THis is what ALL DEMS need to know about the agendas of our representation----->>>

[hang a left]

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentid=252144&subsecid=900020&knlgAreaID=450004

Brought to you by those wolves is sheeps' clothing: THE DLC

snip>

Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy

Editor's Note: The full text of this policy report is available in Adobe PDF format, only. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

Please see the full text version for a complete list of the authors involved with this project.

Introduction

As Democrats, we are proud of our party's tradition of tough-minded internationalism and strong record in defending America. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman led the United States to victory in two world wars and designed the post-war international institutions that have been a cornerstone of global security and prosperity ever since. President Truman forged democratic alliances such as NATO that eventually triumphed in the Cold War. President Kennedy epitomized America's commitment to "the survival and success of liberty." Jimmy Carter placed the defense of human rights at the center of our foreign policy. And Bill Clinton led the way in building a post-Cold War Europe whole, free, and at peace in a new partnership with Russia. Around the world the names of these Democratic statesmen elicit admiration and respect.

Today America is threatened once again. Our country needs a new generation of Democratic leaders to step forward and provide the same caliber of leadership as their 20th century predecessors.

Two years ago, terrorists declared war on America by killing thousands of innocent civilians. But America was not the only target: The September 11 hijackers acted in the name of a hateful ideology inimical to the cause of liberty everywhere. Like the Cold War, the struggle we face today is likely to last not years, but decades. Once again the United States must rally the forces of freedom and democracy around the world to defeat this new menace and build a better world.

The 21st century has brought a new set of threats whose origins are different but whose consequences are potentially as dangerous as the totalitarian challenges of the last century. We were fortunate that our terrorist enemies did not yet have the capacity to inflict catastrophic harm on us with weapons of mass destruction. Preventing a deadly fusion of terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and mass destruction weapons on the other is one of the paramount challenges of our time.

In times of danger, Americans put aside partisanship and unite in the defense of our country. That is why, as Democrats, we supported the Bush administration's toppling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. We also backed the goal of ousting Saddam Hussein's malignant regime in Iraq, because the previous policy of containment was failing, because Saddam posed a grave danger to America as well as his own brutalized people, and because his blatant defiance of more than a decade's worth of United Nations Security Council resolutions was undermining both collective security and international law. We believed then, and we believe now, that this threat was less imminent than the administration claimed and that the United States should have done much more to win international backing and better prepare for post-war reconstruction. Nonetheless, we are convinced that the Iraqi people, the region and the world are better off now that this barbaric dictator is gone.

snip>

more at link

The DLC's Leadership Team

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=137

Foreign Policy
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=450004

[jobycom]

1. Oh. The DLC Boogeyman is back. I should have known.

[hang a left]

2. Oh I see you endorse

"THe THird Way"?

[jobycom]

3. You see that I oppose attacking Democrats rather than Republicans.

And I question the motives of anyone who doesn't.

[hang a left]

4. What motives do you think I have.

You think they are evil, or are a just cause of concern.

[jobycom]

5. I think they are different than mine.

Mine are to rid the world of Bush and the leftover remnants of Reagan. The DLC helped us do that in 92, then a bunch of Naderite shitheads booted the same group back into office in 2000, just as we had begun to turn the nation back to the light.

Post complaints about the Republicans. A DLCer is better than the best of Republicans any day.

[Selatius]

6. The PPI's position on the Iraq War is one of the most disgusting things I've ever read

We also backed the goal of ousting Saddam Hussein's malignant regime in Iraq, because the previous policy of containment was failing, because Saddam posed a grave danger to America as well as his own brutalized people...

The policy of containment was effective. He was no more a threat to his neighbors. Hans Blix and Scott Ritter both asserted he had no WMD left.

and because his blatant defiance of more than a decade's worth of United Nations Security Council resolutions was undermining both collective security and international law.

Exactly how many nations in the world are in defiance of UN Security Resolutions that currently undermine collective security and international law? Has the US used violence against all of the world offenders of UN Security Council resolutions?

You see, this is why I oppose this so-called muscular internationalism. Shooting first is not justified. Neither is shooting first with others under the guise of a coalition of the willing. The only valid violence is violence committed in self-defense, not violence to advance one's own interest. Saddam was not attacking the US, and he was not behind 9/11.

We believed then, and we believe now, that this threat was less imminent than the administration claimed and that the United States should have done much more to win international backing and better prepare for post-war reconstruction.

Yet they still opted to pull out the sword and draw first blood. They opted for violence with respect to Iraq even though they believe that Saddam was not the threat Bush made him out to be. They opted to support the war even though they admit they saw Bush poorly planned post-war reconstruction? Who in their right mind can endorse a commander-in-chief with a war plan if the plan doesn't even make sense?

Nonetheless, we are convinced that the Iraqi people, the region and the world are better off now that this barbaric dictator is gone.

We have simply replaced a dictator who has killed untold thousands with a war machine that has killed 655,000 Iraqi people according to one study. That number alone is probably more people than all the political prisoners executed under Saddam.

You have polls now where Iraqis truly say they were better off under Saddam than they are right now. Back then, unemployment wasn't 50%, and you at least didn't have to worry about being killed for being of the wrong tribe or wrong religious sect.

They admit Bush could have planned post-war reconstruction better, yet they opted to go ahead and stand with Bush. They admit we could've done a better job at building a coalition of the willing, yet they still opted to go ahead and stand with Bush. People like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter said Iraq had no viable WMD left, yet they opted to go ahead and stand with Bush.

When hundreds of thousands of people both here and in the world marched to avoid a war with Iraq, exactly who stood up to be counted with those who cried and begged for peace?

When I was still I child, I felt the United States was a force for good. I looked up to it. I believed in it. More and more I came to the realization that I was the victim of half-truths and outright lies. Lo and behold some two decades later what have I found, a nation that's in a state unbecoming of the ideals with which this nation was born.

Whenever I speak about poverty with other people and close friends and what we can do about it, the war inevitably comes up. They tell me that if I think we should have things like universal health care and superior public education and opportunities for all, then where was I going to get the money? They tell me we're borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars just to wage war in Iraq. They're telling me we're wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich.

It was then that I realized that if I wanted to condemn the silent violence of poverty, the terror of being unemployed and not having food and the injustices of economic segregation, I could not speak with any credibility in my own eyes without having to condemn a government that has spent hundreds of billions of dollars inflicting the terror of war against brown women and children in Iraq, hundreds of billions to destroy the lives of people and the dreams of children instead of hundreds of billions to build new lives and spark a new dream.

I realized that if I wanted to condemn the violence of poverty, then I could not do so without also condemning the violence of war and condemning the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: My own government.

The PPI is simply wrong.