Foreign Policy In Focus October 3, 2008
by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes [source]
The October 3 debate between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Delaware Senator Joe Biden was disturbing for those of us hoping for a more enlightened and honest foreign policy during the next four years. In its aftermath, pundits mainly focused on Palin’s failure to self-destruct and Biden’s relatively cogent arguments. Here’s an annotation of the foreign policy issues raised during the vice-presidential debate, which was packed with demonstrably false and misleading statements.
Category: FPIF Commentary
FPIF Commentary
Distorting Obama’s Views on Israel
Foreign Policy In Focus October 20, 2008 [source]
by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
Barack Obama has alienated key sectors of his progressive base with statements and policy proposals regarding Israel in which he allies himself with right-wing Republicans. These have included: rejecting calls by human rights activists to condition military aid to Israel on an improvement in the government’s human rights record…
Biden’s Foreign Policy ‘Experience’
Antiwar.com & Foreign Policy In Focus September 23, 2008 [source]
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s choice of Joseph Biden as his running mate has drawn sharp criticism from many Democrats as a result of the Delaware senator’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, his flagrantly false claims about the alleged Iraqi threat, and the abuse of his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to suppress antiwar testimony before Congress prior to the invasion.
The 2008 Democratic Party Platform and the Middle East
Antiwar.com & Foreign Policy In Focus September 23, [source]
2008 By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
The excitement over the nomination of Barack Obama as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party has been tempered by some key foreign policy planks in the 2008 platform, particularly those relating to the greater Middle East region. These positions appear to run counter to Obama’s pledge early in the primary race to end the mindset that led to the Iraq War. At the same time, substantial improvements in some foreign policy planks of the 2004 platform indicate at least modest successes by progressive Democratic activists.
Clinton’s GWU Iraq Speech
Foreign Policy In Focus March 25, 2008 [source]
On March 17, New York Senator and Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University outlining her plans to de-escalate U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Though she called for the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat brigades over the next several years, she continued to refuse to apologize for her 2002 vote authorizing the invasion, to acknowledge the illegality of the war, or to fully explain her false claims made at that time regarding Iraq’s military capabilities and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Nor was she able to offer an explanation as to what led to her dramatic shift…
Letter to My Daughter
Foreign Policy In Focus, March 14, 2008, by Stephen Zunes [source]
It has been five years since you, as a 12-year old 7th grader, joined your classmates in a walk-out at your school in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq. You are now a 17 just months from graduating, and the war is still going on… you are entering adulthood with the United States despised throughout the world and the threat of mega-terrorism from extremist groups…
Kosovo and the Politics of Recognition
Foreign Policy In Focus, Feb. 21, 2008, by Stephen Zunes
Also at Salem-News.com, ZNet, and Accuracy.org.
The Bush administration’s extended diplomatic recognition immediately upon that country’s declaration of independence on February 17 has raised serious concerns. Indeed, it serves as a reminder of the series of U.S. policy blunders over the years that have compounded the Balkan tragedy… For most of the 1990s, the Kosovar Albanians waged their struggle nonviolently, using strikes, boycotts, peaceful demonstrations, and strengthening their parallel institutions. This was the time for Western powers to have engaged in preventative diplomacy. However, the world chose to ignore the Kosovars’ nonviolent movement and resisted the consistent pleas by the moderate Kosovar Albanian leadership…
Teachers and the War
Foreign Policy In Focus, Feb. 13, 2008 [source]
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
Many Americans would be surprised to learn that among the most important constituencies backing the Bush administration’s disastrous agenda in the Middle East and promoting anti-Arab policies has been the one million-strong American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT leadership has gone so far as to make a series of public statements and push through resolutions with demonstrably inaccurate assertions in its defense of administration policy. A key constituent union of the AFL-CIO, the AFT – which also represents a significant number of health care and other public service workers – gives over $5 million in contributions to congressional candidates each election cycle…
Bush’s Last State of the Union
Foreign Policy In Focus, January 29, 2008 [source], By Stephen Zunes
On January 28, President George W. Bush gave the last State of the Union address of his two-term tenure. Many of his remarks centered on foreign policy. FPIF’s Stephen Zunes annotates the president’s claims and statements.
Still No Peace
Foreign Policy In Focus, January 16, 2008 [source]
By John Feffer and and Stephen Zunes
President George W. Bush has been using somewhat stronger language than he has uttered previously about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and has made some optimistic predictions of a peace agreement within a year. Nevertheless, there is little reason to hope that the president is any more serious about or is any more likely to be successful in bringing about a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
Lantos’ Tarnished Legacy
Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF.org) January 8, 2008 [source]
Pundits responded to news of the retirement of Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) at the end of his current term with platitudes and praise. They have focused primarily on his heroic role as a Holocaust survivor and member of the anti-Nazi resistance in his native Hungary as well as his leadership on human rights issues in Congress, serving as the founder and longtime co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus…
John Edwards’ Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF.org) December 20, 2007,
by Emily Schwartz Greco and Stephen Zunes [source]
A sizable number of progressive activists, celebrities and unions who, for various reasons, are unwilling to support the underfunded long-shot bid of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are backing the presidential campaign of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards as their favorite among the top-tier candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Indeed, the charismatic populist has staked out positions on important domestic policy issues, particularly addressing economic justice, that are more progressive than any serious contender for the nomination of either party in many years. On foreign policy, however, his record is decidedly mixed…
The Israel Lobby Revisited
The Israel lobby revisited, Dec. 20, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
Also at theFreeLibrary.org, Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF.org), CommonDreams.org, Proquest.com, Ameinu.net, and Tikkun.
It has been 21 months since John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt published their article “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” in The London Review of Books and four months since their publication of a book by the same name. Their main arguments are that unconditional U.S. support for the Israeli government has harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East and that American organizations allied with the Israeli government have been the primary influence regarding the orientation of U.S. Middle East policy…
Hillary Clinton on Military Policy
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS December 12, 2007:
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion and her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration. Indeed, there’s every indication that, as president, her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern. [source]
Hillary Clinton on International Law
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS December 10, 2007:
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes [source]
Perhaps the most terrible legacy of the administration of President George W. Bush has been its utter disregard for such basic international legal norms as the ban against aggressive war, respect for the UN Charter, and acceptance of international judicial review. Furthermore, under Bush’s leadership, the United States has cultivated a disrespect for basic human rights, a disdain for reputable international human rights monitoring groups, and a lack of concern for international humanitarian law. Ironically, the current front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president shares much of President Bush’s dangerous attitudes toward international law and human rights.
Hillary Clinton on Iraq
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS December 12, 2007, By Stephen Zunes
Public opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans – and even a larger majority of Democrats – believe that Iraq is the most important issue of the day, that it was wrong for the United States to have invaded that country, and the United States should completely withdraw its forces in short order. Despite this, the clear front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination for president is Senator Hillary Clinton, a strident backer of the invasion who only recently and opportunistically began to criticize the war and call for a partial withdrawal of American forces… [source is no longer available]
The Failure of Annapolis
Foreign Policy In Focus, Dec. 5, 2007, By Stephen Zunes
Also at Antiwar.com and AmericanTaskForce.org
Despite the best efforts by the Bush administration of putting a positive spin on the recently-completed summit in Annapolis to restart the “Performance-Based Road Map to Peace,” there is little reason to expect that it will actually move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward as long as the United States insists on simultaneously playing the role of chief mediator and chief supporter of the more powerful of the two parties.
Broken Peace Process
Foreign Policy In Focus, November 26, 2007, By Stephen Zunes [source]
There’s little reason to hope for a breakthrough at the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, unless there is a fundamental shift in U.S. policy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there’s little evidence to suggest such a change is forthcoming.
Support for Iraq Partition: Cynical and Dangerous
National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 2, 2007
and Foreign Policy In Focus, Oct. 12, 2007
The Senate is marking the fifth anniversary of its lamentable vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq by advocating a path that would only increase that country’s enormous suffering. On September 26, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate voted 75–23 in support of an amendment that calls for a “federal” solution to the internal conflicts in their country, which has been widely interpreted as a call for the de facto partition of the country. The resolution, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden of Delaware, was backed by every Democratic senator except Russell Feingold (who voted against it) and Barack Obama (who wasn’t present for the vote.)
Five Years Later, We Can’t Forgive or Forget
Foreign Policy In Focus, October 11, 2007
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote granting President George W. Bush unprecedented war-making authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing. Had a majority of either the Republican-controlled House or the Democratic-controlled Senate voted against the resolution or had they passed an alternative resolution conditioning such authority on an authorization from the United Nations Security Council, all the tragic events that have unfolded as a consequence of the March 2003 invasion would have never occurred…