that are bankrupting the nation as soon as pragmatically possible, putting a lid on corporate lobbyism that should be illegal, definitely is unethical and undemocratic, and which basically continues to 'skewer the general American people' by catering to the special interests of the oil corporations and other corporate barons who's main interest is in winning government contracts, getting tax-breaks and government grants -- and narcissistically lining their own personal pockets, not serving the general interests of the American people as a whole.
Yes, American businesses need to be able to function in a political and economic environment that they can happily and healthily survive in. But the best of American politicians and business leaders need to both be setting an ethical example here that the American people can be proud of; not meeting in private rooms or dark alleys, making cash deals with each other, or getting $200,000 home renovations for free behind the backs of the American people. This is not what America -- and The American Dream -- is all about.
The American people want more. They demand more from their politicians and business leaders.
Washington and Wall Street -- get it together. Bush and Congress -- get it together. Obama and McCain -- get it together.
The whole world is watching -- and waiting.
-- dgb, Sat. September 27th, 2008.
However, there is another side of 'flip-flopping' as well. Flip-flopping can be a side of 'humanistic, psychological, philosophical and political -- evolution and growth'.
In the world of psychoanalysis, Jungian psychology, Gestalt Theray, and Psycho-Drama, these different schools of psychotherapy all use 'flip-flopping' as a form of 'bi-polar psychotherapy'.
Specifically, a person may be asked to 'dramatically role play one side of his personality (the Hegelian idea of 'thesis'), then dramatically role-play the opposite 'suppressed and/or potential' side of his or her personality (the Hegelian idea of 'anti-thesis') with the result of all this 'internal, back and forth, flip-flopping' -- from 'topdog' to 'underdog'and back again, or from 'Superego' to 'Id' and back again, or from 'Persona' to 'Shadow' and back again -- being the start of a more 'bi-polarity integrated' -- and healthier, more open-minded and broad-minded -- person.
Now, borrowing on this process from 'bi-polarity psychotherapy', can you imagine if, half way through the Presidential Debate last night between Obama and McCain, that the moderator had suddenly asked each candidate to 'switch places' or 'switch hats', and for Obama to argue the Republican line of campaign rhetoric, while McCain took up the Democratic line of campaign rhetoric?
Would this process have messed up the heads of both candidates? Would it have messed up the debate? Would it have messed up the audience?
Or would it perhaps have started America -- and both candidates and political parties -- towards a healthier potential political process? What I call a 'DGB Dialectic-Democratic Bi-Polar-Integrative Political Process'.
Personally, I am sick and tired of McCain and Obama -- and The Republican and Democratic Parties -- 'going at each other, head to head'. It is all about political posturing, political rhetoric, and political sophisms. It is all about 'either/or, right or wrong' politics, and distort the other's political position until you have completely negatively stereotyped and ridiculed it.. This is all wasted time and energy and does little to further the cause of democracy.
It's all about divide and split up America. Compartmentalize America by sending two polarized political parties -- like pitbulls -- at each other's respective throats. Both have important things to say. Both have the capability of adding to each other's perspective. Thesis. Anti-thesis. Synthesis. And both parties have important, intelligent people working in their respective parties.
But the energy -- through two years of 'drag the other down' campaigning -- is all negative, divisional -- and largely non-productive. Government efficiency at its worst.
No wonder why we have so many different types of 'bi-polar pathologies'. People do not know how to integrate opposite perspectives. The whole American Political -- and Economic and Business and Scientific and Religious and Educational -- Process is about 'Polar Divisionism'. 'Divide and conquer'. Or maybe it should be better stated: 'Divide and self-destruct'. Lost in the process, is the 'wholism' of Spinoza, the 'polar unity and wholism' of Heraclitus, the bi-polarity psychotherapy of most schools of psychology, the post-Hegelian, post-Cannon, DGB biological-psychological-philosphical-political evolutionary concept of 'dialectic opposition engaging in a productive, constructive manner with each other, leading to polar unity and homeostatic balance'. Or call this simply 'bi-partisan politics if you will.
Specialization, compartmentalization and reductionism are nothing without -- Re-Unified Dialectical-Democratic Wholism.
Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of 'Divisionist, Either/Or; Right or Wrong' politics.
For one time in his 8 years of being in power, Bush finally got it right when he invited both Presidential Candidates into the 'Emergency Wall Street Bailout Meeting'. (I think McCain went there a little easier and got more involved than Obama. Political expedience and consequences are still playing a part in their respective behaviors.
Personally, I would prefer to see a united 'Republican-Democratic Party' working together for the good of America.
The best politicians and economists in America -- regardless of partisan political beliefs -- working together in the best board room in America aiming to get this economic nightmare and disaster on Wall Street fixed to the best of their combined abilities, and/or at least heading back in the right direction.
To be sure, one man -- or woman -- has to call the final shots.
And it is a horrible time for this Wall Street Disaster to happen -- less than six weeks away from the election. But Wall Street will not wait. Let's get a united bailout with conditions into effect almost immediately.
Gentlemen. Senator McCain and Senator Obama. We know your respective arguments. And we know your counter-arguments.
The real test is at the 'Wall Street Financial Negotiating Table'. Can either of you -- or ideally, both of you in conjunction with Bush and the other people at the table -- be able to get a deal done that will restore the confidence of Wall Street investors, not benefit unethical, greedy CEOs, and protect the rights and interests of taxpayers and homeowners in the same way that Wall Street Banking and Mortgage Institutions are being protected and kept alive when they would otherwise die and leave America in financial shambles.
Anyway, enough is enough. Enough of the political posturing, grand-standing and negative advertising. Let the real President stand up and stand out.
Let's elect a new American President and get on with the task of re-uniting America, striving for new heights in 'ethical idealism', work at reducing the national debt, improving the national health and education system, getting out of wars that are bankrupting the nation as soon as pragmatically possible, putting a lid on corporate lobbyism that should be illegal, definitely is unethical and undemocratic, and which basically continues to 'skewer the general American people' by catering to the special interests of the oil corporations and other corporate barons who's main interest is in winning government contracts, getting tax-breaks and government grants -- and narcissistically lining their own personal pockets, not serving the general interests of the American people as a whole.
Yes, American businesses need to be able to function in a political and economic environment that they can happily and healthily survive in. But the best of American politicians and business leaders need to both be setting an ethical example here that the American people can be proud of; not meeting in private rooms or dark alleys, making cash deals with each other, or getting $200,000 home renovations for free behind the backs of the American people. This is not what America -- and The American Dream -- is all about.
The American people want more. They demand more from their politicians and business leaders.
Washington and Wall Street -- get it together. Bush and Congress -- get it together. Obama and McCain -- get it together.
The whole world is watching -- and waiting.
-- dgb, Sat. September 27th, 2008.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Bloom coming off the rose?
The Bloom coming off the rose?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the liberal media, Bloomberg News:
Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics
By Timothy J. Burger and Tony Hopfinger
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate sent a signal that he would end business as usual and cronyism in government. Her record shows the Alaska governor engaged in some of the same practices she and McCain now condemn.
Palin's office approved a state job for a friend and campaign aide with whom she shared a land investment, financial records and interviews over the past two weeks show. She hired a former lobbyist for a pipeline company to help oversee a multibillion-dollar deal with that same company.
She named a police chief accused of harassment to head the state police. And she sent campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla -- conduct for which she later turned in an oil commissioner on ethics charges.
These incidents raise ``some serious questions about her judgment and serious questions about her standards of ethics in public service,'' said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington. Suggesting a real estate investment partner for a job ``may be acceptable in Alaska; it would not be acceptable in Washington, D.C., a place whose norms she wants to change.''
Palin defeated an incumbent governor, a fellow Republican, in 2006 charging that her party's old guard had committed ethical lapses and become too cozy with special interests, including oil companies. A central theme in this year's presidential campaign has been that Palin's record demonstrates the change a McCain administration would bring to Washington.
Recent statements by the governor may erode that claim. In her acceptance speech last week, she suggested that she opposed the infamous ``Bridge to Nowhere,'' a $223 million earmark for a bridge to an island where only 53 people lived.
For It, Against It
When Palin, 44, campaigned for governor, however, she said she was in favor of the bridge. In 2007, she canceled the project in the face of national outrage. The state never returned the money allocated by the federal government, with some of the funds going toward other state and local projects.
And as mayor of Wasilla, a job she held for six years until 2002, Palin hired lobbyists to get federal funding for local projects. Wasilla secured $27 million in earmarks for the town of about 9,000 that included a rail project and a youth center.
Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings account.
Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.
Sharing an Investment
The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.
``It sounds like a patronage deal for someone who ran your campaign; that's pretty normal,'' said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. ``What's not normal is that they have business dealings together.''
No evidence has emerged to suggest that laws were broken in the appointment, and Richter said she ``didn't go in there with any promises from the governor or the chief of staff or anybody. I turned in my resume'' to the governor's transition team ``and I didn't know if anyone was going to call me.''
``She was qualified,'' said Pat Galvin, commissioner of the Department of Revenue and Richter's boss. Galvin said he also interviewed other people for the job and that Richter has done well. He said Palin's office approved his selection of Richter.
Not Palin's Decision
Palin's gubernatorial spokesman, William McAllister, said the decision to hire Richter was Galvin's. ``I have no knowledge of land ownership or college degrees,'' he said.
Deborah Richter gave up her share of the property last September in a divorce settlement that followed an affair with Palin's legislative director, John Bitney. Bitney and Richter both acknowledged the affair in interviews. Bitney said Palin fired him over it; Richter is still on the job. They are now married.
Last month, Palin signed a law granting TransCanada Corp., Canada's largest pipeline company, an exclusive state license and up to $500 million in subsidies to proceed with work on a $27 billion pipeline, which would carry natural gas from Alaska to other U.S. markets.
Once a Lobbyist
Marty Rutherford, the chief coordinator behind Palin's pipeline effort, once worked as an Alaska lobbyist for a TransCanada pipeline subsidiary, according to state records. Rutherford, deputy commissioner at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, earned $40,200 as a lobbyist for 10 months in 2003 working for Foothills, the subsidiary.
Rutherford said in an interview that she only did consulting work for the company, including reviewing natural gas legislation. She said the work had no bearing on her future job as coordinator of Palin's pipeline team.
``I intended to leave state government when I went to Jade North, but as time went on I realized my heart was in government,'' she said, referring to the firm she briefly worked for.
Palin told the Anchorage Daily News last December that Rutherford's work with Foothills wasn't a conflict because it had been five years earlier.
Trooper Investigation
The governor already has triggered an investigation by the Alaska legislature into whether she fired the state commissioner of public safety, Walt Monegan, for not removing a state trooper involved in a contentious divorce from Palin's sister.
Palin has denied exerting any pressure on Monegan and said she dismissed him because she wanted to take the department in a new direction.
Since McCain picked Palin, seven Palin aides have declined to be interviewed on the matter by an investigator hired by the Alaska legislature, according to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
Earlier this year, Palin found herself apologizing for her handling of Monegan's replacement. About six weeks before she learned McCain wanted her to be his vice president, she named Kenai, Alaska, police chief Charles Kopp to replace Monegan.
On July 25, two weeks after being appointed, Kopp resigned amid scrutiny over a 2005 sexual-harassment complaint against him while he was chief in Kenai. The complaint resulted in a letter of reprimand from the city, which Palin told reporters she never knew about and had believed that the allegations were unsubstantiated, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Not a Harasser
In a July press conference, Kopp denied any harassment. ``I've always done every job I've ever done with honor and integrity,'' he said. ``There is one thing I am not. I am not a sex harasser.'' Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Asked about these episodes in Palin's career, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds lauded her reform efforts. Bounds said Palin has allowed the public to scrutinize state financial information, ``cut wasteful spending by a quarter of a billion dollars just last year and ushered in landmark ethics legislation.''
The moment that crystallized her image as a reformer came when she turned in state Republican chairman Randy Ruedrich after discovering he was using his state e-mail account to conduct party business.
Palin and Ruedrich were serving together as commissioners on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state regulatory agency, at the time. Ruedrich resigned from the commission in November 2003, and was later fined $12,000, according to a 2004 article in the Anchorage Daily News.
In 2006, Palin found herself asking forgiveness for a similar offense from her past, according to a July 28, 2006, article in the Anchorage Daily News. She had sent campaign e- mails from her Wasilla mayor's office in 2002, when she made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor.
``For any mistakes like that (were) made, I apologize,'' Palin said of the e-mail controversy in July 2006, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
For Related News: For news on the election: STNI ELEC2008 For news on McCain: BIO JOHN S MCCAIN For news on Palin: BIO SARAH LOUISE PALIN
__________________
"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."
--Sir Noël Coward
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
--Richard P. Feynman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the liberal media, Bloomberg News:
Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics
By Timothy J. Burger and Tony Hopfinger
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate sent a signal that he would end business as usual and cronyism in government. Her record shows the Alaska governor engaged in some of the same practices she and McCain now condemn.
Palin's office approved a state job for a friend and campaign aide with whom she shared a land investment, financial records and interviews over the past two weeks show. She hired a former lobbyist for a pipeline company to help oversee a multibillion-dollar deal with that same company.
She named a police chief accused of harassment to head the state police. And she sent campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla -- conduct for which she later turned in an oil commissioner on ethics charges.
These incidents raise ``some serious questions about her judgment and serious questions about her standards of ethics in public service,'' said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington. Suggesting a real estate investment partner for a job ``may be acceptable in Alaska; it would not be acceptable in Washington, D.C., a place whose norms she wants to change.''
Palin defeated an incumbent governor, a fellow Republican, in 2006 charging that her party's old guard had committed ethical lapses and become too cozy with special interests, including oil companies. A central theme in this year's presidential campaign has been that Palin's record demonstrates the change a McCain administration would bring to Washington.
Recent statements by the governor may erode that claim. In her acceptance speech last week, she suggested that she opposed the infamous ``Bridge to Nowhere,'' a $223 million earmark for a bridge to an island where only 53 people lived.
For It, Against It
When Palin, 44, campaigned for governor, however, she said she was in favor of the bridge. In 2007, she canceled the project in the face of national outrage. The state never returned the money allocated by the federal government, with some of the funds going toward other state and local projects.
And as mayor of Wasilla, a job she held for six years until 2002, Palin hired lobbyists to get federal funding for local projects. Wasilla secured $27 million in earmarks for the town of about 9,000 that included a rail project and a youth center.
Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings account.
Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.
Sharing an Investment
The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.
``It sounds like a patronage deal for someone who ran your campaign; that's pretty normal,'' said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. ``What's not normal is that they have business dealings together.''
No evidence has emerged to suggest that laws were broken in the appointment, and Richter said she ``didn't go in there with any promises from the governor or the chief of staff or anybody. I turned in my resume'' to the governor's transition team ``and I didn't know if anyone was going to call me.''
``She was qualified,'' said Pat Galvin, commissioner of the Department of Revenue and Richter's boss. Galvin said he also interviewed other people for the job and that Richter has done well. He said Palin's office approved his selection of Richter.
Not Palin's Decision
Palin's gubernatorial spokesman, William McAllister, said the decision to hire Richter was Galvin's. ``I have no knowledge of land ownership or college degrees,'' he said.
Deborah Richter gave up her share of the property last September in a divorce settlement that followed an affair with Palin's legislative director, John Bitney. Bitney and Richter both acknowledged the affair in interviews. Bitney said Palin fired him over it; Richter is still on the job. They are now married.
Last month, Palin signed a law granting TransCanada Corp., Canada's largest pipeline company, an exclusive state license and up to $500 million in subsidies to proceed with work on a $27 billion pipeline, which would carry natural gas from Alaska to other U.S. markets.
Once a Lobbyist
Marty Rutherford, the chief coordinator behind Palin's pipeline effort, once worked as an Alaska lobbyist for a TransCanada pipeline subsidiary, according to state records. Rutherford, deputy commissioner at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, earned $40,200 as a lobbyist for 10 months in 2003 working for Foothills, the subsidiary.
Rutherford said in an interview that she only did consulting work for the company, including reviewing natural gas legislation. She said the work had no bearing on her future job as coordinator of Palin's pipeline team.
``I intended to leave state government when I went to Jade North, but as time went on I realized my heart was in government,'' she said, referring to the firm she briefly worked for.
Palin told the Anchorage Daily News last December that Rutherford's work with Foothills wasn't a conflict because it had been five years earlier.
Trooper Investigation
The governor already has triggered an investigation by the Alaska legislature into whether she fired the state commissioner of public safety, Walt Monegan, for not removing a state trooper involved in a contentious divorce from Palin's sister.
Palin has denied exerting any pressure on Monegan and said she dismissed him because she wanted to take the department in a new direction.
Since McCain picked Palin, seven Palin aides have declined to be interviewed on the matter by an investigator hired by the Alaska legislature, according to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
Earlier this year, Palin found herself apologizing for her handling of Monegan's replacement. About six weeks before she learned McCain wanted her to be his vice president, she named Kenai, Alaska, police chief Charles Kopp to replace Monegan.
On July 25, two weeks after being appointed, Kopp resigned amid scrutiny over a 2005 sexual-harassment complaint against him while he was chief in Kenai. The complaint resulted in a letter of reprimand from the city, which Palin told reporters she never knew about and had believed that the allegations were unsubstantiated, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Not a Harasser
In a July press conference, Kopp denied any harassment. ``I've always done every job I've ever done with honor and integrity,'' he said. ``There is one thing I am not. I am not a sex harasser.'' Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Asked about these episodes in Palin's career, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds lauded her reform efforts. Bounds said Palin has allowed the public to scrutinize state financial information, ``cut wasteful spending by a quarter of a billion dollars just last year and ushered in landmark ethics legislation.''
The moment that crystallized her image as a reformer came when she turned in state Republican chairman Randy Ruedrich after discovering he was using his state e-mail account to conduct party business.
Palin and Ruedrich were serving together as commissioners on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state regulatory agency, at the time. Ruedrich resigned from the commission in November 2003, and was later fined $12,000, according to a 2004 article in the Anchorage Daily News.
In 2006, Palin found herself asking forgiveness for a similar offense from her past, according to a July 28, 2006, article in the Anchorage Daily News. She had sent campaign e- mails from her Wasilla mayor's office in 2002, when she made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor.
``For any mistakes like that (were) made, I apologize,'' Palin said of the e-mail controversy in July 2006, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
For Related News: For news on the election: STNI ELEC2008
__________________
"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."
--Sir Noël Coward
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
--Richard P. Feynman
Palin Also Supported 'The Road To Nowhere' (And May Still)
September 4, 2008 03:58 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Bridge To Nowhere, Palin, Palin Bridge To Nowhere, Palin Earmarks, Palin Fiscal Discipline, Palin Juneau Road, Palin Mccain, Palin Pork, Palin Road, Palin Road To Nowhere, Palin Wasteful Spending, Sarah Palin, Politics News
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While a debate rages over how honest Sarah Palin has been in stating her opposition to the infamous Bridge To Nowhere, another massive, widely-criticized transportation project is lingering in Alaska.
The "Road To Nowhere" is a $375 million "mega-project" designed to connect Juneau to the towns of Haines and Skagway via 50 miles of new road along the steep slopes of an avalanche-battered canal, ending at a ferry terminal at the Haines river.
As of 2005, Haines had a population of 2,400, while Skagway had 870 residents.
According to the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, a group promoting "sensible transportation systems in the state," the Road to Nowhere is an irresponsible waste. The project has received more than $100 million in federal and state funding. This includes a $15 million dollar federal earmark and approximately $24 million in federal dollars passed through to the state. But it remains far from completion - hampered by opposition, environmental and safety concerns, and general wariness over its utility.
Palin has been anything but a steady fiscal hawk on the matter. The Governor came into office saying she supported the road, which was started under her predecessor Frank Murkowski. In an October 2006 questionnaire by Anchorage Daily News, she simply wrote "Yes" when asked "Do you support building a road from Juneau to Skagway?"
But even Palin's own transition team recognized, in its report, that the Bridge and Road to Nowhere were "seen as a severe drain on resources that would otherwise be assigned to heavily used commercial and passenger routes." And yet, Palin has not definitely ruled out the construction of the road. She canceled plans for an 11-mile gravel road that could have been part of the Juneau Road project. And after conservation and public interest groups filed a lawsuit in August 2006 to halt the roads construction, Palin's office decided not to move forward while the litigation was pending.
"It doesn't make sense to piecemeal the project when it's in litigation and the outcome could change the whole scope of the project," said the governor's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, at the time. "She feels the most fiscally conservative thing to do is wait."
However, Palin appears to continue to support the project. In October 2007, the Alaska Daily News wrote that the governor "retains an administrative commitment for a Road to Nowhere." Half a year later the paper published an editorial that read:
Story continues below
advertisement
"[In canceling the 11-mile strip Palin] wasn't aiming to kill this dubious project, which doesn't even connect Juneau to the rest of Alaska's road system. (It is essentially a 50-mile driveway to a new ferry terminal on Lynn Canal). Her administration has been moving forward with the project, estimated to cost $374 million. That is almost as much as the nationally infamous $398 million Ketchikan bridge to Gravina Island, which Palin did kill."
(Another thing that ties the Bridge to Nowhere with its Road counterpart: the first $15 million for the Juneau road was included in the same bloated transportation bill that had Sen. Ted Steven's most notorious pork project.)
In fairness, Palin could, ultimately, come out against the Road to Nowhere. Certainly, as the running mate on an anti-wasteful spending Republic ticket, it would seem like the most electorally expedient move to make. But until then, the project could prove politically problematic for both her and Sen. John McCain. Opponents say it is wrongheaded for safety and budgetary reasons. The highway runs through several major avalanche zones, which would make the road all but inoperable during the winter. There are environmental concerns that come with the construction. Already, a ferry system allows for passage to most of the sparsely populated areas.
"The plan makes no sense. Instead, Alaska's politicians should do something they don't do very often: they should put the money for the road in the bank," wrote Heather Lende, a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News, in a fierce New York Times op-ed. "The interest alone could go toward operating and maintaining the current Lynn Canal ferry system. A few rules would probably need to change, but I'm confident Alaska's politicians have enough clout when it comes to dealing with federal transportation money to bring this about."
These critiques aside, there are those in Alaska pining for the completion of the road, viewing it as an effective way of connecting the state's capital to surrounding communities. Where Palin stands currently remains undetermined. Certainly, her selection as McCain's vice president puts her in a bit of a bind. There is already a bounty of evidence that clouds her claim to be consistently against the Bridge to Nowhere. An opposition to the Road to Nowhere at this point may also seem driven by political expediency.
"She hasn't been in office that long and she hasn't made a lot of tough decisions," said Lois Epstein, director of the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project. "On the Juneau road project she has said different things. During he campaign she said she was supportive and we have presented her info since the election about what a bad idea it is and how big a black hole and fiscally irresponsible it is for the state. And why the money should be spent elsewhere. We have been really pushing her to cancel the road. But she hasn't made a decision on it. It is up in the air."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Bridge To Nowhere, Palin, Palin Bridge To Nowhere, Palin Earmarks, Palin Fiscal Discipline, Palin Juneau Road, Palin Mccain, Palin Pork, Palin Road, Palin Road To Nowhere, Palin Wasteful Spending, Sarah Palin, Politics News
Show your support.
Buzz this article up.
Buzz up!
Share Print View Comments Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address
While a debate rages over how honest Sarah Palin has been in stating her opposition to the infamous Bridge To Nowhere, another massive, widely-criticized transportation project is lingering in Alaska.
The "Road To Nowhere" is a $375 million "mega-project" designed to connect Juneau to the towns of Haines and Skagway via 50 miles of new road along the steep slopes of an avalanche-battered canal, ending at a ferry terminal at the Haines river.
As of 2005, Haines had a population of 2,400, while Skagway had 870 residents.
According to the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, a group promoting "sensible transportation systems in the state," the Road to Nowhere is an irresponsible waste. The project has received more than $100 million in federal and state funding. This includes a $15 million dollar federal earmark and approximately $24 million in federal dollars passed through to the state. But it remains far from completion - hampered by opposition, environmental and safety concerns, and general wariness over its utility.
Palin has been anything but a steady fiscal hawk on the matter. The Governor came into office saying she supported the road, which was started under her predecessor Frank Murkowski. In an October 2006 questionnaire by Anchorage Daily News, she simply wrote "Yes" when asked "Do you support building a road from Juneau to Skagway?"
But even Palin's own transition team recognized, in its report, that the Bridge and Road to Nowhere were "seen as a severe drain on resources that would otherwise be assigned to heavily used commercial and passenger routes." And yet, Palin has not definitely ruled out the construction of the road. She canceled plans for an 11-mile gravel road that could have been part of the Juneau Road project. And after conservation and public interest groups filed a lawsuit in August 2006 to halt the roads construction, Palin's office decided not to move forward while the litigation was pending.
"It doesn't make sense to piecemeal the project when it's in litigation and the outcome could change the whole scope of the project," said the governor's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, at the time. "She feels the most fiscally conservative thing to do is wait."
However, Palin appears to continue to support the project. In October 2007, the Alaska Daily News wrote that the governor "retains an administrative commitment for a Road to Nowhere." Half a year later the paper published an editorial that read:
Story continues below
advertisement
"[In canceling the 11-mile strip Palin] wasn't aiming to kill this dubious project, which doesn't even connect Juneau to the rest of Alaska's road system. (It is essentially a 50-mile driveway to a new ferry terminal on Lynn Canal). Her administration has been moving forward with the project, estimated to cost $374 million. That is almost as much as the nationally infamous $398 million Ketchikan bridge to Gravina Island, which Palin did kill."
(Another thing that ties the Bridge to Nowhere with its Road counterpart: the first $15 million for the Juneau road was included in the same bloated transportation bill that had Sen. Ted Steven's most notorious pork project.)
In fairness, Palin could, ultimately, come out against the Road to Nowhere. Certainly, as the running mate on an anti-wasteful spending Republic ticket, it would seem like the most electorally expedient move to make. But until then, the project could prove politically problematic for both her and Sen. John McCain. Opponents say it is wrongheaded for safety and budgetary reasons. The highway runs through several major avalanche zones, which would make the road all but inoperable during the winter. There are environmental concerns that come with the construction. Already, a ferry system allows for passage to most of the sparsely populated areas.
"The plan makes no sense. Instead, Alaska's politicians should do something they don't do very often: they should put the money for the road in the bank," wrote Heather Lende, a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News, in a fierce New York Times op-ed. "The interest alone could go toward operating and maintaining the current Lynn Canal ferry system. A few rules would probably need to change, but I'm confident Alaska's politicians have enough clout when it comes to dealing with federal transportation money to bring this about."
These critiques aside, there are those in Alaska pining for the completion of the road, viewing it as an effective way of connecting the state's capital to surrounding communities. Where Palin stands currently remains undetermined. Certainly, her selection as McCain's vice president puts her in a bit of a bind. There is already a bounty of evidence that clouds her claim to be consistently against the Bridge to Nowhere. An opposition to the Road to Nowhere at this point may also seem driven by political expediency.
"She hasn't been in office that long and she hasn't made a lot of tough decisions," said Lois Epstein, director of the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project. "On the Juneau road project she has said different things. During he campaign she said she was supportive and we have presented her info since the election about what a bad idea it is and how big a black hole and fiscally irresponsible it is for the state. And why the money should be spent elsewhere. We have been really pushing her to cancel the road. But she hasn't made a decision on it. It is up in the air."
Alaska senator didn't know oil company paid bills, lawyer argues
updated 3:54 p.m. EDT, Thu September 25, 2008
Alaska senator didn't know oil company paid bills, lawyer argues
Story Highlights
NEW: Defense attorney said Stevens thought he had paid for renovations
NEW: Sen. Kennedy will be called as a character witness, Stevens' lawyer says
Prosecutor: Sen. Ted Stevens a crafty politician who learned how to hide gifts
Stevens faces charges of failing to report gifts from oil services company
Read VIDEO
From Paul Courson
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican on trial for corruption charges, did not know that an oil company was paying for improvements on his home, Stevens' defense attorney contended in opening statements Thursday.
An artist sketch shows Sen. Ted Stevens' lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, gesturing towards his client.
1 of 2 Stevens is fighting a seven-count indictment accusing him of filing false information on mandatory Senate financial disclosure forms.
Prosecutors say he failed to report gifts and services of substantial value, including improvements to his Alaska home, from oil services contractor Veco Energy, one of the state's biggest employers.
What started as "a one-story, A-frame cabin doubled in size and became a new home from basically the inside out," prosecutor Brenda Morris said in her opening statement.
Stevens thought he had paid in full for the extensive renovations, said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney, but had been deceived by Bill Allen, a former Alaska businessman who is one of the key witnesses against the senator. Watch why Stevens is on trial »
Allen pleaded guilty in May 2007 to handing out more than $400,000 "in corrupt payments" to Alaska officials, not including Stevens, the Department of Justice said in announcing the Stevens' indictment in July.
Allen is cooperating with the Department of Justice as part of his plea agreement.
Allen arranged for some bills to be kept from Stevens, who had been "promptly" paying the bills he had received, Sullivan contended.
That meant Stevens could not be held responsible for failing to declare gifts, the crime of which he is accused, Sullivan said.
"You can't report what you don't know," Sullivan said.
"They did pay, overall, $160,000 for this renovation project," Sullivan said of Stevens and his wife, Catherine, "which you will find from the evidence is exactly or closely what it should have been."
Don't Miss
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Heavyweights could testify in Stevens trial
Indicted senator wins Alaska GOP primary
But Morris said Stevens had learned how to hide such gifts during the decades he has spent in the Senate, according to The Associated Press.
Morris also charged that Stevens has thumbed his nose at the public's right to know about the gifts, the AP reported.
"You do not survive politics in this town for that long without being very, very smart; very, very deliberate; very forceful and, at the same time, knowing how to fly under the radar," Morris told jurors, the AP reported.
The defense rejected the prosecution's claims.
"Ted Stevens had no intent to violate the law. He did file accurate statements to the best of his knowledge," Sullivan said.
He said the jury will see evidence that Stevens' payments for the renovations "exactly or closely what it should have been."
Morris told the jury Stevens used Veco as a handyman contractor, requesting maintenance on the renovated home.
"We reach for the Yellow Pages," she said. "He reached for Veco."
Stevens is not charged with receiving bribes, although prosecutors allege in the indictment that the senator "could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of Veco."
Stevens hopes to clear his name by November in time for voters to decide whether to re-elect him. He has continued to campaign since his July 29 indictment.
The judge will allow Stevens to be absent from the courtroom in the weeks ahead if Stevens needs to vote on Senate financial bailout legislation. He has asked defense lawyers not to emphasize his possible absence from the courtroom during the trial.
The federal courthouse is a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
District Judge Emmet Sullivan warned defense lawyers Wednesday not to use their client's absence to win favor.
"You are not to give the appearance that 'I'm not here because of the business of the people,' the judge said. "Of course, that's a double-edged sword," Sullivan said, referring to troubled efforts to come up with a government bailout plan.
Prosecutors allege that Stevens received more than $250,000 worth of gifts, including a new first floor, garage and deck on his home; a new Land Rover that was exchanged for an older car; and a gas grill.
A sculpture of fish swimming upstream may also come up in testimony, which is said to be worth $29,000. Prosecutors have told the judge "it's a very large statue sitting on his front porch" at the senator's home in Alaska.
Stevens is an avid fisherman. His attorneys have said the sculpture belongs to a foundation that is planning to create a Stevens congressional library.
The jury was seated Wednesday and consists of 11 women and five men.
All 16 will hear the case, with four serving as alternates. Their status will not be disclosed until the end of the trial.
Sullivan also said he planned to call Sen. Edward Kennedy, the veteran Massachusetts Democrat, as a character witness.
Kennedy's office did not comment when contacted by CNN.
Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, are among the prospective witnesses in the trial, according to a list read to the jury pool Monday as part of finding a qualified panel.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is among the more than 200 names on the list. Jury members were asked whether they recognized any of the names. Those selected to serve in the Stevens jury had said they did not know any of the people personally.
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All About Ted Stevens • U.S. Senate
Alaska senator didn't know oil company paid bills, lawyer argues
Story Highlights
NEW: Defense attorney said Stevens thought he had paid for renovations
NEW: Sen. Kennedy will be called as a character witness, Stevens' lawyer says
Prosecutor: Sen. Ted Stevens a crafty politician who learned how to hide gifts
Stevens faces charges of failing to report gifts from oil services company
Read VIDEO
From Paul Courson
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican on trial for corruption charges, did not know that an oil company was paying for improvements on his home, Stevens' defense attorney contended in opening statements Thursday.
An artist sketch shows Sen. Ted Stevens' lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, gesturing towards his client.
1 of 2 Stevens is fighting a seven-count indictment accusing him of filing false information on mandatory Senate financial disclosure forms.
Prosecutors say he failed to report gifts and services of substantial value, including improvements to his Alaska home, from oil services contractor Veco Energy, one of the state's biggest employers.
What started as "a one-story, A-frame cabin doubled in size and became a new home from basically the inside out," prosecutor Brenda Morris said in her opening statement.
Stevens thought he had paid in full for the extensive renovations, said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney, but had been deceived by Bill Allen, a former Alaska businessman who is one of the key witnesses against the senator. Watch why Stevens is on trial »
Allen pleaded guilty in May 2007 to handing out more than $400,000 "in corrupt payments" to Alaska officials, not including Stevens, the Department of Justice said in announcing the Stevens' indictment in July.
Allen is cooperating with the Department of Justice as part of his plea agreement.
Allen arranged for some bills to be kept from Stevens, who had been "promptly" paying the bills he had received, Sullivan contended.
That meant Stevens could not be held responsible for failing to declare gifts, the crime of which he is accused, Sullivan said.
"You can't report what you don't know," Sullivan said.
"They did pay, overall, $160,000 for this renovation project," Sullivan said of Stevens and his wife, Catherine, "which you will find from the evidence is exactly or closely what it should have been."
Don't Miss
Veteran senator's future on the line at trial
Heavyweights could testify in Stevens trial
Indicted senator wins Alaska GOP primary
But Morris said Stevens had learned how to hide such gifts during the decades he has spent in the Senate, according to The Associated Press.
Morris also charged that Stevens has thumbed his nose at the public's right to know about the gifts, the AP reported.
"You do not survive politics in this town for that long without being very, very smart; very, very deliberate; very forceful and, at the same time, knowing how to fly under the radar," Morris told jurors, the AP reported.
The defense rejected the prosecution's claims.
"Ted Stevens had no intent to violate the law. He did file accurate statements to the best of his knowledge," Sullivan said.
He said the jury will see evidence that Stevens' payments for the renovations "exactly or closely what it should have been."
Morris told the jury Stevens used Veco as a handyman contractor, requesting maintenance on the renovated home.
"We reach for the Yellow Pages," she said. "He reached for Veco."
Stevens is not charged with receiving bribes, although prosecutors allege in the indictment that the senator "could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of Veco."
Stevens hopes to clear his name by November in time for voters to decide whether to re-elect him. He has continued to campaign since his July 29 indictment.
The judge will allow Stevens to be absent from the courtroom in the weeks ahead if Stevens needs to vote on Senate financial bailout legislation. He has asked defense lawyers not to emphasize his possible absence from the courtroom during the trial.
The federal courthouse is a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
District Judge Emmet Sullivan warned defense lawyers Wednesday not to use their client's absence to win favor.
"You are not to give the appearance that 'I'm not here because of the business of the people,' the judge said. "Of course, that's a double-edged sword," Sullivan said, referring to troubled efforts to come up with a government bailout plan.
Prosecutors allege that Stevens received more than $250,000 worth of gifts, including a new first floor, garage and deck on his home; a new Land Rover that was exchanged for an older car; and a gas grill.
A sculpture of fish swimming upstream may also come up in testimony, which is said to be worth $29,000. Prosecutors have told the judge "it's a very large statue sitting on his front porch" at the senator's home in Alaska.
Stevens is an avid fisherman. His attorneys have said the sculpture belongs to a foundation that is planning to create a Stevens congressional library.
The jury was seated Wednesday and consists of 11 women and five men.
All 16 will hear the case, with four serving as alternates. Their status will not be disclosed until the end of the trial.
Sullivan also said he planned to call Sen. Edward Kennedy, the veteran Massachusetts Democrat, as a character witness.
Kennedy's office did not comment when contacted by CNN.
Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, are among the prospective witnesses in the trial, according to a list read to the jury pool Monday as part of finding a qualified panel.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is among the more than 200 names on the list. Jury members were asked whether they recognized any of the names. Those selected to serve in the Stevens jury had said they did not know any of the people personally.
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Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
All About Ted Stevens • U.S. Senate
updated 11:18 a.m. EDT, Sat September 22, 2007 'Bridge to nowhere' abandoned
updated 11:18 a.m. EDT, Sat September 22, 2007 'Bridge to nowhere' abandoned
Story Highlights
Bridge to small Alaska island had drawn criticism as "pork"
Funds short for bridge, so money to be redirected, governor says
Money could be used to upgrade ferries or roads, officials say
Next Article in U.S. »
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Some called it a bridge to the future. Others called it the bridge to nowhere.
The canceled bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on the left, with Gravina Island, on the right.
On Friday, Alaska decided the bridge really was going nowhere, officially abandoning the project in Ketchikan that became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.
While the move closes a chapter that has brought the state reams of ridicule, it also leaves open wounds in a community that fought for decades to get federal help.
"We went through political hot water -- tons of it -- and not just nationally but internationally," Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Mayor Joe Williams said. "We have nothing to show for it."
The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on one island in southeastern Alaska, to its airport on another nearby island.
Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday the project was $329 million short of full funding.
"We will continue to look for options for Ketchikan to allow better access to the island," the Republican governor said. "The concentration is not going to be on a $400 million bridge."
Palin directed state transportation officials to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport. She said the best option would be to upgrade the ferry system.
Ketchikan is Alaska's entry port for northbound cruise ships that bring more than 1 million visitors yearly. Every flight into Gravina Island requires a 15-minute ferry ride to reach the more densely populated Revillagigedo Island.
The town -- seven blocks wide and eight miles long -- has little room to grow. Local officials have said access to Gravina Island, population 50, is needed for the town and its economy to grow.
They called the state's decision premature, saying it came without warning.
"For somebody who touts process and transparency in getting projects done, I'm disappointed and taken aback," said state Rep. Kyle Johansen, R-Ketchikan. "We worked 30 years to get funding for this priority project."
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, championed the project through Congress two years ago, securing more than $200 million for the bridge between Revillagigedo and Gravina islands.
Under mounting political pressure over pork projects, Congress stripped the earmark -- or stipulation -- that the money be used for the airport, but still sent the money to the state for any use it deemed appropriate.
Stevens spokesman Aaron Saunders said Friday the senator was interested in how the state ultimately used the money. A spokeswoman for Young said the congressman would have no comment.
Just last month, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said pet projects could have played a role in a Minnesota bridge collapse that killed 13 people earlier this year.
"Maybe if we had done it right, maybe some of that money would have gone to inspect those bridges and other bridges around the country," McCain told a group of people in a town-hall style meeting in Ankeny, Iowa.
"Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it."
On Friday, Leo von Scheben, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, said the bridge money could be used to build roads in Alaska.
"There is no question we desperately need to construct new roads in this state, including in southeast Alaska, where skyrocketing costs for the Alaska Marine Highway System present an impediment to the state's budget and the region's economy," von Scheben said in a statement.
The governor urged Alaskans not to dwell on the bridge.
"Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here," Palin said. "But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened." E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All About Ted Stevens • Alaska
Story Highlights
Bridge to small Alaska island had drawn criticism as "pork"
Funds short for bridge, so money to be redirected, governor says
Money could be used to upgrade ferries or roads, officials say
Next Article in U.S. »
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Some called it a bridge to the future. Others called it the bridge to nowhere.
The canceled bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on the left, with Gravina Island, on the right.
On Friday, Alaska decided the bridge really was going nowhere, officially abandoning the project in Ketchikan that became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.
While the move closes a chapter that has brought the state reams of ridicule, it also leaves open wounds in a community that fought for decades to get federal help.
"We went through political hot water -- tons of it -- and not just nationally but internationally," Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Mayor Joe Williams said. "We have nothing to show for it."
The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on one island in southeastern Alaska, to its airport on another nearby island.
Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday the project was $329 million short of full funding.
"We will continue to look for options for Ketchikan to allow better access to the island," the Republican governor said. "The concentration is not going to be on a $400 million bridge."
Palin directed state transportation officials to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport. She said the best option would be to upgrade the ferry system.
Ketchikan is Alaska's entry port for northbound cruise ships that bring more than 1 million visitors yearly. Every flight into Gravina Island requires a 15-minute ferry ride to reach the more densely populated Revillagigedo Island.
The town -- seven blocks wide and eight miles long -- has little room to grow. Local officials have said access to Gravina Island, population 50, is needed for the town and its economy to grow.
They called the state's decision premature, saying it came without warning.
"For somebody who touts process and transparency in getting projects done, I'm disappointed and taken aback," said state Rep. Kyle Johansen, R-Ketchikan. "We worked 30 years to get funding for this priority project."
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, championed the project through Congress two years ago, securing more than $200 million for the bridge between Revillagigedo and Gravina islands.
Under mounting political pressure over pork projects, Congress stripped the earmark -- or stipulation -- that the money be used for the airport, but still sent the money to the state for any use it deemed appropriate.
Stevens spokesman Aaron Saunders said Friday the senator was interested in how the state ultimately used the money. A spokeswoman for Young said the congressman would have no comment.
Just last month, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said pet projects could have played a role in a Minnesota bridge collapse that killed 13 people earlier this year.
"Maybe if we had done it right, maybe some of that money would have gone to inspect those bridges and other bridges around the country," McCain told a group of people in a town-hall style meeting in Ankeny, Iowa.
"Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it."
On Friday, Leo von Scheben, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, said the bridge money could be used to build roads in Alaska.
"There is no question we desperately need to construct new roads in this state, including in southeast Alaska, where skyrocketing costs for the Alaska Marine Highway System present an impediment to the state's budget and the region's economy," von Scheben said in a statement.
The governor urged Alaskans not to dwell on the bridge.
"Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here," Palin said. "But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened." E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All About Ted Stevens • Alaska
Fact Check: McCain-lobbyist connections
Fact Check: McCain-lobbyist connections
Story Highlights
Barack Obama asserts that John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't mavericks
Obama campaign cites McCain's use of lobbyists in his campaign
McCain manager Rick Davis, adviser Charlie Black were top lobbyists in D.C.
Obama's case could be undermined by Joe Biden's lobbying ties
Read VIDEO
From Ed Henry
CNN White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republicans say Sen. John McCain and his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, are mavericks. But in a new ad, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign says not so fast -- they're no maverick reformers.
Sen. John McCain has been criticized for employing top lobbyists in his campaign.
And it's a point that Obama has been making on the campaign trail in recent days.
"John McCain says that he is going to tell all those lobbyists in Washington that their days of running Washington are over, which sounds pretty good until you discover that seven of his top campaign managers and officials are -- guess what? -- former corporate lobbyists," Obama said recently in Flint, Michigan.
It's true: Seven top McCain officials were lobbyists, though the campaign stresses that none is currently registered to lobby Congress:
• One: Campaign manager Rick Davis is a major telecommunications lobbyist.
• Two: Senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann recently faced scrutiny over his foreign lobbying on behalf of the Republic of Georgia, which has been embroiled in a military conflict with Russia.
• Three: Senior adviser Charlie Black was a foreign lobbyist for dictators in Zaire and Angola in the 1980s, fodder for the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Don't Miss
McCain is just part of Washington crowd, Dems say
McCain: I work for you
Election Center 2008
One of the group's recent ads charged, "Charlie Black said he didn't do anything wrong. John McCain should tell Black he did. Call John McCain and tell him to fire Charlie Black." Watch the Republicans' ad calling McCain-Palin mavericks »
• Four: Frank Donatelli, the Republican National Committee's liaison to the McCain campaign, has had clients including Exxon Mobil.
• Five: Economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has lobbied for corporate giants like Koch Industries.
"Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have challenged special interests, challenged their own party. That's the test of courage," Pfotenhauer has said.
• The final two lobbyists are McCain's congressional liaison, John Green, and national finance Co-chairman Wayne Berman. They both lobbied for Fannie Mae, the troubled mortgage giant.
But Obama's case could be undermined by running mate Sen. Joe Biden's close ties to lobbyists, including his son Hunter, who has worked for credit card giant MBNA.
Biden insists that his son's employment had nothing to do with his support of bankruptcy legislation backed by the bank. Watch Palin criticize Biden's change argument »
"I can look you right straight in the eye and guarantee you my son has never, ever, ever lobbied me," Biden said on CNN's "American Morning" on September 4.
The McCain camp stresses that Donatelli and Berman are technically not officials of the campaign, though they are advisers.
But the bottom line is, both sides have ties to lobbyists, meaning whomever wins will have a hard time backing up the rhetoric about change and shaking up Washington.
Story Highlights
Barack Obama asserts that John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't mavericks
Obama campaign cites McCain's use of lobbyists in his campaign
McCain manager Rick Davis, adviser Charlie Black were top lobbyists in D.C.
Obama's case could be undermined by Joe Biden's lobbying ties
Read VIDEO
From Ed Henry
CNN White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republicans say Sen. John McCain and his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, are mavericks. But in a new ad, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign says not so fast -- they're no maverick reformers.
Sen. John McCain has been criticized for employing top lobbyists in his campaign.
And it's a point that Obama has been making on the campaign trail in recent days.
"John McCain says that he is going to tell all those lobbyists in Washington that their days of running Washington are over, which sounds pretty good until you discover that seven of his top campaign managers and officials are -- guess what? -- former corporate lobbyists," Obama said recently in Flint, Michigan.
It's true: Seven top McCain officials were lobbyists, though the campaign stresses that none is currently registered to lobby Congress:
• One: Campaign manager Rick Davis is a major telecommunications lobbyist.
• Two: Senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann recently faced scrutiny over his foreign lobbying on behalf of the Republic of Georgia, which has been embroiled in a military conflict with Russia.
• Three: Senior adviser Charlie Black was a foreign lobbyist for dictators in Zaire and Angola in the 1980s, fodder for the liberal group MoveOn.org.
Don't Miss
McCain is just part of Washington crowd, Dems say
McCain: I work for you
Election Center 2008
One of the group's recent ads charged, "Charlie Black said he didn't do anything wrong. John McCain should tell Black he did. Call John McCain and tell him to fire Charlie Black." Watch the Republicans' ad calling McCain-Palin mavericks »
• Four: Frank Donatelli, the Republican National Committee's liaison to the McCain campaign, has had clients including Exxon Mobil.
• Five: Economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has lobbied for corporate giants like Koch Industries.
"Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have challenged special interests, challenged their own party. That's the test of courage," Pfotenhauer has said.
• The final two lobbyists are McCain's congressional liaison, John Green, and national finance Co-chairman Wayne Berman. They both lobbied for Fannie Mae, the troubled mortgage giant.
But Obama's case could be undermined by running mate Sen. Joe Biden's close ties to lobbyists, including his son Hunter, who has worked for credit card giant MBNA.
Biden insists that his son's employment had nothing to do with his support of bankruptcy legislation backed by the bank. Watch Palin criticize Biden's change argument »
"I can look you right straight in the eye and guarantee you my son has never, ever, ever lobbied me," Biden said on CNN's "American Morning" on September 4.
The McCain camp stresses that Donatelli and Berman are technically not officials of the campaign, though they are advisers.
But the bottom line is, both sides have ties to lobbyists, meaning whomever wins will have a hard time backing up the rhetoric about change and shaking up Washington.
Rhetorical Sophism From Both Candidates and Both Parties
If there is one thing that has become predictable in the race to the election finish line, it is this: that you can't trust the reliability of the information in the negative ads -- or the negative speeches -- coming from either party. Politics has not changed; it's still a mud fight.
Once one party starts throwing mud, they both do. Personally, I think most of it started at The American Republican Convention -- or at least this is where the real escalation of 'negative campaigning' started. Plus the 'idealistic stereotyping of Sarah Palin with rhetorical information from Alaska that has turned out to be significantly less than 'true' or 'factual'. We don't hear too many Republicans talking about the 'Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere' anymore.
The fight for the 'anti-lobbyist' vote has deteriorated. Let's face it: Both parties and both candidates interact and make deals with lobbyists. I still think that Obama is the most likely candidate of the two to change the face of lobbying in Washington. He started his campaign asserting that he would change the face of lobbyism in Washington. The Republicans only jumped on this 'Democratic, Anti-Lobbyism Horse' at their Convention. Palin was supposed to be the 'new Republican face of change and anti-lobbyism' in Washington. However, many of her claims about how she handled lobbyists and Washington as Governor of Alaska -- in particular her 'thanks but no thanks' story about 'turning her back on Washinton money' has collaped -- it would seem that from what I can gather from CNN and other intenet reports, that Palin received Federal money from Washington for both a 'bridge to nowhere' and a 'road to nowhere' which is a far cry from the self-idealistic claims she made at the Republican Convention...
So what conclusions can we draw from what has been stated here?
Firstly, at least a significant part of 'the bloom seems to have come off of the rose' of Obama's 'new brand of idealistic politics' in the wake of Republican negative advertisement and speech attacks on Obama that have significantly distorted and 'negatively stereotyped' Obama's character and campaign promises (such as the Republican claim that Obama will raise taxes for the middle and lower classes which is not true) -- and Obama returning this same kind of 'negative rhetorical sophism' against the Republicans such as some of his 'lobbyism claims' against McCain...
At the same time, 'the bloom seems to have come off the rose of Sarah Palin' even faster than it has with Obama...
Several of the articles that I have copied off the internet address some of the 'factual vs. sophist' claims that have 'clouded the American campaign race'....
-- dgb, 26th, 2008.
Once one party starts throwing mud, they both do. Personally, I think most of it started at The American Republican Convention -- or at least this is where the real escalation of 'negative campaigning' started. Plus the 'idealistic stereotyping of Sarah Palin with rhetorical information from Alaska that has turned out to be significantly less than 'true' or 'factual'. We don't hear too many Republicans talking about the 'Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere' anymore.
The fight for the 'anti-lobbyist' vote has deteriorated. Let's face it: Both parties and both candidates interact and make deals with lobbyists. I still think that Obama is the most likely candidate of the two to change the face of lobbying in Washington. He started his campaign asserting that he would change the face of lobbyism in Washington. The Republicans only jumped on this 'Democratic, Anti-Lobbyism Horse' at their Convention. Palin was supposed to be the 'new Republican face of change and anti-lobbyism' in Washington. However, many of her claims about how she handled lobbyists and Washington as Governor of Alaska -- in particular her 'thanks but no thanks' story about 'turning her back on Washinton money' has collaped -- it would seem that from what I can gather from CNN and other intenet reports, that Palin received Federal money from Washington for both a 'bridge to nowhere' and a 'road to nowhere' which is a far cry from the self-idealistic claims she made at the Republican Convention...
So what conclusions can we draw from what has been stated here?
Firstly, at least a significant part of 'the bloom seems to have come off of the rose' of Obama's 'new brand of idealistic politics' in the wake of Republican negative advertisement and speech attacks on Obama that have significantly distorted and 'negatively stereotyped' Obama's character and campaign promises (such as the Republican claim that Obama will raise taxes for the middle and lower classes which is not true) -- and Obama returning this same kind of 'negative rhetorical sophism' against the Republicans such as some of his 'lobbyism claims' against McCain...
At the same time, 'the bloom seems to have come off the rose of Sarah Palin' even faster than it has with Obama...
Several of the articles that I have copied off the internet address some of the 'factual vs. sophist' claims that have 'clouded the American campaign race'....
-- dgb, 26th, 2008.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Five Former Secretaries of State Cite Key Issues for Next President
Five Former Secretaries of State Cite Key Issues for Next President
Posted Tuesday, September 16 2008 12:53:29 am
Amanpour and Sesno moderated the round table discussion, scheduled to air on CNN.
Photos by Shameek Patel
By Marissa Moran
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Five former U.S. secretaries of state agreed that the next president should work to better engage America in the global community at a televised panel in Lisner Auditorium on Monday afternoon.
CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour and GW Professor Frank Sesno, a CNN special correspondent and former Washington bureau chief moderated the round table discussion of Madeleine K. Albright, James A. Baker III, Warren Christopher, Henry A. Kissinger, and Colin L. Powell for a CNN broadcast entitled “The Next President: A World of Challenges.”
In an extremely competitive presidential election season, and one highly scrutinized by the press, Amanpour and Sesno looked for substantial, issue-based conversation among the secretaries instead of partisan debate. Amanpour opened by telling the secretaries that they should give “candid, robust, meat and potatoes advice for the next president, whoever that may be.”
Colin Powell responded first by saying that in his first duty as commander in chief, the president must “restore a sense of confidence in the U.S.”
“We must let friends and allies around the world know we are supporting their work in unison,” said Powell, who served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. He said that, as Americans, we “should have confidence in ourselves and in the rest of the world” and that we must convey this strong image to the global community, a large part of which currently views America less than favorably because of interventionist policies abroad.
Madeleine Albright drew laughs from the audience at the beginning of the discussion, saying that if she greeted the newly elected president at his Inaugural Ball, she would say, “Remember that you wanted this job.”
Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, stressed that the international problems facing the world can only be solved by cooperation between the U.S. and other countries.
“To work with other countries is a sign of strength,” she said.
Though the secretaries agreed that restoration of America's image abroad is essential, some differed on what the next president's top priority will be. Christopher, who served immediately before Albright under President Clinton, said that the primary issue that the new president must work on is the economy, while Baker, President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, argued that the president must "structure the national security apparatus," making clear the lines of its responsibility. Baker also encouraged "strengthening the elements of American soft power" for the new president's foreign policy.
However, for the U.S. to effectively interact with the rest of the world, Kissinger stressed that the next president should reach a consensus among his principle advisers so as to avoid the "jockeying of position among various advisers." According to Kissinger, who was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and also assistant to the president for national security affairs from 1969 to 1975, once there is unity in the next administration then the U.S. could invite the rest of the world to partake in foreign policy.
The five former secretaries walked on stage to a standing ovation from a sold-out audience of 1,400, which included GW students, members of the press, and more than 80 foreign dignitaries. Tickets for the event sold out within an hour of their release nearly two weeks ago, according to GW Media Relations.
When Amanpour asked for three key points that the president must do to regain the American image abroad, Baker said that he must use American diplomatic, political, and economic elements to the country’s advantage. Albright said that there is “generally a sense that the U.S. is on the wrong side” in world politics, and that many think that the “growing gap between the rich and the poor” is in part due to the U.S.
“We have to have confidence and also humility,” said Albright, who is presently the principle of The Albright Group, LLC, a global strategy firm. “It’s not easy in that office, admitting to the American people that he needs help….He needs to realize that when he’s talking to the American people, he’s (also) talking to a foreign audience.”
Christopher said that his suggestions for the president to regain respect would be to outlaw torture and become a global leader in the climate change crisis. His colleagues agreed with him about outlawing torture and further suggested the shut down of Guantanamo Bay.
When Sesno asked if the current U.S. economic problems would lead to a global recession, Baker said that the situation “will affect the global economy negatively.” Albright said that on an international level, “it doesn’t matter if we’re popular but it does matter if we’re respected and whether other countries want to work with us.”
Powell, who contributed a great deal to the discussion, said in response to Sesno’s inquiry about American policy toward “this” Russia that the new administration must “deal with the Russians in a straightforward, candid way, not emotionally. We have to treat Russia as a proud country with popular political leadership.”
As for relations with Iran, Kissinger also said that the U.S. must be upfront and honest.
“I always believe the best way to begin a negotiation is to tell the other side exactly what you have in mind and the outcome you’re trying to achieve.”
The conversation covered issues of foreign aid, the war in Afghanistan, relations with Pakistan, and a Middle East peace agreement. On the question of U.S. engagement or isolation with the rest of the world, all the secretaries agreed that engagement is the best route. As for the war in Iraq, both Christopher and Powell agreed that the number one priority of the new president will be to encourage the Iraqi government to reach a political reconciliation.
At the end of the event, several GW students from the audience asked questions of the former secretaries of state. The first student, from Greenwich, Conn., asked what message they thought the potential election of the first African-American president would send to the rest of the world. Albright said that she thought it would send a great message abroad, and she was thus supporting Sen. Barack Obama as the presidential nominee.
Sesno then asked Colin Powell, the first African-American secretary of state, what he thought.
“I am an American first and foremost,” said Powell, eliciting a wild cheer from the audience. But he declared that he is “neutral” right now, knowing both the democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama and the republican candidate, Sen. John McCain very well.
“We have to get off this ‘lipstick on a pig’ stuff and get to the serious issues,” he said, criticizing the media’s “celebrity” hype surrounding the campaigns. Powell said he is waiting to watch the upcoming debates to make his final decision of whom to support.
“I’m not going to vote for McCain because he’s a friend. I’m not going to vote for Obama because he’s black,” he continued. “Who’s going to keep us safer? Who brings the best judgment and experience to the task?”
The broadcast of the roundtable discussion will air on CNN on Saturday, September 20 at 9 p.m. and on Sunday, September 21 at 2 p.m. EST.
Posted Tuesday, September 16 2008 12:53:29 am
Amanpour and Sesno moderated the round table discussion, scheduled to air on CNN.
Photos by Shameek Patel
By Marissa Moran
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Five former U.S. secretaries of state agreed that the next president should work to better engage America in the global community at a televised panel in Lisner Auditorium on Monday afternoon.
CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour and GW Professor Frank Sesno, a CNN special correspondent and former Washington bureau chief moderated the round table discussion of Madeleine K. Albright, James A. Baker III, Warren Christopher, Henry A. Kissinger, and Colin L. Powell for a CNN broadcast entitled “The Next President: A World of Challenges.”
In an extremely competitive presidential election season, and one highly scrutinized by the press, Amanpour and Sesno looked for substantial, issue-based conversation among the secretaries instead of partisan debate. Amanpour opened by telling the secretaries that they should give “candid, robust, meat and potatoes advice for the next president, whoever that may be.”
Colin Powell responded first by saying that in his first duty as commander in chief, the president must “restore a sense of confidence in the U.S.”
“We must let friends and allies around the world know we are supporting their work in unison,” said Powell, who served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. He said that, as Americans, we “should have confidence in ourselves and in the rest of the world” and that we must convey this strong image to the global community, a large part of which currently views America less than favorably because of interventionist policies abroad.
Madeleine Albright drew laughs from the audience at the beginning of the discussion, saying that if she greeted the newly elected president at his Inaugural Ball, she would say, “Remember that you wanted this job.”
Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, stressed that the international problems facing the world can only be solved by cooperation between the U.S. and other countries.
“To work with other countries is a sign of strength,” she said.
Though the secretaries agreed that restoration of America's image abroad is essential, some differed on what the next president's top priority will be. Christopher, who served immediately before Albright under President Clinton, said that the primary issue that the new president must work on is the economy, while Baker, President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, argued that the president must "structure the national security apparatus," making clear the lines of its responsibility. Baker also encouraged "strengthening the elements of American soft power" for the new president's foreign policy.
However, for the U.S. to effectively interact with the rest of the world, Kissinger stressed that the next president should reach a consensus among his principle advisers so as to avoid the "jockeying of position among various advisers." According to Kissinger, who was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and also assistant to the president for national security affairs from 1969 to 1975, once there is unity in the next administration then the U.S. could invite the rest of the world to partake in foreign policy.
The five former secretaries walked on stage to a standing ovation from a sold-out audience of 1,400, which included GW students, members of the press, and more than 80 foreign dignitaries. Tickets for the event sold out within an hour of their release nearly two weeks ago, according to GW Media Relations.
When Amanpour asked for three key points that the president must do to regain the American image abroad, Baker said that he must use American diplomatic, political, and economic elements to the country’s advantage. Albright said that there is “generally a sense that the U.S. is on the wrong side” in world politics, and that many think that the “growing gap between the rich and the poor” is in part due to the U.S.
“We have to have confidence and also humility,” said Albright, who is presently the principle of The Albright Group, LLC, a global strategy firm. “It’s not easy in that office, admitting to the American people that he needs help….He needs to realize that when he’s talking to the American people, he’s (also) talking to a foreign audience.”
Christopher said that his suggestions for the president to regain respect would be to outlaw torture and become a global leader in the climate change crisis. His colleagues agreed with him about outlawing torture and further suggested the shut down of Guantanamo Bay.
When Sesno asked if the current U.S. economic problems would lead to a global recession, Baker said that the situation “will affect the global economy negatively.” Albright said that on an international level, “it doesn’t matter if we’re popular but it does matter if we’re respected and whether other countries want to work with us.”
Powell, who contributed a great deal to the discussion, said in response to Sesno’s inquiry about American policy toward “this” Russia that the new administration must “deal with the Russians in a straightforward, candid way, not emotionally. We have to treat Russia as a proud country with popular political leadership.”
As for relations with Iran, Kissinger also said that the U.S. must be upfront and honest.
“I always believe the best way to begin a negotiation is to tell the other side exactly what you have in mind and the outcome you’re trying to achieve.”
The conversation covered issues of foreign aid, the war in Afghanistan, relations with Pakistan, and a Middle East peace agreement. On the question of U.S. engagement or isolation with the rest of the world, all the secretaries agreed that engagement is the best route. As for the war in Iraq, both Christopher and Powell agreed that the number one priority of the new president will be to encourage the Iraqi government to reach a political reconciliation.
At the end of the event, several GW students from the audience asked questions of the former secretaries of state. The first student, from Greenwich, Conn., asked what message they thought the potential election of the first African-American president would send to the rest of the world. Albright said that she thought it would send a great message abroad, and she was thus supporting Sen. Barack Obama as the presidential nominee.
Sesno then asked Colin Powell, the first African-American secretary of state, what he thought.
“I am an American first and foremost,” said Powell, eliciting a wild cheer from the audience. But he declared that he is “neutral” right now, knowing both the democratic candidate, Sen. Barack Obama and the republican candidate, Sen. John McCain very well.
“We have to get off this ‘lipstick on a pig’ stuff and get to the serious issues,” he said, criticizing the media’s “celebrity” hype surrounding the campaigns. Powell said he is waiting to watch the upcoming debates to make his final decision of whom to support.
“I’m not going to vote for McCain because he’s a friend. I’m not going to vote for Obama because he’s black,” he continued. “Who’s going to keep us safer? Who brings the best judgment and experience to the task?”
The broadcast of the roundtable discussion will air on CNN on Saturday, September 20 at 9 p.m. and on Sunday, September 21 at 2 p.m. EST.
Programming note: "The Next President: A World of Challenges" airs Saturday night at 9 p.m. ET and again Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
Programming note: "The Next President: A World of Challenges" airs Saturday night at 9 p.m. ET and again Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Five former secretaries of state from both parties Monday discussed how they would advise the next president on a wide range of foreign policy, including relations with Russia, Iran and the Middle East.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.
"I would advise the president to fully engage with Syria," former Secretary of State James Baker said at a George Washington University forum co-sponsored by CNN. "I think it's ridiculous for us to say we're not going to talk to Syria, and yet the Israelis have been negotiating peace with them for the last six or eight months." Baker served under President George H.W. Bush.
(The full comments will air on "The Next President: A World of Challenges" this Saturday night at 9 p.m. ET and again Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.)
Baker, who has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, appeared with former Clinton secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher; Henry Kissinger, who served under Nixon and Ford; and former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. Albright has been an active supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
Powell, who said he has not decided which candidate to back this year, said Monday the election of an African-American president "would be electrifying, but at the same time [I have to] make a judgment here on which would be best for America."
As the former diplomats urged a cautious approach in the conflict between Russia and Georgia, Powell seemed to take a swipe at McCain's tough criticism of Moscow.
"Some debate in the presidential elections has basically been, 'We are all Georgians now,' " said CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. "What does that mean? It's the same as was said after 9/11."
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Responded Powell, "One candidate said that, and I'll let the candidate explain it for himself." Pressed to explain his response, the retired general said the crisis called for caution.
"The fact of the matter is that you have to be very careful in a situation like this not just to leap to one side or the other until you take a good analysis of the whole situation....
"The Russian Federation is not going to become the Soviet Union again. That movie failed at the box office. But they do have interests. And we have to think carefully about their interests."
When the crisis began in early August, the Obama campaign called "for all sides to show restraint and to stop this armed conflict," echoing the statements from the White House and the European Union.
Kissinger told the panel the United States needs "Russia for resolution of the Iranian problem. We may need Russia if Pakistan evolves in some of the directions that it might."
"I would urge the new president, as I'm urging this president, to explore the possibilities of cooperation and be very sure before we go the route of cutting off WTO [World Trade Organization] and the other international measures for which cooperation with Russia may be very important," he said.
Baker said the U.S. needs to cooperate with Russia "where we can, where it makes sense, but we ought to also be willing to confront them where our vital interests are involved. We are committed to the independence of these former republics of the former Soviet Union."
The former secretaries of state also focused their attention on talks with Iran. The Bush administration joined the other members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, France, China and Russia, along with Germany -- in offering Iran a set of political and economic incentives similar to the ones North Korea was given in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment program.
But the United States has refused to sit down with Iran until that suspension takes place.
"When I was in office, we had a standing policy with the Iranians. We were ready to talk to them, provided it would be done at an official level, at the level of the secretary of state, and they did -- they wouldn't -- they didn't have enough domestic political support for that," Baker said.
Kissinger added: "Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we -- we know we're dealing with authentic."
Albright told the panel that she doesn't think the United States understands Iranian society and that could be a problem in dealing with the nation.
"It is not monolithic. There are various aspects of the fact that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is not particularly popular. There are economic issues. And the more that we go around vilifying them, we create -- put him a stronger position. And so not only should we do these steps that the others have been talking about, but we have to make sure that we're not undercutting what we want to do by creating a bigger problem than we have."
Christopher said checking the authenticity of the negotiations is a key factor.
"I think the first thing you do when you've got a message from the Iranians is to find out whether it's authentic or not," he said. "Then, I think you have to move forward. ... We can't be complacent about the nuclear possibilities in Iran, but nevertheless we cannot afford not to have a comprehensive dialogue to see if it can be stopped because, frankly, the military options here are very, very poor."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Five former secretaries of state from both parties Monday discussed how they would advise the next president on a wide range of foreign policy, including relations with Russia, Iran and the Middle East.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.
"I would advise the president to fully engage with Syria," former Secretary of State James Baker said at a George Washington University forum co-sponsored by CNN. "I think it's ridiculous for us to say we're not going to talk to Syria, and yet the Israelis have been negotiating peace with them for the last six or eight months." Baker served under President George H.W. Bush.
(The full comments will air on "The Next President: A World of Challenges" this Saturday night at 9 p.m. ET and again Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.)
Baker, who has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, appeared with former Clinton secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher; Henry Kissinger, who served under Nixon and Ford; and former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. Albright has been an active supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
Powell, who said he has not decided which candidate to back this year, said Monday the election of an African-American president "would be electrifying, but at the same time [I have to] make a judgment here on which would be best for America."
As the former diplomats urged a cautious approach in the conflict between Russia and Georgia, Powell seemed to take a swipe at McCain's tough criticism of Moscow.
"Some debate in the presidential elections has basically been, 'We are all Georgians now,' " said CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. "What does that mean? It's the same as was said after 9/11."
Don't Miss
Powell says Obama win would be 'electrifying'
Putin: Russia had to invade Georgia
U.S. cancels nuclear deal with Russia
Responded Powell, "One candidate said that, and I'll let the candidate explain it for himself." Pressed to explain his response, the retired general said the crisis called for caution.
"The fact of the matter is that you have to be very careful in a situation like this not just to leap to one side or the other until you take a good analysis of the whole situation....
"The Russian Federation is not going to become the Soviet Union again. That movie failed at the box office. But they do have interests. And we have to think carefully about their interests."
When the crisis began in early August, the Obama campaign called "for all sides to show restraint and to stop this armed conflict," echoing the statements from the White House and the European Union.
Kissinger told the panel the United States needs "Russia for resolution of the Iranian problem. We may need Russia if Pakistan evolves in some of the directions that it might."
"I would urge the new president, as I'm urging this president, to explore the possibilities of cooperation and be very sure before we go the route of cutting off WTO [World Trade Organization] and the other international measures for which cooperation with Russia may be very important," he said.
Baker said the U.S. needs to cooperate with Russia "where we can, where it makes sense, but we ought to also be willing to confront them where our vital interests are involved. We are committed to the independence of these former republics of the former Soviet Union."
The former secretaries of state also focused their attention on talks with Iran. The Bush administration joined the other members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, France, China and Russia, along with Germany -- in offering Iran a set of political and economic incentives similar to the ones North Korea was given in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment program.
But the United States has refused to sit down with Iran until that suspension takes place.
"When I was in office, we had a standing policy with the Iranians. We were ready to talk to them, provided it would be done at an official level, at the level of the secretary of state, and they did -- they wouldn't -- they didn't have enough domestic political support for that," Baker said.
Kissinger added: "Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we -- we know we're dealing with authentic."
Albright told the panel that she doesn't think the United States understands Iranian society and that could be a problem in dealing with the nation.
"It is not monolithic. There are various aspects of the fact that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is not particularly popular. There are economic issues. And the more that we go around vilifying them, we create -- put him a stronger position. And so not only should we do these steps that the others have been talking about, but we have to make sure that we're not undercutting what we want to do by creating a bigger problem than we have."
Christopher said checking the authenticity of the negotiations is a key factor.
"I think the first thing you do when you've got a message from the Iranians is to find out whether it's authentic or not," he said. "Then, I think you have to move forward. ... We can't be complacent about the nuclear possibilities in Iran, but nevertheless we cannot afford not to have a comprehensive dialogue to see if it can be stopped because, frankly, the military options here are very, very poor."
Frank Sesno | BIO
Frank Sesno | BIO
CNN Special Correspondent
There we were, sitting alongside five people who had made history and shaped American foreign policy for nearly four decades. Vietnam and détente. Hot war with Iraq and Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mideast peace conferences and arms control. Kosovo and Iran. Rwanda and Iraq. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the scourge of drought, poverty and AIDS in the developing world. Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell. Five former American Secretaries of State. The conversation was remarkable for its candor, depth and realism.
We gathered at the George Washington University, where I teach, to talk about the challenges facing the next American president. Christiane Amanpour brought her experience and hard edge to the questioning. The list of challenges we asked about was daunting– from big global issues like climate change and poverty to decisions about how to deal with the new, more assertive Russia, how to handle Iraq and Afghanistan, whether to reach out to Iran, how to fight terrorism and fix America’s tattered image in the world.
Here’s what the secretaries’ bottom line was: get over it. Get real. Be smart. The world is a complicated place. America has to lead. Play down the ideology, they seemed to say, and approach the world rationally and with perspective. Imagine that.
They didn’t agree on everything but the points of consensus were striking – and refreshing, far from the attack soundbites of the campaign and the seductively quick-fix ideas we often hear from politicians and pundits. In fact, on more than one issue, it was clear that this conversation could not possibly take place in the hothouse of the campaign. Poll-driven comments and rapid reaction war rooms ready to pounce prevent candidates from admitting mistakes or embracing the nuance of the real world – even though it’s the real world in which we live.
Some of their suggestions were practical and incremental, some would be big departures from where we are today.
It’s time to engage Iran, the Secretaries said. Drop the preconditions and the political posturing. “The whole point is you try to … deal with countries that you have problems with.” said Madeleine Albright, who tried to pursue an opening with Iran when she was in office. From across the aisle, James Baker agreed. His advice to the next president: “You ought to engage.”
Engage the whole world, really. The secretaries agreed America’s image is a mess. And they laid out three things the next president should do to start to fix it: close Guantanamo, end torture and take the lead on climate change.
On Russia, the message was similarly realistic. Georgia fired the first shot in that little August war, they reminded us. Not to excuse it, or suggest Russia’s a benevolent, democratic place. Keep the pressure on. Make Russia feel international scorn. But keep perspective. Don’t overreact. “We need Russia for a solution of the Iranian problem,” said Henry Kissinger, father of détente. “We may need Russia if Pakistan evolves in some of the directions that it might… It is helpful to cooperate with Russia, not just on the proliferation question, but on the issues of energy.” His bottom line: “This Russia is not democratic, but is also not– what it was before.” Colin Powell said keep the strategic picture in mind. “The Russian Federation is not gonna become the Soviet Union again.”
One of the most poignant discussions was about ‘soft power,’ those activities we do in the world that make don’t often attract headlines – development assistance, humanitarian aid, educational and cultural exchanges, that kind of thing. We need a lot more of it, they all said. Former Secretary of State Baker brought it home with a simple comparison. America has fewer people in the foreign service today, he said, than serve on one aircraft carrier. That’s got to change.
It was a challenge to the next president, who will face a world of them.
18 Comments
Filed under: Frank Sesno • The Next President: A World of Challenges
CNN Special Correspondent
There we were, sitting alongside five people who had made history and shaped American foreign policy for nearly four decades. Vietnam and détente. Hot war with Iraq and Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mideast peace conferences and arms control. Kosovo and Iran. Rwanda and Iraq. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the scourge of drought, poverty and AIDS in the developing world. Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell. Five former American Secretaries of State. The conversation was remarkable for its candor, depth and realism.
We gathered at the George Washington University, where I teach, to talk about the challenges facing the next American president. Christiane Amanpour brought her experience and hard edge to the questioning. The list of challenges we asked about was daunting– from big global issues like climate change and poverty to decisions about how to deal with the new, more assertive Russia, how to handle Iraq and Afghanistan, whether to reach out to Iran, how to fight terrorism and fix America’s tattered image in the world.
Here’s what the secretaries’ bottom line was: get over it. Get real. Be smart. The world is a complicated place. America has to lead. Play down the ideology, they seemed to say, and approach the world rationally and with perspective. Imagine that.
They didn’t agree on everything but the points of consensus were striking – and refreshing, far from the attack soundbites of the campaign and the seductively quick-fix ideas we often hear from politicians and pundits. In fact, on more than one issue, it was clear that this conversation could not possibly take place in the hothouse of the campaign. Poll-driven comments and rapid reaction war rooms ready to pounce prevent candidates from admitting mistakes or embracing the nuance of the real world – even though it’s the real world in which we live.
Some of their suggestions were practical and incremental, some would be big departures from where we are today.
It’s time to engage Iran, the Secretaries said. Drop the preconditions and the political posturing. “The whole point is you try to … deal with countries that you have problems with.” said Madeleine Albright, who tried to pursue an opening with Iran when she was in office. From across the aisle, James Baker agreed. His advice to the next president: “You ought to engage.”
Engage the whole world, really. The secretaries agreed America’s image is a mess. And they laid out three things the next president should do to start to fix it: close Guantanamo, end torture and take the lead on climate change.
On Russia, the message was similarly realistic. Georgia fired the first shot in that little August war, they reminded us. Not to excuse it, or suggest Russia’s a benevolent, democratic place. Keep the pressure on. Make Russia feel international scorn. But keep perspective. Don’t overreact. “We need Russia for a solution of the Iranian problem,” said Henry Kissinger, father of détente. “We may need Russia if Pakistan evolves in some of the directions that it might… It is helpful to cooperate with Russia, not just on the proliferation question, but on the issues of energy.” His bottom line: “This Russia is not democratic, but is also not– what it was before.” Colin Powell said keep the strategic picture in mind. “The Russian Federation is not gonna become the Soviet Union again.”
One of the most poignant discussions was about ‘soft power,’ those activities we do in the world that make don’t often attract headlines – development assistance, humanitarian aid, educational and cultural exchanges, that kind of thing. We need a lot more of it, they all said. Former Secretary of State Baker brought it home with a simple comparison. America has fewer people in the foreign service today, he said, than serve on one aircraft carrier. That’s got to change.
It was a challenge to the next president, who will face a world of them.
18 Comments
Filed under: Frank Sesno • The Next President: A World of Challenges
5 former Secretaries of State tell Christiane Amanpour & Frank Sesno what advice they have for “The Next President.”
Program Note: 5 former Secretaries of State tell Christiane Amanpour & Frank Sesno what advice they have for “The Next President.”
Watch The Next President: A World of Challenges. Saturday, 9 p.m. ET
_____________________________________________________
Christiane Amanpour | BIO
CNN International Correspondent
Christiane Amanpour: “The other thing we were talking about, with advice to the new president, is climate change… What does the United States need to do to take the lead on something that is so vital globally?”
James A. Baker III: “Kill all the cows ‘cause most of it comes from cow farts”
Christiane Amanpour: “We’re leaving that in…’
There was much humor splashed about the serious advice being dispensed, despite, or maybe because, of the unprecedented challenges on the next president’s plate.
The forum generated huge buzz on The George Washington University campus. Students started lining up at 5:30am for tickets which were free. Later, when the Secretaries walked on stage together, the auditorium rose in a standing ovation. This struck me profoundly.
I know ‘America’s foreign policy’ and ‘where in the world we are headed’ are vitally important questions, but I was gratified to see how many young people felt the same way.
America’s image, and therefore its influence abroad are at historic lows, and the Secretaries unanimously said the next U.S. President must immediately close Guantanamo Bay Prison and ban torture.
They were also unanimous about engaging Iran and seeking a new relationship, while at the same time making clear there would be zero tolerance for an Iranian nuclear threat. James Baker, who served as Secretary of State for the first President Bush said “I think a well-placed, quiet, private phone call to the Iranian leadership, if you can find out which leaders to talk to — to the effect, ‘Look, if you do so much as aim a missile or anything else toward Israel or toward US, our strategic nuclear deterrent can be re-aimed in 20 seconds,’ they would understand that, I think.”
I’m sure they would.
The secretaries also said reviving the Middle East Peace process would be a hard slog, but Baker said he believed there’s a deal waiting to be made with Syria which in turn would help the US with crises in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Iran.
One of the most interesting areas where they differed was Darfur and the question of Genocide. These hardened diplomats were torn – but they agreed that U.S. intervention was not in the cards. Even Secretary Powell who told us he had first called it genocide on behalf of the US government:
Colin Powell: “You look at something like Darfur, and it just breaks your heart. But the ultimate solution to the crisis in Darfur is political solution between the rebels and the government in Khartoum.”
Madeline Albright:” Well, I think it’s in the U.S. national interests, in fact, to do something about humanitarian situations that lead to or are genocidal. And the question is how you get the will of the American people behind it. It is not easy. But I’ll say this is, if you’re the United States, you’re damned if you do or damned if you don’t. We intervened in Somalia, and people thought that was a mistake. We didn’t intervene in Rwanda, and people thought that was a mistake.”
James A. Baker III: “When you formulate and implement foreign policy — and I bet you everybody here would agree with this — you have got to take America’s principles and values into consideration. And we’re talking here now about principles and values. But you also have to have a healthy dose of national interest involved, because otherwise you lose the support of the American people. Your foreign policy can only be sustained as long as you bring the American people along with it. They are the final arbiter of foreign policy in our democracy. We cannot be the policemen for the world.“
Yes, but Darfur is a big topic on US campuses, with a serious grass roots movement to stop the genocide there. When the Secretaries started laying this on “bringing the American people along”, I was sorely tempted to turn to the audience for a show of hands. I am sure there would have been an overwhelming call for action from the floor. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.
15 Comments
Filed under: Christiane Amanpour • The Next President: A World of Challenges
Watch The Next President: A World of Challenges. Saturday, 9 p.m. ET
_____________________________________________________
Christiane Amanpour | BIO
CNN International Correspondent
Christiane Amanpour: “The other thing we were talking about, with advice to the new president, is climate change… What does the United States need to do to take the lead on something that is so vital globally?”
James A. Baker III: “Kill all the cows ‘cause most of it comes from cow farts”
Christiane Amanpour: “We’re leaving that in…’
There was much humor splashed about the serious advice being dispensed, despite, or maybe because, of the unprecedented challenges on the next president’s plate.
The forum generated huge buzz on The George Washington University campus. Students started lining up at 5:30am for tickets which were free. Later, when the Secretaries walked on stage together, the auditorium rose in a standing ovation. This struck me profoundly.
I know ‘America’s foreign policy’ and ‘where in the world we are headed’ are vitally important questions, but I was gratified to see how many young people felt the same way.
America’s image, and therefore its influence abroad are at historic lows, and the Secretaries unanimously said the next U.S. President must immediately close Guantanamo Bay Prison and ban torture.
They were also unanimous about engaging Iran and seeking a new relationship, while at the same time making clear there would be zero tolerance for an Iranian nuclear threat. James Baker, who served as Secretary of State for the first President Bush said “I think a well-placed, quiet, private phone call to the Iranian leadership, if you can find out which leaders to talk to — to the effect, ‘Look, if you do so much as aim a missile or anything else toward Israel or toward US, our strategic nuclear deterrent can be re-aimed in 20 seconds,’ they would understand that, I think.”
I’m sure they would.
The secretaries also said reviving the Middle East Peace process would be a hard slog, but Baker said he believed there’s a deal waiting to be made with Syria which in turn would help the US with crises in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Iran.
One of the most interesting areas where they differed was Darfur and the question of Genocide. These hardened diplomats were torn – but they agreed that U.S. intervention was not in the cards. Even Secretary Powell who told us he had first called it genocide on behalf of the US government:
Colin Powell: “You look at something like Darfur, and it just breaks your heart. But the ultimate solution to the crisis in Darfur is political solution between the rebels and the government in Khartoum.”
Madeline Albright:” Well, I think it’s in the U.S. national interests, in fact, to do something about humanitarian situations that lead to or are genocidal. And the question is how you get the will of the American people behind it. It is not easy. But I’ll say this is, if you’re the United States, you’re damned if you do or damned if you don’t. We intervened in Somalia, and people thought that was a mistake. We didn’t intervene in Rwanda, and people thought that was a mistake.”
James A. Baker III: “When you formulate and implement foreign policy — and I bet you everybody here would agree with this — you have got to take America’s principles and values into consideration. And we’re talking here now about principles and values. But you also have to have a healthy dose of national interest involved, because otherwise you lose the support of the American people. Your foreign policy can only be sustained as long as you bring the American people along with it. They are the final arbiter of foreign policy in our democracy. We cannot be the policemen for the world.“
Yes, but Darfur is a big topic on US campuses, with a serious grass roots movement to stop the genocide there. When the Secretaries started laying this on “bringing the American people along”, I was sorely tempted to turn to the audience for a show of hands. I am sure there would have been an overwhelming call for action from the floor. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.
15 Comments
Filed under: Christiane Amanpour • The Next President: A World of Challenges
AMERICAN UNILATERALISM
Opening Editorial Comments By DGB, Sept. 21st, 2008.
In my mind, this is a very important historical and philosophical essay -- controversial and provocative to say the least, very intelligently argued -- and yet brutally wrong in most of its main thesis and in its historical repurcussions.
There are several things that stand out about this essay in regard to its context and importance in American history.
1. It was published (January/2003) about a year and 3 months after 9/11 (2001).
2. It marked -- philosophically influenced and/or reflected -- a dramatic changeover in American foreign policy from one of 'multi-lateralism' during the Clinton (and Bush senior) years to one of 'unilateralism' during the Bush Junior years.
3. It shows that academic and/or professional political philosophy and pragmatic politics do have a dialectical relationship together and that they both influence each other relative to the course of history.
4. Five former Secretaries of State bascially stood up together at Washington University (Monday Sept. 15/08) and in an indirect way, more or less said, that the 'unilateral policy' of the Bush administration over the last eight years has been a huge (I will say, 'collosal') foreign policy mistake. Read between the lines in the following passages out of Marissa Moran's article about the Monday session from 'The Daily Colonial', last Tuesday Sept. 16/08:
........................................................................
Colin Powell responded first by saying that in his first duty as commander in chief, the president must “restore a sense of confidence in the U.S.”
“We must let friends and allies around the world know we are supporting their work in unison,” said Powell, who served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. He said that, as Americans, we “should have confidence in ourselves and in the rest of the world” and that we must convey this strong image to the global community, a large part of which currently views America less than favorably because of interventionist policies abroad.
Madeleine Albright drew laughs from the audience at the beginning of the discussion, saying that if she greeted the newly elected president at his Inaugural Ball, she would say, “Remember that you wanted this job.”
Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, stressed that the international problems facing the world can only be solved by cooperation between the U.S. and other countries.
“To work with other countries is a sign of strength,” she said.
..........................................................
Personally, I would take all five of these former Secretaries of State and exchange them in a heartbeat for what we have in the White House now...perhaps even over what is coming into the White House shortly...You want to talk about 'experience'. There is a lot of White House experience here, and based on what I was hearing last night, good judgment too...dgb
................................................................
Take these remarks above regarding 'America fostering a better image and better co-operation with the world -- i.e. a foreign policy of 'multi-lateralism' as in The Clinto and Bush Senior years, and contrast them with the 'hard-line (Republican) rhetoric that is being spelled out below. This is not to say that 'unilateralism' does not have its political advantages (such as speeding up action and not having to negotiate with leaders who have shown themselves to be unethical/immoral such as in the words of the author below, Charles Krauthammer, 'the butchers of Tiananmen Square'), and to be sure, unilateralism can always be held back as a last resort -- like war -- but as a whole every Amercan has to understand that perhaps the biggest reason -- or at least philosophical reason -- that America is in both the international and the national hole that it is in now, is because of the radical reversal of foreign policy philosophies from one of multi-lateralism in the Clinton and Bush Senior years, to one of unilateralism in the Bush junior years. This, in my opinion, is the number one philosophical mistake of The Bush Junior Republican years. And maybe they have this author below me here to at least partly 'thank' for this brutual mistake -- from metaphorically waving a middle finger at The United Nations and invading Iraq to now invading Pakistan in these 'cross-border missions that are killing innocent Pakastinians.
Here's a new concept, President Bush: How about talking with the Pakistanian government and negotiating with them to enlist their co-operation and mutual support in weeding out Taliban and Al Queda terrorists in the mountains of Pakistan -- rather than going it 'unilaterally' again and invading parts of Pakistan without the co-operation and support of the government and the people of Pakistan -- and losing the goodwill of a potentially valuable ally (who know the mountains of Pakistan a lot better than you do) in finding and bringing to justice the roving Pakastinian contingent of Taliban and Al Queda terrorists.
Just a thought.
Perhaps it is not too late to use one last opportunity and show the world that even you can see your mistakes and learn again what the words 'bi-lateralism' and 'multi-lateralism' mean. Please, let's not open up another full-fledged war in Pakistan this time fighting, not Al Queda, and not the Taliban, but people -- good-willed Pakistanian people who are supposed to be our allies.
Joke of the day -- although its no joke: What can happen faster than a deployment of a nuclear missile? Answer: America losing another ally.
All you have to do is say the word 'American Unilateralism'....and most of the rest of the world answers back....'American Imperialism'.
This is not how you promote world democracy. People learn by what they see you do; not by what they hear you say. Because in cases like this, what comes out of a 'hard-line' Republican's mouth is pure hogwash and rhetorical, ideological ....sophism.
Read the essay below... and weep...
-- dgb, Sept. 21st, 2008.
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AMERICAN UNILATERALISM
By Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer, winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, writes a nationally syndicated editorial page column for the Washington Post Writers Group. Educated at McGill University, Oxford University and Harvard University, where he received an M.D. in 1975, Dr. Krauthammer practiced medicine for three years as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Washington, D.C., and launching his journalism career in 1978. Today, in addition to his weekly column that runs in over 100 newspapers, he writes regular essays for Time magazine, contributes to several others including the Weekly Standard, the New Republic and the National Interest, and appears regularly as an analyst on the Fox News Channel. Dr. Krauthammer also serves as a member of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics.
The following is abridged from a speech delivered at the third annual Hillsdale College Churchill Dinner, held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on December 4, 2002.
American Unilateralism
American unilateralism has to do with the motives and the methods of American behavior in the world, but any discussion of it has to begin with a discussion of the structure of the international system. The reason that we talk about unilateralism today is that we live in a totally new world. We live in a unipolar world of a sort that has not existed in at least 1500 years.
At the end of the Cold War, the conventional wisdom was that with the demise of the Soviet Empire, the bipolarity of the second half of the 20th century would yield to a multi-polar world. You might recall the school of thought led by historian Paul Kennedy, who said that America was already in decline, suffering from imperial overstretch. There was also the Asian enthusiasm, popularized by James Fallows and others, whose thinking was best captured by the late-1980s witticism: “The United States and Russia decided to hold a Cold War. Who won? Japan.”
Well, they were wrong, and ironically no one has put it better than Paul Kennedy himself, in a classic recantation emphasizing America’s power: “Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power, nothing. Charlemagne’s empire was merely Western European in its reach. The Roman Empire stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in Persia and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison.”
We tend not to see or understand the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army than the land powers of Europe, and its navy was equaled by the next two navies combined. Today, the American military exceeds in spending the next twenty countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well to every other aspect of international life – not only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.
Ironically, September 11 accentuated and accelerated this unipolarity. It did so in three ways. The first and most obvious was the demonstration it brought forth of American power. In Kosovo, we had seen the first war ever fought and won exclusively from the air, which gave the world a hint of the recent quantum leap in American military power. But it took September 11 for the U.S. to unleash, with concentrated fury, a fuller display of its power in Afghanistan. Being a relatively pacific commercial republic, the U.S. does not go around looking for demonstration wars. This one being thrust upon it, it demonstrated that at a range of 7,000 miles, with but a handful of losses and a sum total of 426 men on the ground, it could destroy, within weeks, a hardened fanatical regime favored by geography and climate in a land-locked country that was already well known as the graveyard of empires. Without September 11, the giant would surely have slept longer. The world would have been aware of America’s size and potential, but not its ferocity and full capacities.
Secondly, September 11 demonstrated a new kind of American strength. The center of our economy was struck, aviation was shut down, the government was sent underground and the country was rendered paralyzed and fearful. Yet within days, the markets reopened, the economy began its recovery, the president mobilized the nation and a unified Congress immediately underwrote a huge worldwide war on terror. The Pentagon, with its demolished western façade still smoldering, began planning the war. The illusion of America’s invulnerability was shattered, but with the demonstration of its recuperative powers, that sense of invulnerability assumed a new character. It was transmuted from impermeability to resilience – the product of unrivaled human, technological and political reserves.
The third effect of September 11 was the realignment it caused among the great powers. In 1990, our principal ally was NATO. A decade later, the alliance had expanded to include some of the former Warsaw Pact countries. But several major powers remained uncommitted: Russia and China flirted with the idea of an anti-hegemonic alliance, as they called it. Some Russian leaders made ostentatious visits to little outposts of the ex-Soviet Empire like North Korea and Cuba. India and Pakistan sat on the sidelines.
Then came September 11, and the bystanders lined up. Pakistan immediately made a strategic decision to join the American camp. India enlisted with equal alacrity. Russia’s Putin, seeing a coincidence of interests with the U.S. in the war on terror and an opportunity to develop a close relation with the one remaining superpower, fell into line. Even China, while remaining more distant, saw a coincidence of interest with the U.S. in fighting Islamic radicalism, and so has cooperated in the war on terror and has not pressed competition with the U.S. in the Pacific.
This realignment accentuated a remarkable historical anomaly. All of our historical experience with hegemony suggests that it creates a countervailing coalition of weaker powers. Think of Napoleonic France, or of Germany in the 20th century. Nature abhors a vacuum and history abhors hegemony. But in the first decade of post-Cold War unipolarity, not a single great power, let alone a coalition of great powers, arose to challenge America. On the contrary, they all aligned with the U.S. after September 11.
So we bestride the world like a colossus. The question is, how do we act in this new world? What do we do with our position?
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave the classic formulation of unilateralism when he said, regarding Afghanistan – but it applies equally to the war on terror and to other conflicts – that “the mission determines the coalition.” This means that we take our friends where we find them, but only in order to help us accomplish our mission. The mission comes first and we define the mission.
This is in contrast with what I believe is a classic case study in multilateralism: the American decision eleven years ago to conclude the Gulf War. As the Iraqi Army was fleeing, the first Bush administration had to decide whether its goal in the war was the liberation of Kuwait or the liberation of Iraq. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who was instrumental in making the decision to stop with Kuwait, has explained that going further would have fractured the coalition, gone against our promises to our allies, and violated the U.N. resolutions under which we had gone to war. “Had we added occupation of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein to those objectives,” he wrote, “our Arab allies, refusing to countenance an invasion of an Arab colleague, would have deserted us.” Therefore we did not act. The coalition defined the mission.
Liberal Internationalism
There are two schools of committed multilateralists, and it is important to distinguish between them. There are the liberal internationalists who act from principle, and there are the realists who act from pragmatism. The first was seen in the run-up to the congressional debate on the war on Iraq. The main argument from opposition Democrats was that we should wait and hear what the U.N. was saying. Senator Kennedy, in a speech before the vote in Congress, said, “I’m waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I’m going to say how I’m going to vote.” Senator Levin, who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, actually suggested giving authority to the President to act in Iraq only upon the approval of the U.N. Security Council.
The liberal internationalist position is a principled position, but it makes no internal sense. It is based on a moral vision of the world, but it is impossible to understand the moral logic by which the approval of the Security Council confers moral legitimacy on this or any other enterprise. How does the blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square, who hold the Chinese seat on the Council, lend moral authority to anything, let alone the invasion of another country? On what basis is moral legitimacy lent by the support of the Kremlin, whose central interest in Iraq, as all of us know, is oil and the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia in debt? Or of the French, who did everything that they could to weaken the resolution, then came on board at the last minute because they saw that an Anglo-American train was possibly leaving for Baghdad, and they didn’t want to be left at the station?
My point is not to blame the French or the Russians or the Chinese for acting in their own national interest. That’s what nations do. My point is to express wonder at Americans who find it unseemly to act in the name of our own national interest, and who cannot see the logical absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the prior approval of others which is granted or withheld on the most cynical grounds of self-interest.
Practical Multilateralism
So much for the moral argument that underlies multilateralism. What are the practical arguments? There is a school of realists who agree that liberal internationalism is nonsense, but who argue plausibly that we need international or allied support, regardless. One of their arguments is that if a power consistently shares rulemaking with others, it is more likely to get aid and assistance from them.
I have my doubts. The U.S. made an extraordinary effort during the Gulf War to get U.N. support, share decision-making and assemble a coalition. As I have pointed out, it even denied itself the fruits of victory in order to honor coalition goals. Did this diminish anti-Americanism in the region? Did it garner support for subsequent Iraq policy – policy dictated by the original acquiescence to that coalition? The attacks of September 11 were planned during the Clinton administration, an administration that made a fetish of consultation and did its utmost to subordinate American hegemony. Yet resentments were hardly assuaged, because extremist rage against the U.S. is engendered by the very structure of the international system, not by our management of it.
Pragmatic realists value multilateralism in the interest of sharing burdens, on the theory that if you share decision-making, you enlist others in your own hegemonic enterprise. As proponents of this school argued recently in Foreign Affairs, “Straining relationships now will lead only to a more challenging policy environment later on.” This is a pure cost-benefit analysis of multilateralism versus unilateralism.
If the concern about unilateralism is that American assertiveness be judiciously rationed and that one needs to think long-term, hardly anybody will disagree. One does not go it alone or dictate terms on every issue. There’s no need to. On some issues, such as membership in the World Trade Organization, where the long-term benefit both to the U.S. and to the global interest is demonstrable, one willingly constricts sovereignty. Trade agreements are easy calls, however, free trade being perhaps the only mathematically provable political good. Other agreements require great skepticism. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, for example, would have had a disastrous effect on the American economy, while doing nothing for the global environment. Increased emissions from China, India and other third-world countries which are exempt from its provisions clearly would have overwhelmed and made up for whatever American cuts would have occurred. Kyoto was therefore rightly rejected by the Bush administration. It failed on its merits, but it was pushed very hard nonetheless, because the rest of the world supported it.
The same case was made during the Clinton administration for chemical and biological weapons treaties, which they negotiated assiduously under the logic of, “Sure, they’re useless or worse, but why not give in, in order to build good will for future needs?” The problem is that appeasing multilateralism does not assuage it; appeasement only legitimizes it. Repeated acquiescence on provisions that America deems injurious reinforces the notion that legitimacy derives from international consensus. This is not only a moral absurdity. It is injurious to the U.S., because it undermines any future ability of the U.S. to act unilaterally, if necessary.
The key point I want to make about the new unilateralism is that we have to be guided by our own independent judgment, both about our own interests and about global interests. This is true especially on questions of national security, war making, and freedom of action in the deployment of power. America should neither defer nor contract out such decision-making, particularly when the concessions involve permanent structural constrictions, such as those imposed by the International Criminal Court. Should we exercise prudence? Yes. There is no need to act the superpower in East Timor or Bosnia, as there is in Afghanistan or in Iraq. There is no need to act the superpower on steel tariffs, as there is on missile defense.
The prudent exercise of power calls for occasional concessions on non-vital issues, if only to maintain some psychological goodwill. There’s no need for gratuitous high-handedness or arrogance. We shouldn’t, however, delude ourselves as to what psychological goodwill can buy. Countries will cooperate with us first out of their own self-interest, and second out of the need and desire to cultivate good relations with the world’s unipolar power. Warm feelings are a distant third.
After the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, Yemen did everything it could to stymie the American investigation. It lifted not a finger to suppress terrorism at home, and this was under an American administration that was obsessively multilateralist and accommodating. Yet today, under the most unilateralist American administration in memory, Yemen has decided to assist in the war on terrorism. This was not the result of a sudden attack of Yemeni goodwill, or of a quick re-reading of the Federalist Papers. It was a result of the war in Afghanistan, which concentrated the mind of recalcitrant states on the price of non-cooperation.
Coalitions are not made by superpowers going begging hat in hand; they are made by asserting a position and inviting others to join. What even pragmatic realists fail to understand is that unilateralism is the high road to multilateralism. It was when the first President Bush said that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would not stand, and made it clear that he was prepared to act alone if necessary, that he created the Gulf War coalition.
America’s Special Role
Of course, unilateralism does not mean seeking to act alone. One acts in concert with others when possible. It simply means that one will not allow oneself to be held hostage to others. No one would reject Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. The question is what to do if, at the end of the day, the Security Council or the international community refuses to back us? Do we allow ourselves to be dictated to on issues of vital national interest? The answer has to be “no,” not just because we are being willful, but because we have a special role, a special place in the world today, and therefore a special responsibility.
Let me give you an interesting example of specialness that attaches to another nation. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, when just about the entire Western world was campaigning for a land mine ban, one of the holdouts was Finland. The Finnish prime minister found himself scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors for stubbornly refusing to sign on to the ban. Finally, having had enough, he noted tartly that being foursquare in favor of banning land mines was a “very convenient” pose for those neighbors who “want Finland to be their land mine.”
In many parts of the world, a thin line of American GIs is the land mine. The main reason that the U.S. opposed the land mine treaty is that we need them in places like the DMZ in Korea. Sweden and Canada and France do not have to worry about an invasion from North Korea killing thousands of their soldiers. We do. Therefore, as the unipolar power and as the guarantor of peace in places where Swedes do not tread, we need weapons that others do not. Being uniquely situated in the world, we cannot afford the empty platitudes of allies not quite candid enough to admit that they live under the protection of American power. In the end, we have no alternative but to be unilateralist. Multilateralism becomes either an exercise in futility or a cover for inaction.
The futility of it is important to understand. The entire beginning of the unipolar age was a time when this country, led by the Clinton administration, eschewed unilateralism and pursued multilateralism with a vengeance. Indeed, the principal diplomatic activity of the U.S. for eight years was the pursuit of a dizzying array of universal treaties: the comprehensive test ban treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, Kyoto and, of course, land mines. In 1997, the Senate passed a chemical weapons convention that even its proponents admitted was useless and unenforceable. The argument for it was that everyone else had signed it and that failure to ratify would leave us isolated. To which we ought to say: So what? Isolation in the name of a principle, in the name of our own security, in the name of rationality is an honorable position.
Multilateralism is at root a cover for inaction. Ask yourself why those who are so strenuously opposed to taking action against Iraq are also so strenuously in favor of requiring U.N. support. The reason is that they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks. They know that for ten years the Security Council did nothing about Iraq; indeed, it worked assiduously to weaken sanctions and inspections. It was only when President Bush threatened unilateral action that the U.N. took any action and stirred itself to pass a resolution. The virtue of unilateralism is not just that it allows action. It forces action.
I return to the point I made earlier: The way to build a coalition is to be prepared to act alone. The reason that President Bush has been able and will continue to be able to assemble a coalition on Iraq is that the Turks, the Kuwaitis and others in the region will understand that we are prepared to act alone if necessary. In the end, the real division between unilateralists and multilateralists is not really about partnerships or about means or about methods. It is about ends.
We have never faced a greater threat than we do today, living in a world of weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable power. The divide before us, between unilateralism and multilateralism, is at the end of the day a divide between action and inaction. Now is the time for action, unilaterally if necessary.
IMPRIMIS
January 2003 Volume 32, Number 1
Hillsdale College
In my mind, this is a very important historical and philosophical essay -- controversial and provocative to say the least, very intelligently argued -- and yet brutally wrong in most of its main thesis and in its historical repurcussions.
There are several things that stand out about this essay in regard to its context and importance in American history.
1. It was published (January/2003) about a year and 3 months after 9/11 (2001).
2. It marked -- philosophically influenced and/or reflected -- a dramatic changeover in American foreign policy from one of 'multi-lateralism' during the Clinton (and Bush senior) years to one of 'unilateralism' during the Bush Junior years.
3. It shows that academic and/or professional political philosophy and pragmatic politics do have a dialectical relationship together and that they both influence each other relative to the course of history.
4. Five former Secretaries of State bascially stood up together at Washington University (Monday Sept. 15/08) and in an indirect way, more or less said, that the 'unilateral policy' of the Bush administration over the last eight years has been a huge (I will say, 'collosal') foreign policy mistake. Read between the lines in the following passages out of Marissa Moran's article about the Monday session from 'The Daily Colonial', last Tuesday Sept. 16/08:
........................................................................
Colin Powell responded first by saying that in his first duty as commander in chief, the president must “restore a sense of confidence in the U.S.”
“We must let friends and allies around the world know we are supporting their work in unison,” said Powell, who served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. He said that, as Americans, we “should have confidence in ourselves and in the rest of the world” and that we must convey this strong image to the global community, a large part of which currently views America less than favorably because of interventionist policies abroad.
Madeleine Albright drew laughs from the audience at the beginning of the discussion, saying that if she greeted the newly elected president at his Inaugural Ball, she would say, “Remember that you wanted this job.”
Albright, secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, stressed that the international problems facing the world can only be solved by cooperation between the U.S. and other countries.
“To work with other countries is a sign of strength,” she said.
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Personally, I would take all five of these former Secretaries of State and exchange them in a heartbeat for what we have in the White House now...perhaps even over what is coming into the White House shortly...You want to talk about 'experience'. There is a lot of White House experience here, and based on what I was hearing last night, good judgment too...dgb
................................................................
Take these remarks above regarding 'America fostering a better image and better co-operation with the world -- i.e. a foreign policy of 'multi-lateralism' as in The Clinto and Bush Senior years, and contrast them with the 'hard-line (Republican) rhetoric that is being spelled out below. This is not to say that 'unilateralism' does not have its political advantages (such as speeding up action and not having to negotiate with leaders who have shown themselves to be unethical/immoral such as in the words of the author below, Charles Krauthammer, 'the butchers of Tiananmen Square'), and to be sure, unilateralism can always be held back as a last resort -- like war -- but as a whole every Amercan has to understand that perhaps the biggest reason -- or at least philosophical reason -- that America is in both the international and the national hole that it is in now, is because of the radical reversal of foreign policy philosophies from one of multi-lateralism in the Clinton and Bush Senior years, to one of unilateralism in the Bush junior years. This, in my opinion, is the number one philosophical mistake of The Bush Junior Republican years. And maybe they have this author below me here to at least partly 'thank' for this brutual mistake -- from metaphorically waving a middle finger at The United Nations and invading Iraq to now invading Pakistan in these 'cross-border missions that are killing innocent Pakastinians.
Here's a new concept, President Bush: How about talking with the Pakistanian government and negotiating with them to enlist their co-operation and mutual support in weeding out Taliban and Al Queda terrorists in the mountains of Pakistan -- rather than going it 'unilaterally' again and invading parts of Pakistan without the co-operation and support of the government and the people of Pakistan -- and losing the goodwill of a potentially valuable ally (who know the mountains of Pakistan a lot better than you do) in finding and bringing to justice the roving Pakastinian contingent of Taliban and Al Queda terrorists.
Just a thought.
Perhaps it is not too late to use one last opportunity and show the world that even you can see your mistakes and learn again what the words 'bi-lateralism' and 'multi-lateralism' mean. Please, let's not open up another full-fledged war in Pakistan this time fighting, not Al Queda, and not the Taliban, but people -- good-willed Pakistanian people who are supposed to be our allies.
Joke of the day -- although its no joke: What can happen faster than a deployment of a nuclear missile? Answer: America losing another ally.
All you have to do is say the word 'American Unilateralism'....and most of the rest of the world answers back....'American Imperialism'.
This is not how you promote world democracy. People learn by what they see you do; not by what they hear you say. Because in cases like this, what comes out of a 'hard-line' Republican's mouth is pure hogwash and rhetorical, ideological ....sophism.
Read the essay below... and weep...
-- dgb, Sept. 21st, 2008.
.........................................................................
AMERICAN UNILATERALISM
By Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer, winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, writes a nationally syndicated editorial page column for the Washington Post Writers Group. Educated at McGill University, Oxford University and Harvard University, where he received an M.D. in 1975, Dr. Krauthammer practiced medicine for three years as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Washington, D.C., and launching his journalism career in 1978. Today, in addition to his weekly column that runs in over 100 newspapers, he writes regular essays for Time magazine, contributes to several others including the Weekly Standard, the New Republic and the National Interest, and appears regularly as an analyst on the Fox News Channel. Dr. Krauthammer also serves as a member of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics.
The following is abridged from a speech delivered at the third annual Hillsdale College Churchill Dinner, held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on December 4, 2002.
American Unilateralism
American unilateralism has to do with the motives and the methods of American behavior in the world, but any discussion of it has to begin with a discussion of the structure of the international system. The reason that we talk about unilateralism today is that we live in a totally new world. We live in a unipolar world of a sort that has not existed in at least 1500 years.
At the end of the Cold War, the conventional wisdom was that with the demise of the Soviet Empire, the bipolarity of the second half of the 20th century would yield to a multi-polar world. You might recall the school of thought led by historian Paul Kennedy, who said that America was already in decline, suffering from imperial overstretch. There was also the Asian enthusiasm, popularized by James Fallows and others, whose thinking was best captured by the late-1980s witticism: “The United States and Russia decided to hold a Cold War. Who won? Japan.”
Well, they were wrong, and ironically no one has put it better than Paul Kennedy himself, in a classic recantation emphasizing America’s power: “Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power, nothing. Charlemagne’s empire was merely Western European in its reach. The Roman Empire stretched farther afield, but there was another great empire in Persia and a larger one in China. There is, therefore, no comparison.”
We tend not to see or understand the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army than the land powers of Europe, and its navy was equaled by the next two navies combined. Today, the American military exceeds in spending the next twenty countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well to every other aspect of international life – not only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.
Ironically, September 11 accentuated and accelerated this unipolarity. It did so in three ways. The first and most obvious was the demonstration it brought forth of American power. In Kosovo, we had seen the first war ever fought and won exclusively from the air, which gave the world a hint of the recent quantum leap in American military power. But it took September 11 for the U.S. to unleash, with concentrated fury, a fuller display of its power in Afghanistan. Being a relatively pacific commercial republic, the U.S. does not go around looking for demonstration wars. This one being thrust upon it, it demonstrated that at a range of 7,000 miles, with but a handful of losses and a sum total of 426 men on the ground, it could destroy, within weeks, a hardened fanatical regime favored by geography and climate in a land-locked country that was already well known as the graveyard of empires. Without September 11, the giant would surely have slept longer. The world would have been aware of America’s size and potential, but not its ferocity and full capacities.
Secondly, September 11 demonstrated a new kind of American strength. The center of our economy was struck, aviation was shut down, the government was sent underground and the country was rendered paralyzed and fearful. Yet within days, the markets reopened, the economy began its recovery, the president mobilized the nation and a unified Congress immediately underwrote a huge worldwide war on terror. The Pentagon, with its demolished western façade still smoldering, began planning the war. The illusion of America’s invulnerability was shattered, but with the demonstration of its recuperative powers, that sense of invulnerability assumed a new character. It was transmuted from impermeability to resilience – the product of unrivaled human, technological and political reserves.
The third effect of September 11 was the realignment it caused among the great powers. In 1990, our principal ally was NATO. A decade later, the alliance had expanded to include some of the former Warsaw Pact countries. But several major powers remained uncommitted: Russia and China flirted with the idea of an anti-hegemonic alliance, as they called it. Some Russian leaders made ostentatious visits to little outposts of the ex-Soviet Empire like North Korea and Cuba. India and Pakistan sat on the sidelines.
Then came September 11, and the bystanders lined up. Pakistan immediately made a strategic decision to join the American camp. India enlisted with equal alacrity. Russia’s Putin, seeing a coincidence of interests with the U.S. in the war on terror and an opportunity to develop a close relation with the one remaining superpower, fell into line. Even China, while remaining more distant, saw a coincidence of interest with the U.S. in fighting Islamic radicalism, and so has cooperated in the war on terror and has not pressed competition with the U.S. in the Pacific.
This realignment accentuated a remarkable historical anomaly. All of our historical experience with hegemony suggests that it creates a countervailing coalition of weaker powers. Think of Napoleonic France, or of Germany in the 20th century. Nature abhors a vacuum and history abhors hegemony. But in the first decade of post-Cold War unipolarity, not a single great power, let alone a coalition of great powers, arose to challenge America. On the contrary, they all aligned with the U.S. after September 11.
So we bestride the world like a colossus. The question is, how do we act in this new world? What do we do with our position?
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave the classic formulation of unilateralism when he said, regarding Afghanistan – but it applies equally to the war on terror and to other conflicts – that “the mission determines the coalition.” This means that we take our friends where we find them, but only in order to help us accomplish our mission. The mission comes first and we define the mission.
This is in contrast with what I believe is a classic case study in multilateralism: the American decision eleven years ago to conclude the Gulf War. As the Iraqi Army was fleeing, the first Bush administration had to decide whether its goal in the war was the liberation of Kuwait or the liberation of Iraq. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who was instrumental in making the decision to stop with Kuwait, has explained that going further would have fractured the coalition, gone against our promises to our allies, and violated the U.N. resolutions under which we had gone to war. “Had we added occupation of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein to those objectives,” he wrote, “our Arab allies, refusing to countenance an invasion of an Arab colleague, would have deserted us.” Therefore we did not act. The coalition defined the mission.
Liberal Internationalism
There are two schools of committed multilateralists, and it is important to distinguish between them. There are the liberal internationalists who act from principle, and there are the realists who act from pragmatism. The first was seen in the run-up to the congressional debate on the war on Iraq. The main argument from opposition Democrats was that we should wait and hear what the U.N. was saying. Senator Kennedy, in a speech before the vote in Congress, said, “I’m waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I’m going to say how I’m going to vote.” Senator Levin, who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, actually suggested giving authority to the President to act in Iraq only upon the approval of the U.N. Security Council.
The liberal internationalist position is a principled position, but it makes no internal sense. It is based on a moral vision of the world, but it is impossible to understand the moral logic by which the approval of the Security Council confers moral legitimacy on this or any other enterprise. How does the blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square, who hold the Chinese seat on the Council, lend moral authority to anything, let alone the invasion of another country? On what basis is moral legitimacy lent by the support of the Kremlin, whose central interest in Iraq, as all of us know, is oil and the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia in debt? Or of the French, who did everything that they could to weaken the resolution, then came on board at the last minute because they saw that an Anglo-American train was possibly leaving for Baghdad, and they didn’t want to be left at the station?
My point is not to blame the French or the Russians or the Chinese for acting in their own national interest. That’s what nations do. My point is to express wonder at Americans who find it unseemly to act in the name of our own national interest, and who cannot see the logical absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the prior approval of others which is granted or withheld on the most cynical grounds of self-interest.
Practical Multilateralism
So much for the moral argument that underlies multilateralism. What are the practical arguments? There is a school of realists who agree that liberal internationalism is nonsense, but who argue plausibly that we need international or allied support, regardless. One of their arguments is that if a power consistently shares rulemaking with others, it is more likely to get aid and assistance from them.
I have my doubts. The U.S. made an extraordinary effort during the Gulf War to get U.N. support, share decision-making and assemble a coalition. As I have pointed out, it even denied itself the fruits of victory in order to honor coalition goals. Did this diminish anti-Americanism in the region? Did it garner support for subsequent Iraq policy – policy dictated by the original acquiescence to that coalition? The attacks of September 11 were planned during the Clinton administration, an administration that made a fetish of consultation and did its utmost to subordinate American hegemony. Yet resentments were hardly assuaged, because extremist rage against the U.S. is engendered by the very structure of the international system, not by our management of it.
Pragmatic realists value multilateralism in the interest of sharing burdens, on the theory that if you share decision-making, you enlist others in your own hegemonic enterprise. As proponents of this school argued recently in Foreign Affairs, “Straining relationships now will lead only to a more challenging policy environment later on.” This is a pure cost-benefit analysis of multilateralism versus unilateralism.
If the concern about unilateralism is that American assertiveness be judiciously rationed and that one needs to think long-term, hardly anybody will disagree. One does not go it alone or dictate terms on every issue. There’s no need to. On some issues, such as membership in the World Trade Organization, where the long-term benefit both to the U.S. and to the global interest is demonstrable, one willingly constricts sovereignty. Trade agreements are easy calls, however, free trade being perhaps the only mathematically provable political good. Other agreements require great skepticism. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, for example, would have had a disastrous effect on the American economy, while doing nothing for the global environment. Increased emissions from China, India and other third-world countries which are exempt from its provisions clearly would have overwhelmed and made up for whatever American cuts would have occurred. Kyoto was therefore rightly rejected by the Bush administration. It failed on its merits, but it was pushed very hard nonetheless, because the rest of the world supported it.
The same case was made during the Clinton administration for chemical and biological weapons treaties, which they negotiated assiduously under the logic of, “Sure, they’re useless or worse, but why not give in, in order to build good will for future needs?” The problem is that appeasing multilateralism does not assuage it; appeasement only legitimizes it. Repeated acquiescence on provisions that America deems injurious reinforces the notion that legitimacy derives from international consensus. This is not only a moral absurdity. It is injurious to the U.S., because it undermines any future ability of the U.S. to act unilaterally, if necessary.
The key point I want to make about the new unilateralism is that we have to be guided by our own independent judgment, both about our own interests and about global interests. This is true especially on questions of national security, war making, and freedom of action in the deployment of power. America should neither defer nor contract out such decision-making, particularly when the concessions involve permanent structural constrictions, such as those imposed by the International Criminal Court. Should we exercise prudence? Yes. There is no need to act the superpower in East Timor or Bosnia, as there is in Afghanistan or in Iraq. There is no need to act the superpower on steel tariffs, as there is on missile defense.
The prudent exercise of power calls for occasional concessions on non-vital issues, if only to maintain some psychological goodwill. There’s no need for gratuitous high-handedness or arrogance. We shouldn’t, however, delude ourselves as to what psychological goodwill can buy. Countries will cooperate with us first out of their own self-interest, and second out of the need and desire to cultivate good relations with the world’s unipolar power. Warm feelings are a distant third.
After the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, Yemen did everything it could to stymie the American investigation. It lifted not a finger to suppress terrorism at home, and this was under an American administration that was obsessively multilateralist and accommodating. Yet today, under the most unilateralist American administration in memory, Yemen has decided to assist in the war on terrorism. This was not the result of a sudden attack of Yemeni goodwill, or of a quick re-reading of the Federalist Papers. It was a result of the war in Afghanistan, which concentrated the mind of recalcitrant states on the price of non-cooperation.
Coalitions are not made by superpowers going begging hat in hand; they are made by asserting a position and inviting others to join. What even pragmatic realists fail to understand is that unilateralism is the high road to multilateralism. It was when the first President Bush said that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would not stand, and made it clear that he was prepared to act alone if necessary, that he created the Gulf War coalition.
America’s Special Role
Of course, unilateralism does not mean seeking to act alone. One acts in concert with others when possible. It simply means that one will not allow oneself to be held hostage to others. No one would reject Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. The question is what to do if, at the end of the day, the Security Council or the international community refuses to back us? Do we allow ourselves to be dictated to on issues of vital national interest? The answer has to be “no,” not just because we are being willful, but because we have a special role, a special place in the world today, and therefore a special responsibility.
Let me give you an interesting example of specialness that attaches to another nation. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, when just about the entire Western world was campaigning for a land mine ban, one of the holdouts was Finland. The Finnish prime minister found himself scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors for stubbornly refusing to sign on to the ban. Finally, having had enough, he noted tartly that being foursquare in favor of banning land mines was a “very convenient” pose for those neighbors who “want Finland to be their land mine.”
In many parts of the world, a thin line of American GIs is the land mine. The main reason that the U.S. opposed the land mine treaty is that we need them in places like the DMZ in Korea. Sweden and Canada and France do not have to worry about an invasion from North Korea killing thousands of their soldiers. We do. Therefore, as the unipolar power and as the guarantor of peace in places where Swedes do not tread, we need weapons that others do not. Being uniquely situated in the world, we cannot afford the empty platitudes of allies not quite candid enough to admit that they live under the protection of American power. In the end, we have no alternative but to be unilateralist. Multilateralism becomes either an exercise in futility or a cover for inaction.
The futility of it is important to understand. The entire beginning of the unipolar age was a time when this country, led by the Clinton administration, eschewed unilateralism and pursued multilateralism with a vengeance. Indeed, the principal diplomatic activity of the U.S. for eight years was the pursuit of a dizzying array of universal treaties: the comprehensive test ban treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, Kyoto and, of course, land mines. In 1997, the Senate passed a chemical weapons convention that even its proponents admitted was useless and unenforceable. The argument for it was that everyone else had signed it and that failure to ratify would leave us isolated. To which we ought to say: So what? Isolation in the name of a principle, in the name of our own security, in the name of rationality is an honorable position.
Multilateralism is at root a cover for inaction. Ask yourself why those who are so strenuously opposed to taking action against Iraq are also so strenuously in favor of requiring U.N. support. The reason is that they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks. They know that for ten years the Security Council did nothing about Iraq; indeed, it worked assiduously to weaken sanctions and inspections. It was only when President Bush threatened unilateral action that the U.N. took any action and stirred itself to pass a resolution. The virtue of unilateralism is not just that it allows action. It forces action.
I return to the point I made earlier: The way to build a coalition is to be prepared to act alone. The reason that President Bush has been able and will continue to be able to assemble a coalition on Iraq is that the Turks, the Kuwaitis and others in the region will understand that we are prepared to act alone if necessary. In the end, the real division between unilateralists and multilateralists is not really about partnerships or about means or about methods. It is about ends.
We have never faced a greater threat than we do today, living in a world of weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable power. The divide before us, between unilateralism and multilateralism, is at the end of the day a divide between action and inaction. Now is the time for action, unilaterally if necessary.
IMPRIMIS
January 2003 Volume 32, Number 1
Hillsdale College
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