Posted on 03/18/2008 4:56:09 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Americans and Europeans share a common goal – to build an enduring peace based on freedom. Our democracies today are strong and vibrant. Together we can tackle the diverse challenges we face, whether radical religious fanatics who use terror as their weapon of choice, the disturbing turn towards autocracy in Russia or the looming threats of climate change and the degradation of our planet.
But the key word is “together”. We need to renew and revitalise our democratic solidarity. We need to strengthen our transatlantic alliance as the core of a new global compact – a League of Democracies – that can harness the great power of the more than 100 democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.
At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. We Americans recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we must pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.
We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them.
The nations of the Nato alliance and the European Union, meanwhile, must have the ability and the will to act in defence of freedom and economic prosperity. They must spend the money necessary to build effective military and civilian capabilities that can be deployed around the world, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, from Chad to East Timor.
We welcome European leadership to make the world a better and safer place. We look forward to France’s full reintegration into Nato. And we strongly support the EU’s efforts to build an effective European Security and Defence Policy. A strong EU, a strong Nato and a true strategic partnership between them is profoundly in our interest.
We all have to live up to our own high standards of morality and international responsibility. We will fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundations of our societies. We cannot torture or treat inhumanely the suspected terrorists that we have captured. We must close the detention facility at Guantánamo and come to a common international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.
International responsibility also means preserving our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand over a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need to reinvigorate the US-European partnership on climate change where we have so many common interests at stake. The US and Europe must lead together to encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.
I have introduced legislation that would require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but that is just a start. We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. New technologies hold great promise. We need to unleash the power and innovation of the marketplace in order to meet our environmental challenges. Right now safe, climate-friendly nuclear energy is a critical way both to improve the quality of our air and to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources.
That dependence, I am afraid, has become a vulnerability for both the US and Europe and a source of leverage for the oil and gas exporting autocracies. The US needs to wean itself off oil faster. Europe needs a comprehensive energy policy so that Russia’s oil and gas monopolies cannot behave as agents of political influence.
The bottom line is that none of us can act as if our only concerns are within our own borders. We cannot define our national interests so narrowly that we fail to see how intimately our fate is bound up with that of the rest of humanity. There is such a thing as good international citizenship. If we wish to be models for others, we must be model citizens ourselves.
Certainly the US must be that model country. Leadership today means something different than it did in the years after the second world war, when Europe and the other democracies were recovering from the devastation of war and the US was the only democratic superpower. Today, there is the powerful collective voice of the EU, India, Japan, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Turkey and Israel, to name just a few of the leading democracies. And there are the struggling young democracies, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, that need and deserve help – more, in fact, than we have been giving. In Russia, democracy has been temporarily suppressed, but we all have an interest in seeing this great nation return to the democratic path soon.
This is not idealism. It is the truest form of realism. It is the democracies of the world that will provide the pillars upon which we can and must build an enduring peace.
The writer is senator for Arizona and is the Republican nominee for the 2008 US presidential elections
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/691f8bdc-f51d-11dc-a21b-000077b07658.html
Mr McCain also vowed to put the US at the forefront of international efforts to tackle climate change, reversing the Bush administration’s opposition to caps on carbon emissions.
“Americans and Europeans need to get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren,” he said.
Mr McCain is scheduled to meet Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, and David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservative party, in London before heading to Paris for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy.
I’ve noticed lately Hillary doesn’t say it—publicly.
And can you show me where hillary has come out publicly supporting nuclear energy as McCain has.
You can't, but what the hey you like stirring the pot and running away.
“John McCain: America must be a good role model”
Up your McCain, I’d rather be feared than loved.
“You can’t, but what the hey you like stirring the pot and running away.”
Dane, you are pathe... aw, forget it.
Are you for or against nuclear energy. A simple yes or no will be suffice.
“John McCain will be our next President.”
Maybe.
“I will celebrate and delight in his win.”
Should I vomit now, or on election day when you create the first “Pray to...er, FOR El Jefe Presidente Juanito McAmnesty” thread?
About all I can say is ICK...Wadda choice :(
Show me where McCain has come out for nuclear power?
Hillary on Nuclear Power — transcribed below.
Sounds just like McCain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZqtrvDIVs
Clinton: “I think nuclear power has to be part of our energy solution. I think we’ve gotta do a better job at figuring out how we’re going to deal with the waste. You know, because in a post 9/11 world we’ve got to be very careful about the waste and about how we run our nuclear plants.
“Ah, but I, I don’t have any preconceived opposition. I wanta be sure that we do it right, as carefully as we can—because obviously it’s a tremendous source of energy. We get about twenty percent of our energy from nuclear power in our country. A lot of people don’t realize that. and other countries, like France, get, you know, much much more.
“So we do have to look at it because it doesn’t put greenhouse gas emmissions into the air. But we gotta make sure it’s done as safely as possible. We’re going to count on people like your husband to help us get the answers. “
Uh you didn’t answer my question, are you for or against nuclear power.
I'm for it. As are McCain and Hillary.
What I'm against is global warming regulation, taxing greenhouse gases, and a cap-and-trade program. Do you support those?
I answered... now you answer mine.
Do you support global warming regulation, taxing greenhouse gases, or a cap-and-trade program?
Lets see if you get any kind of an answer that makes sense.
“Show me where McCain has come out for nuclear power?”
Yer talking to Dane, FROBL extraordinairre. Nothing else matters BUT amnesty.
Role model aka BOHICA. I want the world to fear and respect the US.
The maddening quickens..
or is it .. the quickening maddens?
What I'm against is global warming regulation, taxing greenhouse gases, and a cap-and-trade program. Do you support those?
Thank you for the answer, now the next question is who will put a nuclear power inititive through, my answer would be McCain, and not hillary, and to answer the next question about cap and trade, etc.etc, like it or not being green is in vogue, just like abortion was in vogue when Ronald Reagan signed a bill legalising abortion when he was Governor of California in the late 60's, instead of damning McCain maybe you should go out to your fellow voters and tell them about the global warming scam, instead of feeling good and ranting in your echo chamber.
JMO you are the dictionary term of narrow minded.
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