During an address at the No Limits conference in Washington, D.C., former First Lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discusses America’s role in helping others in nations around the world.
By Julianne LaJeunesse – University of New Mexico
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke Tuesday about American international policies in a conference hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative, an organization that rejects U.S. policies “that would lead us down the path of isolation.”
During a speech entitled, “Advancing and Defending Democracy,” McCain said that President Obama is admirable for keeping his composure during intensifying U.S. international commitments, but added that he disagreed with the President’s recent decision to scrap its plans for a European missile defense shield. Said McCain, America should maintain loyalties to people and plans.
When asked by moderator and Foreign Policy Initiative Founder Bob Kagan about the time it’s taking to implement a military plan in Afghanistan, McCain said the longer it takes to get troops there, the more strapped the plan becomes.
“You make a decision to do something, for example, to deploy troops… it takes a period of time before you get them over there,” McCain said. “It’s not a matter of just putting them on a plane and flying them over. There’s all of the equipment, all of the preparations, all of the things necessary for deployment of troops. So even if the President made the decision tomorrow, there would be a period of time where we still don’t have sufficient troops to do what’s necessary there.”
McCain said troops in Afghanistan are necessary because “at least some of Americans may have forgotten that it was Afghanistan where Al Qaeda really received the training in order to orchestrate the attacks on United States of America on 9/11.”
The senator said that America’s sympathy for troop deployment in Aghanistan is waning and that Obama may have to follow previous leaders who have “gone against the majority of public opinion, either in their party or the country, because they were in times of crisis and they knew that they had to take certain actions.”
McCain also commented on the Obama administration’s recent system technology change from a planned “antiballistic missile shield” to a smaller SM-3 interceptor system in the Czech Republic and Poland, which he said was “technically correct,” but added that “the handling of this issue is very harmful.”
Talk Radio News Service’s Managing Editor Victoria Jones talks to Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley about her new position as a Special Representative to Secretary of State for Global Partnerships and international business expos. (8:16)
By Courtney Ann Jackson- Talk Radio News Service
While President Obama is scheduled to travel next week to Egypt, Germany and France, his administration has not found its foreign policy footing, according to analysts at the Heritage Foundation.
“This trip next week is going to be watched very closely all over Europe, all across the world,” said Nile Gardner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, “Every statement he makes will be scrutinized very carefully to see whether he is seeking to further atone for America’s past, which I think would be disastrous for the President to do so. The fact is that President Obama is increasingly being viewed as a soft touch on the world stage.”
On the President’s last visit to Europe he discussed American arrogance and Gardner believes it was a “huge strategic error in judgment” for him to “condemn his own country on foreign soil.”
On this tour, Obama is expected to give a speech on foreign policy while in Egypt but James Phillips, senior research fellow of Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, believes the focus should be on a comparison between the people’s future defined by the Islamists and a future defined by freedom.
The consensus of the analysts was that the worst thing Obama could do on his visit is to succumb to the idea of incessantly apologizing for America’s past and issues like what the Bush administration dubbed the “War on Terror” and instead step up to the challenges boldly.
Gardner said he believes the President “needs to toughen his act on the international stage, project strong international leadership, and stand up to both the threat of a nuclear armed Iran as well as a nuclear armed North Korea.” He added that this is the time for strong U.S. leadership.
James Phillips, senior research fellow of Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, expressed Wednesday why he doesn’t think Obama should apologize for the use of hard power during his upcoming trip overseas. He believes there should instead be a discussion of the fact that the U.S. has used hard power to fight for the Muslims. (1:00)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) says Congress shapes how the President acts on foreign policy. (0:43)
By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service
A unified approach to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will be crucial in order to meet the one-year deadline signed into law in January by President Obama, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.
Holder said the Department has “no choice but to release” some of the detainees. He said they must be released because otherwise an order from the In terms of release, we have to release them or an order from the U.S. courts would be defied.
The Department of Justice is taking the lead from the work set out by President Barack Obama to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and ensure that the policies going forward “live up to our nation’s value,” said Holder.
The Guantanamo Review Task Force will make decisions about where detainees will be housed on an individual basis. Holder said that Task Force’s decisions will be guided by “what is in the interest of national security, the foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.”
Ranking Member U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said “the President has announced the closure of Guantanamo Bay without any plan for the terrorists detained there and has admitted that he cannot guarantee that those detainees who are released will not seek to attack our country again.”
In response, Holder reiterated that the Department isn’t going “to do anything, anything that would put the American people at risk. Nothing.”
Ashely Tellis, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, outlines the future of American maritime policy. He believes that America must “straddle a state of complacency and paranoia,” as it cannot preemptively identify a threat, whether it be a nation or a smaller group. But must always be vigilant of the risks that emerging nations pose. (1:09)
By Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on “Alleviating Global Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Leadership, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said, “It’s quite astounding that in 2009, there are over 850 million hungry people in the world. One in seven people on earth goes hungry every day, and when we talk about going hungry every day, we are talking about real pain and anguish and sufferingthat goes with that hunger.” Kerry went on to explain that “While other threats force themselves into the front burner and command our attention, hunger and malnutrition remain the number one risk to health world wide.”
The first millennium development goal is to cut the proportion of people in the developing world who suffer from hunger in half by 2015. Kerry said that, “Last year’s food riots were a worrisome sign of how a crisis in food security can quickly become a national security issue. The global financial crisis also poses an urgent and an immediate threat. The World Bank estimates that as a result of this crisis, an additional 65 million people will fall below the $2 per day poverty line this year, and an additional 53 million will fall below the absolute poverty level of $1.25 per day.” Kerry went on to say that if food prices spike in the next month, we risk a double calamity in which farmers in poor countries can’t afford to plant and buyers can’t afford to purchase food.
Kerry said that, “We can’t tackle hunger alone. We have to engage a multi-lateral approach, we have to work in coordination with international institutions, including the world food program, international aid organizations, and the World Bank.” He also said that we must demonstrate our commitment by fully funding the President’s international affairs budget and initiating a foreign aid reform process.
Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Program, said that “If we are to be leaders in this area, then we can see many benefits for the United States. We can see national security benefits because we see that hunger and poverty have become political flash points; that many countries have had food riots, and that those have helped unseat at least two governments in this world in the last year.” She went on to explain that it is a moral responsibility for Americans to help our sisters and brothers from around the world who are hungry and that it will restore American standing and leadership in the world.
Daniel Glickman, former United States Secretary of Agriculture, stated that “By acting decisively and in our own national interest, our country can play a central role in saving millions if not tens of millions of lives in the poorest nations of the world, as we did during the Green Revolution.” Glickman used an analogy from the movie Schindler’s list and stating that, “If you save one life, you save the entire world.” He went on to state that there is a prescription to make people self reliant so that they can become productive citizens and get themselves out of poverty and out of malnutrition.
Ranking member Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Senator Robert Casey (D-Pa.) have introduced the Global Food Security Act of 2009, which aims to serve as a practical starting point for improving United States and global efforts that food security should play a much larger role in our national security strategy. Lugar said that, “Overcoming hunger should be one of the starting points for United States foreign policy.”
President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan Aitzaz Ahsan says an independent justice system in Pakistan would be a be good tool against the war on terror. (2:53)
