John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

Presidential candidate and Senator John Edwards delivered his plan for a better America during his appearance at the University on Sept. 7. The speech criticized the actions of the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11 and outlined what Senator Edwards refers to as “a new strategy against terrorism.”

snip: Edwards became a member of the U.S. Senate in 1998, where, according to his website, he was vigilant regarding issues directly impacting American families, including quality healthcare, better schools, protecting civil liberties, preserving the environment, saving Social Security and Medicare and reforming the ways campaigns are financed. During the 2004 Presidential election, Edwards served as John Kerry’s running mate.

During his speech, Edwards stressed the country’s need for bold leadership and intelligent solutions to the problems Americans face, specifically, threats to our national security. Edwards’ plan focuses on a policy called the Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization (CITO), which he says is defined by cooperation and strength. CITO will be a nationwide collaborative effort combating terrorist plots here in the United States and abroad. “Those nations who join will, by working together, show the world the power of cooperation,” Edwards said CITO would help create new institutions designed to share intelligence, cooperate across boarders and fight small hostile groups. “Nations who refuse to join will be called out before the world,” Edwards said.

Pace Press

http://media.www.pacepress.org/media/storage/paper424/news/2007/09/19/News/Edwards.Delivers.New.AntiTerror.Strategy-2982021.shtml

What’s wrong with CITO isn’t international cooperation; if you think that Edwards is the only Democratic candidate who thinks multilateralism is a good idea, I have a bridge to sell you. What’s wrong is that it’s only focused on terrorism. Edwards, despite his much-hullaballooed rejection of the war on terror label, apparently believes that terrorism is enough a problem to justify a whole new international organization, and the time, effort, and money needed to set it up and operate it. Terrorism, of course, isn’t nearly that important; if I were to make a list of our foreign policy priorities, “stopping terrorism” would come preciously close to last. By calling for CITO, Edwards buys into the Republican fallacy that we should throw all our resources at a fairly tiny menace. This isn’t serious policy; this is an attempt to look tough.

snip

This is bad. Like Norman Podhoretz bad. John Edwards, more than just treating terrorism as more than the paper tiger it is, treats like another Cold War. This is the same kind of thing Podhoretz does, that Rumsfeld does, that James Woolsey does. It’s a common far-right talking point, it’s ridiculous on the face of it, and it’s more than a little dispiriting to see a major Democratic contender embrace it.

Minipundit 9/11/07
http://minipundit.typepad.com/minipundit/2007/09/cito.html

WASHINGTON, Sept 8: John Edwards, another Democratic presidential candidate, has said he would send US troops into Pakistan to target ‘extremist hideouts’ if Islamabad refused to respond to reliable intelligence.

“I want to be clear about one thing. If we have actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity and the Pakistan government refuses to act, we will,” Mr Edwards said at a campaign rally on Friday.

He blamed the Bush administration for not doing enough to force Pakistan to shut down ‘terror camps’ inside its territories. The 2004 vice-presidential candidate, now running for president, said: “We ought to use our tremendous tools — diplomacy, arm sales, trade, foreign aid — to get states to shut down ‘terror cells’.”

He also referred to a recent report by 16 US intelligence agencies claiming that Al Qaeda had established a ‘safe haven’ inside Pakistan’s tribal areas.

“We have given the Musharraf government billions of dollars of aid in last several years, yet they have done little to get control over these areas,” he said.

Mr Edwards also said that future US aid to Pakistan should be linked to the country’s performance in the war on terror.

Pakistan Dawn 9/9/07
http://www.dawn.com/2007/09/09/top11.htm

Edwards: Reaching Out to the GOP?

Democratic Presidential nominee John Edwards is reaching out to moderates by announcing he would appoint members of the GOP to his cabinet if he is elected president. Per the AP, Edwards stated he is not so much interested in partisan affiliation as much as he is interested in competency of appointees.

This announcement comes on the heels of Edwards announcing that if elected he would develop an international anti-terrorism agency/task force, an announcement that is a radical departure from Edwards’ previous statement that President Bush’s War on Terror is a fraud and little more than a “bumper sticker.” While it is certainly not unprecedented for the president of one party to appoint cabinet members from another party (FDR was known for this), for Edwards the move seems well at odds with his prior campaign statements. Edwards’ “two Americas” platform was neo-Marxist in theory and this hardly would make a decent mix with a Republican conservative or even a Republican moderate/liberal.

Is Edwards reaching out to the middle in order to gain ground on Hillary’s lead? If so, the anti-terror/bipartisan stance will hardly endear him to leftists in the primary and his previous hard left stances will probably not be forgiven by the Blue Dog Democrats and moderates. Give him points for trying, but Edwards will never beat out Hillary for the Democrat nomination.

AOL The Stump 9/8/07
http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/09/08/edwards-reaching-out-to-the-gop/

John Edwards believes it is of the utmost importance that we prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a politically unstable leader and an open supporter of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons could also set off a regional nuclear arms race in an unstable region in the world, which would directly threaten US interests. As president, Edwards would take aggressive steps to resolve the situation and to protect the United States and our allies.

snip

Pressure Iran to stop supporting insurgents in Iraq. Iran is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, actively supporting terrorist and insurgent activity not only in Iraq but in other areas, such as Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Our policy must aim to stamp out state-sponsored terrorism targeting Israel, our strongest ally in the region. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will soon be deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. As president, Edwards will ensure that such steps are not just more rhetoric, but actually lead to results. He will increase both diplomatic contact with the Iranian government and diplomatic pressure on the Revolutionary Guard to shut down its support of insurgent activity in Iraq and in other areas, such as Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He will also work with multilateral partners to forge a coalition to apply diplomatic and economic pressure to stop Iran’s involvement in insurgent and terrorist activity in Iraq.

John Edwards 08
http://johnedwards.com/issues/iran/

Here are some more excerpts of Edwards’ counterterrorism speech in New York today: “There is now only one key question we must ask ourselves: are we any closer to getting rid of terrorism than we were six years ago? And the terrible answer is no, we’re further away. Today, terrorism is worse in Iraq, and it’s worse around the world. So what does all this mean? It means the results are in on George Bush’s so-called ‘global war on terror’ and it’s not just a failure, it’s a double-edged failure.”

The Washington Post also notes that Edwards is expected to say something similar to what Obama did when the Illinois senator gave his counterterrorism speech. “In today’s speech, Edwards is expected to [say], ‘if the Pakistani government fails to take care of the problem of al-Qaeda, we will.’”

MSNBC/First Read

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/07/348738.aspx

NEW YORK (AP) - Presidential contender John Edwards on Thursday disputed Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claim that the U.S. is safer since Sept. 11 and contended GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani will never win if he embraces President Bush’s policies.

Speaking on the New Yorkers’ home turf - and not far from Ground Zero - Edwards dismissed Clinton’s comments in Sunday’s debate in which she said the nation is safer now that it was before the terrorist attacks. Clinton’s other top rival, Sen. Barack Obama, also has challenged her claim.

“Today, as a result of what George Bush has done, we have more terrorists and fewer allies,” Edwards said at a news conference. “There was no group called al-Qaida in Iraq before this president’s war in Iraq.”

He never mentioned Clinton by name but the subject was obvious.

Clinton advisers said she had been referring to improvements in domestic and airline security in the wake of the attacks.

Like Clinton, Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, voted to authorize military action against Iraq in 2002 and supported the concept of a global war on terror throughout his 2004 presidential bid. He was quoted during that campaign as saying he believed the country was safer than it had been before Sept. 11.

snip

Clinton’s campaign declined to comment, pointing to a statement released by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer after Sunday’s debate.

Despite the Bush administration’s failures, America’s first responders have worked tirelessly over the last six years to make the nation’s cities and towns safer,” Schumer said. “As a senator from New York, Hillary Clinton is grateful every day for their efforts.”

Associated Press 6/7/07
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070607/D8PK8FMO1.html

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Tuesday night, it will be the Republicans’ turn to debate in New Hampshire, and two issues are likely to figure prominently: immigration and terrorism threats, particularly the reported plot to blow up fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport.

snip: Mr. Giuliani has sometimes been accused of fear-mongering. But the airport example flows seamlessly into his message, which is that evildoers are out to kill vast numbers of Americans, as they did on Sept. 11, and that he would keep the country safe.

Certainly it reinforces his argument against the Democrats, particularly former Senator John Edwards, who reiterated at the Democratic debate on Sunday that the phrase “war on terror” was a political slogan used by President Bush to justify questionable actions, not a real plan.

The New York Times /The Caucus Blogs

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/04/next-up-the-gop-10/

LESLIE STAHL: Well, he’s left a lot of meat on the table for you. I have one final question before I turn it over to you because there are lots of threads out there which I would love to follow up on but I’m leaving them for you. I have one final question before the audience takes over. You did run in 2004. I’m wondering what you learned about yourself and about the necessities of leadership and what changes in yourself you intend to present to the public if you run, when you run. [LAUGHTER] When you run!

SENATOR EDWARDS: Thank you for all those caveats! It’s impossible to overstate the impact of going through — as a candidate — a national election. I ran for both the nomination. John Kerry won the nomination. Then I was picked by him to run with him as the Vice-presidential candidate. There is a maturation process that occurs from being in the spotlight constantly, eighteen hours a day. What I learned is that there is a natural tension between politics and leadership. And America desperately needs leadership today, much more than it needs politics. And that means having someone who has a clear idea of who they are, a clear set of convictions, a clear view of what America’s role in the world is and should be, and is willing to stand behind it. And I think that that, because of the uncertain times we live in, because of the insecurity and uncertainty that many Americans feel - it’s not fear. I think that that’s overstatement. I think for most Americans it’s not fear. But there is an uncertainty, an uneasiness about what’s happening, in the world particularly. And I think they want a leader or leaders who understand that fear and are willing to stand strong and clear on their behalf. And I think that we have plenty of politicians. What we need are leaders.

Speech to Asia Society 10/31/06
http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/06ny_edwards.html