“When will the Bush administration finally get serious about the threat of unsafe drugs, food, and consumer products from China? How many more reminders do we need that our import safety net is badly frayed?”
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LinkedInAdmiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, warned Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) Thursday that a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would “turn around the gains we have achieved, and struggled to achieve, and turn them around overnight.” Still, Mullen said, “When a new president comes in, I will get my orders and I will carry them out” (ABC).
“Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castr
o, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, ‘Look at me. I’m now recognized by the president of the United States.’”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) engaged in a general election-style war of words over Iraq policy. Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) explained the progression of her position on NAFTA. In an interview with PBS’ NewsHour Wednesday, she said NAFTA’s negative impact was “not so obvious in the economy” until the Bush administration took office because “they stopped enforcing trade agreements, they really stopped going to bat to try to keep jobs in this country.”
“Senator Obama talks about the costs of the war in Iraq — despite our increasing su
ccess — but refuses to address the catastrophic costs that would result from precipitous withdrawal and defeat in Iraq. Surrender and defeat in Iraq will ultimately cost far more in lives and treasure than will continued success and achieving victory with honor.”
In what has been billed as the most important debate of the campaign so far, the final two Democratic candidates met Tuesday night in Ohio to hash out disagreements on issues like NAFTA, foreign policy expertise, and health care. Countering Sen. Barack Obama’s contention, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said she has “been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning,” but that she did not make her objections to it in public in the 1990s because “I was part of the administration.” Obama rejected Clinton’s claim, saying “it is inaccurate for Senator Clinton to say that she’s always opposed NAFTA. In her campaign for Senate, she said that NAFTA, on balance, had been good for New York and good for America.” Both candidates said they would renegotiate NAFTA to ensure more labor and environmental protections.
In the latest installment of this week’s CFR.org Online Debate, Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, says the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have been “an ideal recruiting poster for al-Qaeda globally,” and that a withdrawal of U.S. troops would “deprive the organization of that rallying cry.” He maintains the recent lull in violence in Iraq has been due in large part to ethnic cleansing and ethnic segregation in Baghdad.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday generated discussion again about the foreign policy credentials of Sen. Barack Obama. Less noted was the bleak foreign affairs outlook Clinton painted. She mentioned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries “rushing to acquire nuclear weapons,” and “crushing” global poverty. She also pointed to climate change, disease pandemics, genocide in Darfur, terrorism, and the “rise of borderless, stateless criminal cartels.” Clinton drew distinctions between herself and opponent Barack Obama, and attempted to portray herself as a safe bet for voters concerned about foreign policy. “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on advisers to introduce me to global affairs,” she said.
In a speech Monday in Washington, D.C., Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) again drew distinctions between herself and opponent Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), and attempted to portray herself as a safe bet for voters concerned about foreign policy. “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on advisers to introduce me to global affairs,” she said.
“We’ve seen the tragic results of having a president who didn’t have neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We can’t let that happen again.”
