Foreign affairs
Apologies for my incompetence with the Bath Chronicle link - I can鈥檛 find it at all now but
On weightier matters to the (chuck them out of the G8) which (perhaps even more so than Iraq) may come to be one of the major features of the foreign policy debate in the general election. The Senator's big foreign affairs speech was covered mainly for its efforts to separate the candidate from the Bush White House but the Russia stuff alarms some Europeans terribly. More importantly it might just be unrealistic in a world where Russian help - on Iran etc - is needed.
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It's unrealistic in a world where Russia is a major energy supplier, too. Maybe after McCain has developed alternative energy sources he can chuck them on to the scrapheap of histoire. Loony tune.
Quit trying to portray Bath as the British equivalent of Fallujah. Headlines in the Evening Chronicle are usually no more fear-inspiring than "Local Man, 42, Fails to Remove Hat In Presence Of A Lady".
Your kidding, right? What is Mccane smokeing!! Should he get the wite house, there'll most definitely be a difference between his foreign policy and Bush's, Mccane's will be far more hard line!! Just what we need!!
And what's even more shocking is the fact that, according to the Financial Times article, both Clinton and Obama will be just about as harsh with Russia as Mccane!! Obama? the person who promised to talk without preconditions to Iran's leader!? What is this nation comming to!!?
Europe, I certonly don't envy you in the least!! Sorry you have to put up with us like this!
Let's try to remember here that this is a campaign, and Russian leaders are every bit as capable of spouting anti-Western rhetoric when they're facing an election.
Whoever gets into the White House is going to be leaving a good deal of the silly rhetoric behind. Russia, as a major energy supplier and as a temporarily weakened but now recovering major world power, is someone who has some weight of its own.
Chuck them out of G8?... Well before l start l would like say l am not in support of the Vladimir Putin strategies over the last years. But l would like to make something clear. Russia is not a push-over nation so lets be careful. Bush invaded iraq for petrol and Putin desided to nationalise his own energy sectors. McCain should start smoking the right hemp to get his brain back to work. Calling Russia a revanchist means that he already lost his memories on meaning of "USSR" and who led to the fall of "USSR"? which the russians have never forgiven and will never forgive. My advice on russia is open dialog not another COLD WAR!
Dear 502, Justin, or the waste folder
Reading the "being discussed now" collumn I see you peaked at 102 comments for the guns and crime piece. I am surprised so many took the time to hang about waiting for their reply to reach you at the 大象传媒 site. Your not a sister site for BA terminal 5 are you.?
I'm a brit who chose to disenfranchise myself for the sake of my children's education.Comfortable, but not enough money to keep my english home in the UK and abroad decided to maintain my passport. 30+years in Holland- learned dutch [dont ask me to tell you about Holland], 20+ years holidaying and now more or less living permanantly in the sticks in Portugal- learning Portuguese [dont ask me to tell you about Portugal]. Never been to America so to whom do I turn for democrat election and general info over the USA- your site.
"I met an expat on the slopes" Just what I needed! Are you still having problems understanding the locals? What was it- 2 countries separated by a common language
Fortunatly your contact I assume must have been about your age- [I have only your photo for reference], so we were not subjected to learning the best place in New Jersey, and lets not forget Bath and South London to obtain a blue rinse for his wife's hair! Couple of litres of mulled apres-ski gluhwine and then a scintillating [piste] report of investigative journalism.
I tried earlier to send you a link to the NYtimes, a piece about how "excited and dedicated" you newsguys are in getting out for a story but like them to no avail.
We know that this US election is very much an internet happening - Obama headquarters' internet wizkids with calculators are analysing and assessing all info to decide stratergy. Clinton headquarters' steam radio, slide-rule fuddy-duddy approach keeping them uninformed and not up to speed about what the man in the street thinks. Mccains camp using smoke signals.
Please. Please. Give us that behind the screen / finger on the pulse view. But no. So much is being done by newsmedia desk jockeys where it has become just a case of surfing the web and regurgitating heresay!
Auntie 大象传媒 can not be so short of cash that you are chained to your laptop!
Get out there!
Views of the cop on the corner as you walk to work or the newsvendor! A typical yanks view tells a million times more than the polls.
Oh I forgot You've got the chauffeur driven limo-Into the elevator, and then safe in your coccoon. Green card in the US. Retained mansion in Highgate or Epsom. What a sinecure.
Beginning to feel that the intelligent comments from your readers [ with the exception of this comment] are starting to outshine your reports.
Bush says the present violence in Iraq is part of the process of development...
So I guess McCain's right, then. The surge is working....
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
Mary,
Please refrain from apologizing for our country, the US. It is most unbecoming.
Foriegn Policy during an election year? Dang thats recipe for disaster, so I mixed it up, wrote it down and here it is. Slice the pie any way you want.
Add together the improbable and unimportant political bantering of reverends and races, grandmothers, husbands, old age and political pundits along with a long line of suffering due to real and storied war and terrorism.
Have candidates speak as leaders causing rifts among allies and axis, forces and friends.
Mix in layoffs and outsourcing with a cup of dollar value slashing, food shortages and population growth, then place in a cauldron for an election primary that never ends.
Cook it over ever increased energy cost at soon to have shortage speed and,...
Wella! I call it "Never saw it coming pie!"
Do not any of us realize the impending repeat of history as stated.
The roaring 1960's, the recession 70's followed by the population explosion of the 80's, followed with the financial boom of the 90's, and now..... well, it reads like a history book. Just look at the turn of the last century.
Real concern? A population correction through world conflict to ease financial markets causing political upheavals in democracy's and dictatorships alike. The end resulting in a new century exactly like nearly every century before us. Same story, different players.
Justin,
Your 大象传媒 blog site connection has all the finesse of Heathrow Terminal 5.
When I view other blogs that recieve many, many reactions, I can now understand why there is such a pathetic reaction figure for yours!
Perhaps its the content that is the cause.?
Please can you get somebody in the UK to pay the 大象传媒's outstanding electricity bill before the whole 大象传媒 network folds.
It would be good to get your take on the 'mis-spoken' words of Hilary and the fact that she was usually far from the scene of any significant foreign policy move made by her husband. How do the US media see this black mark? From where I sit (UK) it looks damning and seems like the clincher for Obama.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony -- Zbigniew Brzezinski
February 1, 2007
"If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a 鈥渄efensive鈥 U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, John Hopkins professor, is on Obama's foreign policy team.
It's too bad, but most likely Russia will not be a campaign issue. Putin played his relatively weak cards well -- exploiting America's main weaknesses -- short-term thinking, inconsistent relations with allies, energy dependence. Pretty soon they will probably start making moves in financial markets to exploit our latest weakness -- the dollar. McCain's antipathy to Russia is well known and goes back years, but his strategies assume that America is overwhelmingly dominant, which is less and less the case. As in Iraq, he is a checkers-player on the global chessboard. He is too erratic, too naive, and therefore too dangerous to America to be President.
McCain is likely trying to distinguish himself from Bush on foreign policy, but continuing to engage nations like Russia rather than starting another cold war seems in everyone's best interest.
McCain's contradictions and irascible character have been well known for some time and will become increasingly apparent to a wider public as the campaign wears on. It's usually true that once someone finally "gets into office" - if he ever does - "it's different". It's not about 'democracy' in Russia anyway, it's about rivalry. America has never put democracy ahead of hegemonic interests, as it's support for countless compliant dictators around the world over the last century attests. What's more disturbing about McCain's address is the more touchy subject at the moment of Iraq, of which his comments about Russia were at least in part designed to divert attention from. It's a truly Orwellian inversion to talk of "an unconscionable act of betrayal" or of "the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq". It is, of course, the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq in the first place - and ongoing to the present - that is 'unconscionable' and 'morally reprehensible'. For which Dean and the Democrats share morally reprehensible co-responsibility, despite their belated quibbles more recently for electoral purposes. And speaking of illegal invasion and occupation, take a gander at that revealing sidebar on Barack Obama and AIPAC. Not surprisingly, The Sun, Murdoch's trashy tab in NY, modeled after the one in the UK, should lay out the devious details of Obama's unconscionable and morally reprehensible recent kowtows to the morally reprehensible Israel lobby. More on that to come.
' .
This is just further evidence of Senator McCain's weakness in the areas of national security and foreign policy. TPM and Acropolis Review provide more for debunking that myth:
Justin do you think that most of the world wide media are misrepresenting American thoughts on the issue of Hillary Clinton dropping out of the race?
If you look here-
You can see that an equal number of people want either obama or clinton to drop out.
I have recently looked over what political pundits have said during this race and then looked at the results of each primary or caucus, and it seems that every time Hillary has actually done far better than they thought she could.
I think this shows that there is a strong momentum for Clinton, however I am yet to see anyone report on it.
How about using the blog to debate Hillary's 'mis-speech' concerning Bosnia? It's almost as if it's OK to tell complete fabrications to the electorate.
Hillary is either so prematurely senile that she cannot accurately recall what would have been a deeply memorable experience (being shot at) or she holds the punters in such complete contempt that she will say anything (and I mean ANYTHING) to garner a single vote.
America is in urgent need of a president who will take its country in a very different direction to the disastrous course it insists on taking. And although I wish America's future were not so inextricably bound up in the future of us all, I'm sorry to have to say that it is.
Justin, the issue is just too important to let Hillary's lies pass as if they were of little or no consequence.
Skiing again? Or editorial confabs?
Only four comments? Can no one get through?
Too much democracy, Mr. Webb. Has your show been cancelled? I have to wonder. You missed two weeks of news ... and we're heading for Iran. I'm older than you. I remember the Gulf of Tonkin.
Damn. This was an extraordinary trans-Atlantic conversation we were having.
I'll try posting my other comments again, if this goes through.
I miss this blog ... even watching isn't fun anymore.
It is a waste of my time to listen to anything McCain has to say because he is too old in his approach to the presidency, both physically and intellectually. It is well known that he has a short temper when confronted with controversial issues and his background is military solutions as opposed to statesman diplomacy. He is a "retread" from all the policy we know does not work and we need someone who will LISTEN in the foreign policy arena. We do not need a "shouter" who states policy before conferring with the affected parties.
I agree. Remember when Mr. Bill Clinton was going to "take on" China after Tiannemen Square? He did, then realized what a big "cash cow" they were.
He changed HIS tune. Russia-bashing is just a habit of (uniformed) American politicians. Say anything, and then do either what works (Clinton) or what you were going to do anyway (Bush) :)
Dear Justin,
I apologise for changing the subject, but In light of the comments made by Rev. Wright a couple of weeks ago and the media's response to it, i thought you might find it interesting to watch this documentary aired by the 大象传媒 itself on the religious underpinnings of Martin Luther Kings message; as i believe this same emancipatory religious preaching still exists in America and was behing the reverands sermon. But of course this was eluded to by Mr. Obama in his speech and ironically there hasn't been any great debate on any of the issues he touched on instead the response was to look at the effectiveness of the speech in putting to bed any concerns about the rev. wright's sermon; and i believe you along with many other journalist and 24hr news networks have been guilty on that front.
Another interesting story, this time on Clinton not paying her bills:
One factoid I would like to know: I have the impression that the superdelegate endorsements from the Senate have split in Obama's favour. Is this true? And if so, would that pose a real problem for Clinton becoming Leader of the Senate after Reid if she stays in the race?
Dear Mr. Webb:
I'd like to report a dead ... blogsite.
No posts for four days ... same four comments over said four days ...
I miss ya, dah-link! Come back, Justin, where did you go?
All the best,
Greta
I think China and Zimbabwe are taking the top news spots, and probably that's the reason for lack of comments on this site. 22 April seems far away and then, of course, Justin should recover from the present diluted interest in the US election. As for McCain's comments on foreign relations, like his contemporaries in the US, few have much insight into foreign affairs. The sight of Cheyney in the Middle East giving his opinions lately was another sickening spectacle. Am still hoping the big "O" will win out in the end, as only then will the US wake up to change in their attitude to race, religion and most of all - that wide world that exists outside of America.
I think you have to dig deep in to the meaty Clinton-Bosnia story. I'm starting to believe the comments from a couple of weeks back that you're a Clinton supporter. You were conveniently on vacation.
On another note, McCain is an embarassment waiting to happen in the general election.
Los Angeles, CA