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
you are so right Dane. I believe their intent is to defeat McCain and see that Hillary is our next commander in chief. IF you defend McCain...you touch a nerve but IF you agree with the hatemongers and endorse Hillary over McCain..they will purr like a cat with a mouse.
You really should be careful what criteria you use to size folk up.. just a thought..
Please, I guess primaries and caucuses never happened.
Whoops excuse me, I forgot the Great OZ of Freekitty didn't get her way, and is steaming mad as she posts behind the curtain.
Okay... which "facts" would you like to enlighten me with? What have I posted that is incorrect? (Please provide quotes and links--I certainly would not want any errors to go uncorrected.)
We were talking about nuclear power... Dane contended Hillary had not shown support for it. Was the following incorrect?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZqtrvDIVsClinton: “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. “
Your posts differ and I have posted numerous facts on McCain..including his opposition to the earmarks, his support of the right to bear arms and more...you disputed that? shows me you have tunnel vision and post MORE anti McCain threads than you do on Obama or Hillary?
This Navy brat and Navy wife..wont back down. I will do everything I can to ensure that McCain is our next president. Who are YOU for?
“Dane said Hillary did not support nuclear energy—she does.”
Yeah, but enough about Iran. What does she think of America’s energy policy?
You seem to believe that a primary process can’t be corrupted. What do you base that on?
Also, do you think 10 million voters should determine who the candidates for both parties should be.. and that is fair that many late primaries will not even get to vote for more than one or two anointed ones who survive the process?
Is that your stance?
...just using your rhetoric against McCain, you should be damning Reagan as you are McCain. Maybe now you may understand that such people like yourself are called "kneejerkers".
Rhetoric? Posting quotes from McCain is rhetoric? Opposing global warming, and the international laws, bureaucracy, and taxes that will go along with it, are rhetoric? Excuse me, but I see McCain's agenda on global warming to be one of the most destructive things to hit the street in the past century. I will oppose it, and all those who support it, with all of my might.
You still haven't answered my question:
Do you support global warming regulation, taxing greenhouse gases, or a cap-and-trade program?
A simple yes or no will do.
Back up your assertion that Calcowgirl is a Hillary lover.
Since I agree with her, show where I am a Hillary lover. My posts are there for all to see.
I don’t care if you are pro-Navy.
I want to see facts. Not tirades. Not personal attacks.
Your move.
I believe you have me confused with someone else. You can apologize and rescind your accusations, or you can point me to where I posted something inaccurate. Your choice--balls in your court.
This Navy brat and Navy wife..wont back down. I will do everything I can to ensure that McCain is our next president. Who are YOU for?
Your commitment to McCain is admirable. Now show me that your commitment to truth is equal--go dig up some links and quotes, or apologize.
Yuh know if there had been a national primary day, guess who would have probably won the GOP nomination, Guiliani, and hillary for the democrats, since they had the prestige and money. Also such places as Indiana and North Carolina would not be getting the attention they are now.
JMO, you all just don't think, but rant.
I don't understand your comment. I do not favor Hillary's overall energy policy, but some here were contending that John McCain was the only one supporting nuclear power. That was incorrect. I oppose the energy policies of all of the candidates--including McCain's global warming cap and trade scam and any of the candidates wanting to impose carbon taxes.
OH, we think, trust me,, not much of you maybe, but we do think and we see quite clearlt too what is unfolding too.
That many would rather toss in the towel and allow this Republic to take another good whack or two by moving further to the middle.
You may not like it, too bad, your opinion isn’t the only one that counts after all.
If that is ranting , what are your screeds?
“I am very skeptical that nuclear could become acceptable in most regions of the country, and I am doubtful that we have yet figured out how to deal with the waste. But I keep being given information about research that is being done to resolve the waste problem. I know that will continue because that has a lot of economic power and resources behind it. But until we can figure out what to do with the waste and overcome the political objections, we should not be putting a heavy emphasis on nuclear.”-Hillary Clinton.
I’ve got questions for you regarding Hillary. What political objections is she referring to? Have these objections been resolved yet, thus making her a supporter of nuclear energy? Does McCain share these same reservations? Also, on another subject, why hasn’t Hillary denounced that NYTimes/Moveon.org smear against General Petraeus? What did McCain say about the smear and how does that compare with Hillary’s reaction. Also, why did Hillary show such disrespect to the General? Why was she attempting to discredit the surge?
Well I gave him a chance.... after that he must prove everything he says.
OK, I'm going to have to smash a a 2X4 against your head calcowgirl. hillary is a clinton, the same clinton in 92 who said they would initiate middle class tax cuts and change welfare as we know it, they did not initiate or do that, thus why should I believe she is for nuclear energy.
Your arguements are specious, IMO, because of your hatred of McCain.
McCain is nuttier than a rat turd in a pistachio factory.
He has taken every side in every issues their is. He is a self promoting megalomaniac and with a bad temper I do not want him near the button. Now there Ms. Genius how does that make me for Obama or Hillary? Why in you pathetic little world does being against something equal for the other thing. I do not like Penny's but that does not mean I like Victoria's Secret (can you understand shopping analogies?).
Dane, stop threatening violence.
You still have not answered the question Calcowgirl put to you, twice.
Are you for cap and trade vis a vis global warming?
So the reality is then you want hillary's or obama's finger on the button. That's the reality.
BTW, could you please leave out your shopping habits at Victoria's Secret out of this thread.
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