|
(Sorry about the gaps - was typing as I listened)
Let me first explain and apologize. I got sick and lost my voice a week ago. I'm very sorry that I'm not there in person for this very important occasion.
Thank you for speaking up for the progressive views that are often distorted.
I want to wish the very best for John Podesta. We all recognize that today marks a new beginning. For all of us who seek to reclaim the public dialogue from those who use spiteful epithets as though as it were revealed truth. From those who believe in the power of anger instead of enlighted reason. It's a heavy task but a very important one.
Ted Soreson is one of America's most beloved servants. Some of the most inspiring words on American democracy came from Ted's pen. We were a nation that was admired around the world.
They have been magnified. We've lost allied support, we have lost our authority as the world's premier authority, we have lost respect and esteem of millions in the Islamic. It's a risk that is magnified because our armed forces are committed. We really have no strategy to deal with the threat of terrorism. With this administration, there is no help from a world that seems to revel in our own failures.
How could the US have slipped so far? Historians will write about for a long time. People will use terms like pride and arrogance. And underneath, they will take about the terrible idea of going backwards, realpolitik, and set aside the bold vision of alliance and international law.
When the administration came to power, there was discussion of a dream team. And American hoped for the best. What happened? Maybe it looks like this.
There was no need for the dream team. They were hard-nosed, pragmatic. What did they give us? A poll-driven, election-driven and ideological driven foreign policy. A president who seemed to be shockingly disinterested. It's an almost unbroken string of foreign policy failures.
They dismissed the Sunshine agreement, the Kyoto Protocol. There was an effort to pull out of Balkans. Bragged about starting a relationship with Mexico and then letting falter.
Let's be clear. Their policies have been wrong. And it's our duty to say so - clearly, repitively. And let's be clear about one more thing - there is no way the administration can walk away from its responsibility from 9/11.
When it comes to our nation's national security, it rests on the desk of the commander-in-chief.
Strong rhetoric in the aftermath is no substitute for wise leadership. Next to upholding the Constitution, national security is prime responsibility of the presidency.
We have an administration that misled the American people and Congress on Saddam Hussein. They pulled a bait-and-switch and they had a plan from the beginning.
The axis of evil - alienated friends, embarrassed supporters, and served to intensify the very threats
It adds up to lost faith, lost faith in our President, and in his leadership. Lost faith around the world. Fact is this administration has taken dangerously off course.
Six months after President Bush sat on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, we have trouble in Iraq. It diminished the office of the Commander in Chief.
We're in trouble today, this enemy is far more pernicious. We face an enemy not bounded by
They don't seem to feel a common humanity. The Red Cross? And today a police station in Falujah. We've got painful consequences for soliders and Iraqi civilians. The war will be looked at as a disastrous turn of events in US history. Because many governments believe he tried to deceive them in the march to war. And this administration does not have the credibility.
One of our greatest assets is our ability to persuade, but that rests on trust. And America needs a leader the world can trust and we don't have one now. After all, Al-Qaeda and terrorist networks are still working. We have ongoing nuclear challenges, and this administration's actions have depleted the moral authority - to lead other nations, to combine with us. Instead our alliances are fractured.
We sent a powerful message to the rest of the world. We told other nations - your security is your concern, and your concerns are of no concerns to us. We start with the facts, we reason our way to alternatives, we pick a solution.
We have to get the root of the problem. I've seen the emotions, the anger the concern. And they'll all tell you - it's not America. It's in a very specific place, and it's got an address. I want to see America become a reliable international partner.
We have got to have a strategy today, and fill the void that emerged after the Cold War. We're not looking for naive idealism - an opportunity that comes once in a generation, to bridge a gap between left and right, to be idealistic and realistic. To bridge that gap and reach a new bipartisan consensus. This Democratic Party has a great tradition of leading the emergence of this bipartisanship. We have birth to UN, NATO, containment, deterrence and the Marshall Plan.
Many of them will be created at the Center of New American Progress. Maybe they'll come from long discussion, synthesis. I want to also help advance the dialogue. We have to build it on the principles of the American people.
1)That we're a nation that's inclusive. We need to be guided by inclusiveness. I know the enormous draw American ideals have. We have systemically broken down barriers that exclude people and nations. This barrier between free and autocratic nations won't stand the test the time. They'll take away our relationships and our security in the world
2)We should be working to strengthen United Nations and NATO. We should have insisted on the legal definition of terrorism, and indict Osama Bin Laden. We helped shape its values. We have to strengthen it and use it. After 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 because one nation was attacked, all were attacked. But the Bush administration ignored that unprecedented opportunity. They learned the wrong lesson from that Kosovo experience. Blair asked "Are we going to win?" I kept assuring "Good, because every government in the Western world depends on it." If we want used that consensus engine, we could have made a success through the moral, financial and military commitment of those 19 nations. It's too little and too late.
3) Ensure armed forces retain the edge. Need to modernize, including the need to pre-empt any attack. It's a daunting set of tasks and the administration's desire to retain control. And any military man will tell you that. Our military should be used to back international diplomacy and action, not force them.
We'll bring others with us, and build a team. We called it engagement and enlargement. But I think the direction was sound and clear today. We need to repair our trans-Atlantic relationships. We can work together to resolve our security challenges. We can turn our combined efforts to resolving Middle East, enhance the battle of disease in Africa. We have to turn the full force of our united power against the terrorists.
We have to use our diplomatic leverage. We have to a legal definition of terrorism that harmonizes our laws, admissions of evidence.
We have to confront the hatred. We have a right and duty to challenge those. Let's recognize the limitations of military force. We have to help from nations
We have lost a lot in the past 2 years. But I am determined, and I am encouraged. I see a new kind of American Patriotism. It goes beyond , their determination to serve. We can use it to build a new system. Maybe a Department of International Assistance, help others deal with AIDS. We can take this nation. Because the American people have been awakened. We don't weaken, we don't buckle, give us the understanding and what the purpose, seek the belief in the rightness of our course.
But whatever the current administration does, we don't stifle dissent. At heart, we're not a nation that disdains our allies and starts wars without just cause.
America was born to end all that. That's why I'm running for the highest office in the land. I want to bring back the core ideals of our democracy, and restore American foreign policy. These ideals and ideas can make us safer and more prosperous. In this era, we cannot be safe without both military might and moral authority.
Best wishes as you commence this conference
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(547 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
