News-Record.com

I also favor NATO going into Sudan mainly because the current Administration cannot convince the UN to act on the problem. NATO could be more effective.

Who's going to convince NATO?

And, if you were president, would you ask other NATO countries to send their troops but decline to send our troops?

To your knowledge, has anyone in the current Administration asked NATO?

No, and I wouldn't expect anyone to for the reasons I've stated.

Honestly, I'm surprised that people who say it was a mistake for us to invade Iraq would call for military intervention in Sudan, which I would see as very, very dangerous. Yes, the regime in Khartoum is brutal; so was Saddam's regime. People are being killed and enslaved in Somalia, too. Do we want to go back there?

Sounds like Edwards is from the Clinton-school of foreign policy: Go everywhere and try to do everything to make yourself look good while the real terrorists are slowly taking over.

So you don't agree with everything Senator Edwards said yesterday. No one agrees all of the time. Unfortunately I disagree with the current administration 99.99% of the time. That isn't a good ratio.

Most Americans agree (I have done non-scientific surveys to this effect) that former President Carter is the nearest thing to a National Treasure that America has. So, hopefully you would consider his opinions as valid and he agrees more nearly with Sen. Edwards assessment of the situation regarding North Korea than with yours. http://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc1444.html

I think rather than attempt to respond to your statements of 'what Edwards said' I would rather 'KNOW' what Edwards said and the exact way he said it. You see, neo-con Republicans have shown me that given a half chance they will play 'catch me if you can' and make misstatements. Once caught, of course, they always say 'Everybody makes mistakes.' but the damage is done. So, everyone reading the thread should realize there is no verbatum statement, only your very jaundiced responses to what you say he said. What ever happened to 'unbiased reporting'. It went away when the Bushies 'took' office, didn't it?

CG, Jimmy Carter has been a fine former president, but the humiliation of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on his watch make him less than an infallible source of wisdom on foreign policy issues. The voters in 1980 resoundingly made the right decision in declining to extend his time in office.

In what way are you saying I have misrepresented Edwards' views?

CG,

Please look directly under Doug Clark's name. What do you see? I see "Editorial Writer". Not to mention this is a blog.

I think many of us would like to see your research indicating that "most Ameicans agree" that Jimmy Carter is a "National Treasure". I find that very, very hard to believe. My guess is your research would belong in the editorial section of the paper as well. Many see him as one of the weakest and worst Presidents of modern history. His administration as a total failure. I think everyone agrees he is a good, god fearing, well intentioned man. But it ends there.

BTW: you got in neo-con. You couldnt figure out how to work in Cheney and Haliburton? I am disappointed.

Moving on: Is the Sudan a member of NATO? How does NATO have any play here? I am confused. Should the UN go in? Yes! Can they, WIll they? No. It would mean an immediate war with the Sudanese Govt and every third world radical within walking or driving distance. The "world" doesnt have the stomach for that. As for our involvement.... just not practical and certainly not wanted by the world community. I too struggle with why some see our action in Irag as wrong and our inaction in Sudan as wrong. Explain the diff here. Other than personal P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S!

I tire of extreme lefties and righties. It is just the same old schpeel (schpelling?) from both.

Mick

Doug, you are wrong again. I may have an ID that says 'carolinagirl', but I am well beyond that and remember the Carter era well. Carter (and this is well substantiated) was caught in the Republican trick bag too. Reagan got credit for the work that Carter did. Had the inaguration been another week or two later, Carter would have gotten full credit for what he did. But, instead the Republicans stole the thunder.

Now, you are going to tell me about gas prices and inflation. Yes, we were quite fearful that gas would go above $1.00 per gallon! Can you imagine! A dollar a gallon! Show me the line please. Under the Republican administration and Bush we are well over $3.00 in some places! That sure does make a dollar a gallon sound good! With regard to inflation, sure there was inflation, but there were decent jobs to be had so it is much worse with the two class system of the Bush Administration. I, like John Edwards, am very fortunate that I have a very nice home and we have a good income. So Republicans would say 'Why don't you just shut up?' Because I still have some integrity left which most of them haven't known in years.

Give me Carter anytime OR give me John Edwards. Lest you think otherwise, I'm not even a hard core Democrat. I vote that in self defense as I couldn't look in the mirror if I voted Republican today. I have in the past, but not again. I hope the Republicans get to face the music for what they have done to this country.

Mick. I believe if you go back and read my comments more carefully, you will find that I said 'non-scientific'. I have had courses in Scientific methods so I don't need any coaching. It was NOT scientific, but I am certain that it would hold up outside the pseudo world of Republican propaganda.

I didn't say anything about gas prices, but naturally they're a lot higher 26 years later with worldwide demand increased dramatically.

What would Carter possibly have gotten credit for if he's been in office another week? The hostages were released on the day he left office after 444 days of captivity. There was no credit to be had after 14 months of futility.

CG,

I saw the "non-scientific" disclaimer. Problem is you made a very strong statement that I dont believe you (or anyone else) can even remotely back up. You can't waive BS by calling it non-scientific. And, I didnt offer to help or coach.

Anyone care to figure out how much difference there actually is between a 1979 $1.00 and a 2006 $3.00 gallon of gas. I'll waiger not much! And I also believe Carter imposed price controls to boot.

Face it. James got dealt a very bad hand, he handled it poorly and then got handed his lunch by the voters. In short... he sucked.

Mick

I enjoyed reading the views presented, however, there was little illumination of Edwards' Global vision in the post above. I found the points you raise against Edwards' outlook interesting and worthwhile, but then we never got a full taste of Edwards' outlook to compare and contrast. But as this was a private meeting with the editorial board, I am glad you chose to share as much as you did.

Now to the issues at hand:

The United States, led by our current administration, declared long ago that what is happening in Sudan amounts to a genocide. If we believe that a genocide is taking place in Darfur, then don't we have a moral and legal (due to the treaty signed at the Genocide Convention about 58 years ago) obligation to try to stop it? I've heard Edwards talk about moral leadership a lot these days, and perhaps that is what comes in here. We, being the superpower of the world, have a little more responsibility than others to lead when we see grave face a humanitarian crisis. Key word: Lead. I am not talking about any unilateral effort, because this is a crisis that requires a global response, not an American response (which we are not in a position to produce anyway).

Let's not fool ourselves though: With Bush at helm, we can't influence much of anything in the world for the next two years. And I would've said the same thing about a democrat if he had lost global credibility the way Bush has in the past 6 years. This is where another of Edwards' point about forming alliances comes in. So, would "providing more aid to Africa or abiding by the Kyoto treaty would somehow persuade the Russians to take a harder line toward Iran or China to make the government in Sudan behave better?" No. Not by itself. But if we were to do the things mentioned above, then we will be working together closely with other nations in the world, building goodwill, showing them that we care beyond our self-interest, creating credibility, ultimately making the world more receptive towards our ideas, which would all increase the chances of these nations to stand by us when it would be time to call on Russia or China (in the UN) to act in accordance with the rest of the world. And Russia and China can be expected to respond more favorably if they are being pressured by a united developed world, led by a credible & more communal United States.

The thing with North Korea: Much of the citizenry of N. Korea is starving, the nation, other than its military might, is in a terrible state... what do they want then? They want incentives, they want a deal that only the US can give them. As long as China remains in the talks, there is little chance it is going to put any kind of pressure on N. Korea as it happens to be the biggest economic partner of the Koreans. This is why the six-party talks are a sham here. We need to bring out the carrots. But once again, with Bush's diminished global clout and our military being bogged down in Iraq, we basically have no stature from which to deal with the Koreans. Edwards is talking about his vision, by which he most likely means what he, or any other new President in 2008, has the possibility of doing in the future.

As for the precise nature of our involvement in Sudan: I think Edwards' idea here shows that he is keeping up with the efforts being made regarding the situation in Sudan. The Darfur resolution passed by the UN about a week ago, pushed strongly by the US and Britain, would send 21,000 peacekeeping troops to Darfur to relieve an outmanned and outgunned force of 7,000 troops from the African Union. U.S. troops would not be part of the force but they might be part of NATO supply and logistics forces. But the US would pick up 25 percent of the $1.6 billion a year cost of the Darfur force, according to Bolten. So, there is more than one way for the US to put in its share - it can do it through economic backing, without making our nation the face of the armed efforts (which only further alienates those who fear a return of colonization by us). It should be noted that all the African nations are fully supportive of this resolution. Russia and China obviously opposed it, and the Bashir administration in Sudan, who was asked to give his OK, is adamantly against it. As expected. Let's see what happens.

Lastly, on the Cold War, I would infer from Edwards' mention of that war as a model of a successful FP approach that he was alluding to the restraint that prevented the Cold War from reaching the edge and escalating into something much worse. There were periods of the cold war that illustrate a kind of sophisticated control during heightened tensions that stand in direct contrast with the theory of preemption. And there are some direct comparisons. We are told that the War on Terror is a war against "Islamofascism," whereas the cold war was an ideological war too: one between capitalism and communism. We won that war, though it took too long, without direct armed confrontations... whereas, in the current case, we have already depleted our resources, disrupted the middle east and in many ways, ignited the very ideological base we hope to defeat. Communism was not suppressed in a day and it took economic factors to bring about its demise, rather than doing it at the barrel of a gun. Islamic fundamentalism is a different enemy altogether (most notably, it is driven by a violent spiritual force rather than a political/governing/economic one), but the Middle East will require strategic efforts to move it toward drastic democratic change, which can't be brought about by armed forces. I believe Edwards might be thinking on those lines, though you don't tell us about what reasoning he used. I wish you would.

As you said, these are very complex issues and perhaps none of us know the right answer until one of the possible answers turns out to be right.

Good stuff on this blog - I enjoyed reading it. Keep it up. And please excuse the verbosity. My apologies.

Thanks, ZR, for expansive and insightful comments.

Very briefly, the only points I would continue to argue are that I think it would take many, many more troops than 21,000 to do the job in Sudan, and it's hardly a sham in my view to pull in North Korea's closest neighbors in negotiations. Their interests are as great as or greater than ours.

I have followed the comments of the last two days on John Edwards. So I want to join in. I want to let everyone know that I like him more for the less experience that some have mentioned about him. I am an older democratic voter (make no bones about the age) but I am sick of the politicians that are so in debt to other politicians on this vote or that vote, and tied at the hip with any and every lobbyist/pac that there is.

I find John Edwards refreshing, and with ideas. I don't care he isn't experienced so much, to me it is a big plus sign.

However, he has many life experience to garner from, losing a son, lower income back round, and you know what strikes at my southern christian heart, he is an earnest and dedicated family man.
I have seen him once in person, he comes across as sincere and from the heart. I have heard some compare him to Pres. Clinton's charm. I would say you have to go back a little futher to dear old John F. Kennedy.

dk2 wrote:
"I find John Edwards refreshing, and with ideas. I don't care he isn't experienced so much, to me it is a big plus sign."

Do you have the same attitude about your physician? The lives of every American depend on the performance of the President. Your life depends on your physician. Do you want either to be inexperienced?

Jaycee: yes sometimes, there is nothing worse than a know it all, I am God, crusty old, can't get with the new type medicine Doctor. You know the kind that is I can handle it all, you don't need a specialist type.
I would like one who is smart enough to know he doesn't have all the answers and won't mind looking in a PDR rather than taking the advice of some drug rep who shows up (like a lobbyist) and says here's this new drug if you write 10,000 of these perscriptions you get a trip to Hawaii.

Yes even in the Medical field the untainted is better.