“Sen. Biden is a man of tremendous faith and conviction and his distinguished record in the Senate reflects his core beliefs of equality and justice,” said Rev. Richburg. “His thoughtful and pragmatic leadership in the Senate and his ability to get things done and bring people together is what this country so desperately needs in a President.”
Rev. Richburg is pastor of Williams Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Orangeburg. A native of Sumter, Richburg was appointed pastor of Williams Chapel AME Church in November 2006 following an 18-year tenure leading the congregation of Allen Temple AME Church in Greenville.
Richburg is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., the NAACP and the Board of Trustees of Allen University. He has also served as president of the Greenville chapter of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, past president of the Ministerial Alliance of Greenville and chairman of the Multicultural Advisory Board of Greenville Technical College.
“Joe Biden is a man with a deep understanding of the needs of working families in South Carolina and has the experience to bring about real change in America,” said Rev. Jackson. “I fully support Sen. Biden and his candidacy and know that he will once again restore credibility and bring the people’s voice back to the White House.”
Rev. Dr. Jackson is pastor of Israel Metropolitan CME Church in Greenville, South Carolina. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Jackson holds a number of leadership roles in the Greenville communitiy and in South Carolina more generally. He is a Chartered Board Member of the Christian Ecumenical Fellowship, and Vice President and a member of Steering Committee of the RAINBOW Push Coalition in Greenville, SC, among other duties.
Both Revs. Richburg and Jackson were instrumental in pushing for the observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as an officially recognized holiday in Greenville County. Greenville became the last of South Carolina’s 46 counties to recognize King's birthday as an official holiday in 2006.
“Having the support of Rev. Richburg and Rev. Jackson is a big deal to me and I look forward to their advice and counsel in the months leading up to the January 26th South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary,” said Sen. Biden.
Sen. Biden believes that all veterans must have access to health care and that the Department of Veterans Affairs has a fundamental responsibility to address their varying care needs in a timely manner. His five-point plan for VA reform aims to improve the handling of claims, eliminate restrictions on veterans’ access to health care, accommodate the long-term care needs of veterans, ensure adequate treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and improve the provision of care to all veterans.
Sen. Biden issued the following statement:
“This Veterans’ Day we remember and celebrate the heroism and sacrifice of our nation’s veterans. But we must do more than simply honor their service; we must keep our promise to provide them with quality care and services. The VA system must be fixed.
“We have veterans, not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from Vietnam and Korea, who wait nearly two years for disability checks. It takes, on average, 177 days for a VA regional office to process a claim, and it takes more than a year and a half to go through the appeals process. This is unacceptable.
“Our praise for these heroes must be matched by action. As President, I would make sure that the VA’s handling of claims was improved dramatically, eliminate restrictions on veterans’ access to health care, and accommodate the long-term care needs of veterans. In addition, I would ensure that there was adequate treatment of traumatic brain injuries, which have affected so many of our soldiers. My plan would create a presumption for TBI and PTSD that would allow soldiers to get treatment immediately instead of having to delay treatment because they have to prove their injury is related to their service. Finally, we need to improve the provision of care and make sure the transition from inpatient to outpatient care and from military to veteran status is seamless.
“In short, our commitment to those who have admirably served our country must be without question. Just as we must protect them and give them everything they need on the battlefield, we owe our brave soldiers the same support upon their return home. This is our sacred obligation.”
Too often veterans are not treated with the respect they have earned and deserve. Claims are not processed quickly enough – or are approached with skepticism. Joe Biden believes that the role of the Veterans Administration is advocate for veterans and ensure that they are getting the care they are owed. He will keep the promise we make to those who served this country and make the VA work for veterans by:
The backlog of pending claims and delays in the appeals process in the VA is simply unacceptable. Veterans wait an average of 177 days – almost six months – for benefits. The waiting period for appeals is over a year and a half – 650 days. To make the VA work better for veterans, Senator Biden would:
According to a study conducted by Harvard Medical School, the number of uninsured veterans jumped to 1.8 million in 2004. Most uninsured veterans, like other uninsured Americans are in working families. Many earn too little to afford health insurance, but too much to qualify for free care under Medicaid or VA means testing.
In 2003, President Bush decided to exclude some veterans from accessing health services at VA facilities because of their income. It is estimated that many veterans who are excluded may have incomes as low $30,000 to $35,000 annually on average. Senator Biden believes that veterans – all veterans – are owed care and should not be restricted from accessing benefits. It is part of the contract the country makes with those who serve.
More than 2 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will enter the VA system in the next 3 years – many with Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Advances in military medicine have greatly improved the ratio of soldiers surviving their wounds, but this also means that thousands will have multiple care needs and require health services from the VA for the remainder of their lives. The VA must have a plan in place to ensure they receive adequate care and support services. Senator Biden would:
Soldiers returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom are suffering traumatic brain injuries (TBI) at much higher rates than past wars and many also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A recent study showed that between FY2003 and FY2007, about 60,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with mental health issues.
According to military mental health experts, if current trends continue, over 30 percent of soldiers in high combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and almost 50 percent of National Guard members will develop a mental health problem like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
There is a crisis in the mental health treatment system that compounds these problems. There just aren’t enough mental health practitioners to treat these soldiers – not to mention the stigma that is attached to seeking treatment which prevents people from seeking treatment in the first place.
To address the growing demand for TBI and PTSD services and other needs of our Armed Forces and veterans, Joe Biden would:
We owe our troops and veterans the highest quality care. The care our soldiers receive in the battlefield and in military hospitals is state-of-the-art and has saved countless lives. But we need to improve the transition from inpatient to outpatient care and the transition from military to veteran status. We can improve the communication methods between provider and patient as well as between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. To ensure that our veterans receive the proper provision of care Joe Biden would:
“Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may find that they have no choice but to make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah’s opponents did in Iran three decades ago.
”It is hard to imagine a greater nightmare for America than the world’s second-largest Muslim nation becoming a failed state in fundamentalist hands, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a population larger than those of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea combined.
“To prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality, I believe we need to do three things:
“First, deal pro-actively with the current crisis. Second, and for the longer term, move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed. And third, help create conditions in the region that maximize the chances of success, and minimize the prospects for failure.”
“We’ve got to move from a transactional relationship -- the exchange of aid for services -- to the normal, functional relationship we enjoy with all of our other military allies and friendly nations.
“We’ve got to move from a policy concentrated on one man – President Musharraf – to a policy centered on an entire people… the people of Pakistan.
“Like any major policy shift, to gain long-term benefits we’ll have to shoulder short term costs. But given the stakes, those costs are worth it.”
I’ve been saying for some time that Pakistan is the most complex country we deal with – and that a crisis was just waiting to happen. On Saturday night, it did.
President Musharraf staged a coup against his own government. He suspended the constitution, imposed de-facto martial law, postponed elections indefinitely, and arrested hundreds of lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists. He took these steps the day after Secretary Rice and the commander of all American forces in the region appealed to Musharraf not to take them.
America has a huge stake in the outcome of this crisis – and in the path Pakistan follows in the months and years to come. Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may find that they have no choice but to make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah’s opponents did in Iran three decades ago.
But unlike Iran, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons.
It is hard to imagine a greater nightmare for America than the world’s second-largest Muslim nation becoming a failed state in fundamentalist hands, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a population larger than those of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea combined.
To prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality, I believe we need to do three things:
First, deal pro-actively with the current crisis.
Second, and for the longer term, move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed.
And third, help create conditions in the region that maximize the chances of success, and minimize the prospects for failure.
To help defuse the current political crisis, we must be far more pro-active, not reactive and make it clear to Pakistan that actions have consequences. President Bush’s first reaction was to call on President Musharraf to reverse course. Given the stakes, I thought it was important to actually call him – which is exactly what I did. I also spoke to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. President Musharraf and I had a very direct and detailed discussion. I told him how critical it is that elections go forward as planned in January, that he follow through on his commitment to take off his uniform, and that he restore the rule of law to Pakistan.
It was clear to me that President Musharraf understands the consequences for his country and for relations with the United States if he does not return Pakistan to the path of democracy. Now, President Bush finally got around to calling Musharraf yesterday. As a few of you may know, I’m running for President and I can tell you this: if I’m elected, I won’t wait five days to pick up the phone or delegate matters of this magnitude to my secretary of state or to my ambassador. There is too much at stake to leave this kind of conversation to others.
If President Musharraf does not restore his nation to the democratic path, U.S. military aid will be in great jeopardy. I would look hard at big-ticket weapons systems intended primarily to maintain the balance of power with India, not to combat the Taliban or Al Qaeda: hardware like F-16 jets and P-3 maritime surveillance aircraft. President Musharraf doesn’t want this aid suspension – and neither does the military establishment whose support he needs. Nor can they afford for this crisis to undermine confidence in Pakistan’s economy, which has already taken a hard hit. So I believe there is incentive for cooler heads in Pakistan to prevail. But if they don’t and if President Bush does not act, Congress almost certainly will.
Beyond the current crisis lurks a far deeper problem. The relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is largely transactional — and this transaction isn’t working for either party. From America’s perspective, we’ve spent billions of dollars on a bet that Pakistan’s government would take the fight to the Taliban and Al Qaeda while putting the country back on the path to democracy. It has done neither.
From Pakistan’s perspective, America is an unreliable ally that will abandon Pakistan the moment it’s convenient to do so, and whose support has done little more than bolster unrepresentative rulers.
It is time for a new approach.
We’ve got to move from a transactional relationship -- the exchange of aid for services -- to the normal, functional relationship we enjoy with all of our other military allies and friendly nations. We’ve got to move from a policy concentrated on one man – President Musharraf – to a policy centered on an entire people… the people of Pakistan. Like any major policy shift, to gain long-term benefits we’ll have to shoulder short term costs. But given the stakes, those costs are worth it.
Here are the four elements of this new strategy.
First, triple non-security aid, to $1.5 billion annually. For at least a decade. This aid would be unconditioned: it’s our pledge to the Pakistani people. Instead of funding military hardware, it would build schools, clinics, and roads.
Second, condition security aid on performance. We should base our security aid on clear results. We’re now spending well over $1 billion annually, and it’s not clear we’re getting our money’s worth. I’d spend more if we get better returns—and less if we don’t.
Fourth, engage the Pakistani people, not just their rulers. This will involve everything from improved public diplomacy and educational exchanges to high impact projects that actually change people’s lives.
This plan would fundamentally and positively shift the dynamic between the U.S. and Pakistan. Here’s how:
A drastic increase in non-security aid, guaranteed for a long period, would help persuade Pakistan’s people that America is an all-weather friend… and Pakistan’s leaders that America is a reliable ally. Pakistanis suspect our support is purely tactical. They point to the aid cut-off that followed the fall of the Soviet Union… to our refusal to deliver or refund purchased jets in the 1990s… and to our blossoming relationship with rival India. Many Pakistanis believe that the moment Osama bin Laden is gone, U.S. interest will go with him.
When U.S. aid makes a real difference in people’s lives, the results are powerful. In October 2005, after a devastating earthquake, American military helicopters delivering relief did far more to improve relations than any amount of arms sales or debt rescheduling. And the Mobile Army Surgery Hospital we left behind is a daily reminder that America cares.
To have a real impact on a nation of 165 million, we’ll have to raise our spending dramatically. A baseline of $1.5 billion annually, for a decade, is a reasonable place to start. That might sound like a lot – but it’s about what we spend every week in Iraq. Conditioning security aid— now about three-quarters of our package— would help push the Pakistani military to finally crush Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Aid to the Pakistani people should be unconditioned — that is, not subject to the ups and downs of a particular government in Islamabad or Washington. But aid to the Pakistani military and intelligence service should be closely conditioned — that is, carefully calibrated to results. Like it or not, the Pakistani security services will remain vital players – and our best shot at finding Bin Laden and shutting down the Taliban. Their performance has been decidedly mixed: we’ve caught more terrorists in Pakistan than in any other country— but $10 billion later, Pakistan remains the central base of Al Qaeda operations. We must strike a much better bargain.
A “democracy dividend” – additional assistance in the first year after democratic rule is restored -- would empower Pakistan’s moderate mainstream. The Bush Administration’s Musharraf First policy was understandable -- at first. Musharraf had broad support, and in the wake of 9/11 he seemed committed to the fight against Al Qaeda. Six years later, the General is diverting his military, his police, and his intelligence assets from the fight against the terrorists to a crackdown on his political opponents.
The Pakistani people have moved on. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest Musharraf’s unconstitutional rule— and hundreds have been killed or gravely injured in the process. The Democracy Dividend would help restore the moral currency this administration has squandered with empty rhetoric about democracy. And it would enable the secular, democratic, civilian political leaders to prove that they—more than the generals or the radical Islamists—can bring real improvement to the lives of their constituents.
Last, we’ve got to engage the Pakistani people directly, and address issues important to them, not just to us. On Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinians, Kashmir, Pakistanis want a respectful hearing. We owe them that at least that much.
Ask an ordinary Pakistani to list his top concerns about America and you may get answers unrelated to international grand strategy: our visa policy and textile quotas.
Or she might raise Abu Ghraib and Gitmo or water-boarding and other forms of torture the Bush Administration still refuses to renounce. Pakistanis don’t see these as mere “issues.” They see these things as a moral stain on the soul of our nation. In my judgment, so should we.
This new Pakistan policy cannot succeed in isolation. Conditions in the region and in the broader Muslim world – conditions that the United States can affect – will make a huge difference, for good or for bad. We’ve got to connect the dots – to be, as I suggested at the outset, smart as well as strong. First, there’s what we should do.
To increase the prospects that Pakistan will take the lead in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, we should rededicate ourselves to a forgotten war: Afghanistan. When we shifted resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq, Musharraf concluded the Taliban would rebound, so he cut a deal with them.
Redoubling our efforts in Afghanistan – not just with more troops but with the right kind… and with a reconstruction effort that matches President Bush’s Marshall Plan rhetoric… would embolden Pakistan’s government to take a harder line on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Second, there’s what we should not do. Consider all this talk of war with Iran. It is totally counter-productive to achieving our ends in Iran… but also in Pakistan. In Iran, it allows President Ahmadinejad to distract the Iranian people from the failures of his leadership… and adds a huge security premium to the price of oil, with the proceeds going from our consumers to Iran’s government. And in Pakistan and also Afghanistan, anything the fuels the sense of an American crusade against Islam puts moderates on the defensive and empowers extremists. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating policy.
History may describe today’s Pakistan as a repeat of 1979 Iran or 2001 Afghanistan. Or history may write a very different story: that of Pakistan as a stable, democratic, secular Muslim state. Which future unfolds will be strongly influenced—if not determined— by the actions of the United States.
I believe that Pakistan can be a bridge between the West and the global Islamic community. Most Pakistanis want a lasting friendship with America. They respect and admire our society. But they are mystified over what they see as our failure to live up to our ideals.
The current crisis in Pakistan is also an opportunity to start anew… to build a relationship between Pakistan and the United States upon which both our peoples can depend – and be proud.
State Sen. Quirmbach is an Associate Professor of Economics at Iowa State University.
“We need to get out of Iraq, but after all the damage that Bush has done to that country, we owe it to them to leave them with some reasonable hope of stability,” said State Sen. Quirmbach. “Joe Biden has the clearest vision of how to do both. He’s our best hope to restore America’s credibility in the world, credibility we’re going to need if we’re going to lead on nuclear proliferation, terrorism, global warming, energy, and a host of other issues.”
Sen. Biden noted, "As someone with extensive knowledge of fiscal policy, Sen. Quirmbach knows well that America only does well when the middle class thrives economically. Like many Americans, he is concerned for our economic security and knows the next president will have to make fiscally responsible decisions to put America back on track. Sen. Quirmbach knows what economic perils await if our if we continue to let the war in Iraq drain our Treasury, and I am proud that he has pledged to support my efforts to change course."
State Sen. Quirmbach chairs the Local Government Committee, and serves on the Education, Human Resources, Judiciary and Ways & Means committees. In addition to his legislative work, Senator Quirmbach serves on the College Student Aid Committee and the Commission on Tobacco Use, Prevention & Control. Sen. Quirmbach served on Ames City Council from 1995 through 2003 and as Ames' Mayor Pro Tem in 2002. He is an active member of the Ames Kiwanis Club, Ames Patriotic Council, Ames League of Women Voters, Ames Chamber of Commerce, Story County Democratic Party, Iowa Civil Liberties Union, and Story County Tobacco Task Force. He has also been a member of the Story County REAP Committee, the Ames Utility Retirement Board, and the Ames Veterans Memorial Committee.
State Sen. Quirmbach is currently serving his second term in the Iowa Senate. His district includes Ames, Gilbert, Luther, Madrid, Napier, and part of Sheldahl.
State Sen. Quirmbach joins an impressive group of Iowa state legislators who have endorsed Senator Biden including: State Sen. Joe Seng (Davenport), House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Des Moines), Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Polly Butka (Clinton County), Rep. John Whitaker (Hillsboro), Rep. Doris Kelley (Waterloo), Rep. Lisa Heddens (Ames), Rep. Jim Lykam (Davenport), Rep. Mike Reasoner (Creston), Rep. Dick Taylor (Cedar Rapids), Rep. Roger Thomas (Clayton County), and Rep. McKinley Bailey (Hamilton County).
“Today’s comments come from a guy—Rudy Giuliani—who said Dick Cheney, the architect of Bush’s failed policy in Iraq, was a great choice for vice president and who recommended the now discredited Bernie Kerik to be Secretary of Homeland Security. Once again, Rudy has demonstrated his complete lack of knowledge of U.S. foreign policy.”
“Rudy Giuliani seems to be increasingly worried that Joe Biden is questioning his lack of leadership and his use of 9/11 for his own political purposes,” said Biden for President Campaign Manager Luis Navarro. “This criticism is grounded in reality: there are numerous examples of Mr. Giuliani using 9/11 as a substitute for real experience and real answers to important topics. In the spirit of Halloween, Rudy, if the dress fits, wear it.”
I write today to seek your support for legislation that prohibits United States personnel from engaging in water-boarding or any other form of torture. On July 25, 2007, I introduced S. 1876, the National Security with Justice Act, which among other things prohibits all United States personnel from using on a detainee any interrogation technique not expressly authorized by the Army Field Manual.
As the Washington Post noted this morning, it is sad that a nation with a longstanding, proud tradition of condemning torture finds itself embroiled in a debate regarding whether torture is legal. Both domestic law and international treaties clearly ban torture. Unfortunately, the current Administration's cramped, disingenuous arguments necessitate such a debate. Since 2002, the Department of Justice has consistently endorsed harsh and inhumane interrogation techniques that amount to torture. In July, the President issued an Executive Order that was notably silent on several such techniques, including water-boarding. And just last week, the President's nominee to be the next Attorney General, Judge Michael B. Mukasey, declined to answer clearly a question regarding whether water-boarding is torture and is therefore unconstitutional.
The United States cannot continue to equivocate and dissemble on this matter. When we countenance torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees, we diminish our ability to argue that the same techniques should not be used against our own troops. We need to send a clear message that torture, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees is unacceptable and is not permitted by U.S. law. Period. Therefore, Section 106 of my bill prohibits all officers and agents of the United States from using techniques of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. I urge you to support S. 1876 and join me in banning all United States personnel from engaging in torture.
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
“We are well aware that former Mayor Giuliani will attempt to drag this race into the mud where the Republicans like to wage their campaigns. It’s pretty obvious that they can’t defend themselves on the real charge that Mr. Giuliani walked away from the cops and firefighters who were waiting for the 9/11 Commission to be enacted and the Biden crime bill to be restored.”
History may describe today's Pakistan as a repeat of 1979 Iran or 2001 Afghanistan. Or history may write a very different story: that of Pakistan as a stable, democratic, secular Muslim state. Which future unfolds will be strongly influenced by the actions of the United States.
Pakistan is the most complex country we deal with. It was a crisis waiting to happen. America has a huge stake in the outcome of this crisis - and in the path Pakistan follows.
Pakistan has strong democratic traditions and a large, moderate majority. But that moderate majority must have a voice in the system and an outlet with elections. If not, moderates may make common cause with extremists, just as the Shah's opponents did in Iran three decades ago. But unlike Iran, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. It is hard to imagine a greater nightmare for America than the world's second-largest Muslim nation becoming a failed state in fundamentalist hands.
To prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality, I believe we need to do three things:
First, we must take an active role in the current crisis and make it clear to Pakistan that actions have consequences. After Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution and imposed de facto martial law, President Bush's first reaction was to call on him to reverse course. Given the stakes, I thought it was important to actually call him, and I did so. President Musharraf and I had a very direct and detailed discussion. I told him it is critical that elections go forward as planned early next year, that he follow through on his commitment to take off his uniform, and that he restore the rule of law to Pakistan. I also spoke to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
It was clear to me that Mr. Musharraf understands the consequences if he does not return Pakistan to the path of democracy. For starters, U.S. military aid will be in great jeopardy.
Second, we must move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed. The current U.S.-Pakistan relationship is largely transactional - and this transaction isn't working for either party.
America has spent billions on a bet that Pakistan's government would crush the Taliban and al-Qaida while putting the country back on the path to democracy. It has done neither. For its part, Pakistan sees America as an unreliable ally that will abandon Pakistan at the first moment of convenience.
It is time for a new approach. We should triple nonsecurity aid, to $1.5 billion annually, for at least a decade, without conditions. That sounds like a lot, but it is what we spend in Iraq every week. Instead of funding military hardware, it would build schools, clinics and roads. I would provide an additional $1 billion in nonmilitary assistance - a democracy dividend - in the first year after democratic rule is restored. Nothing is more important than helping Pakistan's democratic leaders demonstrate that they can do better than the generals and the fundamentalists in delivering real change for the country.
We should maintain our military assistance but condition it on clear results in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. And we should engage the Pakistani people, not just their rulers, on issues that matter to them, from textile quotas to visas to the Bush administration's policies on torture. If we do all these things, we will fundamentally and positively shift the dynamic between the U.S. and Pakistan.
Third, this new policy cannot succeed in isolation. We must help create conditions in the region that maximize the chances of success and minimize the prospects for failure. When we shifted resources away from Afghanistan to Iraq, Mr. Musharraf concluded that the Taliban would rebound, so he cut a deal with them. Redoubling our efforts in Afghanistan would embolden Pakistan's government to take a harder line on the Taliban and al-Qaida.
We should also stop the overheated rhetoric about war with Iran, which allows Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a distraction from his failures and adds a huge security premium to the price of oil. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, anything that fuels the sense of an American crusade against Islam puts moderates on the defensive and empowers extremists. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating policy.
Pakistan can be a bridge between the West and the global Islamic community. Most Pakistanis want a lasting friendship with America. They respect and admire our society. But they are mystified over what they see as our failure to live up to our ideals. The current crisis is an opportunity to start anew, to build a relationship between Pakistan and the United States upon which both our peoples can depend and be proud.
Last month, the FBI told America that violent crime increased for the second consecutive year -- the first time that happened since 1994. Murders in particular showed an alarming trend, rising an additional 1.8 percent after an increase of 3.4 percent -- the biggest spike in 15 years -- in 2005.
Perhaps the most discouraging fact is that none of us -- lawmakers, law enforcement, or those we serve -- should be surprised. President Bush took steps toward dismantling the federal, state, and local partnership that helped reduce crime in the 1990s as soon as he entered office. And in the wake of 9/11 the administration shifted federal resources away from violent crime towards counterterrorism.
While this was necessary in the short term, there was no plan to replace these resources and, as a consequence, communities are suffering.
Delaware is no exception. Because of the tireless work of our law enforcement community, we have fared better than many states, but crime remains a significant challenge. One of the most troubling paradigms we face today is violent crimes committed by our youth. It seems as the severity of the crimes increase, the ages of the offenders decrease.
We see it every night on the evening news. From the Edgemoor double murder last week to the awful experiences of Delaware State University this fall, the evidence shows that our communities are growing more dangerous and this is happening in our backyards and public schools.
In the early 1990s, crime was at an all-time high. Congress responded by passing the 1994 Crime Bill. This legislation recognized for the first time that crime was a shared responsibility, and we were able to drive down crime rates for eight straight years. The murder rate dropped 34 percent and violent crime dropped 26 percent.
The linchpin was the creation of the Community Oriented Policing Services Program (COPS), which has funded over 118,000 community policing officers in jurisdictions throughout the nation. The Government Accountability Office and a study by the Brookings Institution found that COPS was one of the nation's most cost-effective programs for combating crime.
During the time period from 1994-2000, the New Castle County Police Department was able to add and retain 43 new police officer positions from the Crime Bill and COPS funding. The staffing level was able to grow by at least 15 percent as a result of the federal assistance.
Rather than support programs such as COPS, the Bush administration has virtually eliminated it. President Bush has proposed cuts each year he has been in office. Funding for state and local law enforcement programs run out of the Department of Justice is down 75.6 percent since fiscal year 2002.
This afternoon, we will take steps to change that. Joined by police chiefs from all over Delaware, we will announce the 2007 Biden Crime Bill, which puts our communities back on the right track by supporting the first line of defense and helping to break the cycle of violence through recidivism and prevention strategies.
The legislation restores the COPS hiring program and authorizes funding to hire 50,000 new community policing officers over the next six years.
It also will reauthorize an additional 1,000 agents -- the same amount this administration took off the streets -- to focus on local crime. In addition, the Biden Crimes Bill will tackle new problems by establishing programs to ensure that the 600,000 prisoners released from prison every year don't become repeat offenders.
We also offer concrete plans to protect our children from Internet predators, create an army of attorneys to assist domestic abuse victims, and address the abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications.
We cannot afford to spend billions on wars abroad while ignoring terrorist threats and violent crime at home. It's the local beat cop who is one of our most effective tools against terrorism and violent crime. It was, for example, a quick-thinking officer in London who disconnected a car bomb before bomb squad officers arrived.
The rule is a simple one: more cops means less crime. It worked in the 1990s and it will work again -- as soon as we provide the necessary support to our local agencies.
DESPITE THE deep partisan divide in Washington, two weeks ago Democrats and Republicans came together behind my plan for Iraq and put the national interest first.
The resolution I proposed, with Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, says the United States should work with the international community and Iraq's leaders to support a political settlement in Iraq based on federalism. It won the support of 75 senators, including 26 Republicans.
For the first time in this incredibly divisive national debate we've been having about Iraq, a strong bipartisan majority of senators voted against the President's strategy. For the first time, there is real hope that we can leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind that threatens America's interests for a generation.
My plan is based on this reality: There is no military solution in Iraq, only a political solution.
The Bush administration is pursuing a fatally flawed political strategy in Iraq. It believes that if we just buy it enough time with a surge of U.S. forces, a democratic central government will emerge in Baghdad that secures the support of all Iraqis.
Nine months into the surge, that has not happened and there is no evidence it will happen.
There is no trust within the government in Baghdad, no trust of the government by the people, no capacity on the part of the government to deliver basic security or services, and no prospect the government will develop that trust and capacity anytime soon.
Simply put, absent an occupation we cannot sustain or a dictator we cannot support, Iraq cannot be governed from the center at this point in its history. Its warring factions are just not prepared to entrust their futures to one another.
Our solution is to help bring to life what is already in Iraq's constitution: a decentralized, federal system that gives its people local control over the fabric of their daily lives, including the police, jobs, education and government services.
A limited central government would be responsible for protecting Iraq's borders and distributing its oil revenues.
We should refocus America's efforts on making federalism work for all Iraqis.
I would initiate a diplomatic surge to do just that, bringing in the United Nations, major countries and Iraq's neighbors to help implement and oversee the political settlement I'm proposing.
No one can want peace and stability for Iraq more than the Iraqi people. It is up to them, but we can help them get there by bringing power and responsibility down to the local level and taking the fear out of Iraq's future.
As we help Iraqis work toward a political settlement, there are two other steps we must take to end the war responsibly.
First, we should start to bring our combat troops home now, while transitioning the mission of those that remain to much more limited and achievable tasks like fighting al-Qaida in Iraq and protecting themselves and our civilians.
With Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, since January I have repeatedly proposed legislation to do just that. We've won a majority of senators, but not yet the 60 we need to overcome a filibuster or the 67 necessary to overcome the President's veto.
Second, so long as we have a single solider in Iraq, we must do everything we can to protect him.
While some claim we can get all our troops out of Iraq in a matter of months, the truth is that even if the order came down to leave tomorrow, it would take at least a year and probably longer to get everyone out. It's a huge logistical and security challenge. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Americans remain at risk.
Last Spring, every other Democratic candidate for our party's nomination either voted against or said they opposed the emergency spending bill for Iraq. I voted for it because it funds the mine-resistant vehicles I've been fighting for that protect our troops from roadside bombs -- the biggest killer of Americans in Iraq. I will never vote against money to protect our troops.
The war in Iraq is President Bush's war -- but it is America's future. Together, we have to end it the right way.
Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware is running for the Democratic nomination for President.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time to shine a light on the dark scourge of abuse that affects one out of four Americans each year. In Iowa alone in 2006, there were 77,256 calls to the state's domestic violence and sexual assault hotline and more than 23,000 victims of abuse helped by shelters and other service providers. Since 1995, 167 Iowans have been killed in domestic violence situations.
Once a domestic violence victim steps out from the shadow of an abusive relationship, what does she need? Lawyers. Domestic violence victims are in dire need for legal help for everything from obtaining protection orders to arranging child custody to instigating divorce proceedings.
A national survey by the National Network to End Domestic Violence found that in just one 24-hour cycle, more than 5,000 pleas for services, be it emergency shelter, transitional housing or legal aid, were unmet because of a lack of resources. This shortage means that thousands of victims of domestic violence go without legal representation in this country every day. And in fact, reports indicate that fewer than 1 out of every 5 low-income domestic violence victims ever sees a lawyer.
It is vital that a victim have an advocate helping her when she steps out of the abuse for the first time. The very second a battered woman calls the Hotline, reaches out to the police or walks into a courtroom, we need to connect this courageous person with legal assistance. Victims walk out on a limb when they seek help, often risking their personal safety. These first calls for help are critical moments when a victim must feel supported; if she doesn't, she may retreat back into the abuse.
The single, most important legislative accomplishment in my 32-year-old career in the Senate is passing the Violence Against Women Act. After years of work, countless hours of hearings, pages of expert testimony and Senate floor debate, my Act passed in 1994. The law was renewed in 2000 and most recently expanded in 2005 when I worked to include new measures to treat children who witness violence, to increase housing opportunities and to create dedicated resources for rape crisis centers.
Recognizing that campus gates don't keep out abuse, stalking and sexual assault, the Violence Against Women Act also created a special $15 million program for colleges and universities to create campus-wide victim services and security programs. The Act has transformed the way police, prosecutors, judges and advocates tackle domestic violence in their communities, and infused more than $4 billion dollars to state systems to fight violence against women. In 2007 alone, Iowa received $1.3 million for domestic violence programs with police, prosecutors, judges and advocates. But we are not done.
In May, I introduced the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, legislation that, for the first time, creates a streamlined national system to recruit and train volunteer lawyers and match them with domestic violence victims. Using the power of the Internet, this nationwide network of attorneys will be coordinated by American Bar Association; statewide legal coordinators would manage legal services in their individual states, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline and Internet-based services would provide legal referrals to victims. The historic partnership forged in my bill will mean that enthusiastic potential advocates quickly and seamlessly will get linked to training and new clients. And at the same time, desperate victims will be referred to a statewide coordinator and quickly connected to a lawyer. I want to end the frustrating, and often fruitless, task of calling different agencies, offices, or groups, either to volunteer or find a lawyer.
I believe there is a wealth of untapped resources in this country -- lawyers who want to volunteer. My National Domestic Violence Volunteer Act would harness the skills, enthusiasm and dedication of these lawyers and infuse 100,000 new volunteer lawyers into the justice system to represent domestic violence victims. I believe this initiative builds on the best of American ideals -- volunteerism, technology know-how, collaboration between the private and public sectors and our unwavering commitment to justice and service.
The Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki greeted last week's Senate vote on Iraq policy -- based on a plan we proposed in 2006 -- with misrepresentations and untruths. Seventy-five senators, including 26 Republicans, voted to promote a political settlement based on decentralized power-sharing. It was a life raft for an Iraq policy that is adrift.
Instead, Maliki and the administration -- through our embassy in Baghdad -- distorted the Biden-Brownback amendment beyond recognition, charging that we seek to "partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means."
We want to set the record straight. If the United States can't put this federalism idea on track, we will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind.
First, our plan is not partition, though even some supporters and the media mistakenly call it that. It would hold Iraq together by bringing to life the federal system enshrined in its constitution. A federal Iraq is a united Iraq but one in which power devolves to regional governments, with a limited central government responsible for common concerns such as protecting borders and distributing oil revenue.
Iraqis have no familiarity with federalism, which, absent an occupier or a dictator, has historically been the only path to keeping disunited countries whole. We can point to our federal system and how it began with most power in the hands of the states. We can point to similar solutions in the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Bosnia. Most Iraqis want to keep their country whole. But if Iraqi leaders keep hearing from U.S. leaders that federalism amounts to or will lead to partition, that's what they will believe.
The Bush administration's quixotic alternative has been to promote a strong central government in Baghdad. That central government doesn't function; it is corrupt and widely regarded as irrelevant. It has not produced political reconciliation -- and there is no evidence it will.
Second, we are not trying to impose our plan. If the Iraqis don't want it, they won't and shouldn't take it, as the Senate amendment makes clear. But Iraqis and the White House might consider the facts. Iraq's constitution already provides for a federal system. As for the regions forming along sectarian lines, the constitution leaves the choice to the people of its 18 provinces.
The White House can hardly complain that we would force unwanted solutions on Iraqis. President Bush did not hesitate to push Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari out of office to make way for Maliki, and he may yet do the same to Maliki.
The United States has responsibilities in Iraq that we cannot run away from. The Iraqis will need our help in explaining and lining up support for a federal solution. With 160,000 Americans at risk in Iraq, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and with more than 3,800 dead and nearly 28,000 wounded, we also have a right to be heard.
Third, our plan would not produce "suffering and bloodshed," as a U.S. Embassy statement irresponsibly suggested. And it is hard to imagine more suffering and bloodshed than we've already seen from government-tolerated militias, jihadists, Baathists and administration ineptitude. More than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, most for fear of sectarian violence.
The Bush administration should be helping Iraqis make federalism work -- through an agreement over the fair distribution of oil revenue; the safe return of refugees; integrating militia members into local security forces; leveraging the shared interest of other countries in a stable Iraq; and refocusing capacity-building and aid on the provinces and regions -- not scaring them off by equating federalism to partition, sectarianism and foreign bullying.
To confuse matters more, the administration has conjured a "bottom-up" strategy that looks like federalism and smells like federalism -- but is, in reality, a recipe for chaos.
"Bottom-up" seems to mean that the United States will support any group, anywhere, that will fight al-Qaeda or Shiite extremists. Now, it always made sense to seek allies among tribal chiefs to fight common terrorist enemies. But to simply back these groups as they appear, without any overall political context or purpose, is to invite anarchy. Nothing will fragment Iraq more than a bottom-up approach that pits one group against another and fails to knit these parts into governable wholes.
Federalism is the one formula that fits the seemingly contradictory desires of most Iraqis to remain whole and of various groups to govern themselves for the time being. It also recognizes the reality of the choice we face in Iraq: a managed transition to federalism or actual partition through civil war.
The appointment of an attorney general is an historic occasion and an opportunity for Americans to celebrate their commitment to justice and the rule of law. Never has the celebration and revitalization of these principles been as important as it is today. With the long overdue resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the president has the opportunity to restore America's faith in the Department of Justice by nominating an individual that meets the nation's highest ideals for its top prosecutor.
Gonzales' failed leadership has left the Department of Justice mired in controversy. Congress and the inspector general are investigating the degree to which politics infected personnel decisions and prosecutorial discretion within the department and whether Gonzales lied to Congress about the warrantless wiretapping program. The morale of the hard-working career employees that form the department's core is at an all time low and much of the department's top leadership has resigned under a cloud of controversy, leaving a leadership vacuum at a time when our country faces resurgent crime rates and the threat of terrorism.
The nation needs an attorney general who will restore the dignity and integrity of the Department of Justice. He or she must:
In 1975, in the wake of Watergate, President Ford restored dignity and integrity to the Department of Justice by nominating Edward Levi, then president of the University of Chicago. President Ford didn't know Levi or his politics. Levi acted decisively to reform the FBI and investigate the Nixon administration's abuses and invasions of privacy. We find ourselves in need of an attorney general in the mold of Levi now more than ever.
The president should view the nomination of a new attorney general as an opportunity to begin to rebuild the credibility of the Department of Justice in the eyes of the American public, Congress and the world. He should use the occasion to send a message that the United States abides by our Constitution, respects the rule of law and scrupulously avoids partisan influence in our criminal justice system. The president can make a small but significant step in this direction by nominating a candidate of unquestioned independence, intellect and integrity to be the next attorney general of the United States.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., is a member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In an ominous sign of things to come, the court's newest members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, authored opinions in a series of divisive 5-4 decisions that showed utter contempt for recent precedent and eroded some of our most fundamental individual rights and civil liberties.
Two of their opinions erased decades of hard-won progress for minority and gender equality and severely curtailed the Constitution's assurance that women and minorities will receive equal protection and fair treatment.
The court's newest members also showed marked facility for manipulating First Amendment precedent, construing it narrowly in one case and expansively in another to achieve particular results. The first opinion drastically cut back the Constitution's protection of public school students' rights of free speech. The second opinion struck down key parts of campaign finance reform legislation that limited the influence of special interests in our elections.
These opinions will reduce frank and full discussion of timely and controversial topics in our public schools, increase the influence of big money in politics, alienate an increasingly cynical electorate and impugn the integrity of our democratic elections.
Still another 5-4 decision foreshadowed a dramatic expansion of unchecked Executive Branch authority and a dilution of our constitutional system of checks and balances. In a case addressing whether taxpayer dollars can be spent on the president's faith-based initiatives, the court held that while Congress is accountable -- as it should be -- to citizen taxpayers, the president is not. With 18 months remaining in the term of a president who has operated secret prisons; detained and interrogated terrorism suspects in violation of U.S law and international treaties; and eavesdropped without a warrant on Americans' conversations, the court's expansion of presidential authority is in a word, alarming.
I was concerned during their confirmation hearings that Chief Justice Roberts' and Justice Alito's appointments would herald a new era of disdain for established precedent; of diminished protection of the equality of minorities and women (the chief justice has dismissed gender discrimination as a ``perceived problem''); of safeguarding the privileges of the powerful, but not the rights of the vulnerable (he also called privacy a ``so-called right''); and of expanding executive authority. I was tough on them during the confirmation hearings, but over a year later, it's apparent we in the Senate weren't tough enough. The individual rights and civil liberties of every American would be threatened even more if another conservative is allowed to serve on the Roberts court.
The court's newest members are rewriting the Constitution according to their vision and remaking the court -- long a protector of human dignity and liberty, a tribunal before which David and Goliath stand on equal footing -- in their image. They've already turned the court upside down -- and this is only their first term.
Mr. Biden (D., Del.) is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Taken from http://biden.senate.gov/biography/facts.cfm and http://biden.senate.gov/biography/
Democratic Candidate Joseph Biden's Bio. Presidential Election 2008.
Joe Biden's Biography
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was first elected to the United States Senate in 1972 at
the age of twenty-nine and is recognized as one of the nation’s most powerful
and influential voices on foreign relations, terrorism, drug policy, and crime
prevention.
Foreign Policy & National Security
Senator Biden has played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy for
over three decades. As the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
he is a student of history, respected at home and abroad for his uniquely
well-informed, common sense approach to the complexities of American foreign
policy issues. Senator Richard Lugar, currently the top Republican on the
committee, has said: "Senator Biden has a very strong commitment to a bipartisan
foreign policy and serves as a good example for everyone in Congress. He has a
very broad, comprehensive view of the world. He’s a good listener, but he’s also
a strong and effective advocate of his position."
Safeguarding Our Streets
A strong leader on anti-crime and drug policy, Senator Biden has been
instrumental in crafting virtually every major piece of crime legislation over
the past two decades, including the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act of 1994, also known as the Biden Crime Law, which dramatically increased
funds spent on law enforcement. Additionally, Senator Biden is the author of the
landmark Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (VAWA 2000) which contains a broad
array of ground-breaking measures to combat domestic violence and provides
billions of dollars in federal funds to address gender-based crimes. Biden, who
serves as Co-Chairman of the International Narcotics Control Caucus, also wrote
the law creating the nation's "Drug Czar" who oversees and coordinates national
drug control policy. Today, Senator Biden continues to work to stop the spread
of new drugs such as Ecstacy, Ketamine and Rohypnol, the "date rape" drug.
Protecting Our Environment
In addition to his leadership on foreign policy, crime and drug control
issues, Senator Biden is widely recognized for his work on environmental
protection and education policy. His work over the past 20 years has led to the
end of federal control and the return to Delawareans of more than 1,180 acres of
beach shoreline along the Delaware coast. In 2000, Biden’s decades-long efforts
culminated with establishment of Delaware’s first and only National Wild and
Scenic River -- the White Clay Creek Watershed -- which will be preserved and
saved from development for future generations.
Empowering Our Students
To help Americans struggling to afford the rising costs of college tuition,
Biden has been a staunch supporter of college aid and loan programs and has
offered legislation to allow families to deduct up to $10,000 per year in higher
education expenses on their annual income tax returns. And to prepare today’s
students to meet the technology challenges of tomorrow, Biden has undertaken
bold initiatives in the Senate to close the "digital divide" and ensure that all
students have access to the on-ramp of the information super highway. Senator
Biden’s "Kids 2000" legislation, signed into law by the President in October of
2000 establishes a public/private partnership to help provide computer centers,
teachers, Internet access and technical training to young people across the
nation, particularly to low-income and at-risk youth.
Personal Information
Senator Biden grew up in New Castle County, Delaware. He graduated from the
University of Delaware in 1965, and from the Syracuse University College of Law
in 1968. Prior to his election to the Senate, Biden practiced law in Wilmington,
Delaware and served on the New Castle County Council from 1970 to 1972. Since
1991, Biden has been an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of
Law, where he teaches a seminar on constitutional law.
Senator Biden lives in Wilmington, Delaware and commutes to Washington, DC
when the Senate is in session. He is married to the former Jill Jacobs, and is
the father of three children: Beau, Hunter and Ashley. The Bidens also have five
grandchildren: Naomi, Finnegan, Roberta Mabel, Natalie, and Robert Hunter Biden.
For more information about Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, read these fast
facts.
Joe Biden's Fast Facts. Joseph Biden Biography Short Version
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was born on November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
He was first elected to the United States Senate in 1972 and re-elected in 1978,
1984, 1990, 1996 and 2002. He is currently serving his 6th term.
EDUCATION
Syracuse University College of Law, J.D. 1968
University of Delaware, B.A. 1965
(Double Major: History/Political Science)
Archmere Academy 1961
PROFESSIONAL
Adjunct Professor, 1991-present
Widener University School of Law
HISTORICAL
In January of 1973 Joe Biden was sworn into office at the age of 30 years, one
month, and 14 days. He is the fifth youngest person to ever serve in the U.S.
Senate (John Henry Eaton of Tennessee, Armistead Mason of Virginia, Henry Clay
of Kentucky, and Rush Holt of West Virginia were younger).
PRIOR TO THE SENATE
New Castle County (Delaware) Council 1970-1972
Attorney, Wilmington, Delaware 1968-1972
LEADERSHIP AND MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS
Senate Democratic Steering and Coordination Committee
Co-Chairman, Senate NATO Observer Group
Co-Chairman, Senate National Security Working Group
Vice Chairman, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Co-Chairman, Congressional Fireman's Caucus
Co-Chairman, Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus
Member, Congressional Air Force Caucus
Member, National Guard Caucus
Member, Senate Auto Caucus
Member, Senate Biotechnology Caucus
Member, Congressional Port Security Caucus
PERSONAL
Married: Wife, Jill Tracy Biden
Children: Beau Biden; Hunter Biden; Ashley Biden
Grandchildren: Naomi Biden; Finnegan Biden; Roberta Mabel Biden; Natalie Biden;
Robert Hunter Biden
Speeches were taken from the Joseph Biden's Senate web page: http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/speeches.cfm
U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee
"Iraq's Future and America's Interests"
The Brookings Institution
February 15, 2007
This is a time of tremendous challenge for America in the world.
We must contend with the on-going war in Afghanistan, the genocide in Darfur, nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, the rise of China and re-emergence Russia, the growing insecurity of our energy supply, the fragility of our climate, and the threat posed by radical fundamentalism.
But one issue dominates our national debate: Iraq.
If we deal with it successfully, we can recover the freedom, flexibility and credibility to meet these other challenges.
That's what I want to talk about today.
* * *
Listen to the debate about Iraq here in Washington.
It centers on a false choice that is also a bad choice: Do we continue on President Bush's failing course and hand off Iraq to the next President? Or do we just leave and hope for the best? I believe there is a better choice. It is still possible to bring our troops home without trading a dictator for chaos that engulfs Iraq and spreads to the Middle East.
That must be our goal.
Leaving Iraq is necessary -- but it is not a plan. We also need a plan for what we leave behind.
* * *
Nine months ago, with Les Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations, I proposed just such a plan. Go to "planforiraq.com." to read its details.
Our plan recognizes that there is no purely military exit strategy from Iraq. Instead, we set out a roadmap to a political settlement in Iraq -- one that gives its warring factions a way to share power peacefully and offers us a chance to leave with our interests intact.
The plan has five major pieces.
First, maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in regions - as the Iraqi constitution provides. The central government would be responsible for common concerns, like guarding Iraq's borders and distributing its oil revenues.
Second, secure support from the Sunnis - who have no oil - by guaranteeing them a fair share of oil revenues. Allow former Baath party members to go back to work and reintegrate Sunnis with no blood on their hands.
Third, increase economic assistance to Iraq and its regions. Insist that the oil-rich Gulf states put up most of the money, tie it to the protection of minority rights, and create a major jobs program to deny the militia new recruits.
Fourth, initiate a major diplomatic offensive to enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors. Create an oversight group of the U.N. and the major powers to enforce their commitments. These countries have a profound stake in preventing chaos in Iraq and the credibility we lack to press for compromise by all Iraqis. If a political settlement fails to take hold, these same countries are vital to any strategy to contain the fall out within Iraq.
Fifth, instruct the military to draw up plans for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq by 2008. Leave behind a small force to take on terrorists and train Iraqis. The best way to focus Iraq's leaders on the political compromises they must make is to make it clear to them that we are leaving.
* * *
Many of you have heard me talk about this plan before.
What's new is the growing support it's receiving.
That support was evident during the four weeks of hearings we just held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
It is evident in the new National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq - a consensus report of all U.S. intelligence agencies.
The NIE and virtually all of our witnesses agreed that the fundamental problem in Iraq is self-sustaining sectarian violence.
Yes, jihadists, Baathists, criminal gangs and intra-sect violence all contribute to the growing chaos. But Sunnis killing Shiites and Shiites killing Sunnis is the heart of the matter. That's what we have to stop if we want to leave Iraq with our interests intact.
How do we stop this sectarian cycle of revenge?
If history is any guide, we have to wait until one side wins or both sides exhaust themselves. That could take years of bloodletting... years that we do not have.
History also suggests it is possible to short circuit sectarian strife.
A decade ago, Bosnia was being torn apart by ethnic cleansing, which threatened to engulf the Balkans. The United States stepped in with Dayton Accords, which kept the country whole by, paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations. Muslims, Croats and Serbs retained separate armies and presidents. Since then, Bosnians have lived a decade in peace. Now, they are slowly coming back together.
Iraq presents a similar possibility. Here's what the National Intelligence Estimate says we need:
"Broader Sunni acceptance of the current political structure and federalism... [and] significant concessions by Shia and Kurds to create space for Sunni acceptance of federalism."
That is exactly the strategy behind the Biden-Gelb plan.
During our hearings, witness after witness - including former secretaries of states, foreign policy experts, and elected officials -- came to a similar conclusion. So have a growing number of opinion makers.
What more and more people are beginning to recognize is that there are very few possible futures for Iraq in the near term - and only one that protects America's interests.
* * *
Think for a minute about Iraq's possible futures.
The Bush administration has one vision: that Iraqis will rally behind a strong, democratic central government that keeps the country together and protects the rights of all citizens equally.
But since the Samarra Mosque bombing a year ago, that vision has been engulfed by the flames of sectarian hatred.
The hard truth in Iraq is that there is no trust within the central government... no trust of the government by the people... and no capacity by the government to deliver services and security. And there is no evidence - none - that we can build that trust and capacity any time soon.
There are two other ways to govern Iraq from the center:
A foreign occupation that the United States cannot long sustain.
Or the return of a strongman, who is not on the horizon. Even if he were, replacing one dictator with another would require a savagery to rival Saddam's worst excesses.
So where does that leave us?
It leaves us with an idea a large majority of Iraqis have already endorsed in their constitution and that our plan would help make a reality: federalism.
Federalism would keep Iraq together by vesting real power in the regions.
It would bring decisions and responsibility down to the local level and give Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds control over the fabric of their daily lives: security, education, marriage, jobs.
Very few have read Iraq's constitution. Fewer still understand that legislation to implement its articles on federalism takes effect in 15 months.
Federalism is Iraq's best possible future.
But unless we help make federalism work for all Iraqis, the violence will not stop.
We have to convince the major powers and Iraq's neighbors that a federal Iraq is the best possible outcome for them, too, and to put their weight and influence behind it. Then, together, we have to bring in the Sunnis and convince the Shiites and Kurds to make concessions. That is what the Biden-Gelb plan proposes. It demands the kind of sustained, hard headed diplomacy for which this administration has shown little interest or aptitude. But it offers the possibility - not the guarantee - of producing a soft landing in Iraq.
If we fail to make federalism work, there will be no political accommodation at the center. Violent resistance will increase. The sectarian cycle of revenge will spiral out of control. At best, the result likely will be the violent break up of Iraq into multiple failed states. At worst, the result will be Iraq's total fragmentation into warring fiefdoms.
The neighbors will not sit on the sidelines. Already, Iraq has aggravated a deep Sunni-Shiite divide that runs from Lebanon through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. This fault-line intersects with other cultural and political rifts - between Arabs and Persians, Turks and Kurds, jihadis and the Muslim mainstream - to create the conditions for a cataclysmic explosion.
Iran and the Arab states will back Shi'a and Sunni extremists as part of a proxy war. Eventually, they will intervene directly. Sunni Jihadis will flood Iraq to confront the Persian and Shi'a threat, creating a new haven for terrorists. Turkey will move into the North to crush Kurdish ambitions. Sunni-Shi'a tensions will rise from Beirut to Karachi.
Individually, these would be bad developments. Together, they would do terrible damage to American interests. We must lead a determined regional and international effort to end the Iraqi civil war, or contain it if we can't.
* * *
The Bush administration is heading in exactly the wrong direction.
Instead of a diplomatic and political offensive to forge a political settlement, it proposes a military offensive that would send 17,500 Americans into the middle of a sectarian conflict in a city of 6.2 million people.
This military surge in Iraq is not a solution - it is a tragic mistake.
If we should be surging forces anywhere, it is in Afghanistan.
I'm glad the President has recognized what many of us have been saying for years: unless we surge troops, hardware, money, and high-level attention into Afghanistan, it will fall back into the hands of the Taliban, terrorists and drug traffickers. I support the steps he announced today but I hope they are the first steps - not the last - in a recommitment to Afghanistan.
* * *
The House is about to pronounce itself on the President's surge plan for Iraq and the Senate will, too.
Some minimize the significance of a non-binding resolution. If it is so meaningless, why did the White House and the President's political supporters mobilize so much energy against it?
Opposing the surge is only a first step. We need a radical change in course in Iraq. If the President won't act, Congress will.
But Congress must act responsibly. We must resist the temptation to push for changes that sound good but produce bad results.
The best next step is to revisit the authorization Congress granted the President in 2002 to use force in Iraq. That's exactly what I'm doing.
We gave the President that power to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein.
The WMD were not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq.
I am working on legislation to repeal that authorization and replace it with a much narrower mission statement for our troops in Iraq.
Congress should make clear what the mission of our troops is: to responsibly draw down, while continuing to combat terrorists, train Iraqis and respond to emergencies. We should make equally clear what their mission is not: to stay in Iraq indefinitely and get mired in a savage civil war.
Coupled with the Biden-Gelb plan, I believe this is the most effective way to start bringing our troops home without leaving a mess behind.
* * * I want to leave you with one thought.
For our sake and for the sake of the Iraqi people, we should be focused on how we get out of Iraq with our interests intact.
Everyone wants to bring our troops home as soon and as safely as possible.
But tempting as it is, we can't just throw up our hands, blame the President for misusing the authority we gave him, and walk away without a plan for what we leave behind.
So I'll end where I began.
Leaving Iraq is a necessity, but it is not a plan. We need a plan for what we leave behind. That is what I have offered.
To those who disagree with my plan, I have one simple question: what is your alternative?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Joe Biden Biography. US Health System. Iraq. Polls 2008. Runs 2008. Presidential Election 2008. Joseph Biden
Biden Remarks to the Israel Policy Forum
U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Speech to the Israel Policy Forum at 8:30 PM
New York, NY
December 4, 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is good to be among good friends. Tonight, I would like to talk to you about our nation's most serious and urgent priority - Iraq. Our current policy in Iraq is a failure. We are past the point of an open-ended commitment. We are past the point of adding more troops. We are past the point of vague policy prescriptions. It is not an answer just to stay. Nor is it an answer -- though it may become a necessity -- just to go, with no concern for what follows. The fundamental question we must answer is whether, as we begin to leave Iraq, there are still concrete steps we can take to avoid leaving chaos behind. I believe the answer to that question is yes. But I'm equally convinced neither Democrats nor Republicans alone will take those steps. No one wants to be blamed for what might happen next in Iraq. The only way to carve out a new path is through bipartisanship. With a united voice we can speak with strength to Iraqis on the need to put their house in order, and find political protection here at home. Political leaders in our country must choose to hang together rather than hang separately. We have every incentive to do so. It is flatly against the security interests of the United States to stay the current course. It also happens to be against the political interests of both parties. Republicans don't want to run for re-election to Congress or for the presidency in 2008 with Iraq around their necks. Democrats do not want to assume the presidency in 2009 saddled with a losing war. So the incentive is there to work together. But what are the principles of a policy that can bring Democrats and Republicans together - and start to bring our troops home responsibly? Six months ago Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and I proposed a detailed answer to that question. If you are interested in the particulars, please take a look at our website, "www.planforiraq.com." We had two basic premises that were clear to us months ago - and that every passing month makes clearer and clearer: First, the main challenge in Iraq is a sectarian cycle of revenge, for which there is no military solution. Even if every Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist left Iraq tomorrow, we'd still have a major civil conflict on our hands, pitting Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds against one another. Second, putting all of our chips on building a strong central government cannot pay off because there is no trust within the government… no trust of the government by the people… and no capacity on the part of the government to deliver basic services to Iraqis. Any plan for Iraq must contend with those powerful realities. Our plan does - and here's how. First, we argued that the focus of U.S. policy in Iraq must be to help forge a political settlement that gives each of its main groups incentives to pursue their interests peacefully. The most likely form for that settlement is a federalized Iraq, with three or more largely autonomous regional governments to suit the separate interests of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. A central government would administer truly common concerns, such as defending Iraq's borders and managing its energy infrastructure. The constitution already provides for this approach and Iraq's parliament recently passed a law to implement its articles on federalism. But for federalism to work, the constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunnis - who are sand rich but oil poor -- 20% of oil revenues, to be administered by the central government with international oversight. Only with such revenues could a Sunni region become economically and politically sustainable. Why would Shiites and Kurds hand over some of the oil revenues to the Sunnis? Because that's the price of peace -- and only with peace will Iraq attract the massive foreign investment it needs to maximize oil production. Oil can become the glue that holds Iraq together. The final decisions will be up to the Iraqis. But without us helping them arrange the necessary compromises, as we have at every critical juncture, nothing will get done. With 145,000 Americans at risk, we have a right and a responsibility to make our views known. Second, we urged that the U.S. military plan for the redeployment and withdrawal of most U.S, forces by the end of 2007. Redeployment by itself is not a plan. But it is a good way to get the Iraqis to concentrate on the hard political decisions they must make. We have to make clear to them that the presence of our troops in their present large numbers is not open-ended. We would begin the phased redeployment in the first half of next year, but with no artificial deadline or end date. We would maintain a small residual force in Iraq or in the region whose mission would be counter-terrorism, training, logistics and force protection. Even if it made strategic sense to keep 145,000 troops in Iraq beyond next year, we could not do so without doing real damage to the volunteer military, including:
* sending soldiers back on third and fourth tours;
* extending deployment times from 12 to 18 months;
* ending the practice of a year at home between deployments;
* fully mobilizing the Guard and Reserves; and
* returning demobilized soldiers to Iraq through a back-door draft.
Over time, the impact on retention and recruitment would be devastating. Third, we have to ignite the most vigorous regional diplomacy to back up the power-sharing deal among Iraqis and avoid neighbors warring over an Iraqi vacuum. We would convene an international conference and stand up an oversight group of major countries to support a political settlement in Iraq -- or, if chaos ensues anyway, to help contain its fallout within Iraq. All major Iraqi factions should be included in the conference -- and, as at the Dayton Conference for Bosnia, we should keep them there until all agree to a way forward. And all of Iraq's neighbors must be there, too. There can be no sustainable peace in Iraq without them. That includes not just Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey, but Iran and Syria as well. Granted, some of Iraq's neighbors have no desire to do us any favors. But like us, they can see the abyss opening up before them, and like us, they all have powerful interests in preventing a full-blown civil war that becomes a regional war. There's much more to our plan than that - but I wanted to give you the main points. I believe we have a small but real window of time - maybe four to six months - to build the bi-partisan policy for Iraq I believe we so desperately need. In two days, the bi-partisan Baker-Hamilton Commission will issue its recommendations. I will reserve judgment on the actual report until I see it. But I am concerned about news reports on two aspects of the Iraq Study Group's work. One suggests that it may miss the most important point: the need for a strategy to build a sustainable political settlement in Iraq. Bringing the neighbors in and starting to get our troops out are necessary, but not sufficient. We need to give each of Iraq's major groups a way to pursue their interests peacefully. It would be a fatal mistake to believe we can do that solely by building up a strong central government. As I said earlier, that policy has been tried and it has failed. Second, I'm concerned by reports suggesting that the Iraq Study Group will link a renewed effort to advance the Arab-Israeli peace process with a solution in Iraq. I am not opposed to a vigorous peace process - quite to the contrary, as I will explain in a moment. But the notion that an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement would end a civil war in Iraq defies common sense. Israeli-Palestinian peace should be pursued aggressively on its own merits, period. Not as some sort of diplomatic price to make the Arab states feel good so they will help us in Iraq. I hope that both of these news stories are incorrect, because I truly hope that the Baker-Hamilton report will garner bipartisan support. Regardless of what it says, right after the New Year, I will focus the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq, in close collaboration with my Republican counterpart, Senator Richard Lugar. We will hold intensive and extensive hearings, over many weeks. We won't be wedded to any one plan or proposal. Instead, our mission will be as straightforward as it is vital: to shine a light on what options remain for America to start bringing our troops home from Iraq without trading a dictator for chaos. That's a goal that unites the vast majority of Americans. I would like to conclude with some brief thoughts on the two goals that we share and believe are inseparably woven together - the well-being of Israel and the need for a peace settlement. I am going to say something which may strike some cynics as fanciful. Despite all the difficulties of the past year - from the Hamas victory to the war with Hezbollah over the summer, which incidentally Israel did not lose - I believe that we may be arriving at a moment where a renewed peace process is possible. Why do I say this? For two reasons: First, Israel has in place a government and a prime minister that understands that the status quo is unacceptable. Unilateralism is off the table. And indefinite occupation threatens Israel's Jewish majority. Last week, Prime Minister Olmert made a bold speech and extended Israel's hand to her Palestinian neighbors, offering to make real and painful concessions on territory and settlements. I commend him for making this gesture at a moment when some might advise him that caution would be better politically. Second, the Arab states may finally be waking up to the dangerous strategic shifts in the region. To put it simply, the Arabs are terrified of Iran. Not, alas, because of Ahmadinejad's outrageous anti-Semitic statements and Holocaust denial. But because they are terrified of the role Iran is playing in Iraq, terrified of its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and terrified of its nuclear program. They see that the stagnation in the region working to the advantage of Iran and its extremist allies. They see their very legitimacy now being challenged by these forces. This may finally spur them into action. As Samuel Johnson famously observed, "nothing focuses the mind like a hanging." The Arabs may finally be willing to take some of the risks they have steadfastly avoided in the past. One manifestation of this is their newfound interest in supporting the Palestinian security forces under Abu Mazen. This is welcome. But I challenge them to do more - if you mean what you say in the Beirut Declaration - that you are prepared to live in peace with Israel, then please show it. Meet with Israelis. Go to Israel as Sadat did. Take some risks. Otherwise, you may miss yet another opportunity. Ladies and gentlemen. I have been around for too long to believe that opportunity automatically translates into progress. Nothing will happen without American leadership. Nothing. Under President Clinton, we had a whole team that worked 24/7 on the peace process -- often it was the President himself. I can't think of anyone in the current Administration who is solely dedicated to the peace process. And I can't fathom how our current President has not found the time to visit Israel in the past 6 years. Yes, we face time-consuming challenges in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Afghanistan. But we are the sole superpower. We are Israel's closest friend. We have an obligation to lead for the sake of peace. Thank you
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Rethinking America's Future Security
8:00 PM on October 31, 2006
Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to the Iowa State University
Manatt-Phelps Lecture Series in Political Science
Thank you all for being here tonight.
I'd like to start out with saying that this current administration is full of bright, hard working Americans who want to do what's right for this county. I don't question their motives. I just have profound disagreements with their judgments, and doubts about their competence.
I will discuss two connected but distinct challenges we face - not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans: the so-called "Axis of Evil" and "Axis of Oil." How we deal with each will go a long way toward shaping America's security over the next decades.
Tonight, I will argue we are not doing a very effective job meeting either challenge.
The "Axis of Evil"
Let me start with the "Axis of Evil": Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. After 9/11, President Bush warned that these countries posed a grave danger and urged we act against them. Five years later, each member of this "axis" is even more dangerous than it was then.
In Iraq, a dictator is gone and that's good. But we may be on the verge of trading him for chaos and a new foothold for extremists in the Mid East. North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon for the first time, and it has 400 percent more fissile material than it did when President Bush took office. And Iran is closer to the bomb, and its reform movement is on the ropes.
So that's where we are. The question is: where do we go from here to defuse the dangers these countries pose to the United States?
Iraq
Let me start with Iraq, because getting it right will give us much more freedom, flexibility, and credibility to meet these other challenges to our security.
Iraq has cost us dearly in lives and treasure. Because our forces are tied down, our ability to act against other threats is limited. Because we hyped the intelligence, our ability to convince allies and Americans of new dangers is diminished. Because we diverted resources from Afghanistan, it's on the verge of failure.
In my judgment, this administration has no strategy for success in Iraq. Its strategy is to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to the next President.
The overwhelming reality in Iraq is a sectarian cycle of revenge. No number of troops can stop it. We need a political settlement that allows each group to pursue its interests peacefully.
Six months ago, with Les Gelb, of the Council on Foreign Relations, I proposed a plan to do just that. It's like what we did in Bosnia. It would keep Iraq together by providing each group breathing room in their own regions, getting Sunni buy-in by giving them a piece of the oil revenues, creating a major jobs and reconstruction program to deny the militia new recruits, and bringing in Iraq's neighbors to support the political process.
If we do all that, we have a chance to bring most of our troops home by the end of 2007, without leaving chaos behind.
North Korea
The North Korean nuclear test was a deliberate and dangerous provocation. It could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia. North Korea could sell dangerous weapons to radical groups. North Korea is responsible for this mess and must be held accountable. But this administration is responsible for a failed policy.
The Clinton administration froze North Korea's plutonium program - the one that produced the fissile material for the bomb it tested. This administration rejected that approach, replacing it with threatening but hollow rhetoric. It drew red line after red line: don't process more plutonium, don't test your missiles, don't test a nuclear weapon. North Korea crossed each one.
We have to stop digging and start a policy that has a chance to achieve the de-nuclearization of North Korea. That requires two things:
First, we have to choose what's more important: a change in conduct or a change in regime. We won't get the former, if we remain fixated on the latter.
Think about it: how can it possibly work to say to the North Koreans: give up your one insurance policy against regime change and then, when you do that, we will still try to take you out? Pyongyang won't give up its weapons if it believes we're determined to topple it. That doesn't mean endorsing the regime or not continuing to oppose its loathsome policies. It does mean keeping our eyes on the prize of de-nuclearization.
Second, we have to combine effective pressure from our partners - especially China and South Korea - with incentives from us. They're mutually reinforcing.
If our partners see we are willing to go the extra diplomatic mile and forego regime change, which they oppose, they are more likely to exert pressure on North Korea. If Pyongyang sees that pressure - including a willingness to stop and inspect cargoes going into and out of North Korea -- our engagement will be more effective.
North Korea wants face to face talks; the administration says only in the context of the 6 Party Talks. That's like arguing over the shape of the table. We can and should do both.
I am pleased that North Korea apparently has agreed to return to the 6 Party Talks, but there is a lot of heavy lifting ahead, and talks may not succeed.
So what do we do in the meantime to protect ourselves? Some people argue the nuclear test is justification for deploying a national missile defense, never mind it does not yet work. Instead, we should focus on a sea-based defense against medium-range missiles that North Korea possesses and that could hit Japan.
North Korea is years away from a missile that could hit the U.S. Even if it gets one, it would be committing suicide by sending a missile our way with a return address. Deterrence still works against countries. But there is a danger North Korea could sell weapons of mass destruction to the highest bidder, including radical groups we can't deter because they have no people or territory to protect.
So, as we try to freeze and roll back North Korea's program, we also have to convince it not to do that. We can - with a program to develop more technology to detect the "signature" of a nuclear explosion and to make it clear we will hold North Korea responsible for any use of a nuclear weapon, by any group, that we trace to them. When Congress returns, I will propose legislation to do just that.
Iran
The basic approach I'm proposing for North Korea could also work with Iran. For five years, the administration's policy was paralyzed by a stand-off between those promoting regime change and those arguing for engagement. During that time, Iran crushed the reform movement and moved much closer to the bomb.
Now, the administration has finally gotten behind the European effort to engage Iran. That was the right thing to do, but it's not enough. We should talk directly to Tehran. Talking would not reward bad behavior or legitimize the government. It would allow us to make clear to Tehran - and to the Iranian people - what it can get for giving up its weapons program and what it risks if it does not. Going the extra diplomatic mile makes it more likely our allies will be with us for tougher action if diplomacy fails.
Iran is not a monolith. Our greatest allies against the theocracy are the Iranian people. They admire America. But we never get our side of the argument into Iran to the people who could insist, over time, that the government change course. They never hear our voice. America, whose greatest strengths are her ideas and ideals, has become afraid to talk. It's time to find our voice again.
The "Axis of Oil"
While the "Axis of Evil" has gotten more dangerous, this administration also has made us more vulnerable to an equally grave danger, what Michael Mandelbaum and others call the "Axis of Oil." It stretches from Russia to Iran, from Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, from Nigeria to Burma.
The recent drop in gas prices can't mask the fact that our oil dependence is threatening our national security and undermining the effectiveness of our foreign policy. Our oil dependence fuels the fundamentalism we're fighting. More than any factor, it limits our options and our influence around the world, because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us, while oil-dependent allies may be afraid to stand with us.
Think about what we are trying to achieve -- and then consider how the widespread dependence on oil is undermining our efforts.
China needs oil from Iran so they won't confront Tehran. The world is confronted with genocide again, this time in Darfur, but China turns a blind eye because it has invested billions in Sudan's oil.
Hugo Chavez has described Venezuela's oil as a "geopolitical weapon." It makes him believe he can displace Castro as the prime antagonist and anti-American troublemaker in the region. Last month, he stood before the United Nations, and called our President the devil and our country an empire bent on destroying the human species, yet we're still Venezuela's number one oil customer.
Ukraine's Orange Revolution is in jeopardy because Moscow is using energy as a weapon of extortion.
Nothing is more important to America's security than prevailing in the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. But nowhere does oil have a more distorting effect than in the Islamic and Arab worlds, where its proceeds finance radical groups and prop up repressive regimes.
We're familiar with the facts: we have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. We import about 12 of the 20 million barrels of oil a day we consume.
The market for oil is a world market. An expert explained it to me like this: all the world's oil is like the water in a swimming pool. If you add a little water the level of the whole pool doesn't rise much. You have to add a lot of water before the level goes up.
Even if we drilled all the oil reserves within the United States, we still would not be able to bring prices down. We just do not control enough of the world's oil. Add to that extraordinary growth of energy consumption in India and China.
China will put 120 million new vehicles on its roads by the end of the decade. This ensures demand will outpace the discovery of new supplies.
Competition for energy resources will increase. Right now excess capacity is so small the slightest disruption in production -- a terrorist act in Saudi Arabia, tough talk from Tehran, or even a terrible storm here in America can send gas prices soaring again.
Think about where our oil comes from: 35 percent from Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq - all of them potentially unreliable suppliers.
Venezuela has twice threatened to cut off oil shipments. In Nigeria, civil unrest has repeatedly disrupted production. Saudi Arabia is an oligarchy under siege. Iraq is in total disarray.
We did not go to war in Iraq for oil. But ensuring we do not leave behind a civil war that turns into a regional war is in part about oil. We are losing thousands of American lives, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to avoid that.
Energy Security These days you hear much talk about energy independence. I think we should be talking about energy security. Independence is a worthy aspiration. But it will not happen any time soon and it will not solve our foreign policy problems.
Our independence is not China's independence. If China and India don't follow suit, our foreign policy will remain in a straitjacket. That is why we should focus America on energy security. We must encourage other major countries, like China and India, to do the same.
And we should be developing and exporting our clean technologies - like clean coal and biofuels - to these fast-growing economies.
We can do this. Right here in Iowa you're already doing it. We can avoid another oil crisis - and we don't need to wait for hydrogen cars or next generation technology to succeed. We have the technology to make these changes today.
We know where to start: expand alternative fuels and improve vehicle efficiency. Americans - Democrats and Republicans - want more fuel efficient cars and alternative fuels. We want to pull up to the gas pump in an American flex fuel car, and buy a gallon of biodiesel or E85 made in America, grown by farmers here in Iowa.
Four Steps To Energy Security So, I've proposed four steps we can take to reduce our dependence on oil now. This is not an entire energy policy. We need to keep all options on the table, including nuclear, wind, solar, and to invest in research and innovation much beyond what we've already done. But I am so tired, in Washington, of no one coming up with measures we can take that could have an immediate impact.
First, let's understand that famous expression from a popular movie - build it and they will come. Our fields of dreams are full of corn and switch grass. Build the biofuel infrastructure and people will use it.
In five years, half of all cars sold in this country should be able to run on homegrown biodiesel or E85. By 2016, every car - 100 percent of new cars sold in America - should be able to run on alternative fuel. We don' t need to redesign cars to make this switch. Five million American cars and trucks already run on E85. It costs manufacturers less than $100 per car.
Second, we need to make sure people can pull into their gas station, in their own neighborhood, and fill up their new tanks. We should require half - 50 percent - of all gas stations operated by major companies to have alternative fuel pumps. That would be about 42,000 gas stations nationwide. Today, just 700 have E85 pumps. Third, we must encourage the production of our home grown fuels. We now produce about 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol - that's just 3 percent of the fuel we use. Let's increase the renewable fuel standard: by 2010, let's produce at least 10 billion gallons; by 2020, 30 billion - that would be a quarter of our fuel grown by American farmers.
Fourth, we need to increase fuel economy standards. If every year we increase fuel efficiency for cars and SUVs by just one mile per gallon, we would reduce the oil used in the transportation sector by 10 percent. That's almost as much as we imported from Saudi Arabia last year.
Japan's fuel economy requirements are 45 miles per gallon, and headed higher. China is increasing its standards to 37 miles per gallon. Our corporate average fuel economy standard is stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon. We can do better, and Senator Harkin, I, and some others have proposed a new approach that sets standards based on the size and weight of a vehicle.
The Election Americans get this. They understand both the "Axis of Oil " and "Axis of Evil." They know our dependence on foreign oil undermines our security. And they don't like the war we're in. The American people - they want something different.
In my view, the election in one week is a referendum on our Iraq policy. Another war-time President, facing a divided nation after he was re-elected in 1864, said: "the most reliable indication of public purpose in this country is derived through our popular elections."
Next week, when Americans decide our public purpose, they know there are no easy answers. There were none for Lincoln.
But they also know with the right leadership, America will prevail - she always has.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Salvaging American Interests in a United Iraq
Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to the Council on Foreign Relations
Five months ago, Les Gelb and I laid out a detailed plan to keep Iraq together, protect America's interests and bring our troops home.
Our plan generated a much-needed debate about alternatives beyond the Bush Administration's "stay the course" rhetoric and those calling for an immediate exit.
Many experts here and in Iraq embraced our ideas. Others raised legitimate concerns. Still others mischaracterized or misunderstood our plan, calling it a "partition," when in fact it is the opposite.
Today, I'd like to explain in more detail what the plan does - and what it does not do.
Iraq's Central Realities
In July, I was in Iraq with Senator Jack Reed. It was my seventh trip.
Our soldiers and diplomats are making real progress, under the most difficult conditions.
But that progress is prisoner to the terrible violence raging around them. Its main driver is sectarianism.
In fact, the central reality in Iraq today is that violence between Shiites and Sunnis has surpassed the insurgency and foreign terrorists as the main security threat.
Sectarian militias are the main instruments of violence. Instead of disarming, they are growing, for one simple reason - young men have no jobs and the militias give them a steady paycheck.
Although half the Iraqi army divisions are capable of leading operations with American support, the nuts and bolts that any military needs to be self-sustaining are not there.
There are enormous problems with logistics, pay systems, transportation, procurement, and food delivery.
The police are in the most urgent need of reform. Sectarian forces riddle their ranks. The facilities protection service - 140,000 individuals assigned to specific ministries - is heavily involved in sectarian violence.
On the surface, Iraq has a unity government. But privately Sunnis and Kurds complain that they are not part of the decision-making.
Political competition among the parties that make up the Shi'a coalition prevents any genuine outreach to the Sunnis -- or any serious attempt to disarm the militias.
On the other side, too many Sunnis continue to aid and abet violence.
As a result, the political process is stalled and polarized.
While sectarianism is the major new reality in Iraq, the old reality - insurgents and foreign terrorists - is still very real.
Al-Qaeda is so firmly entrenched in al-Anbar that it has morphed into an indigenous jihadist threat.
As a result, Iraq risks becoming what it was not before the war: a haven for radical fundamentalists. It's what I call a Bush-fulfilling prophecy.
No number of troops can solve the sectarian problem, and we don't have enough troops to deal definitively with the jihadist threat.
Nothing makes the point more clearly than the fact we've just pulled troops from Anbar - where they were fighting insurgents and Iraqi Al Qaeda - and sent them to Baghdad, to secure neighborhood and stop sectarian violence.
Security operations in one neighborhood force the death squads and insurgents out.
But then they regroup in unsecured areas and return to the neighborhoods we've cleared when our troops move on to the next hot spot.
A Strategy for Success
So that's where we are. The more important question is this: where are we going?
Unfortunately, this administration does not have any discernible strategy for success in Iraq.
Its strategy is to prevent defeat and hand the problem off when it leaves office.
Meanwhile, more and more Americans, understandably frustrated, support an immediate withdrawal, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could become a regional war.
Both are bad alternatives.
The five-point plan Les Gelb and I laid out offers a better way.
We start from the premise that the only way to break the vicious cycle of violence -- and to create the conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw -- is to give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully. This requires a sustainable political settlement.
To get there, we propose five steps:
First, the plan calls for maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions.
The central government would be left in charge of common interests, such as border security and the distribution of oil revenue.
While we've proposed three regions, the exact number should be left for Iraqis to decide.
What matters is the principle of federalism as a way to manage competing interests and visions while keeping Iraq together.
But federalism will only work if each group believes that it has an economically viable region to govern. The Sunnis are in a unique position - they don't have any oil. They fear being permanently cut off from Iraq's natural wealth. That's why some of their leaders continue to resist federalism.
So the second element of our plan is a guarantee that each group will get a proportionate share of Iraq's oil revenue. For the Sunnis, that means about 20%.
Why would Shi'a and Kurds agree to share oil revenues? Because it's better for their bottom line.
Without an oil sharing agreement, Iraq will not attract the massive investment it needs to increase production.
If all sides agree to a formula for the distribution of proceeds and a unified oil policy, investment will flow, production will rise and each group will get a piece of a much larger pie.
Oil can become the glue that binds the country -- peacefully.
The third piece of the plan is to improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people and create a significant number of jobs. That requires increasing, not ending, reconstruction aid. It also requires altering the way the money is spent, and tying it to the protection of minority rights.
The administration's early fixation on multinational mega projects has wasted tens of billions of dollars on mismanagement, corruption and security for the foreign reconstruction teams - with virtually no results to show in terms of electricity generation, sewage treatment, potable water or oil production.
Gen. Chiarelli, one of our finest military leaders, described to me a project to supply drinking water to much of Eastern Baghdad.
The massive plant is complete, but there's one problem: no pipes to bring the clean water to Iraqi homes. Gen. Chiarelli calls the plant the "world's largest drinking fountain."
That would be funny if these failures - and their implications - were not so serious… if they had not literally fed the frustration and violence.
This incompetence on reconstruction makes more aid a tough sell. But we must ramp up and revamp our reconstruction program in concert with others, not wind it down.
To fund this effort, we should insist that our Gulf state allies - who have reaped huge oil profits - step up and put up.
Fourth, the plan calls for an international conference that would produce a regional nonaggression pact and create a Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.
There can be no lasting solution inside Iraq unless its neighbors use their influence with each faction to promote stability.
Most of Iraq's neighbors don't want to do us any favors. But being drawn into a civil war is in none of their interests, not even Iran's or Syria's.
Even if a Contact Group can't prevent a civil war, the more we can restrain the interventionist tendencies of Iraq's neighbors, the greater the odds that violence can be confined within Iraq's borders and a regional conflagration prevented.
Fifth and finally, under the plan we would begin the phased redeployment of U.S. troops this year and withdraw most of them by the end of 2007.
We would maintain a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest, strike any concentration of terrorists, and train the security forces.
In the meantime, U.S. troops would concentrate on securing sectarian fault lines.
What Our Plan Is - And What it Isn't
I said at the outset that some critics have mischaracterized or misunderstood parts of our plan. So let me conclude by telling you what the plan is - and what it is not.
Our plan is consistent with Iraq's constitution, which already provides for Iraq's provinces to form regions jointly or individually, with their own security forces and control over most day-to-day issues.
Our plan is the only idea on the table for dealing with the militias, which are likely to retreat to their respective regions instead of continuing to engage in acts of sectarian violence.
Our plan is consistent with a strong central government that has clearly defined responsibilities. Indeed, it provides an agenda for that government, whose mere existence will not end sectarian violence.
Our plan is not partition -- in fact, it may be the only way to prevent violent partition and preserve a unified Iraq.
To be sure, the plan presents real challenges, especially with regard to large cities with mixed populations.
We would maintain Baghdad as a federal city, belonging to no one region, as stipulated in the Constitution.
And we would require international peacekeepers there and for other mixed cities to support local security forces and further protect minorities.
For now, the participation of many other countries in a peacekeeping force is a non-starter.
But a political settlement, a regional conference, and a Contact Group to demonstrate international resolve could change their calculus and willingness to participate.
The example of Bosnia is illustrative, if not totally analogous.
Ten years ago, Bosnia was being torn apart by ethnic cleansing.
The United States stepped in decisively with the Dayton Accords to keep the country whole by, paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations.
We even allowed Muslims, Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies.
With the help of U.S. and European peacekeepers, Bosnians have lived a decade in peace. Now they are strengthening their central government and disbanding their separate armies.
At best, the course we're on in Iraq has no end in sight.
At worst, it leads to a terrible civil war that turns into a regional war… and leaves a new haven for fundamentalist terror in the heart of the Middle East.
This plan offers a way to bring our troops home, protect our security interests and preserve Iraq as a unified country.
To those who reject this plan out of hand, I have one simple question: What is your alternative?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Joe Biden Biography. US Health System. Iraq. Polls 2008. Runs 2008. Presidential Election 2008. Joseph Biden
Speech At the National Press Club
Five years ago, on September 10th, 2001, standing at this podium, I argued against this administration's fixation on national missile defense. I said: "We will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship, or the belly of a plane, or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack."
I wasn't clairvoyant. I was making a point that was valid then and remains valid today: when it comes to America's national security, this administration has the wrong premises and the wrong priorities.
The President is right, as he put it this week: we're "a nation at war." That makes it all the more incomprehensible that, five years after 9/11, he has failed to mobilize Americans for the struggle. There is no national energy policy, no national service, no real sacrifice except from our soldiers and their families. Instead, he gave us a massive tax cut for the most fortunate among us. Given the opportunity to unite Americans and the world, he has divided both.
These failures flow from a dangerous combination of ideology and incompetence and a profound confusion about whom we're fighting. The President continues to talk about "the war on terror." That is simply wrong. Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can't even identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win.
In fact, it's a war with many fronts. The most urgent is the intersection of the world's most radical groups -- like Al Qaeda and the freelancers it has inspired -- with the world's most lethal weapons.
But we also must confront groups that use terror not to target us directly, but to advance their own nationalistic causes. We must deal with outlaw states that support them and otherwise flout the rules. We must face a growing civil war in Iraq and a renewed war for Afghanistan. We must help resolve a generational war between Arabs and Israelis. And we must engage in a long-term war of ideas for the hearts and minds of tens of millions of Muslims.
These fronts are connected. But this administration has made the profound mistake of conflating them under one label, and arguing that success on one front ensures victory on all the others. It has answered each of these distinct challenges with the same limited responses: military force and regime change.
And it has picked the wrong fights at the wrong times: failing to finish the job in Afghanistan, which the world agreed was the central front in the war on radical fundamentalism, and instead rushing to war in Iraq, which was not a central front. As a result, this administration, which is full of patriotic people, has dug America into a very deep hole -- with very few friends to help us out.
* * *
To those who doubt this harsh verdict, I say, ask yourself a simple question: are we safer today than we were five years ago? To those who share my assessment, join me in answering another question: what do we have to do so five years from now, we are safer than today?
Let me start with the first question: are we safer?
Maybe the best answer is that this week the administration felt compelled to issue a new strategy to fight terror, which strongly suggests the old one was not working.
The facts speak for themselves. After 9/11, the administration urged we act against a dangerous axis of evil in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Today, each member poses an even greater threat.
In Iraq, a dictator is gone, and that's good. But we may be on the verge of trading him for chaos and a haven for radicalism in the heart of the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran is closer to the bomb and its reform movement is on the ropes. And North Korea has four hundred percent more fissile material.
After 9/11, the President made the case that democracy is an antidote to extremism. He was right. But today, because this administration equated democracy with elections and failed to build democratic institutions and bolster moderates, Islamist groups that were already militarized have now been legitimized: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and religious parties in Iraq.
Five years ago, President Bush pledged to capture Osama bin Laden. But then he redirected our military away from Afghanistan and toward Iraq. Today, bin Laden remains at large, and his videotaped messages inspire others to act.
Remember when Secretary Rumsfeld asked in a famous memo if we were capturing more terrorists than our enemies were recruiting, and if we had a plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The answers are: no, we aren't, and no we don't. The fact is, since 9/11, terrorist attacks around the world have nearly quadrupled.
Thankfully, there have been no attacks on our soil since 9/11. But we should not take false comfort from that fact. This a patient enemy. Just last month, the British and Pakistani police prevented a new attack on our planes and people. That plot burst this administration's rhetorical bubble that 'we're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here.'
After 9/11, this Administration grudgingly embraced the need to protect America here at home. Today, we know from Katrina and the repeated warnings of the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission that we are still not prepared, we are still not protected.
So, are we safer than we were five years ago? The American people will decide. They will look at whether the streets are more or less dangerous, at whether our enemies are more or less lethal, and at whether we have the world's respect we had when the towers came down.
* * *
That brings me to the second question: what should we do - what would I do - to make America safer in five years?
I would start with Iraq, for no strategy to make America safer can succeed unless we first solve Iraq. Iraq has already cost us dearly in lives lost and money spent. Because our forces are tied down, our ability to act against our enemies is limited -- and they know it. Because we hyped the intelligence before going in, our ability to convince allies -- and the American people --- of new dangers has been diminished. Because we diverted our energy and resources from Afghanistan, it is on the verge of failure.
This administration has no strategy for success in Iraq. It has a strategy to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to the next President. The overwhelming reality in Iraq is a sectarian cycle of revenge. Throwing more troops at Baghdad won't fix this mess. We need a political settlement that allows each group to pursue its interests peacefully.
I've offered just such a plan, not unlike what we did in Bosnia. It would keep Iraq together by providing each group breathing room in their own regions, getting Sunni buy-in by giving them a piece of the oil revenues, creating a major jobs and reconstruction program to deny the militia new recruits, and bringing in Iraq's neighbors to support the political process. If we do all that, we have a chance to bring most of our troops home by the end of 2007, without leaving chaos behind.
Getting Iraq right won't guarantee success on those other fronts we're fighting. But it will give us much more freedom, flexibility, and credibility to make the profound changes to our national security strategy these complex threats demand.
And it will make it easier to put our focus back on other profoundly important developments that will shape this century, like the developing roles of China, India, and Russia as major powers; the shortage of reliable sources of energy; and the growing impact of climate change.
* * *
Today, I am announcing a four-part plan to move America toward greater security. It flows from my conviction that protecting our homeland requires a dramatic reordering of our priorities; that real security comes from prevention, not preemption; that working with strong partners is better than alienating them; and that advancing democracy is about more than elections.
And my plan starts from the premise it is time for America to recapture the totality of our strength -- our military, economic, and diplomatic might -- and the power of our ideas and ideals. That is what won the Cold War. That is what has gotten lost these past five years.
First, to protect us at home, we should dramatically reorder our priorities. We should start by immediately implementing the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.
Last December, the Commission assessed the Administration's progress in implementing their recommendations, and they got a report card riddled with Ds and Fs. Just 5 percent of cargo containers are adequately screened at our ports, and we don't screen air cargo. Our first responders still cannot talk to one another. Since 9/11 this administration has cut more than $2 billion in guaranteed federal assistance for local law enforcement.
Why? Because the Administration's view is that if we cannot protect everything, we should only do the minimum necessary to give the appearance of security. Their only line of defense is a questionable eavesdropping program that we should do under the law, not around it. And they have taken the view that private industry can adequately determine and implement security measures.
I totally disagree. With strong federal leadership and investment we can screen 100 percent of cargo containers at ports, protect our chemical facilities and eliminate some of the most dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives, better secure our mass transit systems, ensure the security of our nuclear plants, develop screening technologies that better detect liquid explosives, and secure our borders.
I would hire 1,000 more FBI agents and 50,000 more cops across the country. We must bring local law enforcement in as equal partners. We should require the networks to turn over critical communications spectrum allocations immediately, and help local agencies purchase communications equipment, so first responders can talk to one another.
In our big cities we should develop locally based counter-terrorism units to stop home-grown plots. Today, only New York City has a sufficient unit.
For those who say we cannot pay for it, that's malarkey. For $50 billion -- $10 billion per year over the next five years -- we can make these changes. It's all about priorities.
The Bush tax cuts for millionaires exceed $60 billion this year alone. I am proposing we take back some of the tax cuts for people who make over a million dollars a year. If we put just $10 billion a year of this money into a Homeland Security Trust Fund we could implement all of these measures. I did this with the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund, and it put more than 100,000 cops on the street to make our streets safer.
Wealthy Americans are just as patriotic as poor Americans - we just haven't asked anything of them.
Second, we must defuse threats to America's security before they are on the verge of exploding by switching from military preemption to a comprehensive prevention strategy.
Military preemption has long been -- and must remain -- an option. It may be our only choice against a terrorist who has no territory or people to defend, and who is amassing hidden weapons instead of massing visible armies. But turning preemption into a one-size fits all doctrine was a profound mistake based on a faulty premise.
By using America's military might, the administration thought we would demonstrate our resolve and convince our enemies to give in to our will -- with or without war. In fact, this preemption doctrine is making the world even less secure for America.
It says to Iran and North Korea their best insurance policy against regime-change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as possible. It says to fault line states like India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Russia and Chechnya, Israel and the Arab states that it is alright to use force first and ask questions later. It requires a standard of proof for intelligence that may be impossible to meet unless we cherry pick the facts, as we did before we went into Iraq. And it has had the dire consequence of undermining our credibility around the world.
There is a better path -- a comprehensive prevention strategy that would: secure loose weapons around the world, build the capacity of our partners to detect dangerous materials and disrupt terror networks, set new standards to seize suspect cargoes, and reform the entire non-proliferation system.
Third, instead of acting alone, we must build effective alliances and international organizations. This administration starts from the premise that because America's military might is so much greater than anyone else's, anything that could get in the way of using that might must be ignored.
I start from a different premise. Most of the threats we face - radical fundamentalism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of infectious disease - have no respect for borders. Not one can be met solely with force.
Our main enemy is a network of fundamentalist groups that could tap into a spreading supply of dangerous weapons. The best response to a network of terror is to build a network of our own, a network of like-minded countries that pools resources, information, ideas, and power. That's what stopped the Heathrow plot. Taking on the radical fundamentalists alone isn't necessary, it isn't smart, and it won't succeed.
As we live by the rules, we must also insist the rules are enforced. That could have been the basis for a common approach to Iraq. It can still be the foundation for stopping Iran and North Korea from pursuing dangerous nuclear weapons programs. The United States should be leading others to a new understanding of state responsibility, including when using force may be necessary.
Civilized societies have a responsibility to protect innocents and a duty to prevent catastrophes. That's why force was necessary in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and why it is now necessary in Darfur. But by hyping the intelligence about Iraq and failing to level with the American people this administration has soured the American people on the use of power and hamstrung the next President's ability to use it wisely.
We risk replacing a "Vietnam syndrome" with an "Iraq complex". That's a legacy that could haunt America for decades.
Fourth and finally, we must advance freedom and progress by developing democratic institutions in the Middle East and beyond. We must prove to millions of people who are disenfranchised politically and economically that we offer hope, while the radical fundamentalists offer only hatred.
Again, this Administration starts from fundamentally flawed premises. They believe democracy can be imposed by force from the outside. It cannot. They think democracy and elections are synonymous. They're not. Elections are necessary, but not sufficient.
We must put much more emphasis on building the institutions of democracy: political parties, an independent media and judicial system, effective government, non-governmental organizations, and labor unions.
We must help bolster failing states -- which can become havens for terror -- by building schools and training teachers, opening closed economies, empowering women, relieving more debt, and redirecting the focus of international institutions.
That's what we should have done in the Palestinian Authority, to support Abu Mazen against Hamas. That's what we should have done in Lebanon after Syria left, to support its government against Hezbollah. But we did not. The net effect: extremist groups gain stature and legitimacy, while we remain silent, failing to make our case to a larger Muslim world.
We must re-invigorate our public diplomacy to explain our policies to the world. One example is Iran. Our greatest allies against the theocracy in Tehran are the Iranian people. They admire America. But we never get our side of the argument into Iran to the people who could insist that the government change course. They never hear our voice. America, whose greatest strengths are her ideas and ideals, has become afraid to talk.
* * *
If we do all this, if we recapture the totality of our strength, my students here with me today from Delaware will read about this period as one chapter in our nation's history, not the final chapter.
Our enemies are not 10 feet tall. We will defeat the radical fundamentalists the same way my parents' generation defeated communism and fascism. We'll match military force with a commitment to project our values to the world.
Bin Laden and his ilk are beyond reason. We must defeat them. But millions of Muslims are open to our ideas and ideals. We must reach them. If we do, teenagers from Baghdad to Beirut, and from Jedda to Jakarta, will pick the promise of a better life under freedom, tolerance, and respect over the hopelessness of radical fundamentalism.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can do much better. The American people are full of grit and optimism. They know we need a new approach. They know there are no easy answers, they know it. And they know with the right leadership, America will prevail -- as we always have.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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A Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
20/20 Vision's National Summit on Energy Security
Washington, D.C.
Four years ago, the Bush administration urged we act against a dangerous axis of evil in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Today, each member of the axis poses an even greater threat to our security than it did then.
In Iraq, a dictator is gone, and that's a good thing. But after visiting Iraq earlier this month, I am more convinced than ever we are on the verge of trading him for chaos.
Iran is defying the entire international community and its reform movement is on the ropes. And North Korea has increased its stockpile of fissile material by 400 percent and started testing missiles again.
While the axis of evil has gotten more dangerous, this administration also has made us more vulnerable to an equally grave danger, what Michael Mandelbaum has called the axis of oil. It stretches from Russia to Iran, from Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, from Nigeria to Burma.
Today, I will discuss what this means from a foreign policy perspective, because the widespread dependence on oil is tying our foreign policy in knots.
Then I will lay out four steps in the transportation sector that we can take immediately to set a course for a more secure energy future. I'm not suggesting these steps are the only changes we need. We'll need to increase conservation. And we need all options for electrical generation on the table - nuclear, wind, solar - and to invest in research and innovation.
To state the obvious, the Middle East is in turmoil. Oil is $75 a barrel. If we had an energy security policy it would give the President of the United States more flexibility to defuse this kind of crisis.
There is no question our oil dependence is threatening our national security. It helps fuel the fundamentalism we're fighting.
Our oil dependence limits our options and our influence around the world, because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us, while oil dependent allies may be afraid to stand with us.
Think about what we are trying to achieve around the world - and then consider how the widespread dependence on oil is undermining our efforts.
China needs oil from Iran so they won't confront Tehran.
Ukraine's Orange Revolution is in jeopardy because Moscow is using energy as a weapon of extortion.
Oil money makes Hugo Chavez believe he can take Fidel Castro's place as the prime anti-American trouble maker.
The world is confronted with genocide again, this time in Darfur, but China has threatened to veto U.S. sanctions against Sudan because it has oil.
Regressive regimes swimming in a sea of high priced oil from the Middle East, to Africa, to Central Asia, to Russia can resist the pressure to reform.
Nothing is more important to America's security than prevailing in the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. But nowhere does oil have a more distorting effect than in the Islamic and Arab worlds, where its proceeds finance radical groups and prop up repressive regimes.
We're familiar with the facts: we have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. We import about 12 of the 20 million barrels of oil a day we consume. We use the vast majority of that in the transportation sector.
Add to that extraordinary growth of energy consumption in India and China. In transportation alone, China will put 120 million new vehicles on its roads by the end of the decade. According to the experts, this ensures demand will outpace the discovery of new supplies.
Right now excess capacity is so small the slightest disruption in production -- a terrorist act in Saudi Arabia, tough talk from Tehran, or even a terrible storm here in America can send gas prices soaring.
Think about where our oil comes from: 35 percent from Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq - all of them unstable nations.
Venezuela has twice threatened to cut off oil shipments. In Nigeria, civil unrest has repeatedly disrupted production. Saudi Arabia is an oligarchy under siege. Iraq is in total disarray. And America is held hostage.
Today, Americans are angry they're paying $3 a gallon at the pump, but that is not the real cost. What about the hidden costs?
What about the hidden military cost? Does anybody believe we would allocate a significant portion of our defense budget to CENTCOM, if not for our extraordinary dependence on oil?
Even before the Iraq war, we spent $50 billion a year to maintain our large military presence in the Gulf. Its primary purpose was to protect the free flow of oil that we buy.
To be clear, I'm not saying we attacked Iraq for oil. But ensuring we do not leave behind a civil war that turns into a regional war is in part about oil. We are losing thousands of American lives, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to avoid that.
And there are other costs. What about the hidden economic costs? High oil prices are fueling inflation, just as our economy is slowing. We're at a tipping point, and our options are limited.
Our oil trade deficit - $250 billion last year - is headed to a new record. To finance it, we go into hock to China and other countries, increasing the global imbalances that make our economy more vulnerable.
High prices eat into family budgets, because most middle-class Americans don't have the luxury of driving less, buying a more efficient car, or moving closer to work.
And what about the hidden cost of climate change? The cars and trucks we drive dump more than 2 billion tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere every year.
Results are all around us: melting polar ice, increasing ocean temperatures, and stronger storms. Changing growing seasons, mass migrations, and conflicts over resources - they will be the foreign policy challenges of the future.
If we don't change our policy, oil will further empower the countries that produce it, restrict our options, and undermine our economic and physical security.
A lot of people are talking about energy independence. I think we should be talking about energy security. Independence is a worthy aspiration. But it will not solve our foreign policy problems. Our independence is not China's independence.
Even if we reduce our consumption, and become less sensitive to price shocks or pressure from the axis of oil, if China and India don't follow suit, our foreign policy will remain in a straitjacket. The market for oil is worldwide. If we still consumed the same amount, just reducing our imports won't affect the price. A disruption anywhere will spike prices everywhere.
That is why we should focus America on energy security. And we must encourage other major countries to do the same.
One place to start would be to bring India and China into the International Energy Agency. That would require them to develop strategic petroleum reserves and coordinate emergency response procedures with other countries. Senator Lugar and I have introduced legislation to accomplish this, and to promote other reforms.
We need to export our clean technologies - like nuclear, clean coal, and biofuels - to the fast-growing economies of the developing world. Our energy policy and our response to global warming demand it.
But let's get back to the United States. Where we can have the most impact is stopping our demand for oil from increasing as our economy grows.
If we do, we won't run our economy off the rails if prices go up because a terrorist attack on a Saudi refinery, or because we need to sanction Iran.
We can do this. We can absolutely do this. We can avoid another oil crisis - and we don't need to wait for hydrogen cars or next generation technology to succeed. We have the technology to make these changes today.
We know where to start: expand alternative fuels and improve vehicle efficiency. Americans - Democrats and Republicans - want more fuel efficient cars and alternative fuels.
We want to pull up to the gas pump in an American flex fuel car, and buy a gallon of biodiesel or E85 made in America, by American farmers.
So, I propose four steps we can take immediately to reduce our dependence on oil.
First, let's understand that famous expression from a popular movie - build it and they will come. The era of American alternative cars is beginning. Our fields of dreams are full of corn and switch grass.
In five years, half of all cars sold in this country should be able to run on homegrown biodiesel or E85 -- a blend that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
By 2016, every car - 100 percent of new cars sold in America - should be able to run on alternative fuel. We don' t need to redesign cars to make this switch. Five million American million cars and trucks already run on E85. It costs manufacturers less than $100.
Second, we need to make sure people driving these cars can pull into their gas station, in their own neighborhood and fill up their tanks.
We should require half - 50 percent - of all gas stations operated by major companies to have alternative fuel pumps. That would be about 42,000 gas stations nationwide. Today, just 700 have E85 pumps. Gas stations of the future will offer a wider selection of fuel - ethanol, biodiesel, and gasoline.
Third, we must encourage the production of our home grown fuels. We now produce about 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol - that's just 3 percent of the fuel we use.
By 2010, let's produce at least 10 billion gallons. By 2020, 30 billion - that would be about 25 percent of the fuel we consume. A quarter of our fuel would be grown by American farmers.
We must increase the use of corn ethanol today to speed development of cellulosic ethanol tomorrow. Cellulosic is made from more plentiful and less energy intensive feedstocks, like alfalfa, prairie grass, and wood chips.
In order to do this we must ensure the price of alternative fuels remains competitive so investors are willing to take risks to bring new technologies to market.
The single biggest risk the alternative fuel industry faces isn't technological hurdles. It is making sure demand is there so investment will follow.
Skeptics will tell you we don't have enough land to support ethanol production. They will argue production costs of ethanol are too high, and it takes too much energy to produce it.
That's malarkey. We can produce 12 billion gallons of ethanol from corn without impacting the food supply. Once production of biomass based ethanol comes on-line -- we can grow what we need to meet most of our gasoline needs here on American farms. Every time we have asked American farmers to produce more, they've always risen to the occasion. If we ask them, they will again.
Experts tell me that we can increase the number of gallons of ethanol per acre in the U.S. by a factor of 10 without new technology breakthroughs.
I want to make it clear - I don't want ethanol producers undercut by anti-competitive practices of oil companies. At $75 a barrel, it's not a problem.
One of the ways we can help the market get off the ground is to require the federal government to buy vehicles that run on alternative fuels. And states could do the same. It's already happening in Delaware. We should be prepared to support the price of ethanol, until the industry is on its own feet.
Fourth, we need to increase fuel economy standards. If every year we increase fuel efficiency by one mile per gallon it saves us 69 billion gallons of gas in 10 years.
We haven't raised standards for cars in 20 years. Not since Ronald Reagan was President. Automotive technology has advanced in leaps and bounds since then. But most of that progress has gone toward making our vehicles bigger and faster. It is time we harness the advances we already made and encourage new ones. As of now we are stuck in the same old debate: Should we raise fuel economy requirements? Can we do so without jeopardizing jobs? Who should decide how much to raise them and by when?
I am not impressed by the resolve of our domestic auto industry in looking beyond short-term interests. With my colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senators Lugar, Obama, and Coleman, along with Senators Bingaman, Harkin, and Smith, I come at this issue from a new direction.
We need a new system that is flexible and protects hard-working American auto workers. Instead of giving a fleet-wide average, we look at it car by car.
We give the National Transportation Safety Administration broad authority to reform the CAFE system, but require predictable progress on fuel efficiency.
We do that by establishing aggressive targets that increase efficiency 4 percent -- roughly one mile per gallon a year.
If these targets can't be reached because it is not economically or technically feasible, or it compromises overall fleet safety, NHTSA can reduce the rate of improvement.
Targets will be set for individual vehicles based on attributes such as size and weight. That means manufacturers won't have to shift to small cars to meet their efficiency targets. And the distinction between cars and trucks will be eliminated. We can't wait another 20 years for Congress to agree on a new CAFÉ number.
And, in my view, this will help keep jobs here. We know American car makers lose jobs when the price of oil goes up. If the price of gas stays high, better fuel economy would mean more sales, and more jobs. Our legislation gives financial incentives to domestic manufacturers that invest in the production of clean and efficient cars.
Look at the competition. Japan's requirements are 45 miles per gallon, and headed higher. China is increasing its standards to 37 miles per gallon. Our standard is stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon.
We can't afford to lag behind other countries. We absolutely have to build more fuel efficient cars.
These four steps are how we'll begin the transition to alternative fuel. One hundred percent of cars running on alternative fuels, 50 percent of major gas stations selling it, at least 25 percent of what we consume being farm-grown fuel, and getting cars one mile more efficient every year.
They are the steps that would give the President of the United States the ability to make this country more energy secure.
We need more American fuel not from the north slope of Alaska but from the prairies of Kansas and the corn fields of Indiana.
I'd rather American gas dollars go to American farmers and to revitalize our rural communities. Putting money in their pockets could have a dramatic impact, between a dying rural America, and returning rural America.
Buying fuel from Midwest farmers, instead of Mid-east oligarchs could have a lasting impact on the environment. Cars powered by biomass ethanol emit well under one percent of the carbon dioxide emitted by cars powered by oil.
And each of us, as consumers, must become part of the solution - whether that's choosing to fill up with E85 or buying more energy efficient light-bulbs.
If we want to regain control of our national security, we must, must deal with our dependence on foreign oil. If it was not clear before, it is now. Domestic energy policy is at the center of our foreign policy.
In 1776, Thomas Paine taught us we can begin the world over again. It is time we try again.
It's time we start developing new priorities for our country.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Syracuse University, College of Law, Commencement Address
A Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Syracuse University, College of Law - Syracuse, New York - May 21, 2006
Mr. President, that has a nice ring to it. Chancellor Cantor, I travel around the country and Syracuse University is recognized as having one of the three or four most dynamic chancellors and leaders of any university. Every time I speak to Dean Arterian she is in some other part of the country recruiting some of the best law students to come here.
I'm often asked as a United States Senator by parents, as if I would know: "My child has gotten into this university or that university. Where should she go?" I say they should go to that university they can get into now and are quite certain 10 years from now they'd never be admitted. That's the place they should go. Thank you for allowing that to be my story.
Don MacNaughton, a classmate of mine and a great benefactor, he and his family, of this law school. Both of our degrees are looking much better every single solitary year.
Members of the faculty, particularly two who are still here who taught me, Professor Donnelly, who I admire greatly, and Professor Maroney, who I love because he is the only guy who ever gave me an A. I want to thank him very, very, very much. I admire Professor Donnelly more because he obviously was smarter. He did not give me an A.
Class of 2006, I want to thank you. I don't know if the Dean was lying, not that she ever would, or any Dean would, but she said I was your choice. I am flattered. I appreciate this for a reason you will not fully understand.
My dream out of high school was to play professional football. When Don MacNaughton and I graduated, we graduated on this field, before it became a dome. The speaker stood on the 50 yard line -- literally, not figuratively. Thank you for getting me into the end zone, finally. I have dreamed of this moment -- to be like Ernie Davis, Heisman Trophy Winner, 1961. I noticed the Syracuse University graduation ceremony has a musical theme this year. The undergraduates had Billy Joel, you have a saxophone player, but I'm not singing no matter what you ask me to do. There's only a few things I've learned to do and not do, and the things I've learned not to do have held me in better stead than the things I've learned to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me to once again join the ranks of the thousands of forgotten commencement speakers. My wife is a professor at a community college and she came home, this is not a joke, and I said how was the speaker at her commencement because she attends all the commencements like the faculty here. She said, "he was great." I asked: "was he inspiring?" She said "no, he was 12 minutes." I don't know whether I'll make that.
There is an old expression: "adversity introduces a man to himself." I would like to add that only those who know themselves are really able to know others. Only those who come to know themselves are really able to make any real difference.
Last year, Steve Jobs gave a commencement address telling true personal stories to illustrate that point, and I want to try to do the same talking about pages in my life that have taught me lessons. I hope they'll teach you that the things you are burdened by, or that you don't expect, are likely to provide the greatest opportunity for you to succeed.
My mom, God love her, has an expression: "Joe, out of everything bad something good will come, if you look hard enough for it."
One of those pages in my life I wrote a long time ago. I was a little kid who used to stutter very, very badly. Quite frankly, I thought it was the end of the world. Every single thing I wanted to do was blocked because I stuttered.
For anyone who stutters, everyone else thinks you are not very bright. It's humiliating, it's almost totally debilitating. When you talk like that not only does your entire insides churn, but you feel rage, anger, and humiliation. You can't even get to the point of when you're a kid asking a lovely girl to go to the prom with you. I stuttered, and I thought that might be my epitaph.
Today, my colleagues kid me about quoting poetry so often, and Emerson so extemporaneously. They think it somehow came from my ardent study. It was born out of fear.
It was born out of standing in front of a mirror in my bedroom watching so that I would not have the muscles in my face contort quoting Emerson repeatedly: "Meek young men grow up in libraries," or "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Or I would quote Yeats, teaching me how to relax my face and gain enough confidence to be able to speak.
It also made me better able to understand what the other guy is thinking. As a paper boy in grade school and high school, I had to go collect on Saturday mornings for the newspaper. It was the most frightening time of my week because I had to knock on every door, and I had to ask for them to pay the weekly cost of the paper.
In order to deal with it, I learned to anticipate what I would be asked by who ever answered the door. So I would practice what I was going to say as I walked up the sidewalk.
My next door neighbor was a bachelor. He loved the Yankees. I memorized the box score every Saturday morning before I went to his door because I knew he'd ask me. I knew I'd have something to say without making a fool of myself.
No one could have told me then when I was 13 or 15 years old that my greatest liability would turn out to be one of my greatest assets in my chosen profession.
Who would have ever thought in my neighborhood that little Joey Biden would stand before a group of distinguished faculty members, and families, and graduates of a great law school and have them all wondering when is this guy going to stop talking, rather than when is he going to talk? What also came out of it was a genuine appreciation for how other people feel when they are burdened by something that embarrasses them. It taught me empathy, a characteristic that quite frankly, in the practice of law, allowed me to stand before juries and understand how they felt. I was better able to read the feeling of anger or sympathy they had in their faces. That was something I never learned in law school, and could have never learned by anything other than experience.
To this day, I find myself enraged when other people abuse power. To this day, I find it difficult to be silent when others who are burdened feel totally isolated.
My mother has an expression. She says, "God sends no man or woman a cross that they cannot bear." One day if you haven't already, you will learn in your own lives what I've learned in mine -- the wisdom of those words.
A second page of my life is how a guy with bad marks at Syracuse University Law School could be elected to the United States Senate at age 29.
After I graduated from this law school, I took the DC bar and did not pass it. That put the fear of God in me, to the point that for the first time in my life I studied. I studied hard. And I passed the Delaware bar given a few months later.
It was a difficult time in our nation. That was the year Dr. King was murdered, there were riots in Wilmington, Delaware, and part of the city was burned down.
The Governor was a Southern Democrat. My state was a slave state. My state was segregated by law. My state has a shameful history when it comes to civil rights. And I, as a young man having passed the bar, found myself in a situation where I joined a group of people who were trying to change the Democratic party to a more civil rights party.
Matter of fact, that year I supported a Republican candidate for Governor because the Democratic party was a Southern Democratic party. Matter of fact, that man, whose name is Russell Peterson, is now a Democrat. And he won that election.
It did an interesting thing for me. All those things you read about how Joe Biden always knew he was going to be a United States Senator -- I didn't even intend on getting involved. But I joined this group after I passed the bar. They asked me would I stand for a county council election in a Republican district. I did not want to run for office, but I ran to show the flag. And I won.
I won in a year that no other Democrat in a contested seat won in my state. As a consequence, I was appointed to a commission set up to revive the Democratic party. As a consequence of that, I got to meet every single activist Democrat.
I was elected to a four-year term, but the Republicans thought I might run someday for a statewide office, so they reapportioned me to a two-year term in a district I could not win. All of a sudden, the kid who had no intention of running for the United States Senate, none, zero, found himself in the position where he was a candidate for the United States Senate. Having been exposed to so much in so little time, I had the confidence to know what I was about to do. My point is once you make a decision, and you take a risk, and I hope you take many, it has an interesting impact on you. You learn, as you have in law school, to have more confidence in yourself.
Up until this point in your life you have not had to make that many decisions. I don't think you have to go wandering around looking for impossible adventures, or challenges you neither need nor want, because they will fall in your lap. Crises will happen to you. They happen.
All of a sudden you will be in charge of figuring out how to make the most of something you desperately wanted to avoid. You will be accountable, and you will have to fight like you've never fought before.
Many of you will be knocked down. My father, God rest his soul, said "Success is not measured by whether you are knocked down, everyone is. It is measured by how rapidly you get up." This is how success is determined. This is how dreams are made.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the history of the journey of this nation. Every single time America has been faced with a genuine crisis is when we have made the greatest strides toward our future.
Every single time great things have happened, they have been on the heels of tragedy. It's what separates America. We have taken the unexpected, and made our country stronger, more vibrant, and more prosperous.
I'm about, as all of you are, to write another page in my life. You will start with a very firm foundation. You will have graduated from a great law school that has equipped you with all the fundamentals of the law you need. For me it will not be the law, it is foreign policy, national security, and terrorism.
We both start equipped. But like you, it's not the substance of knowledge that I possess or you possess today that's going to determine if we succeed. Although the substance of knowledge is necessary, it is not sufficient.
It's the knowledge that you will have gained about yourself, the insights you will have gained about others, that are going to determine whether or not you meet and accomplish your aspirations.
I've learned so much more about myself and other people from dealing with the burdens and unexpected obstacles than from any of the benefits or talents God may have blessed me with. I've learned first-hand how generous and thoughtful people can be.
People I never knew in my life rallied around me when I lost my family. I learned about how dedicated and selfless people who I didn't have a particularly high regard for were when I saw first-hand the heroic efforts of first responders and doctors and nurses who saved my life. I learned how genuinely noble people in the medical profession are.
My dad had another expression, he would say, "If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger." The press sometimes asks me why after all these years I can be so optimistic in light of all that's going on?
The answer is simple and sincere. I'm optimistic because I know the American people. I'm optimistic because I know, like you do, thousands of ordinary Americans faced with burdens that would make all of us bend who get up every single day and put one foot in front of the other and make it work.
I've learned how genuinely noble so many people are. I am absolutely confident from my experience about my own judgment. I'm less fearful about the risks that need to be taken. I am much less cynical now, then when I graduated, about the people I serve.
I'm much more certain about the generosity, determination, and capabilities of our fellow Americans. There are people who are less educated than we are, and sometimes we look down on them. But they're smarter, they're tougher and more honorable than anybody gives them credit for.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think you're ready to tackle, as I pray to God you are, every single problem we face and turn it into an opportunity.
There's no reason why we cannot turn this energy crisis into an energy opportunity. There's no reason why we cannot deal with global warming. There's no reason why we cannot deal with terrorism. There's no reason -- except for the lack of a leader, who is prepared to challenge them. History has been written this way by every generation before us.
Let me conclude by telling you why else I know your generation is ready to change things. Everybody has an image of 9/11, whether it is airplanes knifing through the Trade Towers, the Pentagon aflame, or the plane going down in western Pennsylvania.
My image is a broadcast showing young people lined up single file, block, upon block, upon block, upon block, upon block in New York City -- standing, waiting to give blood after they were told no more blood was needed. They stood there. It was a silent scream by an entire generation saying let me help mend this nation's broken heart.
Imagine, if on 9/12, Franklin Roosevelt, or John Kennedy, or even Ronald Reagan had been President of the United States. I expect you would have heard something like, "my fellow Americans we've just had a terrible tragedy. Three thousand of our fellow citizens have been murdered. Our economy is in shambles. But like every generation before us, we will overcome this. And I'm making two announcements today. I'm announcing that I will call a meeting of the world's major powers to meet in Brussels on October the 1st to begin to plan jointly the demise of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. And I'm going to the United States Congress in two weeks and introducing an energy bill that will free us from the iron grip of Middle East oil, and I expect your support"
Who would have said no?
The country is ready. Pain has always resulted in significant gain in this great country of ours.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think the Irish poet Seamus Heaney captured what lives in the heart of the vast majority of Americans. He wrote the "Cure at Troy." There is a stanza in that poem, "History says don't hope on this side of the grave; but, then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme."
It always rises up in face of big challenges. We have a chance, and you have the means to help this country make hope and history rhyme.
But first of all you've got to know yourself. I wish you great luck on that journey of knowing yourself, because if you find out with certainty who you are, I have absolute certainty you can turn all your talent into making us what we should be.
Thank you very, very much.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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The Way Forward in Iraq: Avoiding Partition, Preserving Unity, Protecting America's Interests
A Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
World Affairs Council of Philadelphia - Philadelphia, PA - May 1, 2005
It's an honor to be back at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council.
First, let me apologize to those of you confused by the schedule. It shows me speaking this afternoon. Instead, you get me to start your day. Look at it this way: things can only get better. And they will, because I understand that Vice President Cheney and Secretary Kissinger will be here for lunch.
I'd like to focus on an issue that weighs heavily on our national consciousness - Iraq.
I start from this hard truth: President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor. Meanwhile, the frustration of Americans is mounting so fast that Congress might end up mandating a rapid withdrawal, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos, and a civil war that could become a regional war.
Both are bad alternatives.
Today, I will argue for a third way that can bring our troops home, protect our fundamental security interests, and preserve Iraq as a unified country.
I developed this plan with Les Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. It recognizes this new, central reality in Iraq: a rising tide of sectarian violence is the biggest threat to Iraq's future and to America's interests. It is premised on the proposition that the only way to hold Iraq together, and to create the conditions for our troops to responsibly withdraw, is to give Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds room to breath in their own regions.
Let me tell you what our plan is not: it is not partition. Let me tell you what our plan is: It is consistent with Iraq's constitution. It is consistent with the new unity government. And it is consistent with - in fact, it is necessary to - the goal of keeping Iraq unified within its existing borders and not a threat to its own people, its neighbors, or to us.
I'd like to share the details of our plan with you.
The Current Situation
I was last in Baghdad on December 15th to observe the elections. It was my sixth trip to Iraq. It was incredibly moving to see Iraqis go to the polls.
I came back with a finger stained purple from the polling ink. But I also returned with this warning: we must not, yet again, prematurely declare, "Mission Accomplished." Yes, Iraqis voted by the millions, but who did they vote for? Ninety percent cast their ballots for sectarian and ethnic parties. Far from a democratic turning point, the elections reflected Iraq's deepening fault-lines.
Here's where we are in Iraq: we can't lose on the battlefield and the insurgents can't win as long as enough U.S. troops remain. But, as both our Ambassador and our top general in Iraq acknowledge, violence between the Shi'a and Sunnis has surpassed the insurgency as the main security threat. It is driving the country toward chaos and civil war.
Simply put, the sectarian genie is out of the bottle. Ethnic militias increasingly are the law in large parts of Iraq. They have infiltrated the official security forces. Sectarian cleansing has begun in mixed areas, with tens of thousands of Iraqis fleeing their homes in recent weeks. Dozens of dead bodies turn up daily in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Iraqis have less electricity, clean water, sewage treatment and oil than before the war. Iraq's government ministries are barely functional. Iraq looks more like a failing state, not an emerging democracy.
There is no purely military answer to this slow but certain downward spiral. With more troops and the right strategy, we might have stopped the insurgency. But no number of U.S. troops will stop a civil war. To prevent it, we need a political solution. The national unity government in which the President has put so much stock is necessary, but it is not enough. We have had "unity" governments for three years in Iraq. Yet sectarian violence has escalated.
What the Iraqis need now -- and what this plan proposes -- is a genuine political way forward that, like our own Articles of Confederation, gives Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds the confidence to pursue their interests peacefully in a unified country. In fact, the central government this plan proposes for Iraq would be even stronger than America's first government. With time, we can hope they will come to their own Philadelphia freedom.
At the same time, I believe we can't pull our forces out precipitously, just as we can't keep them in Iraq indefinitely. Withdrawing them too soon would open the door to all out civil war that could turn into a regional war. It also would leave parts of Iraq a haven for terrorists. That would be disastrous for U.S. interests.
What our troops deserve - and what this plan proposes - is a clear target date for redeployment that, coupled with a political settlement, will allow us to leave Iraq with our basic interests intact.
A Five Point Plan for Iraq
Ten years ago, Bosnia was drowning in ethnic cleansing and facing its demise as a unified state. After much hesitation, the United States stepped in decisively with the Dayton Accords to keep the country whole by dividing it into ethnic federations. We even allowed Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs to retain separate armies. With the help of U.S. troops and others, Bosnians have lived a decade in peace. Now, they are strengthening their common central government, and disbanding their separate armies.
The Bush Administration, despite its profound strategic misjudgments, has a similar opportunity in Iraq.
The idea is to maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis the room to run their own affairs. The central government would be left in charge of common interests. We would encourage Iraqis to accept this formula with major sweeteners for the Sunnis, a military plan for withdrawing and redeploying U.S. forces, and a regional non-aggression pact. The plan has five elements:
1. One Iraq With Three Regions
The first element is to establish three largely autonomous regions with a viable but limited central government in Baghdad.
The central government would be responsible for border defense, foreign policy, oil production and revenues. The regional governments -- Kurd, Sunni and Shiite -- would be responsible for administering their own regions.
The United States shouldn't impose this solution and we don't have to because federalism is already written into Iraq's constitution. In fact, the constitution creates a limited central government and establishes a procedure for provinces combining into regions.
Increasingly, each community will support federalism, if only as a last resort. Until recently, the Sunnis sought a strong central government because they believed they would retake power. Now, they are beginning to recognize that they won't. Their growing fear is Shi'a power in a highly centralized state, enforced by sectarian militia and death squads. The Shi'a know that they can dominate the government, but they can't defeat a Sunni insurrection. The Kurds want to consolidate their autonomy.
Some will ask whether this plan will lead to sectarian cleansing. The answer is that it's already happening. According to the Iraqi government, 90,000 people have fled their homes since the February bombing of the Samarra mosque for fear of sectarian reprisals. That's a rate of more than a 1,000 people a day. This does not include the tens of thousands of educated Iraqis from the middle class who have left the country.
We must build in protections to prevent more cleansing and to improve security in the big cities, which the Administration has failed to achieve. Baghdad would become a federal zone, while densely-populated areas with mixed populations would receive both multi-sectarian and international police protection.
A global political settlement won't end the Sunni insurgency, but it should help to undermine it. The Zarqawi network would no longer have the sectarian card to play. Sunni Nationalists and neo-Baathists would still be unhappy but they would be easier to contain.
Similarly, while decentralization won't end the militia problem overnight, it is the best way to begin rolling it back. Right now, there is no plan to disband the militia. Militias have so heavily infiltrated the security forces that our training program is effectively making them better killers. The regions can become magnets for the militia, integrating them into local forces, and eventually into the national force. Again, the constitution already provides for security forces within the regions. There is nothing radical in this proposal.
The Administration is focusing only on putting together a unity government. But the "unity" government of the past year wasn't able to govern or stop the violence. This one offers little more promise. A much broader political settlement that gives each community breathing space is the best bet to prevent civil war and to keep Iraq intact.
2. A Viable Sunni Region With Shared Oil Revenues
The second element of the plan is to gain agreement for the federal solution from the Sunni Arabs by giving them an offer they can't reasonably refuse.
Basically, they get to run their own region. That's a far better deal than the present alternatives: either being a permanent minority in a centrally run government or being the principal victims of a civil war.
As a major sweetener, we should press the Iraqis to write into the constitution that the Sunnis would receive about 20 percent of all present and future oil revenues. That's roughly proportional to their size. And it's far more than they'd get otherwise, since the oil is in the north and south, not the Sunni center. These revenues represent the only way to make the Sunni region viable economically. If Sunnis reject the deal, there is no guarantee they will get any oil revenues.
The central government would set national oil policy and distribute the revenues, which would reinforce each community's interest in keeping Iraq intact. There would be international supervision to ensure transparency.
Why would the Shiites and Kurds sign on? Petroleum experts agree that the Iraqi oil industry will attract much more desperately needed foreign capital if it is run as a unified whole. Shiites and Kurds will get a slightly smaller piece of a much larger pie. That's a better deal than they would get by going it alone. Guaranteeing Sunnis a piece of this pie will reduce the incentive of insurgents to attack the oil infrastructure. That, too, would be good for everyone.
3. More Aid, But Tied To The Protection Of Minority And Women's Rights
Third, instead of ending U.S. reconstruction assistance, as the Bush Administration is doing, we should provide more. But we should clearly condition aid on the protection of minority and women's rights. The incompetence of the Bush Administration's reconstruction program makes more reconstruction money a hard sell. A new aid effort would have to be radically different than the old one. For example, instead of international mega-firms pocketing valuable contracts, spending a huge chunk of each one on security, and then falling short, Iraqis should be in the lead of small-scale projects that deliver quick results.
The President also should insist that other countries make good on old commitments, and provide new ones. He should focus on the Gulf States. They're enjoying windfall oil profits. They have a lot at stake in Iraq. They should step up and give back.
But all future U.S. aid would be tied to the protection of minority and women's rights, clearly and unambiguously. We should insist other donors set the same standard. Aid would be cut off in the face of a pattern of violations.
President Bush is now silent on protecting minority and women's rights. If they are not upheld, there can be no hope for eventual democracy in Iraq.
4. Maintain Iraq's Territorial Integrity And Engage Its Neighbors
Fourth, this plan proposes that the United Nations convene a regional security conference where Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, pledge to respect Iraq's borders and work cooperatively to implement this plan.
The neighbors may see decentralization as a plot to carve up Iraq. But they have an equally strong interest in not seeing Iraq descend into a civil war that could draw them into a wider war. Engaging them directly can overcome their suspicions and focus their efforts on stabilizing Iraq, not undermining it.
The U.N. Security Council should precede the conference with a call for the necessary declarations. The permanent members of the Security Council should then sponsor and participate in the conference to show a united international front.
After the conference, Iraq's neighbors will still be tempted to interfere in its weakened affairs. We need an on-going mechanism to keep them in line. For two years, I've called for a standing Contact Group, to include the major powers, that would engage the neighbors and lean on them to comply with the deal. I'm not alone. Former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Shultz, and Powell have all called for the same thing.
President Bush's failure to move on this front is inexplicable. There will be no lasting peace in Iraq without the support of its neighbors.
5. A Responsible U.S. Drawdown And A Residual Force
Fifth, the President should direct U.S. military commanders to develop a plan to withdraw and re-deploy almost all U.S. forces from Iraq by 2008. If the military can do it sooner without precipitating a meltdown, so much the better. Regardless, the President should make it clear that the direction we're heading in is out, and no later than 2008.
We would maintain in or near Iraq a small residual force -- perhaps 20,000 troops -- to strike any concentration of terrorists, help keep Iraq's neighbors honest, and train its security forces. Some U.S. troops and police would also need to participate in a multinational peacekeeping force deployed to the major multi-sectarian cities, as in the Balkans. Such a force is now a non-starter with other countries, despite their own interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq and the region. But a political settlement, and their role in helping to bring it about through a regional conference and Contact Group, could change their calculus and willingness to participate.
Right now, our troops are still necessary to prevent total chaos. But unless the Iraqis see and believe we are leaving, they will have little incentive to shape up. Redeployment is also necessary because we can't sustain this large a force in Iraq without sending troops back on fourth and fifth tours, extending deployments, and fully mobilizing the Guard. That would do serious long-term damage to our military.
A clear plan also would end the fiction the President keeps repeating of a "conditions based draw down." What conditions justify the draw down of 30,000 troops since the December elections? The situation has gotten worse.
President Bush's refusal to give clear direction leaves our military unable to plan an orderly draw down. It also leaves our troops, the Iraqis and the American people in the dark. It's time to end the guessing. It's time for clarity, but clarity with responsibility. Redeploying our troops over 18 months will allow the political settlement I've proposed to take hold and prevent all-out civil war.
Redeeming Our Sacrifice
This plan for Iraq has its own risks. But this Administration has left us with nothing but hard choices.
The choice I'm proposing may be the only way left to keep Iraq intact and allow our troops to come home with our fundamental security interests intact.
The choice I'm proposing can give all of us -- Republicans, Independents, Democrats, Americans -- realistic hope that our sacrifices in Iraq were not in vain.
Thanks for listening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Recapturing the totality of America's Strength
A Speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
Austin, Texas
This is a wonderful turnout. I hope it wasn't influenced by someone putting out a memo that Vince Young would be discussing -- or should I say dissecting -- our nation's defense.
In 1964, President Johnson delivered probably his most famous address, his Great Society speech. Today, I want to talk about a very serious subject, the changed society we live in - a changed society that must still be a great society. Here in Texas, where people appreciate straight talk, this is the case I will make: the national security strategy of this administration has been a failure. There is a better way to secure America.
The famous biologist T.H. Huxley once said, "the great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." That "beautiful hypothesis" is the Bush Doctrine, which has governed our national security and foreign policies since 9/11.
It has three core principles. First, the best way to protect America is to strike an enemy with military force before it strikes us, while striking fear into the hearts of other potential adversaries. Second, because military might is our single most important tool, we should marginalize anything that could get in the way of using it -- like allies and international organizations. Third, democratizing the greater Middle East is the path to long term security.
"Ugly facts" have demolished the "beautiful hypothesis" of the Bush Doctrine, on its own terms. Here are the facts:
Four years ago, this administration urged that we act against a dangerous axis of evil in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Today, each member of the axis poses an even greater threat to our security than it did then.
In Iraq, a dictator is gone, and that's a good thing. But we may be on the verge of trading him for chaos and a haven for terror. Because our forces are stretched thin and tied down, our ability to act against the other axis members is limited -- and they know it. Because we hyped the intelligence before going in, our ability to convince allies -- not to mention the American people -- of new dangers has been diminished. Meanwhile, Iran is closer to the bomb and its reform movement is on the ropes. And North Korea has increased its stockpile of fissile material by as much as 400 percent.
In his second inaugural address, the President spoke eloquently about the need to advance democracy. Today, we are paying the price for a shortsighted policy that equates democracy with elections. In the Middle East, Islamist groups have made huge strides -- Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, religious parties in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Holding elections without doing the hard work of building democratic institutions may leave us less, not more, secure.
And of course, this administration pledged to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Today, he remains at large. He probably isn't playing an operational role, but his videotaped messages inspire others to act. In most Muslim countries, Bin Laden is viewed more favorably than the United States. Terror attacks around the world have increased dramatically since 9/11. Thank God, we have not been hit here at home. But our friends from Madrid, to London, to Amman have suffered.
And to the question Secretary Rumsfeld famously posed in a memo two years ago -- "are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?" -- the answer is no.
Protecting the homeland was not part of the original Bush Doctrine. But after wishing both would go away, this administration embraced the Homeland Security Department and the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission. Today, the failed response to Hurricane Katrina begs this question: if we're not prepared to handle a natural disaster that we know is on the way, how will we deal with a man-made catastrophic event that we don't see coming? And the 9/11 Commission recently issued a report card that flunked the administration for its homeland security preparations, like protecting our trains, ports, and chemical plants.
These "ugly facts" are the result of an administration that has misunderstood the security challenges we face and how to meet them, mismanaged our foreign policy, and misled the American people. They add up to this conclusion, in the words of Francis Fukuyama, a leading neo-conservative: "the Bush Doctrine … is in shambles."
The hardest fact of all is this: we do not have a strategy to protect America, or an administration that can put us back on track. I believe America faces two overriding and connected national security challenges: We must win the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism, and we must keep the world's most dangerous weapons away from its most dangerous people.
To be sure, other profoundly important developments will shape this century, like the emergence of China, India, and Russia; the shortage of reliable sources of energy; and the growing impact of climate change. And Iraq, where I've visited six times and talked about in many speeches, remains the elephant in the room. I plan to come back to these issues in the weeks ahead.
But the most urgent and lethal threat we face is the potential combination of radical fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction. To prevail, we must be strong. But we also must be smart, wielding the power of our ideas and ideals together with the force of our arms. That is exactly what we have not done these past five years.
I believe it is time to turn the Bush Doctrine inside out, with a new national security strategy that recaptures the totality of America's strength. That strategy has three core principles of its own.
First, instead of military preemption, we need a comprehensive prevention plan -- that includes but is not limited to military force -- to defuse threats to our security long before they are on the verge of exploding. Second, instead of acting alone, we must build effective alliances and international organizations. Third, instead of trying to impose elections by force from the outside, we must work with moderates from the inside to build the institutions of liberal democracy. Let me discuss each principle.
After 9/11, this administration made military pre-emption the cornerstone of its national security strategy. This was their logic: Two powerful ideas - containment and deterrence - got us through the Cold War. But they may not work against a terrorist enemy who has no territory or people to defend, and who is amassing stealthy weapons instead of massing visible armies. We must strike them before they strike us. In fact, military preemption has long been -- and must remain -- an option in our arsenal. I believe the decision to turn preemption from an option into a one-size fits all doctrine reflects this administration's thesis about power. By using America's awesome military might preemptively and unilaterally, we would demonstrate our resolve to other enemies far and wide and convince them to give in to our will without war.
But this thesis is riddled with unintended consequences likely to make the world even less secure and more dangerous for America. It says to rogue states like Iran and North Korea that their best insurance policy against regime-change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as possible. It gives a green light to India and Pakistan, Russia and Chechnya, China and Taiwan to use force first and ask questions later. It requires a standard of proof for intelligence that may be impossible to meet unless we cherry pick the facts, as we did before we went into Iraq.
And far from frightening our enemies into submission, this administration's decision to act preemptively in Iraq -- without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work, without getting the world behind us, without enough troops to stabilize the country, and without a plan for securing the peace has only undermined America's credibility with friend and foe alike.
The better path to real security for America is a prevention plan that defuses dangers long before they are on the verge of exploding. Picture an oil field half a world away, somewhere in Central Asia. A young man works hard, but earns little. He's got a grievance with the Western oil company that employs him, but when he raises it, the security forces of his own country beat him up. The only place he feels free to speak his mind is the Mosque. There, stories of terrible things being done to Muslims in Iraq, Guantanamo, or even Denmark make him angry.
In the oil field, he uses a "pipe crawler" -- a radio-graphical device that detects cracks in a pipeline. That tool contains radioactive material. One day, a friend from the Mosque offers him a year's salary to break the tool and siphon off some of that material. His friend smuggles the material to a port in the Black Sea. There, he sells it to an Al Qaeda operative who combines it with dynamite. The result is a so-called "dirty bomb" that can launch a spreading cloud of radiation.
Al Qaeda smuggles the bomb into Germany and sneaks it in a container full of industrial cargo. The container moves through the port of Rotterdam, crosses the Atlantic, and arrives at a port here in the U.S., where just 5 percent of all cargo containers are inspected.
That port could be Houston. And if, God forbid, a member of an American sleeper cell detonates the bomb, it probably wouldn't kill many people - but it could render entire neighborhoods of the city uninhabitable for decades.
A prevention strategy would go at every link in this lethal chain, before it runs all the way to our front door. It would fundamentally reorder our priorities. It would redirect billions of dollars from Star Wars programs to defend against incoming missiles -- the least likely threat we face -- and the effort to develop new generations of nuclear weapons that we don't need. Instead, it would do much more to secure and destroy loose weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union and beyond.
It would improve detection systems to prevent materials of mass destruction from transiting the globe. It would seek and enforce new laws to seize suspect cargoes on the high seas and in international airspace. It would forge new international alliances of law enforcement, intelligence, and financial officials to uproot terrorists and end their funding. It would help partner countries build up their own capacity to detect, disrupt, and destroy extremist networks. It would require tougher non- proliferation policies, including no-notice, on-site inspections and a reformed Non Proliferation Treaty that closes the nuclear fuel cycle loophole.
It would give our military new tools to tackle terrorism, like Special Forces operators and unmanned aerial vehicles. It would demand a reinvigorated diplomacy to explain our policies to the world and expose lies about America. And, in case everything else fails, it would make homeland security our top priority -- not a national embarrassment.
Every day, millions of Americans pass through unsecured train stations and tunnels. Every day, 90-ton rail tankers filled with deadly chlorine gas roll unprotected through neighborhoods. If one were exploded in an urban area, it could kill 100,000 people. Police, fire, and rescue units still cannot communicate with each other or with federal agents.
We haven't consolidated watch lists so that known terrorists will be caught boarding a plane, applying for a visa or at a traffic stop. Checking airline baggage for explosives has, in the words of the 9/11 Commission, "not been made a priority." Two-thirds of the country's largest police agencies are facing shortages. It won't be a marine with night vision goggles who stops the next attack -- it will be a local cop in the right place at the right time. Yet this administration's has killed the COPS program, which helps local agencies hire officers.
Now the administration says trust us when it sub-contracts the management of our ports to foreign companies. How can you trust the administration that has repeatedly refused to put more money into port security? The 9/11 Commission's recent report card on the administration's efforts to protect our country is full of Cs, Ds, and Fs.
This cannot stand. We must do better by the American people. That is why I'm proposing a $40 billion homeland protection program, over ten years. It would beef up local law enforcement; give first responders reliable communications equipment; develop a plan for rail and transit security; expand our use of screening technologies; integrate the terrorist watch lists; and invest more in securing our electricity grid, computer networks, and chemical plants.
Shifting from pre-emption to prevention doesn't mean we shy away from using force. America's military must remain second to none. We will use force when we have to, including preemptively, without asking anyone's permission. I believe that when a non-democratic state systematically abuses the rights of its own people, or harbors terrorists and amasses weapons of mass destruction, it forfeits its sovereignty.
Civilized society has a responsibility to protect innocents and a duty to prevent catastrophic acts of destruction. Sometimes, force is necessary to do that, as it was in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and as it is now in Darfur. The U.N. has finally agreed to send a peacekeeping force to Darfur, but it could take a year to get there. That's why I have urged NATO to help the African Union stop the violence until the U.N. can take over. The United States should be part of that force -- in fact, it should lead that force.
And the United States should be leading others to this new understanding of state responsibility. Instead, by hyping the intelligence about Iraq, and failing to level with the American people about the challenges we would face there, this administration has made it more difficult for its successors to secure support at home and abroad for using force.
That's a legacy that could haunt America for decades.
The prevention strategy I've described cannot work in isolation. It requires building effective alliances and international organizations. Far from limiting America's power, they can help us maximize it. Our main enemy is a metastasizing network of terror that could tap into a spreading supply of dangerous weapons.
The 9/11 hijackers carried passports from three different countries. They lived in or traveled through nearly a dozen other countries. They claimed victims from more than 60 nations. Today, new extremists are training and forming cells around the world. And lethal weapons -- from radioactive materials to shoulder fired missiles -- can be sold, stolen or smuggled just about anywhere.
The most powerful military in the world cannot invade, kill or capture a network or destroy every loose weapon on the planet. The best response to this network of terror is to build a network of our own -- a network of like-minded countries and organizations that pools resources, information, ideas, and power. Taking on the radical fundamentalists alone isn't necessary, it isn't smart, and it won't succeed.
But building alliances and organizations is not enough. They have to be effective. As we live by the rules, we must also enforce them. Enforcing the rules that Saddam systematically violated could have been the basis for a common approach with our allies to Iraq. It was not, and both the U.S. and Europe are worse off for that failure.
It can still be the basis for a common approach to the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. To its credit, the administration is trying to reverse four years of policy paralysis to put us on the same page with our partners, and to isolate our enemies, not America. I just hope we're not several years and many nuclear weapons too late.
The prevention strategy I've described, and the strong alliances we need to make it effective, would better protect America than the policies this administration is pursuing. But ensuring America's security also requires winning a struggle for hearts and minds. We have to prove to millions of disenfranchised people around the world, especially in the Muslim world, that we offer hope while the radical fundamentalists offer only hatred.
In this struggle, the administration is right: democracy is our most powerful weapon. But this administration has given democracy promotion a bad name. Here's why: First, it seems to believe democracy can be imposed by force from the outside. It can't. Instead we should work with moderates from the inside, over the long haul. Second, the administration seems to think democracy and elections are synonymous. They're not. Elections are necessary, but not sufficient, to build liberal democracies.
We must put much more emphasis on building the institutions of democracy: political parties, effective government, independent media and judicial systems, non-governmental organizations, and civil society. That means building schools and training teachers, opening and modernizing closed economies, empowering women, and relieving more debt. If we don't, the net effect of our 'democracy" efforts will be to help organized extremist groups replace autocrats.
The flip side of promoting liberal democracy is bolstering failing states. As we know from 9/11, and as Tom Friedman has written, if we don't visit them, they will visit us. After 9/11, this administration should have refocused our attention, reallocated our resources, and reformed our institutions to help prevent states from failing and to help stabilize them in the wake of a conflict.
And, instead of talking about a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, it should have produced one. Yet in the four years since we toppled the Taliban, we've invested about $6 billion in that country -- compared to $100 billion in today's dollars that we spent over four years on the Marshall Plan. Now, Afghanistan may be slipping from freedom's grasp and back toward failure.
Today, for the first time since the emergence of the nation state more than 400 years ago, the most fundamental common interests of countries around the world outweigh their differences. Today, every civilized nation has an existential interest in stopping radical fundamentalism and controlling weapons of mass destruction.
If we lead through the power of our example as well as the example of our power, and if we recapture the totality of America's strength, I am convinced we can prevent the darkest chapters of the 20th century from repeating themselves in this new century.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Joe Biden Biography. US Health System. Iraq. Polls 2008. Runs 2008. Presidential Election 2008. Joseph Biden
Turning the Corner in Iraq
A speech by U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Council on Foreign Relations - New York City - November 21, 2005
Mr. BIDEN: Today, I want to talk to you about Iraq. I want to start by addressing the question on the minds of most Americans: when will we bring our troops home?
Here is my conviction: in 2006, American troops will begin to leave Iraq in large numbers. By the end of the year, I believe we will have redeployed at least 50,000 troops. In 2007, a significant number of the remaining 100,000 American soldiers will follow.
But the real question is this: as Americans start to come home, will we leave Iraq with our fundamental security interests intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?
By misrepresenting the facts, misunderstanding Iraq, and misleading on the war, this Administration has brought us to the verge of a national security debacle.
As a result, many Americans have already concluded that we cannot salvage Iraq. We should bring all our forces home as soon as possible.
They include some of the most respected voices on military matters in this country, like Congressman Jack Murtha. They're mindful of the terrible consequences from withdrawing. But even worse, in their judgment, would be to leave Americans to fight - and to die - in Iraq with no strategy for success.
I share their frustration. But I'm not there yet. I still believe we can preserve our fundamental security interests in Iraq as we begin to redeploy our forces.
That will require the Administration not to stay the course, but to change course and to do it now.
And though it may not seem like it, there is actually a broad consensus on what the Administration must do.
Last week, 79 Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together and said to the President: we need a plan for Iraq.
Level with us. Give us specific goals and a timetable for achieving each one so we know exactly where we are and where we are going.
As I have been urging for some time, that will require as many changes at home as on the ground. The gap between the Administration's rhetoric and the reality of Iraq has opened a huge credibility chasm with the American people.
The problem has been compounded by the President's failure to explain in detail his strategy and to report regularly on both the progress and the problems.
As David Brooks reminded us in the New York Times yesterday, "Franklin Roosevelt asked Americans to spread out maps before them and he described, step by step, what was going on in World War II, where the U.S. was winning and where it was losing. Why can't today's president do that? Why can't he show that he is aware that his biggest problem is not in Iraq, it's on the home front?"
I want to see the President regain the American people's trust. It is vital to our young men and women in Iraq today -- and to our security -- that we get this right. George Bush is our President - and he will be there for another three years. I want him to succeed.
Leveling with the American people is essential, but it is not enough.
The President has to be realistic about the mission and forget his grandiose goals. Iraq will not become a model democracy anytime soon.
Instead, we need to refocus our mission on preserving America's fundamental interests in Iraq.
There are two of them: We must ensure Iraq does not become what it wasn't before the war: a haven for terrorists. And we must do what we can to prevent a full-blown civil war that turns into a regional war.
To accomplish that more limited mission and to begin to redeploy our troops responsibly we must make significant, measurable progress toward three goals over the next six months:
One, we must help forge a political settlement that gives all of Iraq's major groups a stake in keeping the country together.
Two, we must strengthen the capabilities of Iraq's government and revamp the reconstruction program to deliver real benefits.
Three, we must accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces and transfer control to them.
Let me discuss each goal, one at a time.
POLITICAL SOLUTIONS
First, we need to build a political consensus, starting with the Constitution, that gives the Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunnis a stake in keeping Iraq together. Iraq cannot be salvaged by military might alone.
Last month, the Constitution passed overwhelmingly. But the vast majority of Sunni Arabs voted "no." Unless changes are made by next spring, it will become a document that divides rather than unites Iraq.
All sides must compromise. Sunnis must accept the fact that they no longer rule Iraq. But unless Shiites and Kurds give them a stake in the new order, they will continue to resist it.
If the situation devolves into a full-blown civil war, all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put Iraq back together again.
Does anyone here support using American troops to fight a civil war against the Sunnis on behalf of the Kurds and Shiites? I don't - and I doubt many Americans would. But if we fail to forge a political consensus soon, that is what our troops will be dragged into.
The Bush Administration was AWOL until the arrival of Ambassador Khalilzad this summer. We let the Iraqis fend for themselves in writing a Constitution. In our absence, no headway was made.
We can't make those mistakes again. We need to be fully engaged. Next month, there is an election for the National Assembly, and I expect Sunnis to turn out in large numbers.
After the elections, we must turn our attention immediately to encouraging the Kurds and Shi'a to make genuine compromises.
Our Ambassador can't be the only one in the room cajoling Iraqis. We need a regional strategy that persuades Iraq's neighbors to wield their influence with the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds for political compromise. They will do it, because no one other than the terrorists has an interest in Iraq descending into civil war.
The major powers also have a stake. Europe has un-integrated Muslim populations that are vulnerable to Middle East extremism. India and China need stable oil supplies.
Our Allies must get over bruised feelings and help forge a political consensus. We must get over our reluctance to fully involve them.
We should form a Contact Group that becomes Iraq's primary international interlocutor. That would take some of the burden off of us… and maximize the pressure on Iraq's main groups to compromise.
I've called for a regional strategy and an international Contact Group repeatedly. So have three former Republican Secretaries of State - Shultz, Kissinger, and Powell. It's what the Clinton Administration did in the Balkans. It's what this Administration did in Afghanistan. Organized, sustained international engagement can make all the difference.
But it will only happen if America leads.
MINISTRIES THAT WORK/A RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
Second, we need government ministries that work and provide basic services, and we need to re-do the reconstruction program to deliver real benefits.
Right now, Iraq's ministries are barely functional. They make FEMA look like the model of efficiency.
The Bush Administration belatedly has developed plans to build up the government's capacity. But there aren't enough civilian experts with the right skills to do the job.
We need a civilian commitment in Iraq equal to our military one. I recommend the President and Secretary of State consider ordering staff to Baghdad -- if there are shortages. Just as military personnel are required to go to Iraq, why shouldn't the same apply to the foreign service? The dedication and courage of the foreign service officers I've met on my five trips to Iraq is extraordinary. They will take the toughest assignments if we ask them.
This should not be their burden alone. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Blair proposed individual countries be partnered with ministries. It's a good idea. But it got a lukewarm reception. We should revive it.
Our military commanders tell me: we can't defeat the insurgency unless we have a reconstruction program that makes a difference to ordinary Iraqis. Congress gave the Administration $20 billion for reconstruction. There is far too little to show for it.
Raw sewage is in too many streets. Lights are on less than half the day. The water isn't safe to drink in too many homes.
Unemployment rates are around 40 percent. If 40 percent of Iraqis have no job and no hope, the insurgency will always find fresh recruits.
We were told before the war, oil would pay for reconstruction. Two-and-a-half years after Saddam's statue fell, Iraq still is not exporting what it did before the war. They are 700,000 barrels per day below target. That is roughly $15 billion in lost revenues a year.
This President has the only oil company in the world losing money.
Projects have been delayed or never started. Now, the money is nearly gone, and the needs are still great. The President has yet to explain how he will fill the gap.
Of the $13.5 billion in non-American aid pledged at the Madrid conference two years ago, only $3 billion has been delivered, and even less spent.
The Administration is creating Provincial Reconstruction Teams, modeled on the civil-military effort in Afghanistan. They will focus on getting local governments to deliver services. It's a good idea, but it's long overdue - and it's not enough.
We should step up our recruiting of Allied civilian experts for the reconstruction teams.
I would redirect our spending to Iraqi contractors and away from expensive multinationals. Iraqis don't have to add a line item worth 40 percent of the value of a contract for security. I'm glad to save American taxpayers money.
And we need to get countries that have already pledged economic assistance to actually deliver it -- and pledge more.
It's time for another Jim Baker mission. The President should ask him to convene a conference with our Gulf allies. These countries have seen huge windfall oil profits, from our pocket books. We've gone to war twice in the past decade to protect them and preserve security. It is past time that they step up - and give back.
BUILDING SECURITY FORCES
The third goal is to build Iraqi security forces that can provide law and order in neighborhoods, defeat insurgents, and isolate and eliminate foreign jihadists over time.
The Administration tread water on training for two years. Not until the arrival of General David Patreaus in June 2004, did we start a training program worthy of its name.
Back in Washington, all we have heard from this Administration is misleading number, after number.
In February 2004, Secretary Rumsfeld announced there were over 210,000 Iraqi security forces. He called it "an amazing accomplishment." Seven months later he said there were 95,000. Now we're supposedly back over 210,000 trained security forces.
When folks in Delaware hear numbers like that they ask me: why do we have 160,000 American troops in Iraq then?
What we need to know - and what the Administration has refused to tell us until recently - is how many Iraqis can operate without us, or in the lead with U.S. backing?
We're finally starting to get answers. In September, General Casey said that, two and half years into the training program, one battalion -- less than 1,000 troops -- can operate independently. Another 40 or so can lead counter-insurgency operations with American support.
And there are real concerns that the security forces have more loyalty to political parties than to the Iraqi government that militia members dominate certain units and that others have been infiltrated by insurgent informants.
General Patreaus overhauled the training program. The result is much greater professionalism.
But training takes time. And just as it was getting on track, the Administration reassigned General Patreaus back home. That was a mistake.
The President must tell Congress the schedule for getting Army battalions, regular police, and special forces to the point they can act on their own or in the lead with American support.
We also need to accelerate our training efforts, but not at the expense of quality.
We should urge Iraq to accept offers from France, Egypt and other countries to train troops and police - especially at the officer level -- including outside Iraq
If embedding more Americans with more Iraqi units would do the job, do it.
We should devote whatever resources are necessary to develop the capacity of Iraq's security ministries. Even the most capable troops will not make a difference if they cannot be supplied, sustained and directed.
And we must focus our efforts on the police, who are lagging behind. Establishing law and order through a competent police force is as important for Iraqis, as defeating insurgents is for us.
DEALING WITH THE INSURGENCY
That leads me to the final piece of the Iraq puzzle: forging an effective counter-insurgency strategy. Until recently, we have not had one.
Our forces would clean out a town. Then they would move to the next hornet's nest, and the insurgents would return.
Why? Because we did not have enough U.S. troops… or any capable Iraqi troops… to hold what we had cleared.
Meanwhile, neither the Iraqi government nor our reconstruction efforts were capable of building a better future for those temporarily liberated from the violence.
The Administration finally seems to understand the need not only to clear territory, but to hold it, and then to build on it.
The critical question is this: who will do most of the clearing and the holding? We now have no choice but to gamble on the Iraqis.
In the past, I argued that we needed more American troops in Iraq for exactly that purpose. The failure to provide them… and the absence of capable Iraqis… made a "clear and hold" strategy impossible.
We also left huge ammunition depots unguarded, allowed unchecked looting, and created a security vacuum filled by Sunni insurgents, foreign jihadists and common criminals.
But the time for a large number of additional American troops is past.
What we need now is a different mix, with more embedded trainers, civil affairs units and special forces.
The hard truth is that our large military presence in Iraq is both necessary… and increasingly counter-productive.
Our presence remains necessary because, right now, our troops are the only guarantor against chaos. Pulling out prematurely would doom any chance of leaving Iraq with our core interests intact.
But our large presence is also, increasingly, part of the problem.
Two years ago, even one year ago, Iraqis were prepared to accept an even larger American presence if that's what it took to bring security and real improvements to their lives.
Our failure to do just that has fueled growing Iraqi frustration. A liberation is increasingly felt as an occupation. And we risk creating a culture of dependency, especially among Iraqi security forces.
Even if more troops still made sense, we don't have more to give. In fact, we cannot sustain what we have now beyond next spring unless we extend deployment times beyond 12 months, send soldiers back for third, fourth, and fifth tours or pull forces from other regions.
That is why it is virtually certain we will redeploy a significant number of forces from Iraq in 2006 and more will follow in 2007.
Assuming we succeed in preventing a civil war, perhaps 20,000 to 40,000 Americans will stay for some time after that to continue training and equipping the Iraqis to keep Iraq's neighbors honest and to form a rapid reaction force to prevent jihadists from establishing a permanent base in Iraq.
If - if -- that redeployment is accompanied by measurable progress in forging a political settlement, building real Iraqi governing capacity and transferring control to effective Iraqi security forces, we can start the journey home from Iraq with our fundamental interests intact.
But if we fail to implement the plan I've described, then Iraq is likely to become a Bush-fulfilling prophecy - a terrorist training ground - and we'll see a full blown civil war that could become a regional war.
If that happens, nothing we can do will salvage Iraq. We'll be reduced to trying to contain the problem from afar. Those who today are calling for us to leave will be proved tragically prescient. I still believe that, if the Administration follows the plan I've outlined today - and if the President brings it to the American people and asks for their support -- we can start climbing out of the hole the Administration has dug and start to leave Iraq with our interests intact.
Iraqis of all sects want to live in a stable country. Iraq's neighbors don't want a civil war. The major powers don't want a terrorist haven in the heart of the Middle East.
And the American people want us to succeed. They want it badly. If the Administration listens, if it levels, and if it leads, it can still redeem their faith.
Thanks for listening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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America's Purpose: Leadership for a New Security Consensus
BIDEN: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mort.
And thank you all for deciding that a New America Foundation is necessary. It is badly needed.
Folks, it would be inappropriate to begin any discussion today without acknowledging the trauma the nation is facing at the moment, not just in our foreign policy in Iraq, but on the Gulf Coast.
This is an incredibly difficult moment, and the only thing I will say at this moment is that hopefully -- hopefully -- we will learn some very important lessons from the way in which this whole tragedy has been handled. For it is not too much of a leap to suggest that if this were not an act of God but a conscious effort to wreak havoc upon the country, we're not so well-prepared, to state the obvious.
The Irish poet William Butler Yeats, speaking of his Ireland, wrote a people, "Easter Sunday, 1916." One line in the poem seems particularly appropriate, today and of late. He said, "The world has changed. It is changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born."
It has changed utterly. And four years ago this week the events of 9/11 made it crystal clear just how fundamentally it had changed. And it made it clear that America faces two overriding and interconnected national security challenges in this new century.
The first is, we have to win the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. Then the second is, we have to keep the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world's most dangerous people.
And this gathering is an important moment to step back and ask, how are we doing? How are we doing so far in meeting these twin challenges?
And I think the short and honest answer -- at least in my judgment -- is: not as well as we could or should be doing. And I believe we need a new approach. And that's what I propose to speak about briefly this morning.
Today, after a necessary war in Afghanistan and a war of choice -- an optional war -- in Iraq, Americans are rightly confident about the example of our power, but I have been concerned that some of our leaders have forgotten about the power of our example.
For all of our great might, we are not only less comfortable in the world today but, I would argue, more alone and more isolated than any time in our country's history.
And as a result we are, in my judgment, less secure, not more secure. And I believe we have to recapture the totality of our strength to, in fact, enhance our security.
To prevail against radical fundamentalism and to prevent the spread of the world's most lethal weapons, we must rely both on the force of our arms but also on the strength of our ideas and our ideals, which we seem to have shelved of late.
And that's going to require at least three things: one, rebuilding and building in the first instance effective alliances in international organizations; two, forging a prevention strategy to defuse threats to security long before they are on the verge of exploding, while retaining the right we've always had to act pre-emptively in the face of an eminent danger; and thirdly, reforming failed and anti-democratic states that are the source of instability, radicalism and, in many cases, terror.
That, in turn, seems to me it will require both a fundamental shift in American foreign policy and a reconsideration by our allies and our partners; a reconsideration of their own approaches and reflexes.
I spent the last week in Italy with a group of 50 or so European leaders, including four or five heads of state, a number of foreign ministers. And it's beginning to be discussed out loud not only what we clearly know we have to reconsider but how they have to reconsider their approaches and, my word, reflexes.
Let me start with the first part of this new approach that I'm suggesting of building strong alliances, international organizations.
And I do not claim any uniqueness to what I'm about to say. But I think, I hope you'll find some coherence in what I have to say.
Some of my friends in the current administration have, as we've observed, little interest in alliances, international organizations or treaties. And there's a logic to their disengagement.
Many of my Democratic friends just assume they're just a bunch of warmongers, that all they want to do is wreak havoc in the world. The worst part is that's not the case at all, in my view. These are patriotic Americans who really believed, in my view, at the turn of the century, that they had a formula to avoid the carnage of the 21st century.
And part of the logic that embodied this new notion among many of those -- not a majority, I would argue, of Republicans but, clearly, the winning hand in this administration -- is their logic of disengagement.
They start with the premise that America's military strength is the single most important -- single most important determinant in the international system.
Because that might, they argue, is so much greater than anyone else, they see allies and agreements as more of a burden than a benefit; as Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians.
Our military might, in my view, is essential to our security, but I start from a very different premise. Most of the threats we face, if not every serious threat we face, from radical fundamentalism to the spread of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states that flout the rules, that have no respect -- all of these problems -- they have no respects for borders -- not one of these threats can be met solely with unilateral or even multilateral military force.
Even when we can succeed by ourselves I would further argue there is a compelling reason not to act alone. Some of those reasons range from basing rights to burden-sharing to the benefits that flow from legitimacy.
And they discount all of those, in my view, my neoconservative friends.
And Iraq, I would argue, demonstrates the price we pay for a unilateralist foreign policy. There was never any doubt -- at least in my mind; I suspect in most of yours -- that this optional war in Iraq would be, quote, "short," in the sense of toppling Saddam, and there was not a need for a single foreign soldier to accomplish that mission.
But because we chose to wage this war virtually alone, we have been responsible for the aftermath virtually alone.
But there's an important caveat, I would argue, that our friends in Europe and Asia and beyond must take to heart as well. The credibility and effectiveness of alliances, treaties and international organizations depend on a willingness not only to live by the rules but to enforce them when they are violated -- to enforce them when they are violated.
That could have been the basis for a common approach of our closest allies to Iraq. It is not. And both the United States and Europe have paid a heavy price and, I would argue, will pay an even heavier price.
That brings me to the second part of the approach I'm suggesting: forging a prevention strategy that allows us to defuse the threats to our security long before the only choice left to us is to act with force unilaterally or to do nothing at all.
This administration's effort to turn military preemption from an option that it always has been into a one-size-fits-all doctrine has been and remains, in my judgment, both dangerous and destabilizing.
It says to rogue states that their best insurance policy against regime change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction and do it as quickly as possible. Which is one of the reasons I believe North Korean nuclear arsenal has apparently increased by 400 percent in these past four years.
It also gives the green light to India and Pakistan, Russia and Chechnya, China, Taiwan to use force first and to ask questions later.
And it requires a standard of proof for intelligence that may be impossible to meet unless we cut corners, as President Bush did, in my view.
That is why I believe we must forge a much broader prevention strategy. Such a strategy would put much more emphasis on programs to secure and destroy loose weapons and materials in Russia and beyond.
It would fully fund Homeland Security budgets to detect and respond to terrorist attacks. It would include new international laws to seize suspect cargoes on the high seas and in international air space. It would involve a new international alliance of law enforcement experts and intelligence and financial officials to uproot terrorists and end their funding streams.
And that prevention strategy would provide a tougher nonproliferation strategy, including no-notice, on-site inspection and a reformed Non-Proliferation Treaty, which we have absolutely -- well, we have missed a serious opportunity in the last several months.
It would also re-invigorate public diplomacy to explain our policies and expose the lies about America around the world and, by showing our warts and all, let people understand that there's credibility to this nation.
And it would require a sustained commitment to development and democratization to prove to people around the world that we offer hope and our enemies offer nothing but hatred, which I'll come to in a moment.
But if America commits to a policy of prevention and not preemption, we need our allies to rethink their approach on the use of force.
First, it must be clear that America's military remains second to none and that force will be used without asking permission if we believe we are in imminent danger.
But that's always been the policy.
But beyond that, we need a common understanding with our allies in Europe and Asia that every citizen of the free world faces a nexus of new threats: terrorism, rogue states and weapons that demand new responses.
Containment and deterrence are still important, and they got us through the Cold War and they make sense most of the time today. But they do not suffice when the enemy is a stateless actor with no territory or people to defend who is amassing stealthy weapons instead of amassing armies.
That's why a broad prevention strategy is so important, but it's also why our allies, and for that matter, other major powers in the U.N. Security Council must be willing to get much tougher with rogue states who harbor terrorists, seek and acquire weapons of mass destruction or pose a proliferation threat.
In the 1990s, some of you -- because this is a gathering of some of the best foreign policy minds in the country in this room, some of you were very upset with me when I suggested that there are circumstances since the Treaty of Westphalia that, in fact, legitimize the United States and the rest of the world suggesting the nation has forfeited its sovereignty absent the invasion of a neighboring country.
And I remember being roundly criticized in some of the editorial pages for suggesting that when a nation is engaged in wholesale genocide, even within their own borders, they forfeit -- they forfeit -- their sovereignty claim.
In 1990, the U.S. and Europe agreed, with great difficulty, in the '90s, that a state in fact ultimately does cede its sovereignty when it systematically abuses the rights of its own people. And so we joined forces and reversed the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and we acted even more quickly to turn the tide in Kosovo, which I am incredibly proud as an American.
Now we should apply the same logic to states without democratic checks that seek to amass weapons of mass destruction and harbor terrorists. As a matter of fact, it's the subject of my speech to the European leadership with whom I met this past weekend in Italy.
And, believe it or not, it fell on receptive ears. They did not necessarily agree. But I would suggest, (inaudible) secretary of state, that we really should, in fact, not in theory, convene, starting with back channels and ultimately very openly serious negotiations as to what this new compact would be, what the rules of the game of the 21st century are in terms of the use of force.
In short, the U.S. should seek new international consensus that there is a duty to protect innocents and a responsibility to prevent terrible acts of destruction.
As I said, the leaders of the NATO countries, including presidents of many of the states and foreign ministers, were there. And I think there's a recognition -- not a solution, but a recognition, that we have had no serious -- it's amazing to me. It's absolutely breathtaking to me that we haven't had serious, serious negotiations and discussions with our NATO allies about the nature of this changed world.
Let me conclude with a few thoughts about the third piece of what I consider to be, or should be, a new approach: that is bolstering failed states and expanding democracy.
Failing states are cracks in the foundation of an international system. There have always been poor countries whose people suffer under corrupt, incompetent and ruthlessly barbaric leaders. What is new is the affect on our lives and the threat to our own security as a consequence of such regimes.
Today, the potential spread of weapons of mass destruction make that threat literally existential. We must challenge ourselves and our allies to refocus our attention, reallocate our resources and reform our institution to address this challenge.
And together, it seems to me we have to take seriously -- much more seriously than we have over the last 40 years -- the task of economic development. We have to commit to debt relief beyond what we have. We have to buffer countries against economic shocks. We have to give them the tools to combat corruption, and dramatically expand our investment in global education.
I believe we should reorient Bretton Woods and the U.N. to the purpose of stabilizing weak states. The United Nations is not capable of ending wars in our times, intervening in ways to prevent war most times. But it is capable -- it is capable -- with a new emphasis and restructuring, to stabilizing weak states. It is the single greatest resource we have, if we use it well, toward that effort.
And I think we have to lead the world in a massive effort to combat the scourge of disease, especially AIDS, but not just AIDS.
We also have to take seriously what some people in Washington, in this administration, see as a four-letter word: nation building.
This administration came to office disdaining the concept of nation building, only to be confronted with the two biggest nation-building challenges since World War II. But it has not succeeded yet, either in Afghanistan or Iraq.
We must empower now experts to plan post-conflict reconstruction ahead of time, not on the fly. We must build a standing roster of international police organizations, the gendarmerie, to handle security after tyrants are toppled. And we must create a system of rapid standup of indigenous forces, which we squandered the last two years in Iraq.
And when it comes to wars of choice, we have to think twice about initiating the conflict if we're not prepared for the post-conflict, which many of you in this room and many of us in writing, no Monday morning quarterbacking, six, eight months before the use of force, predicted there was virtually no thought given to by this administration.
And finally, there is so much the United States and the world's major democracies can do together to support democratic transformation, especially in the greater Middle East.
You know, we are rightly criticized for much of our relationship with Iran in Europe. But I pointed out to my European counterparts, I saw virtually no effort on the part of Europeans to support the democratic institutions and the democratic forces which were real, alive and heartfelt -- not pro-Western, necessarily -- in Iran.
So there's plenty of blame to go around. I am so much concentrating on this administration's policy for the last two years to try to get it changed, I don't want anybody in here to think that the Europeans should get a get-out-of-jail free card based upon their conduct in almost any of what we've been talking about here -- I've been talking about here.
I applaud President Bush's second inaugural address about expanding freedom.
If you closed your eyes and he was a little more articulate, you'd think it was John Kennedy. If you listened to the words -- I shouldn't say articulate, a little different accent, you'd think part of it was John Kennedy -- about expanding freedom.
It touched a chord of many Americans because it spoke to our ideals and also to our national experience and our history.
And, clearly, a world full of liberal democracies -- which will not occur, I might add, nor do I ever believe it will occur in my lifetime in Iraq no matter how well we handle things -- in a world full of liberal democracies we would not only be better off for the people living in those countries, but we'd be better off because liberal democracies tend not to attack each other, abuse the rights of their own people and, in most cases, breed terrorists.
This is a goal that ought to unite the United States and other major democracies. And yet, here's how a leading German newspaper reacted to President Bush's speech in January. Quote -- I'm quoting the headline. Quote, "Bush Threatens More Freedom."
Major German newspaper: "Bush Threatens More Freedom."
Clearly, dislike for the messenger undermined the appreciation of the message or else the paper is so out of whack it bears no relationship to reality.
I'm convinced we can and must find common ground in one of the most critical challenges of our time.
Americans must support the forces of progress in nondemocratic countries, not with reckless campaigns to impose democracy by force from the outside, which I don't ever recall having been done, but by working with modernizers from inside to build the institutions of democracy over the long haul -- political parties, independent media, independent judiciary, transparent economies and accountable governments, modern education, NGOs in a civil society, a private sector.
Our democratic friends must fully engage in this effort as well and not give in to the cynical and wrong, in my view, that some societies are incapable of transforming themselves, which I heard repeatedly in Europe and I hear repeatedly in Europe -- not throughout, not a majority view, but among some very, very bright people -- they are not capable of transforming themselves no matter what help is given.
It's a hard, frustrating job, but I believe it can and must be done for our own safety's sake.
And above all, we must understand those who would spread radical fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction may be beyond the reach of reason -- we must defeat them.
But hundreds of millions of hearts and minds around the world are open to America's ideas and ideals.
I once reminded President Bush, a very religious man, that it was not the armies that toppled the walls of Jericho, it was Joshua's trumpet.
I would argue the same analogy could be made to the Berlin Wall.
Our overwhelming military force was necessary, but not sufficient. It was our ideas and our ideals permeating that part of the world that ultimately brought the wall down without a shot being fired in the process.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must reach out to this billion or more Muslim population that is fully, fully within our reach. We have no serious public diplomacy at this moment. And if we do that, if we reach out and do some of the things I've suggested, in my view as you might guess, I truly believe we can make the world a lot safer and considerably more democratic.
Let me end -- I'm always quoting Irish poets and my friends kid me and say I do it because I'm Irish. That's not the reason. I do it because they are the best poets in the world.
Seamus Heaney in his poem, "The Cure at Troy," for which he won the Nobel Prize for poetry in the mid-'90s, said in one stanza, which I think should become our anthem because I believe it with every fiber in my being -- we talk about all the dangers, but the opportunities.
If we are smart, if we are bright, if we are persistent and we are a little lucky and we follow our values in a tough-minded way, I really think we have a chance to change history in the margins, at least in the margins for the 21st century.
And I think a stanza from this poem should become our anthem. He said in one stanza, he said, "History says, don't hope on this side of the grave. But then once in a lifetime, that longed-for tidal wave of justice rises up and hope and history rhyme."
I, honest to God, believe, after 33 years of doing this job, we still have a shot, we still have a shot to make hope and history rhyme if we trust our people, follow our instincts and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary.
Thank you all very much.
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What's At Stake: The Constitution and the Supreme Court
American Constitution Society - Washington, DC
I am honored to be invited to speak here, especially speaking with, in front of, and about a subject that some of the men and women in this room have tutored me on for the past 30 years. As the old expression goes, they have forgotten more about the "advise and consent" clause and the constitutional issues that I'm going to speak to today than I know. They include Larry Tribe, Walter Dellinger, Chris Schroeder, and many others who have been stalwarts in trying to educate me over the years as to my responsibility.
Don't blame Larry Tribe for my being a constitutional law professor. If you're wondering why there's been such an aberration in the lack of understanding of constitutional issues by young lawyers, I am partially responsible.
Look, I have a serious speech, and you are eating, and I am a United States Senator. I am very accustomed to not being paid attention to, so please continue to eat. I apologize for the length of my speech; but I don't know how to address this serious a subject, quite frankly, in a shorter fashion.
I would like to begin by reading two quite different quotes to you, each from important jurists.
Jurist #1:
[O]ur laws and tradition afford constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education... "These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."
Jurist #2:
Compare the facts in Griswold with a hypothetical suit by an electric utility company ? to void a smoke pollution ordinance as unconstitutional. The cases are identical. In Griswold a husband and wife assert that they wish to have sexual relations without fear of unwanted children.... The electrical company asserts that it wishes to produce electricity at low cost.... There is no principled way to decide... that one form of gratification is more worthy than another.
Now, many of you, including Larry, Walter, and others who helped me prepare for a hearing years ago, know exactly what Law Review article that came from. It will not surprise you to know that I -- and I suspect most of you -- agree with jurist number one. In my opinion, the first quote I read is a much healthier understanding of our Constitution with regard to the respect it affords individuals in making fundamental personal life choices.
There are periods in our country's history when Americans re-examine the essence of our social contract. They have occurred half a dozen times. These periods invariably include debate over the meaning of our "civil bible" -- the Constitution -- because we have relied so much on that document to articulate how we see ourselves as a people and how we see ourselves as a nation.
And let me say at the outset that honest people, bright people, decent and patriotic people have very, very different views on how to read our civil bible.
These re-examinations happened in the Civil War and in the 1930s, and it's happening again in our lifetime, having been going on in earnest since the mid-1980s.
First, it's a debate over how much government should be able to intrude upon the most personal choices of Americans. This is Terri Schiavo and much more. The second, the other side of that same coin, is a debate about whether government can act as a shield to protect people from abuses by powerful interests. For example, can we keep tobacco companies from targeting our children?
These very questions are debated daily in the House and the Senate. They are debated in the halls of academia. They are debated over the dinner table in homes throughout America. And just as in prior periods of our history, they are debated most vociferously when a vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court of the United States -- when filling that vacancy has the potential to fundamentally alter the direction of the Court. That's when the debate reaches a crescendo.
And the debate has reached that crescendo today, with good and just reason. The debates about a confirmation are one of the most important venues for raising fundamental questions about which constitutional view is better for our country. And the outcome of the debate can make a huge, huge, huge difference.
The quotations which I began with express very different constitutional views. The second, it will not surprise you, was written by Judge Robert Bork, who came before the Judiciary Committee in 1987, as a believer in a kind of a "strict construction." He was a self-proclaimed originalist. He had previously said, and I quote, "It is necessary to establish the proposition that the framers' intentions with respect to freedoms are the sole legitimate premise from which constitutional analysis may proceed."
According to originalist logic, many Supreme Court decisions that are fundamental to the fabric of our country are simply wrong. By Judge Bork's own estimate, dozens upon dozens, including major decision -- holding that couples could not be prohibited from using contraceptives, rulings that the government could not involuntarily sterilize criminals, rulings relating to the incorporation doctrine -- were all declared by Judge Bork and others who embraced what we now call the "Constitution in Exile" firmly to be constitutionally incorrectly decided.
At that time, I particularly thought it critical to probe Judge Bork's views on privacy. Judge Bork stated quite clearly he believed there was no -- emphasize no -- general right of privacy the Constitution protects. Judge Bork would never have written, let alone joined, the opinion that contains the first quotation I read, Justice Kennedy. The man who took the seat for which Judge Bork had been nominated authored the language that I quoted you first.
Justice Kennedy's views reflect, in my judgment, a much healthier -- and that's an unusual word to use in reference to the Constitution -- but a much healthier view of the Constitution and its role in our society.
When the Senate voted not to confirm Judge Bork, it sent a message that his views were not right for the country. Make no mistake, however, that did not end the debate. But also make no mistake that the defeat of Judge Bork did not have a profound effect, a profound effect on constitutional jurisprudence and the lives of average Americans the last 20 years.
Just place Bork everyplace where Kennedy has been, in every decision -- nice little project for you 1-Ls -- and you'll see a very different America. Not an America outlined by bad guys, not an America outlined by people who are trying to feather the nest of any interest, but honorable, decent people who have a very different view of the Constitution and those ennobling phrases that we're going to be debating 200 years from now.
There's a lot of misdirection out there these days on these issues, where terms and phrases are used to mask what is really at stake. The innocent-sounding and misleading term "strict construction" is used when what is really at stake is a wholesale liquidation of any constitutional protection of privacy. A wholesale liquidation, depending on if they use "strict construction" the way Bork meant it or the way Hugo Black meant it. It depends on what they mean by the phrase -- which means the phrase does not tell you much of anything.
The American people are smart, though. And I believe that over the course of the upcoming weeks and months they will get it. They will see to the heart of the matter about what really hangs in the balance.
And if anything, the stakes haven't decreased since 1987; they've increased. Since 1995 there have been 193 five-to-four decisions. Justice O'Connor was in the majority in 148 of those 193 decisions.
The most immediate consequence of Justice O'Connor's retiring may be that Justice Kennedy will replace Justice O'Connor as the most important swing vote on the Supreme Court.
To be sure, Justice Kennedy is comparatively moderate on certain key issues, for instance, decisions stopping capital punishment of juveniles and the mentally retarded.
But while Justice Kennedy is no Judge Bork, he is also no Justice O'Connor. For example, Justice Kennedy believes that any affirmative action in higher education or race consciousness in redistricting amounts to impermissible discrimination under the Constitution. He further thinks that most campaign finance reform laws are unconstitutional and that Congress cannot permit the disabled to sue states to force the states to make their courthouses accessible.
And there are already cases on the Supreme Court docket for next term involving assisted suicide, the use of race as a factor in striking potential juries, and the issue of federalism that would allow a new Justice to begin rewriting our nation's constitutional law.
The country will also be facing critical questions on the extent to which the President of the United States -- any President -- can exercise unchecked, and thus unlimited, power in national security matters at the expense of the rights of average citizens -- instances where Justice O'Connor has been a voice of moderation and reason, a voice respecting the Constitution's system of checks and balances.
It was Justice O'Connor, after all, who issued this important cautionary note to this Administration when she said, "A state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of our nation's citizens."
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. While it is essential for Americans to understand how much hangs in the balance over the next few weeks, we also need to think in generational terms.
We currently have justices serving on the Supreme Court nominated by President Nixon and Ford. We even have judges in the lower courts still serving appointed by Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. From the early 1800s, in fact, the average time federal judges spend on the bench has increased from 15 years to 24 years.
I'm going to do something now that is somewhat imprudent. It will surprise you coming from me, I know. I am going to make a prediction as to the most important issues the Supreme Court will face in the next 20 years or so. First, the extent to which Americans' personal privacy is honored. Is there such a right? And second, the ability of the American people to protect ourselves against powerful organizations, powerful interests, and large economic forces that run roughshod over us.
For decades the consensus has been that government should stay out of the bedroom but be able to regulate the boardroom where necessary to protect vulnerable Americans. Yet the Radical Right is aggressively trying to upset that longstanding American consensus and reverse it.
The first issue, whether government will be able to intrude in Americans' most personal life choices, took center stage in the '87 Supreme Court battle. And it is returning with a vengeance. This is Terri Schiavo and much more.
Let me say point blank, notwithstanding the fact that constitutional scholars disagree and differ on this point, I believe with every fiber in my being that the Constitution creates a zone of personal autonomy that government should not be able to intrude upon. And make no mistake about it, folks, the American people believe that.
Larry, remember when we were we were sitting on my side screen porch preparing for the Bork hearing? And God love him, Professor Kurland, one of the great constitutional scholars -- a conservative constitutional scholar from the University of Chicago --was sitting there, and I turned to you with young Ron Klain as my assistant, "We ought to make this about privacy, about Griswold."
And Professor Kurland said, "No, no, no, no, no." And we were about to go have lunch at a place in the Greenville shopping center. I said, "Well, Professor Kurland, I'm telling you what I believe the American people think." I said, "Please come with me and stand behind me, you guys, as people walk up to the shopping center, and just listen to what people say."
And I think I embarrassed him. I asked the first six or seven women and men, mostly women who came forward, I said, "My name is Joe." "Oh, yes, Senator Biden," or "Yes, Joe." I'd say, "Do you believe you have a right to engage in any consensual act in your bedroom with your husband?" And I remember Kurland turned red. I'm serious about this. Do you remember this? And they all said -- everyone said yes. They're like, "Why do you ask, but yes." And then I'd ask them the following question: "Why do you believe that?" And every single person said, "The Constitution." That's the phrase they used. They said, "The Constitution."
And I know to scholars and to all of you great lawyers, that this is not necessarily relevant. But I'm telling you, it is incredibly relevant; incredibly relevant.
While many people, many, many people, smart, educated people, assume that the personal privacy protections in the Constitution are inviolable and will always be in existence, the Constitution in Exile crowd doesn't. They believe not just that privacy rights should be diminished; its members believe that there should be none. I repeat that -- no general right of privacy whatsoever in the Constitution.
So what does that mean? First, the government, whether state, federal, or local, could forbid couples, as they had in the past, from using contraception.
The government could also constitutionally impose restrictions on the number of children you could have. Such restrictions exist in other countries; and God only knows what happens here in two, five, 10, 20, 30 years. This may seem an unlikely outcome; but remember, this is the same crew that brought you Schiavo.
Moreover, the next 20 years will be marked by great developments in medical and informational technology. Will individuals be able to take advantage of stem cell research with its enormous promise? Or will legislators enact their moral opposition, and will a conservative Supreme Court refuse to step in to protect those individual rights?
Will the government have unlimited power to monitor individuals -- what they say, where they go, whom they meet with, who they associate with? Will originalist judges tell us their historical investigations of the Constitution convince them the Framers would have been comfortable with this? Will our justices protect our medical records, information regarding genetic propensities for diseases, financial data?
This and more is at stake over privacy. It goes well beyond Roe v. Wade.
And for as long as the Radical Right has been trying to reverse our constitutional understanding of privacy, they have also been trying to reverse a consensus that no one is talking much about -- except some of you in this room -- a consensus going back to the days of the Great Depression that government can act as a shield to protect Americans from the abuse of powerful interests.
Can we protect the air we breathe? Can we keep arsenic out of our drinking water? Can we keep tobacco companies from targeting our kids? Can we establish minimum national standards to provide equal opportunity and human dignity for society's most vulnerable members -- our elderly, our disabled, women victimized by violence? That is all at stake.
There are instances when our democracy has to step in to alleviate inequities; to recognize human dignity and to lift people up by ensuring equal opportunity. Others, however, disagree with this consensus.
Michael Greve of the American Enterprise Institute puts it straightforwardly: "I think what is really needed here is a fundamental intellectual assault on the entire New Deal edifice. We want to withdraw judicial support for the entire modern welfare state." That's what this is about. This is not a debate about the solvency of Social Security, for example. It's about the legitimacy of Social Security.
Listen to the debates going on underneath these constitutional issues. It's about devolution of government. It's about withdrawing, withdrawing as a matter of law, the right of the federal government to do much of anything other than provide the national defense.
And lest you think they don't mean it, I'm the guy that wrote the crime bill, 100,000 new cops on the streets. The other side votes against it, even though they love it. Not a joke. They love it. They can't say a negative thing about it. But they vote against it because it is contrary to the paradigm of devolution of government -- the federal government should not be involved in aiding local government. That's the legislative way they're trying to change the court judicially.
This is the agenda, folks. And the Court already has such acolytes. Justice Thomas has voted to strike down over 65 percent of the federal laws that have been reviewed by the Court. What would happen if we had five Justice Thomases? Thousands of laws -- environmental, criminal, civil rights -- could be declared unconstitutional.
Justice Thomas wrote in one of his opinions recently, "If anything, the wrong turn was the Court's dramatic departure in the 1930s." What I describe as a "healthy consensus," Judge Thomas and others call "a wrong turn."
What's at risk if this view of the Constitution ever gained full ascendancy? The Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, all rely on the Congress's Commerce Clause power.
The Radical Right is determined to elevate private property at the expense of protecting our safety, well-being, and communities. Under their reading of the appropriate language in the Constitution -- the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment -- the only way to keep a chemical plant out of your neighborhood would be to pay off the chemical plant to not build because you are taking their property.
Our bedrock civil rights laws are also based on post-1937 constitutional interpretations.
There also could be no federal minimum wage and no maximum hour laws. We wouldn't be having a debate about increasing the minimum wage because there wouldn't be one.
And lest you think this is hyperbole, look at what the debates taking place in local elections are about. Look at the debates that are taking place in the chamber in which I work. I was joking with four of my new colleagues as we were having coffee and doughnuts before going into a committee meeting. I said, "I have a great idea how to deal with the plight of the elderly." And they all looked and said, well, what you got in mind? It's a true story. I won't name the four Senators. And I said, "You know, we should pass a law mandating that every employer has to take six or seven percent of their revenues and put it into a fund and mandate that every single American, no matter where they work, has to take a similar amount and put it into a fund."
One of the new Senators, I swear to God, said, "That's confiscatory." One of the brighter ones said, "You're not getting me to go there, Joe." Let me ask you this rhetorical question. Honest to God, take off your centrist or moderate or liberal, wherever you fall in the spectrum, hat. Do you believe if we did not have a Social Security law now, do you believe one could be passed today in the House of Representatives? Honest to God, what do you think? I don't think there's any possibility.
So this is what's at stake, folks. This is the proportion of the potential consequences of the turning of the Court.
Under something called the nondelegation doctrine, the Court may have to strike down the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), which is tasked to make sure American workers are safe.
The problem under the nondelegation doctrine is that many of today's modern federal agencies are just like OSHA. They exercise broad rule-making powers and enforcement powers that are unconstitutional according to many.
This is a doctrine -- the nondelegation doctrine -- that wisely gave way a long time ago to the reality of our complex modern age. Congress simply can't legislate every particular rule in detail, so it empowers agencies to do so, with Congress retaining the power to come in and oversee what that agency is doing. This system makes sense. It has some abuses that can be corrected through the legislative process, but it is at the very heart of what allows our government to function in this complicated society we live in.
And it's not only OSHA that is at risk if the nondelegation doctrine and other doctrines favored by the Constitution in Exile crowd -- such as a requirement that agency members must be removable by the President at will -- are accepted by the Supreme Court. The Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities & Exchange Commission, just to name a few, would hang in the balance. And there would result a fundamental shift in power from the powerful to the extremely powerful.
So what's the common theme here? It is to prevent, in my view, "We the People" from being able to protect ourselves from abuse at the hands of society's already powerful and growing even more powerful. The Radical Right's agenda would give enormous power to the already powerful and eliminate the ability of the less powerful to use the democratic branches of government to rebalance the playing field.
But why are the courts so important to the Radical Right? And they are. In 1988 a Reagan Justice Department document stated, "There are few factors that are more critical to determining the course of the nation and yet are more often overlooked than the values and philosophies of the men and women who populate the third co-equal branch of the government, the federal judiciary." If there was ever anything the Reagan Administration wrote that was accurate, that is it.
The American Enterprise Institute's Michael Greve recently stated, to quote him again, "I think the judicial appointments are what matter most of all."
So why doesn't the Radical Right just push their agenda through the Congress and the state legislatures?
First, the people don't agree with it. And secondly, it is an acknowledgment that their current control of Congress and the presidency is temporary. Now is the time for the Right to strike and lock in their philosophy; to handcuff future Congresses from being able to counteract the Right's agenda. For once something is declared unconstitutional, other than through an amendment, we find ourselves at an overwhelming disadvantage to move through with the legitimate will of the American people.
It is also an acknowledgment that the Radical Right can't take on many popular programs and policies -- our environmental and worker protections -- in the clear light of day in the democratically-elected branches of government. So they focus their fire on the judiciary.
Again, don't take my word for it. Richard Epstein, one of the intellectual powerhouses of this movement, said, "Some movement in the direction of judicial activism is clearly indicated."
We are talking about a movement that would wield the Constitution, not as a shield, but as a sword to push an extreme agenda -- an agenda, I believe, the American people do not support.
And it's something that has already begun. The Rehnquist court has been the most activist Supreme Court in our history, striking down a record three dozen acts of Congress in less than 20 years.
What kinds of laws is our high Court striking down? Popular, common sense laws, laws that said, for example, you can't have guns within a thousand feet of an elementary school; laws battling violence against women; laws requiring cleanup of low-level nuclear waste; and laws saying states can't steal somebody's ideas and inventions.
Over the first seven decades of the Court's existence, only two federal laws -- two, t-w-o -- were held unconstitutional.
Let me focus for a minute on one of those laws already struck down, one that's very near and dear to my heart. I grew up in a family where the worst form of unmanly cowardice that one could engage in was to strike a woman. It was the lowest act of all.
As a result, I wrote a law called the Violence Against Women Act, and I have never put so much energy into any single piece of legislation in my 32 years in the United States Senate. I thought the single most important aspect of the law was to empower women to take control of their own lives, to be able to go into federal court and sue their abuser for the abuser's car, business, and worldly goods for the abuse inflicted upon them, whether or not the state or federal prosecutor wished to proceed criminally.
But in 2000 the Supreme Court struck down this right, despite nine hearings, over a hundred witnesses, despite the support of 38 states' attorneys general, despite the overwhelming evidence of gender discrimination in local and the state criminal justice systems.
I term this -- I realize that one man's meat is another man's poison -- but I term this "judicial activism." Laws like this are what's at stake, in my view.
We do well to recall the brilliance of the Founding Fathers who devised a system of judicial appointments specifically aimed at preventing the President from effecting a radical shift in the judiciary. When I was sworn into the Senate, I vowed to "support and defend" this carefully balanced system. And I have no intention of abdicating that responsibility.
The question most asked of me by my students in the constitutional law course I have been teaching the last 15, 16 years, however many -- a long time -- is what the Founders intended the "advise and consent" clause to mean.
To me, the answer is clear and overwhelming. The Founders intended the Senate to take the broadest view of its advise and consent responsibility. And throughout history, the Senate has taken this responsibility to restrain the President very seriously. Over and over the Senate has scrutinized nominees' constitutional methodology and philosophy, and rejected nominees on that basis. One out of five nominees have been rejected over our history.
And I for one find it useful to recall the 1959 statement in the Harvard Law Record of a young Arizona lawyer named William Rehnquist. He called for a Senate approach "of thoroughly informing itself on the judicial philosophy of a Supreme Court nominee before voting to confirm him."
As Walter has taught me, along with my good friend who I impose on much too much, Chris Schroeder of Duke, the country has done this particularly when it is deeply divided and when the balance of the Court is at stake.
Think of how the world has changed since Justice O'Connor first joined the high Court. In 1981, almost none of us had computers. E-mail was largely a figment of the imagination. The Internet was a narrow path being blazed on the frontier of technology, not an Information Superhighway. Imagine what our world will look like in the year 2030 when today's nominee, God willing, could be expected to retire.
Long after Saddam Hussein is dust, after phrases like "CIA leak" are tossed into the scrap heap of historical trivia, long after President Bush and Joe Biden are gone from Washington, far into the 21st century our newly minted Supreme Court Justice will be making critical, critical decisions about the kind of country my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be living in.
Now, I'm not going to prejudice whether I in the end will vote for or against Judge Roberts. He came to see me, and I told him straightforwardly what I wanted to know. I didn't ask him his views at the time. I said, "Judge Roberts, there are two things at stake" -- and I mentioned them here -- "how far can government intervene into the areas of personal autonomy? How far? What limits does the Constitution provide, if any? And the other side of that coin is to what degree can the government act as a shield to prevent the powerless and the less powerful from the imposition of the heavy economic hand of corporations?" And I said, "lastly, Judge, I want to know your view of stare decisis as a Supreme Court Justice."
It's not the test, I told him, whether or not he's an honorable, intelligent, and well-respected man. To the best of my knowledge, he is.
The Senate is charged first with coming to some understanding of the nominee's constitutional disposition toward the great questions of the day, and second with expressing his judgment as to whether or not those views are acceptable at a time when we have a closely balanced Supreme Court.
Judge Roberts finds himself a fulcrum in our deeply divided nation, upon which great constitutional questions hang in the balance. He has become the embodiment of people's hopes and fears about where the Constitution heads in the future. For the American people -- and we vastly underestimate the soundness of their judgment -- fully understand that the decisions a new Justice will make will affect the very way they can live their lives for a long time to come.
It's an unenviable position and an enormous responsibility for Judge Roberts. I will examine if, in my opinion, he is prepared to protect the personal autonomy of Americans as well as the ability of the government to act as a shield to protect those with less power from the abuse of powerful interests. And the critical determination -- critical for me -- will be his judgment on stare decisis. These questions will determine how I will vote.
For I want to make it clear to you -- and especially you students here -- after you go through the great constitutional law scholars under which you study, and they talk to you about the way in which the Founders may or may not have intended the "advise and consent" clause to work, I suggest you do what I suggest my students do.
Take off your legal scholarship hat, stand back, and ask yourself the rhetorical question: can you imagine on that hot, steamy summer, with the Founders sitting on the second floor so no one could hear what they were doing; can you imagine them saying, by the way, we are going to have three co-equal branches of government. Two of them will be able to be scrutinized by the American people, and the presumption will be that they are not entitled to the office unless a majority of the people conclude they should hold the office. But the third branch, all we want to know is are they honorable, decent, and straightforward?
And as my little granddaughter says, "Pop, give me a break."
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for listening.
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A New Compact for Iraq
U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE) DELIVERS REMARKS TO THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Washington, DC
June 21, 2005
U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): (APPLAUSE) Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Let me say something very starkly clear at the outset: George Bush is our president; we have one president at a time; he is the president and no one is running against George Bush.
There is a desire here, the intent of my remarks and my meetings at the request of the president with his national security adviser, to figure out how to get it right in Iraq.
There is a credibility gap, a credibility gap that exists between the rhetoric the American people are hearing and the reality of what is happening on the ground. That does not mean the gap cannot be closed, but absent closing that gap, the American people are not, in my view, going to be prepared to give the president the support and time he needs to get it right in Iraq.
I'm very glad to be back here at Brookings. The experts here have produced remarkable amounts and volumes of work on Iraq, starting before the war right up to the beginning of the war and up until today.
Many of you in this building, Jim, have been prescient. I only wish that more of what had been produced out of this building had been read on Pennsylvania Avenue and more of it had been read across the river. And I mean that sincerely. I mean that sincerely.
Folks, here's how the vice president of the United States recently characterized the situation in Iraq: He said, quote, "I think they're in the last throes of the insurgency."
I just returned from my fifth trip to Iraq. That does not make me an expert, but I can tell you the difference between the first time before the war and the last four times since the war began, how it's changed.
When I got back this time, which is about two weeks ago now, my wife asked me, "What was it like compared to before?"
And I pointed out to her, when you arrive in Baghdad, you're in a C-130. You do a corkscrew landing to make it more difficult for an enemy ground-to-air launched missile to take you down.
When you land, you immediately have body armor placed upon you. You are hustled quickly into a Black Hawk helicopter. In the helicopter, there are two brave young soldiers with 30-caliber machine guns hanging out the bays of those doors.
You travel from the red zone to the green zone -- the green zone is the supposed safe zone, the rest of Baghdad is the red zone. You travel at roughly 150 miles per hour.
I'm not certain of the exact speed -- not a whole lot over 100 feet off the ground, so as not to provide those on the ground with a profile that you're able to shoot down an aircraft.
You get off the aircraft, the helicopter, the Black Hawk, in the green zone, which has redundant great cement blocks and walls to keep it secure.
You are hustled into, in your armor, a beefed-up Chevy van. You travel at speeds, roughly as I could calculate it, above 40 miles an hour, through a 25-block area that, as I said, has redundancy in cement walls.
Many of you have been there. And from where I stand, I have not found that to be particularly evidence of how much more secure the area's become.
My first trip, immediately after Saddam's statute fell in that circle, I was able to ride around in not an up-armored, but an armored vehicle. I don't recall whether I had on a bulletproof vest; I may have. We actually got out of the vehicle numerous times. We walked in the streets. We walked up to buildings, commercial buildings. We looked at what was happening on the street.
And today -- today -- it is very, very different -- no different than my December trip, but very different than my first trip.
So the question I think's legitimate to ask is: What is really happening in Iraq? And here's what I found, one United States senator.
First, the insurgency remains as bad as it was a year ago, but more jihadists are coming across the Iraqi border, and they are an increasingly lethal part of the problem.
Insurgent attacks are back up between 60 and 70 per week. Car bombs now average 30 a week, up from just one a week in January of 2004.
In the seven weeks since the Iraqi government has been seated, more than 1,000 people have been killed.
The good news is -- and there is some good news -- but the good news is that some disgruntled Sunnis are finally beginning to make the switch from violence to politics.
The bad news is, a whole lot of them are not.
And Iraq's porous borders are being penetrated by well-trained, fanatical jihadists who find a seemingly endless supply in what should not surprise us, somewhat of the excess of 600,000 tons of munitions that we acknowledged existed, that we pointed out we could not guard because we had insufficient forces to guard them as long as 18 to 20 months ago.
Our military is doing everything that is possible and I would suggest more. But there's not enough of them and there are not enough fully trained or capable Iraqi forces to take territory and maintain it from the insurgents.
Our forces go out and clean out towns. But then they move to the next hornet's nest. They lack the resources to lead a strong residual force behind to prevent the insurgents from returning to and intimidating the fence-sitters who are too afraid to take a chance on behalf of the government.
I heard, with every general and every flight officer with whom I spoke about the inability to mount a serious counterinsurgency effort.
Second, Iraqi security forces are very gradually improving. But they are still no match for the insurgents without significant coalition support.
General Petraeus, who I think is an absolutely first-rate, absolutely first-rate general, who has been in charge of our training of late -- I would argue, had we listened to him much earlier, we would not have squandered the 18 months we've squandered in actually bringing on a more competent, more fully-trained and larger number of Iraqi forces.
But we have a long way to go. When the American people heard the secretary of defense, back in February of '04, brag about the fact we had 210,000 Iraqi forces in the security force. And then, 16 months later, the administration suggested that there were 168,581 -- a pretty precise number -- trained Iraqis.
I don't know about where you all live. But I tell you, where I live, folks ask, "Well, Joe, what's the deal? If you've got 200,000 Iraqis or 150,000 Iraqis trained, why do you need to keep my kid there? Why do we need 136,000 American forces?"
And the next thing they'd say is, even if they're trained and you need all those forces, "Then, Joe, you're telling me we need well over 300,000 forces to get this thing done?"
Remember, remember, a guy named Shinseki. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the answer is that there are very few of those Iraqis who are trained to the only standard that counts, that is, the ability to take over for an American troop. That's the ultimate exit strategy we've announced a long time ago: Be able to replace, essentially one for one, an Iraqi for an American force.
Right now, there are 107 battalions in uniform being trained by us.
Three of those are fully capable. Translated: It means they can do the job without any Americans hanging around with them. They can do the job.
Somewhere around 27 are somewhat capable, meaning they can do the job but backed up by a significant American presence -- backed up by.
The rest are in varying degrees of ability to be able to in any way enhance the security circumstance with American forces.
So the third point I would make is the political situation in Iraq at the moment is stalemating with some hint -- some hint -- that there may be some movement among the Shia and Kurds to accommodate greater Sunni participation.
The January elections were a remarkable achievement. I can't recall whether I was here or not, Jim, but I predicted -- I think many of you did -- that there would be a significant turnout. I never, for a moment, doubted and stated on the record the Iraqi people do want freedom.
But stagnation from the time that election took place has fueled a great deal of frustration.
And I hope that last week's agreement to give Arab Sunnis a larger representation on the committee that writes the constitution will help break that stalemate.
I met with the Shia who is the chairman of that committee, when I was there. There is -- I'm taking him at his word for the sake of this discussion -- that he is prepared and they are prepared to have more Sunni participation.
But finding Sunnis acceptable to all the committees to fill these new slots is not an easy task.
If a draft does not emerge as scheduled in August, of the constitution, the rest of the calendar, which calls for a referendum on the constitution in October, a general election in December, that will all be pushed back.
The constitutional stalemate is compounded by a growing secularism that has within its seed a civil war -- a seed within it is the possibility of a civil war.
You hear more and more people on the ground this time, the last -- and I know there's a lot of press folks here. Most of you have been there. You're hearing the same thing I'm hearing. And that is that there's a concern -- a concern among our people in and out of uniform -- that the sectarian division is increasing and that the prospects of a civil war are increasing, not predicted, but increasing.
Two years ago, on my first trip to postwar Iraq, few, if any Iraqis would openly acknowledge or identify themselves as Sunni or Shia. It was considered inappropriate -- not anymore, not anymore.
Sunnis fear that Shia Islamasist parties leading the government are acting as agents of Iran. Jihadist terrorists believe it is acceptable to kill Sunnis simply because they are Sunnis.
On the other side, some Shia believe Sunnis have made common cause with radical terrorists like Zarqawi, who has obviously an anti-Shia agenda.
And the minority is taking the law into their own hands to get even for the oppression that they suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
And I would note parenthetically, when I met with the ministers in the government, several talked about how Sunnis do not view the Shia as their protectors in uniform, nor do they view the peshmerga as their protectors.
And I would note parenthetically again, there has been a rapid change since my last trip. Now everybody is essentially sanctified - or sanctified's the wrong word -- maybe for Iraq it's not -- but has essentially acknowledged the permanency, at least in the initial stages, of the Badr Brigade and the peshmerga. Remember, they were going to be integrated into the army, not as units, but on a personal basis.
Fourth, the reconstruction program in Iraq has thus far been a disaster.
Remember the $18.4 billion that Congress appropriated at the urgent request of the president of the United States in the fall of '03, for which I helped floor manage and took on the responsibility, along with others to push hard, because I believe there is a nexus between the reconstruction and the physical safety and possible success of our military in the region.
Just $6 billion of that $18.4 billion has been spent.
And 40 percent of that has been allocated to rebuilding Iraqi security forces because of our lack of truth and advertising in the budget in asking directly for that money for that purpose.
Of the $3.5 billion or so actually spent on reconstruction, between 25 percent and 40 percent of the reconstruction dollars has gone to provide security for those jobs.
We have repeatedly missed the deadlines for increasing power, oil production. As temperatures approach 120 degrees in the third summer since Saddam's statue came down, Iraqis still have only about eight hours a day of electricity and almost half do not have regular access to clean water. And most estimates place unemployment above 40 percent.
General Webster, a guy who knows how to talk straight and shoot straight, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, talks about the need to clean up what he calls green lawns and green streets of Baghdad. What he means by green lawn and green streets, when you fly above Baghdad, green is the color of sewage. Green is the color of sewage as seen from the air.
For anyone that doesn't there's a direct correlation between the living conditions, job prospects of ordinary Iraqis and their support for the insurgency, spend five minutes with any military guy or woman who has been shot at, being shot at or having to shoot back.
Fifth, the Iraqi government has very little capacity and very limited reach beyond the green zone. In the absence of governmental authority, insurgents, foreign fighters, neighbors like Iran and Syria, criminals and other opportunists are filling the breach.
In short, I did not come away with the impression that the insurgency was, as the vice president of the United States suggested, in its last throes.
And unlike the president of the United States, I am not, quote, "pleased with the progress," end of quote, we're making, as I recently saw it and as he recently put it.
These are just two in a long litany of rosy assessments, misleading statements, premature declarations of victory that we've heard from the administration on Iraq.
The disconnect between the administration's rhetoric and the reality on the ground has opened not just a credibility gap, but a credibility chasm. Standing right in the middle of that chasm are 139,000 American troops, some of them -- some of them -- on their third tour.
This disconnect, I believe, is fueling cynicism that is undermining the single most important weapon we need to give our troops to be able to do their job, and that is the unyielding support of the American people.
That support is waning. One recent poll showed that 60 percent support withdrawing some or all of our troops from Iraq now. Another shows 52 percent of the public doesn't believe the war in Iraq has made them any safer. And listen to some of the assertions made by some conservative Republican congressmen. You will hear that drum beat grow.
But I believe we have a shot, a serious shot, we have still a chance to succeed in Iraq. And I also believe that the future, if it results in failure, will be a disaster.
The fact of the matter is that, as I've said from the outset, no foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. And there has not been informed consent, because the American people have not been told how difficult it was going to be, how difficult it remains to be in order to succeed and what will be required.
This is not a question of optimism versus pessimism. It is one of facts versus fiction, and I think, ultimately, of success versus failure.
I want to see the president of the United States succeed in Iraq. It is necessary for the president to succeed in Iraq. His success is America's success, and his failure is America's failure.
So any good-thinking American would want to see him succeed in Iraq.
Success, as I define it, is leaving Iraq better than we found it; not a Jeffersonian democracy -- which I, for one, have never believed is a remote possibility -- but a unified country with a representative government where all the major factions think they have a stake in the deal, a stake in the government.
With the territorial integrity intact and not a threat to its neighbors, more haven for terror. That is success, from my perspective.
Let me define what I call disaster: A country that, left to its own devices, disintegrates and becomes a playground for Iraq's neighbors and a training ground for terrorists. That is a real possibility.
If it becomes a reality, it would embolden our enemies, encourage terrorism, undermine moderates in the region, badly damage our credibility that we're going to need to lead other countries against new threats.
It would also send oil prices even higher. In short, it will hurt our national security interests for at least a decade to come. That's why it's so important that we continue to try to succeed.
These are the stakes, in my view. And let me state to you what I think the options are. The options are basically four.
First, we can stick with the status quo and try to muddle through. I think that is a prescription for failure. It is not working now and nothing leads me to believe that it can work.
Second, we can call it quits and withdraw. I think that would be a gigantic mistake for the reasons I stated earlier.
Or we can set a deadline for pulling out which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out -- equally a mistake.
Third, we can limit our losses -- which may end up being our only option, if we don't do the right thing in the near term. We may limit our losses by manipulating the emerging balance of power in Iraq and throwing our weight behind the Kurds and the Shia.
Our bottom line national security interest, which would be preventing a new springboard for terrorism, might be preserved if we took that route, but there would be real risk of a Lebanese-style civil war.
These are all bad options. But before we think about picking up and going home, or playing the sectarian game in Iraq, there's a fourth option that I think is worth trying. I believe we should do more; we should do it better; and we should do it smarter.
So what is the option? How do we do that?
We do what I am about to suggest in my view so that we can leave sooner with success, not stay longer. This requires two things.
First, we need to change the politics at home, and second, we need to change the policy in Iraq.
Let me explain what I mean. The first order of business is to regain the confidence of the American people. In case they haven't noticed, they -- the American people -- no longer take the administration at their word about Iraq.
That is a very important point, from my perspective.
I propose, in order to regain that confidence, that we forge a new compact between the administration and the Congress to secure the informed consent of the American people for the remainder of the job, the difficult job that has to be done so that they will give the president the time we need to succeed in Iraq.
Specifically, the administration should develop with Congress clear benchmarks and goals in key areas: security, governance and politics, reconstruction and burden-sharing.
We in Congress, in my view, should aggressively assert our oversight responsibility by insisting the administration report on the progress toward these goals every month in public testimony.
I'd expect the administration to detail what they think they've achieved, where they think they've fallen short, why they've fallen short and what help they need to, in fact, regain the initiative.
Last week, I wrote my senior counterparts, Republicans and Democrats in the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, suggesting this idea.
And on my way back, when I arrived, asked by the president to meet with Mr. Hadley, our national security adviser. He asked me what I would suggest the president do.
I recommended -- not presumptuously, but in response to a question -- I recommended to the administration the president address the nation in prime time on Iraq sooner than later in order to be able to keep the American people in the deal.
I was pleased to learn that the president is planning to speak to the American people on Iraq in the days ahead. I hope he will take the opportunity to level with the American people about what is at stake, what still we have to do to achieve, what is our goal and how we plan to achieve it.
Most importantly, I hope the president will demonstrate that he has heard the concerns of the American people and that he is taking significant steps not to stay the course, but to correct the course.
In my judgment, this combination of benchmarks and regular public accountability would go a long way toward convincing the American people that they are getting the facts in Iraq and that we have a strategy for success.
The American people are tough. They're tougher than both political parties and the leaders in both parties think they are.
Tell them the truth, tell them what you need, tell them how hard it will be, and they, if they believe you're leveling with them, will give you the resources to have a shot at getting it done.
Fail to do that and they will leave you, not because of the deaths, as tragic as they are, but, in my view, because they will have concluded that there is not a plan, there is not a plan for success.
Changing the politics of Iraq is necessary, but I believe it is not sufficient for success.
We also need to make real policy changes on the ground in four key areas: security, governance and politics, reconstruction and burden-sharing.
As you all know, and many of you have written, everything flows from security. In its absence, reconstruction cannot go forward, Iraqis will not put their faith in the government, and we will not be able to withdraw responsibly.
And here is what I believe we should do on security.
First, we have to take advantage of the legitimate foreign offers to train Iraqi security forces outside of Iraq. Iraqi recruits then could focus on actually learning something, rather than focus on simply staying alive.
The French have offered -- and this offer is somewhat old now -- they have offered and personally told this by President Chirac.
I actually asked our administration, and they acknowledged the offer was made, to train 1,500 gendarmes -- 1,500 real live paramilitary police -- train them in France to send them back to Iraq.
The Egyptians have offered to train hundreds more police. And the Jordanians have offered advance military training for young officers.
Yet, we have not taken them up on any of these offers.
When asked why, the State Department told me it's because the Iraqis haven't accepted these offers. I respectfully suggest, someone whisper in their ear, suggest that they ask for this help. I imagine you could get a response. I imagine you'd get a response.
Second, though some of you would suggest that well, these offers aren't for real, that the French and the Germans and others will not really do this. Well, folks, isn't it time to call their bluff? I think they mean it. Maybe I'm wrong. But let's find out. Let's find out.
They also should accelerate the training of an Iraqi officer corps. This had been discussed by me and with me by folks on the ground, wearing uniforms, that there is no reason -- everyone acknowledged one of the major mistakes made by Mr. Bremer was decommissioning and the total de-Baathification under the leadership of Mr. Chalabi of the entire Iraqi establishment, including the entire Iraqi military.
We should do what we're done in other circumstances, in other wars. We should find those at the major and colonel level who we think are the real thing and we should train them up as a serious officer corps.
This means that's the only way, in my view, to stand up ultimately on Iraqi military when it comes under fire.
NATO is establishing a staff war college in Iraq. But we should train larger numbers of junior and mid-ranking officers here in the United States and encourage our NATO allies to do more of the same in their countries.
This is not new, folks. We've done this with many, many other countries brought their potential officer corps here and over a period of months to a year, train them. That needs to be done.
Third, we should press our NATO allies to come up with a small force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops to help guard the Iraqi border, particularly around Syria. This mission would have real impact, far larger than the number of forces deployed because it would dramatically change the calculus of the Syrians, the main crossing point for the jihadists.
The NATO military has such plans already drawn. The president now has to lead to give the alliance the political will to implement these plans.
Last year, when I suggested NATO involvement in Iraq -- I think I did it from this stage -- some said I was naive. As you may recall, not long after that, President Bush succeeding in gaining NATO's support for military training.
We didn't take advantage of the best recommendation made by those NATO forces that went and came back and suggested how to proceed. But nonetheless, for military training, he needs to keep the pressure on now to expand NATO's role.
And I would note, parenthetically, I think Europe is prepared and needs to demonstrate to themselves their willingness to be able to get together to do something consequential and concrete at this moment for their own internal self need.
Fourth, we need a serious field mentoring program for newly-trained Iraqi police. It's wrong to throw freshly (inaudible) ill-equipped police officers against suicidal insurgents and desperate criminals. They must be partnered with experienced officers.
Without taking the time, there is a whole plan put forward to do that. We should seek it out and we should implement it. And fifthly, we must refocus the Iraqi government on how to eventually integrate all militias in Iraq. The Badr Brigade, the Mahdi Army, the peshmerga, they're causing sectarian and social tensions in Iraq.
They cannot -- you cannot have a functioning state, a unitary government with militias beholden to parochial interests.
That cannot be done now, immediately, but we should begin the process now of making it clear that that is what is needed for a unitary state.
In the political arena, the goal is clear: a government seen as legitimate by Iraqis' major constituencies. But the road to get there is hard: a constitution by August the 15th, a referendum on that constitution by October the 15th and an election under the constitution by year's end.
Think for a minute about the divisive issues that are going to have to be addressed: the role of Islam; the federal structure; the protection of minority rights; women's rights; the status of oil-rich Kirkuk; the distribution of resources; and much more.
It took us 13 years to write our Constitution. The Iraqis have just seven weeks left to write theirs. And one of the main communities necessary to give it legitimacy is not yet fully involved.
On reconstruction, we need to do four important things. First, establish realistic goals and make clear what we're doing to try to overcome the shortfalls.
For example, the goal was set to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity by last summer. Today, we have just over 4,000 megawatts, but demand is nearly doubled. And we've scaled back our ambitions to 5,500 megawatts by September.
Less power means food rots in refrigerators, sleepless nights and difficult days, reconstruction delays, factories sitting idle, fewer jobs and more unhappy Iraqis willing to fill the ranks of the insurgency.
The administration said from the beginning that Iraqi oil would pay for Iraq's recovery. Yet Iraq is still producing the same amount of oil it was 18 months ago, 2.25 million barrels, which is 750,000 barrels short of the target we set.
At current prices, that shortfall amounts to $10 billion a year for the Iraqi economy.
Second, we have to develop accurate measures of the basic quality of life and delivery of essential services -- if we want to know what difference our reconstruction efforts are making or could make.
There's a direct correlation, as I said earlier, between Iraqis supporting their government and children going to school, men and women going to jobs, sick people having a doctor, families getting electricity they need to stay cool, police protecting their citizens from robberies and kidnapping -- there's a direct correlation.
Third, we must focus resources on smaller projects that make an impact on ordinary lives.
The Iraqis are simply looking for an improvement in their standard of living. They're not looking, at this time, for state of the art infrastructure on a par with the West.
Instead of building the tertiary sewer treatment plant, we should be running PVC pipe out of the back of homes, into the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, rather than have two feet of raw sewage on the front door step of every Iraqi when they step out of their house.
In parallel, we should increase the amount of reconstruction funds given directly to our military -- directly to our military, which has been one of the few success stories in the whole reconstruction process.
Everybody knows it's a tribal society. As my good friend Dick Lugar said some time ago: What's needed is a little bit of walking around money.
Go find, go find the tribal leader in the community. Get him to suggest how he's going to build that road or improve that lot. Give him the resources to do that.
We've got over 40 percent unemployment rate.
Fourth, we have to develop capacity for the Iraqi ministries. This is the third Iraqi government in less than two years, and it could be the fourth, if all goes well, by the end of this year.
We know how difficult it is to transition those bureaucracies every four years in our presidential elections. Imagine the challenge in Iraq, when the management team of a barely functional government changes every few months.
We have to help the government deal with the rising corruption, which is badly eroding public confidence. And we must press our allies to help train Iraqi government personnel.
The British had a proposal of partnering individual developed countries with a cluster of Iraqi ministries.
We should follow up on that recommendation. And finally, we must recruit other countries to share the burden in Iraq. I still believe that what I called for more than a year ago is the right thing to do and that it's doable, the creation of a contact group, an international board of directors to help generate assistance, provide political advice and discourage destabilizing actions by countries such as Iran and Syria in the region.
Many of our European and regional partners recognize that they have as much at stake in Iraq as we do if not more. And their desire to prevent chaos is, in fact, a very, very strong incentive if we lead.
To get their buy-in though, we have to give them more control and give them a seat at the decision-making table.
Tomorrow, at the Brussels conference on Iraq, I urge the president to establish a contact group that will meet on a monthly basis. This will give other major powers a mechanism to act in their own self interest and justify a more active assistance program to their skeptical publics.
And just as important, it will provide a useful tool of influence on political leaders in Iraq who need an excuse, the excuse of international pressure, to justify very difficult decisions they have to take within their constituencies.
Imagine selling to your Shia constituency the need to have more Sunnis in the process. Every major Iraqi Shia leader knows that success in a unitary government depends on more buy-in from the Sunnis. But try selling that without being able to turn and say, "The international community made me do it."
Since the elections, we've taken a hands-off approach in Iraqi politics. And I understand why we did that. But the Iraqis still need a guiding hand on their shoulder, an international community can provide that hand, so it's not just the U.S. suggesting what the Iraqis should be doing.
We also must urge other countries to make good on more than $13 billion in pledges they made in October of '03. Thus far, only $3 billion has actually been delivered.
BIDEN: In conclusion, folks, if we change the politics of Iraq at home by leveling with the American people and we change some of our policies in Iraq, by doing some of the things I've suggested, I am convinced we can still succeed.
But if the administration fails to make these changes and, quote, "stays the course," what happens? Or what happens if it does make these changes and the situation in Iraq deteriorates anyway?
After all, the cumulative effect of the mistakes we've made over the past three years has made the burden heavier, made the task less likely. We may not, some would argue, be able to turn back the tide. Then what do we do? How do we preserve our fundamental interests if our best efforts don't produce a representative, stable, peaceful Iraq?
Well, that's a fair question and it deserves a direct answer. At the end of the day, we must do everything to avoid two possible outcomes.
First, we cannot let Iraq become what it was not before the war, a Taliban-style Afghanistan in the heart of the Middle East that is a haven for terrorists.
And second, we cannot be perceived as having been defeated by radical Islamic jihadists. That would embolden them to carry out even more attacks against the United States.
The answer?
The answer may be -- what do we do if these approaches fail? - may be what I described earlier as the third bad option, to strengthen those Kurdish and Shia forces that can defeat the jihadists and keep the terrorists in check. Each of these, the Kurds and the Shia, have a stake in keeping Iraq loosely intact -- the Kurds as a hedge against the Turks and the Shia to avoid becoming a vassal of Iran.
I can't tell you precisely what that kind of Iraq would look like, but it would not be good. I can tell you it would not look anything like the moderate, modernizing country with a representative government that we still, I think, have a chance of helping occur.
Given the lofty goals that some once ascribed to this enterprise, achieving this stepped-down real politick would be at best a huge comedown.
And I understand this, that empowering sectarian forces in Iraq would have significant -- and, I would point out, mostly negative -- regional consequences.
Iran would emerge stronger. The Arab Gulf states and Jordan would feel threatened. Syria would feel less pressure. And Turkey would be even more worried about an already-serious -- from their perspective -- Kurdish problem.
I believe we can avoid the situation where Iraq's sectarian tensions no longer can be contained and, instead, we have to manipulate constituencies.
I believe we can still avoid that. I believe there is an underlying Iraqi nationalism that at least Arab Iraqis can rally around, and that a federal formula can be found to accommodate the Kurds.
My conviction, ladies and gentlemen, that we can still succeed in Iraq, is at the heart of my call today for a new compact between the president and Congress to regain the trust of the American people because, mark my words, if we do not regain that trust, it will be virtually impossible to succeed.
It's late in the day, folks, but it's not too late. If the president agrees to this new compact, if he makes important political changes at home as well as the policy on the ground, if he levels with us and presents a clear strategy for Iraq, then I believe the American people will respond and give him the support and the time he needs to prevail.
For I know of no one I've met in the rosiest, rosiest of all projections suggest that any less than a year, any less than a year is needed -- and most of the estimates from very realistic people on the ground is that it will be considerably more than that.
We need the time. We need the American people. We must level with them. Thank you very, very much.
(APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: Thank you, Senator, for that very substantive and sobering message. I think it's fair to say, as you pointed out, that if you go back and look at Senator Biden's remarks here, when he last spoke on Iraq, that many of these very important messages that he gave us today were very much in his mind at that time.
And I think that there's a lot of wisdom that goes with them, both then and now.
We have time for a few questions from the audience.
QUESTION: Senator, you mentioned you're against a timetable because the insurgents will, quote, "wait us out." The White House has said something similar, that the insurgents would lie low until we leave.
But wouldn't the insurgents lying low buy time for us, let's say a year, to train the Iraqi security forces? Wouldn't it convince anti-Americans in Iraq that we're not going to occupy there forever and not put in a puppet government?
Wouldn't this also build support among the American public that we have an exit strategy? And finally, wouldn't this convince the Iraqis that it's ultimately going to be their responsibility?
BIDEN: Yes, if in fact we said we were leaving, but really didn't mean it.
If we were really going to stay -- I mean, the idea of setting a timetable to leave generally means that you have to set in train the process of leaving. It is not an easy process.
And I think once that is smelled as the option, then I think you find it will degenerate quickly into sectarian violence, every man for himself, and the conclusion that will be achieved will be, I think, a Lebanon in 1985. And God knows where it goes from there.
I think my attempt -- my prescription was an attempt to achieve that same result, and that is, to make it clear to the Iraqi people, to make it clear to the American people what our goals are, what it is that we in fact seek, which is not permanent basing, it is not their oil -- I think we've demonstrated that -- and at the same time put in place a process where we enable the Iraqis, through help from the outside, not just us, to make the difficult decisions they have to make and train up the capacity to be able to govern themselves.
QUESTION: Thank you. Senator, in his pen and pad briefing this morning, House Majority Leader DeLay said, regarding Iraq, that, "The strategy is working. It's an incredibly fast schedule. Nobody gives anyone any credit. The quality of life and the economy is improving every day."
And he went on to say that, "Everyone that comes back from Iraq is amazed at the difference they see on the ground and they see on their TV sets."
Could you address why the House majority leader would have such a different view of what's going on in Iraq from you?
BIDEN: No.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Senator, do you think that a recess appointment by the president would be a statement by the president of a lack of respect for the U.N. or diminish the importance of the U.N., in light of what happened yesterday?
BIDEN: I'm not going to comment on that.
QUESTION: You said at the outset that no one's running against George Bush. It wasn't long ago that somebody did run against George Bush and made -- certainly not all the points that you made -- but made many of these same points.
Your colleague, John Kerry, lost the election. What makes you think that six months later, after the election, the American people are ready to engage in any different way?
QUESTION: And what makes you think the administration is willing to change course, after they won that election?
BIDEN: Reality. Reality. The fact is, look at the poll numbers. Before, when that race was on, a clear majority of the American people thought being in Iraq made them safer. Now 52 percent say it doesn't make them safer. Before, you still have a significant majority of the American people saying that things were working in Iraq and we should stay in Iraq. It was the right decision; now you have a clear majority of the American people saying get all or most of the troops out of Iraq, and do it immediately.
Look, it's amazing what -- I'm not being a wiseguy when I say this -- it's amazing when reality sinks in. What John Kerry talked about is turning out to be true.
I actually had on the ground with my staff -- and I wasn't the only one, by the way. There were three very conservative Republicans. I actually went into Iraq as the guest of a House delegation with three very conservative Republican colleagues of mine from the House. They all agreed with what I had to say.
I came out, did one of the major talk shows that Sunday from wherever I was, Chad or someplace, and they went and the press asked the logical question -- they went to these Republicans, said do you disagree? They said no, we don't disagree.
And so, my point I'm trying to make is the reality of what John talked about -- I even hate to put it in those terms, because now it makes it more political -- but the reality is it turned out to be true. We actually had several military people suggest to us that they were worried that not only were these jihadists coming across the border with more lethal capability, more sophistication, but they were training people in Iraq and sending them back out across the border to other parts of the region.
None of that was happening before.
And the American people are pretty smart. They know what's happening. And so I think they want the president to say, "Mr. President, look, give us a plan or get out. Give us a plan or get out."
And we should give them a plan, not get out.
QUESTION: Sorry, my foot's broke, I can't stand.
(CROSSTALK)
BIDEN: ... no one else does.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm from Delaware.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: In your prepared remarks you said, in your judgment, we're at least two years away from a fully capable Iraqi army. You didn't say that out loud.
What I'm wondering is just if you could clarify: Does that mean, timetables aside, that you don't think we've got any business getting out of there for the next two years?
And real quickly, second of all, could you address how important you think the specter of Iraq will be in the next presidential election here?
BIDEN: I don't know about the second question, but the first question I can answer for you; it's a fair question. The second's fair, too, I just don't know enough about the second question.
I believe that there is, if all goes well -- and, by the way, you can't just be training Iraqi troops; you've got to be distributing this reconstruction money at the same time; you've got to get other nations invested in this more than they are now; and you've got to get the Sunnis more into the game.
So it's not just training Iraqi troops, because you're not going to be able to train them up fully and you're not going to have any Sunnis in this army in training them up if you don't do these other pieces as well.
But, merely on the training front, it is possible, I believe, within a year, to have a sufficient number of Iraqis being able to take on significantly more responsibilities, maybe including some of the major cities, freeing up American forces to move to the border or even, theoretically, bring some American forces home.
But to get to the point where you're able to say the Iraqis now have the capacity, without the United States' presence there in any numbers, you have to have two things happen: There has to be a political solution -- that is, you actually wrote a constitution, you actually had an election -- and there has to be somewhere in excess of 100,000 Iraqis trained, including, essentially, a paramilitary police force along with -- because the criminal element is a problem all by itself, just to keep the streets safe.
And so that will take -- that training piece will take -- at least a year. I think two years. It doesn't mean things can't and won't get better for America and American troops, some of whom will be able to come home short of that.
But I can't imagine it being less than two years, if all goes well, before we essentially can say we're out of Iraq.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator. A couple of questions: Your remarks seem to imply an insufficiency of U.S. troops in Iraq, a need for NATO troops. Irrespective of political support in the United States, do you think the circumstances on the ground in Iraq call for a buildup or an increase in U.S. troops?
And secondly, you mentioned a meeting with National Security Adviser Hadley. The president said yesterday he's consulting with his generals. He meets with al-Jaafari on Friday and gives a speech next week.
What kind of pivot or reassessment do you see the president going through at this point, and how would you gauge the outcome in terms of what he offers? Will it be more rhetoric in your opinion? Or what would you look for in terms of a change on the ground?
BIDEN: I think the president is absolutely, totally sincere about trying to figure out a better way.
The president's a smart guy. The president knows, in my opinion, that the rhetoric of the vice president is for reasons other than reflecting what's happening on the ground. The president knows.
I am confident if he speaks to any of our generals on the ground, I'm confident if he speaks to the agency people on the ground, I'm confident that if he speaks to our diplomats -- look at the testimony of his new nominee who will be a good ambassador -- he was a great ambassador in Afghanistan. I almost wish he wasn't leaving there.
But he will do a great job in Iraq. Look at his testimony. His testimony reflects an awful lot of what I'm suggesting here.
So, therefore, I am assuming that when the president asked me to debrief Mr. Hadley on my trip -- he didn't ask me personally. I got a call from Hadley saying the president asked me -- and I believe he was sincere.
And one of the recommendations I made was that he should literally pick up the phone or meet with some of these generals, because I believe if he asks them, "Do you have enough forces?" they will tell him the truth. Every one of them told me they do not have enough forces.
Now look, there's a distinction between saying I don't have enough forces and more American forces. We don't have many more American forces to be able to deploy.
That's why we should leverage the help available to us and lead to get it.
When you all are there -- and you've been there -- ask any general coming home what you have to do to deal with a counterinsurgency -- to have a counterinsurgency.
You have to be able to seal the border. You have to be able to seal the border. We don't have enough forces to leave the city to seal the border -- 3,000 troops on the border goes three times as far, twice as far as 3,000 troops in the middle of Baghdad.
But we are trying to maximize the forces we have. I know that, in fact, a year ago I said this publicly and I'll say it again: Our military folks in NATO have a plan to be able to deploy 3,000 to 5,000 troops along the border.
And military experts I've met with -- two-, three- and four-star generals that I've kept pace with and had them come and brief me, both political parties -- well, they don't state any political party, but they worked in this administration and they're not declared Democrats to the best of my knowledge -- say that it can happen. We could seal the border with that size force -- which would radically act as a multiplier for what else we need.
So, yes, we didn't have enough force when we went in, we didn't have enough force going in, we didn't have enough force after we went in, we didn't have enough force a year ago and we don't have enough force now.
The problem is, we don't have the capacity now, in my view, to significantly increase the number of American forces. As I said, some of these folks are on their third rotation.
That's why we need outside help, and that's why we have to leverage the training, leverage the training of Iraqi forces.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator. Given the history of this administration and its inability to admit mistakes that they had made -- this president and this administration -- how is it possible to bring them into this compact -- which is very commendable, I must say, to you, Senator -- to get them on board without having admitted mistakes that they have made.
BIDEN: Well, I mean this sincerely, and I say it before God and country here: I do not hold -- the president makes at changing course. I, for one, give you my word you will never hear me say anything other than: "Thank you, Mr. President; every war requires a course correction. You've made it. I compliment you for making it and I support you."
I believe the majority of the members of the House and Senate would do that.
I'm not looking for a mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa -- I'm not looking for anybody to say I'm sorry. No matter who was president running this war, it would have been difficult.
Who knows. Maybe the prescriptions that I've been suggesting for the past two and a half years, if we had done them, maybe they wouldn't have worked either.
But one thing we know for sure: What is happening now is not working sufficiently to put us in the position to meet our objective of a secure Iraq not a threat to its neighbors, each of the confessional groups believing they have a stake in the outcome of that government functioning and not a haven for terror.
BIDEN: We're not there. And we're not going to get there by staying the course.
I believe the president is a big man. I believe the president will do what he thinks is in the best interest of the country. I think when he examines the facts, when he examines what's actually happening by talking to these folks, I believe he'll be prepared to change, to alter, to augment his policy.
And it doesn't have to be the exact prescriptions I suggested, but I know one thing. You can't do it without buy-in of the Sunnis. You can't do it without the rest of the world playing a greater role in this. You can't do it without burden-sharing and you can't do it without changing, at least on the margins, the living conditions of Iraqis in the relatively near term.
I thank you all very, very much. You've been very gracious.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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The Purpose of American Power
The Purpose of American Power by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Foreign Policy Lecture Series U.S. Naval Academy - April 12, 2005
Introduction: The Lighthouse
One night at sea, a ship's captain saw what looked like the lights of another ship heading toward him on a collision course.
He had his signalman blink to the other ship: "Change your course 10 degrees south." The reply came back, "Change YOUR course 10 degrees north."
The ship's captain answered, "I'm a full captain - change your course south."
The which the reply was, "Well, I'm a seaman first class - change your course north."
This infuriated the captain, so he signaled back, "Dammit, I say change your course south. I'm on a battleship."
To which the reply came, "And I say change your course north. I'm in a lighthouse."
For better and sometimes worse, Washington is the nation's lighthouse when it comes to setting our foreign policy course.
What I want to do today is illuminate the main challenges I believe we face, and then to suggest some course corrections we need to make to meet those challenges.
The Challenges We Face
In my judgment, America faces two overriding national security challenges in this new century.
We must win the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. And we must keep the world's most dangerous weapons away from its most dangerous people.
To prevail, I believe we need a new approach... and a new compact with our major allies around the world.
Today, after a necessary war in Afghanistan and an optional war in Iraq, Americans are rightly confident in the example of our military power.
But I've been concerned that some of our leaders have forgotten the power of our example.
For all of our great might, we are not only less comfortable in the world, but more alone - more isolated - than at any time in our history.
As a result, we are - in my view - less secure than we could or should be.
I believe we must recapture the totality of our strength and restore our nation to the respect it once enjoyed.
We need a foreign policy based both on the force of our arms and on the power of our ideas and our ideals.
That will require three things:
Building effective alliances and international organizations.
Forging a prevention strategy to diffuse threats to security long before they are on the verge of exploding while retaining the right to act preemptively in the face of imminent danger.
And reforming failed or anti-democratic states that are sources of instability, radicalism, and terror.
Such an approach will require not only a fundamental shift in American foreign policy, but a reconsideration by our allies of their reflexes.
Building Strong Alliances/International Organizations
Let me start with the first part of this new approach: building strong alliances and international organizations.
Some of my friends in the current administration have little interest in alliances, international organizations and treaties.
There's a logic to their disengagement.
They start from the premise that America's military might is the single most important determinant in the international system. Because that might is so much greater than anyone else's they see allies and agreements as more of a burden than a benefit. It's Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians.
I have tremendous respect for that military might. It is essential to our security and freedom. But I start from a different premise.
Most of the threats we face - from radical Islamic fundamentalism to the spread of weapons of mass destruction - to rogue states that flout the rules - have no respect for borders.
For all of the power you in this room represent, not one of those threats can be met solely with unilateral military force.
Even when we can succeed by ourselves, there are compelling reasons not to act alone - from basing rights to burden-sharing to the benefits of legitimacy.
Iraq demonstrates the price we pay for a unilateralist foreign policy.
There was never any doubt we could defeat Saddam without a single foreign soldier.
But because we chose to wage the war virtually alone, we have been responsible for the aftermath… virtually alone.
But here's an important caveat that our friends in Europe, Asia and beyond must take to heart if we are to succeed.
The credibility and effectiveness of alliances, treaties, and international organizations depend on a willingness not only to live by the rules, but to enforce them.
That could have been the basis for a common approach with our closest allies to Iraq. It was not - and both the U.S. and Europe have paid a price.
Now, when it comes to Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. and Europe finally seem to be converging on just such an approach: a coordinated strategy of more U.S. carrots… and real European sticks.
No one can guarantee it will work to convince Iran to forego nuclear weapons. But if it doesn't, at least Iran will be isolated… not, as was the case in Iraq, the United States.
Forging a Prevention Strategy
That brings me to the second part of the approach. Forging a prevention strategy that allows us to defuse threats to our security long before the only choice left is to act with force unilaterally or do nothing at all.
This Administration's effort to turn military preemption from the option it has always been... into a one-size-fit-all doctrine is, in my judgment, dangerous and destabilizing.
It says to rogue states that there best insurance policy against regime change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as possible.
Which is one reason North Korea's nuclear arsenal has apparently increased by 400 percent these past four years.
It gives a green light to India and Pakistan, Russia and Chechnya, China and Taiwan to use force first and ask questions later.
And it requires a standard of proof for intelligence that may be impossible to meet unless we cut corners, as we did in Iraq.
For that reason, American foreign policy needs a comprehensive prevention strategy that would put much more emphasis on programs to secure and destroy loose weapons and materials in Russia and beyond.
It would fully fund homeland security budgets to detect and respond to terrorist attacks.
It would include new international laws to seize suspect cargoes on the high seas and in international airspace.
It would involve new international alliances of law enforcement experts and intelligence and financial officials alliances to uproot terrorists and end their funding.
A Prevention strategy would provide tougher non- proliferation strategies including no-notice, on-site inspections and a reformed Non-proliferation Treaty.
It would demand a reinvigorated public diplomacy effort to explain our policies and expose lies about America around the world.
And it would require a sustained commitment to development and democratization to prove to people around the world that WE offer hope and our enemies offer nothing but hatred. I'll come to that in a moment.
But if America commits to a policy of prevention, not preemption, we need our allies to rethink their approach to the use of force.
First, it must be clear that America's military will remain second to none and that force will be used - without asking anyone's permission - when circumstances warrant.
But beyond that, we need a common understanding with our allies in Europe and Asia that every citizen of the free world faces a nexus of new threats - terrorism, rogue states, and weapons that demand a new response.
Containment and deterrence got us through the Cold War, and they still make sense most of the time...
But they do not suffice when the enemy is a stateless actor with no territory or people to defend... who is amassing stealthy weapons instead of visible armies.
That's why a broad prevention strategy is so important. But its is also why our allies - and for that matter the other major powers on the U.N. Security Council -- must be willing to get much tougher with rogue states who harbor terrorists, seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or pose a proliferation risk.
In the 1990's, the U.S. and Europe agreed, with great difficulty, that a state cedes its sovereignty when it systematically abuses the rights of its own people.
And so we joined forces to reverse ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. And we acted even more quickly to turn the tide in Kosovo.
Now we should apply that same logic to states without democratic checks that seek to amass WMD or harbor terrorists.
In short, the U.S. should seek a new international consensus that there is a duty to protect innocents and a responsibility to prevent terrible acts of destruction.
We should develop and use every tool short of force to convince a Milosevic, a Saddam, or a Taliban to meet minimum standards of responsibility...
...But if these steps fail to persuade, we must be fully prepared to coerce… together whenever we can, alone if we must.
Bolstering Failed States and Expanding Democracy
Let me conclude with a few thoughts about the third piece of this new approach: bolstering failed states and expanding democracy.
Failing states are cracks in the foundation of our international system.
There have always been poor countries whose people suffer under corrupt, incompetent, and ruthlessly barbaric dictators.
What is new is the effect on our lives and the threat to our own security as a consequence of such regimes.
Today, the potential spread of weapons of mass destruction, make the threat literally existential. We must challenge ourselves and our allies to refocus our attention, reallocate our resources, and reform our institutions to address this challenge.
Together, we have to take seriously the task of economic development, commit to debt relief, buffer countries against economic shocks, give them tools to combat corruption, dramatically expand our investment in global education, reorient the Bretton Woods institutions and the U.N. to stabilize weak states, and lead the world in a massive effort to combat the scourge of disease, especially AIDS.
We also have to take seriously what some people in Washington see as a four letter word - nation building.
This Administration came to office disdaining the concept, only to be confronted with the two biggest nation building challenges since World War II. But it has not succeeded, yet, in either Afghanistan or in Iraq.
We must be willing and prepared to empower experts to plan post-conflict reconstruction ahead of time, not on the fly.
We must be willing and prepared to build a standing roster of international police to handle security after we topple a tyrant.
We must be willing and prepared to create a system to rapidly stand-up indigenous security forces.
And when it comes to a war of choice, we must think twice about initiating the conflict if we are not prepared for the post-conflict.
Finally, there is so much the U.S. and the world's major democracies can do together to support democratic transformation, especially in the Greater Middle East.
I applauded President Bush's second inaugural address about expanding freedom. It touched a chord among many Americans because it spoke to our ideals and to our national experience.
And clearly, a world full of liberal democracies would not only be better for the people living in those countries. It would be better for us because liberal democracies tend not to attack each other, abuse the rights of their own people or breed terrorists.
This is a goal that ought to unite the U.S. and the other major democracies. And yet, here's how a leading German newspaper reacted to President Bush's speech: "Bush Threatens More Freedom."
Clearly, dislike for the messenger undermined appreciation for the message. I'm convinced we can and we must find common ground on one of the most critical challenges of our time.
America must support the forces of progress in non- democratic countries - not with reckless campaigns to impose democracy by force from the outside - but by working with modernizers from the inside to build the institutions of democracy, over the long haul.
Political parties. An independent media and judiciary. Transparent economies and accountable governments. Modern education. NGOs and civil society. A private sector.
Our democratic friends must fully engage in this effort, and not give in to the cynical - and wrong - view that some societies are incapable of transforming themselves. It's hard, frustrating work. But it can and must be done.
Above all, we must understand that those who would spread radical Islamic fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction are beyond the reach of reason.
We must defeat them.
But hundreds of millions of hearts and minds around the world are open to American ideas and ideals.
We must reach them if we are to make the world truly safe for democracy.
This is a generational challenge. It's a challenge the men and women in this room will play a key part in meeting.
I wish you Godspeed in everything you will do for this country. We admire you. And we're counting on you.
Thanks very much for listening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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American Jewish Committee/Learned Hand Dinner
Thank you very much. This is a very special evening, and it's an honor to be invited to speak here tonight.
As you all know, Learned Hand was best known for his tireless, determined and avid support of free speech.
"All discussion," he said, "all debate, all dissidence tends to question and, in consequence, to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and justification."
Indeed, it is that attitude of challenging the status quo, to have a moral compass rather than a finger to the wind, that characterizes the work and very purpose of the American Jewish Committee.
And it is why we are here tonight to honor the life and commitment and dedication of Bruce Ramer. I first met Bruce several years ago, and learned we share many things in common. And what I've come to admire most is that moral compass that guides him.
The leader of the American Jewish Committee who traveled to Macedonia to visit the displaced persons camps filled with Kosovar Muslims, and whose conscience compelled him to act, not as a leader of an organization, not even as a Jew looking into his soul, but as a human being shaken, troubled, and profoundly moved.
Bruce Ramer, a man who has sat with Kings and Emirs, Presidents and Prime Ministers -- but who prefers to talk about the earthquake in India that impelled him to lend his efforts to help bring humanitarian assistance to people in desperate need, and to rebuild a Muslim school.
That spirit of Tikkun Olam - repairing the world - is what inspires Bruce and the raison d'etre of the AJC.
And that brings me to tonight's topic. The surprising, some would say amazing, things going on in the Middle East: are we witnessing the fruits of Tikkun Olam, or are we headed down a dark, dangerous path? Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are witnessing - and I believe we can help shape - an extraordinary moment in the greater Middle East.
As President Bush put it this week, "a critical mass of events is taking the region in a hopeful new direction."
These events - Palestinian and Iraqi national elections; Saudi municipal elections; Egyptian President Mubarak's move to allow competitive elections for President; and the Lebanese people demanding Syria's withdrawal and free parliamentary elections raise this question:
Have we reached a democratic "tipping point" similar to the peaceful revolutions that brought down communist regimes in Eastern Europe?
That's what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.
Bush's Call for Democracy
Just two months ago, in his second inaugural address, President Bush spoke with great eloquence about expanding freedom.
I was a little frustrated by the negative reaction from some in my party... and some of our friends around the world. Here's the headline from the leading Green Party newspaper in Germany: "Bush Threatens More Freedom."
It seemed to me that distaste for the messenger obscured the power of the message.
Clearly, the President's speech struck a chord with many Americans. The benefits of freedom and the desire to share them with others go to who we are as a people to how we see ourselves and to our national experience.
The President is also right to link expanding freedom to our interests.
A world full of liberal democracies would not only be better for the people living in those countries - it would be better for us.
Liberal democracies tend not to attack one another. They tend not to abuse the rights of their people. They tend not to produce terrorists.
Of course, there are exceptions: Timothy McVeigh... the IRA... the ETA... the Red Brigades. But that's the point: these are exceptions, not the rule, in advanced democracies.
Conversely, we learned on 9/11 that the absence of democracy half way around the world can do terrible harm to us here at home.
I don't believe in a clash of civilizations. I do believe of a clash within civilizations between those who want to move their societies forward and those who would retreat to the past.
Those who want to take their societies backwards have great allies in the autocratic leaders of the Middle East. The region has become a breeding ground for terror because of an almost total lack of political, economic and social openness.
In the absence of any productive outlets, dissent is channeled underground and into the Mosques, where it is captured by radical Islamic fundamentalists. When young people are alienated from their governments, they will fight, kill and die for their causes instead of living for them.
I also believe that history is on democracy's side. In 1775 there were no democracies. The American Revolution raised the number to one. Today, there are 117 electoral democracies - some 60 percent of the world's governments.
As the number of democracies increases still further, pressure will rise on the tyrannical outliers. We may be witnessing this very phenomenon in the Middle East.
But We Need a Little Realism, Too
So I for one applaud President Bush's vision. But I do so without blinders on. First, President Bush is a Johnny-come-lately to the democratizers' club. Remember, he arrived in Washington four years ago mocking the very notion of democracy promotion.
Nor was establishing democracy the rationale for his two signature initiatives - Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather, it was an ex-post-facto justification.
Second, there is a significant gap between the President's rhetoric and the reality of his administration's policies. That risks undermining our credibility.
The administration is tough on dictatorial adversaries like Iran and North Korea.
But it rarely sustains the heat on illiberal friends like Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
It temporarily recognized a coup against the misguided but democratically elected leader of Venezuela.
It has said little about the virtual coup in Nepal.
And it adopted an ultra-realist policy toward undemocratic Libya when Kaddafi agreed to give up his weapons.
Third, there is often a short term conflict between democracy promotion and our vital security interests.
We need China's help on North Korea, Russia's help on Iran, Pakistan's help on Al Qaeda, Egypt's help on the Middle East peace process and Iraq. Pushing too hard, too fast on democracy risks alienating governments whose help we need.
Finally, and perhaps most important, democracy promotion is hard work that must go beyond rhetorical support and the passion of one speech.
It's one thing to topple a tyrant, another to put something better in his place.
Our experience in Iraq demonstrates the unintended consequences of imposing democracy from the outside by force. Autocrats in the region have pointed to the post-Saddam chaos as a warning to their own people: you may not like me, but at least life is stable and predictable. Without me, you will reap the whirlwind.
Even where we simply lend our political and rhetorical support to democratizers, it is not enough to hold an election and declare victory. We must help build liberal institutions: political parties; an independent judiciary; independent media; modern education; a developed civil society and non-governmental organizations; a private sector.
Elections in the absence of these institutions favor the most organized groups in society, which also tend to be the most radical.
That was the case when Algeria held elections in the early 1990s. It could be the short term result in Lebanon, where Hezbollah already holds a dozen seats in parliament in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood would probably poll well and even Iraq, where it remains to be seen what direction the victorious Shia take the country.
In short, because Arab rulers have long suppressed civil society and the development of liberal institutions, those best positioned to take advantage of elections are Islamists.
Is It Because of Bush?
Each of these caveats is important. And I want to come back to them in a few moments to suggest a third way between unbridled idealism and overly cynical realism.
But the fact remains that something important is happening in the greater Middle East.
And the question remains: to what extent are the policies we pursue responsible?
At first blush, we should proceed with great humility about our ability to write the future for others. Think about the catalysts for the change we're witnessing:
In the Palestinian territories, Arafat's death.
In Iraq, the Ayatollah Sistani insisting on elections, despite initial opposition from the US and UN.
In Lebanon, the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.
And throughout the region, including in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, long term disaffection with the stagnant political and economic status quo the gradual discrediting of alternative models like the Taliban's Afghanistan and the Cleric's Iran greater access to information through the internet and satellite television and a demographic youth explosion, as a result of which 60 percent of the population in the greater Middle East is under the age of 30.
The United States had no control over these specific incidents and trends.
But I believe President Bush's strong rhetorical support for democracy has made a difference by creating space for and emboldening modernizers and moderates. They are less fearful of reprisals when they believe the United States will hold their regimes to account.
In Egypt, Secretary Rice cancelled a planned visit to Cairo because of the detention of political leader Ayman Nour. And President Bush restated during his European trip: "the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."
This sent an unmistakable signal to President Mubarak and at the very time Egypt is doing some heavy lifting for us in the Middle East peace process and in offering to train Iraqi security forces. Yes, Egypt may have been just as concerned about Congress cutting aid and about increasingly bold anti-Mubarak protests. But the administration did the right thing, and I believe it made a difference.
Elections in Iraq made a difference, too. No matter what you think about the war or the way we've mishandled the peace, the images of Iraqis lined up to vote images that were beamed across the Middle East had to have had an impact, especially in Lebanon and Egypt. Most Arabs have been fed a steady diet of bad news on Iraq to the point that they believed the country was in complete shambles. Now, Arabs are asking: if elections can be held in a violence-torn country under occupation, why can't they be held in the generally stable countries in which they live.
Yes, in Iraq, the main mover behind elections was not President Bush, but Ayatollah Sistani. But the President does deserve credit for resisting calls to delay elections. He made the right call.
Elsewhere, the administration has done less to translate the President's rhetoric into action and progress is more the result of internal factors.
In the Palestinian territories, after Arafat's death the Palestinian Legislative Council considered appointing his successor. Some in the administration expressed support for such a process. The Palestinians themselves decided to follow their laws and hold elections within 60 days.
In Saudi Arabia, most of the pressure on the Royal Family to open up the system comes from domestic sources. I'm not aware of any evidence the Bush Administration compelled the Saudis to go forward with municipal elections. The real driver is internal pressure.
In Lebanon, the Administration was right to coordinate closely with the French. Franco-US cooperation has inspired a degree of confidence among the Lebanese and encouraged them as they stand up to the Syrians. And the fact that Saudi Arabia, which had close ties to Hariri, has called for Syrian withdrawal has placed unprecedented pressure on Syria.
The bottom line is that local conditions are the driving force behind change in the region, but outside pressure is critical particularly at key moments. Our policies did not start the process of reform, but they can help to accelerate it.
So What Should Be Done?
So let me end with a few thoughts on the policies we should pursue to help accelerate and sustain the movement toward openness and democracy.
As I suggested a few moments ago, we need to chart a course between unbridled idealism and overly cynical realism.
We should begin by acknowledging some hard truths.
For years, the United States has seemed, at best, indifferent to the plight of the oppressed and, at worst, complicit with corrupt and autocratic regimes - despite our generosity.
In the past, we've justified that support in different ways: the Cold War struggle against communism the preference for stability over chaos the need to ensure a steady supply of oil.
9-11 has taught America the hard way that we cannot afford such policies.
The great struggle of our times - the struggle between freedom and radical Islamic fundamentalism - is also a war of ideas.
To prevail, we must be strong. But we also have to be smart, wielding the force of our ideas and ideals together with the force of our arms.
The spread of democracy is crucial to us winning that war and undercutting the ideology of the radical Islamic fundamentalists.
But democracy is about much more than elections. Our goal must be to help build and support the institutions of liberal democracy.
Here, the Bush administration is falling well short of the mark. Just follow the money.
In the FY '06 budget, the administration requests $30 million less for the Middle East Partnership Initiative - its signature democracy promotion fund for the region -- than less year. It makes the same request as last year for the National Endowment for Democracy ($80 million). It zeroes out regional democracy funds for Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
And the administration continues to channel most of our non-economic assistance to illiberal friends like Egypt through the central government instead of directly to independent actors. That has to change. Two years ago, I proposed the establishment of a private, non-profit Middle East Foundation. It would provide grants to those in the region working to promote a vibrant civil society, independent media, political parties, the rule of law, modern education systems, human rights including women's rights, and the private sector.
The administration has embraced the idea and with a little luck, the legislation we need to create the foundation will become law this spring.
We should also leverage the energy and resources of our closest allies. The Administration has tried. For example, it launched a G-8 initiative for democratization in the so-called Broader Middle East and North Africa.
Thus far, the initiative has not borne much fruit. Many projects agreed upon have yet to be launched. And Europeans have made clear that they prefers to work in parallel, not jointly, lest they be tainted by association with this administration. That's where we pay a price for distrust of the messenger.
Europeans, no less than Americans, should heed Learned Hand's words, when he wrote, in 1932, "the condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world." I would press our allies to do more, with us. The progress in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories may help overcome their reluctance and their own cynicism.
In my judgment, freedom from fear and freedom from want are flip sides of the same democratic coin. We should work with our allies to help countries pursue both. Let me conclude by quoting one last time that wise judge, Learned Hand, from his famous "I Am An American" speech delivered in Central Park in NYC in the midst of WWII in 1944.
Like Americans today, he spoke about liberty, and he understood very well, and expressed very passionately, what freedom means :
"And what is this Liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few, as we have learned to our sorrow.
"What then is the spirit of liberty? It is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right, the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias
"And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans to create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country."
Thank you very much.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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National Democratic Institute's W. Averell Harriman Awards Dinner
Madam Secretary, thank you for those kind words. Secretary Albright and I have been friends since back in the days when I was young and she was younger, and she and I were both in a sense working for Senator Muskie. I happened to be in the Senate, but I was still working for Senator Muskie
Mr. President, you've done a great job, you really have. The NDI has had moments over the past years when there were some fractious elements in the Congress who thought maybe we were somehow wasting resources. In fact, it's because of the personalities, yours in particular, who were able to come and not only defend, but articulate, what had been done by NDI and what needed to be done, that has kept this bipartisan institution together.
And it sounds like hyperbole, but I am honored to be honored by any group that honors my friend Dick Lugar. To be here with Dick who is (applause) I have said there is no one, and I have said this repeatedly -- it's not just the enthusiasm of the moment -- I have said this for the past decade, there is no one more knowledgeable about, more principled, nor more articulate about America's role in the world and what it should be and what our obligations are, than Dick Lugar. And Dick is prepared to say what he thinks whether it is a republican or democrat president. Sometimes people forget that we are a co-equal branch of the government. And there is something that is greater than party loyalty, it's loyalty to the constitution, and the obligation that the Senate has as an independent co-equal branch of the government. Dick has exercised his considerable wisdom, his keen intellect and his political leadership consistently for the past 28 years, maybe 30 now we've served together. I know everyone knows I'm older than he is, just looking at us I know that, but I am senior to Dick by two years, but I have yet to acquire the same stature that Dick had the moment he arrived. And Dick thank you, we truly are good personal friends. Unfortunately for democratic presidents and republican presidents, there is little difference that he and I have on foreign policy, and I would be a hell of a lot more comfortable if you were President.
But now that I have maligned his reputation in his party, let me say that I think the most, you know, you always hear public officials from all countries -- and by the way it's such an honor to be with so many distinguished leaders who have actually done what we have talked about. It's one thing for me to stand in the capitol or to be here at this podium talking about the need to spread and support freedom and democracy around the world. There are people in this audience who will be honored in a moment who have literally put their lives on the line, literally put their lives on the line. I kid and I say to my friends who have done that, many of whom you will meet tonight and you will hear from tonight, that you know if we get it wrong here in the United States, we get defeated and get a pension. In other parts of the world if you're on the wrong side, you get a coffin. Many of you have risked your lives for what you believe in. I have not had to do that, I have not had to do that. And I only hope that I would be up to the test that you all have met.
The most surprised person tonight, Madeleine, is probably W. Averell Harriman, looking down. I was one of those people, as Madeleine may recall and Dick will remember, Governor Harriman used to adopt people. I was the 29 year-old kid that W. Averell Harriman literally took under his wing. I was invited to almost every one of his dinner parties, because he was literally educating, and I welcomed it, he was literally educating, it was the education of a public man. And he took great pains.
But I must tell you one humorous story. I had been here 7 or 8 months, I was invited to a dinner, and he had dinners frequently at his home where he gathered many of you who are in this room, the international elite and the policy makers from around the world. And those of you who used to visit his Georgetown home when you came in his home and walked straight ahead, there was a dining room on the left and straight ahead you walked in the living room and then it widened, but there was a couch against the wall, a coffee table, two chairs across from it, and he would sit in the chair that was at the end of the couch. And he liked to get me to speak, and you know I'm not reluctant to speak, but in those days I was very reluctant to speak in the company I found myself.
And so I sat down one evening, Dick, and I sat at the end of the couch, and Governor Harriman was in his chair, and Henry Kissinger was across from me, and sitting on my left was Ted Kennedy, and I believe it was Helmut Schmidt was sitting next to Henry Kissinger. And all these people who had a good deal to say and knew a great deal, and this 30 year old kid was sitting there, and Harriman would always say, "Well Joe, what do the young people think?" you know, turning to me.
And I, to show how sophisticated I am, I was sort of sitting up in the couch, and I leaned over, and I guess out of nervous frustration I picked up an object that was on the coffee table. And I took this object and I was moving it in my hands, like this, you could see my hands, and it was a spherical object, and I didn't pay any attention to what I had in my hand, no one paid any attention. And I looked over at Henry Kissinger -- and he remembers this story -- and he kind of looked, I could tell he was alarmed, and I wasn't sure why what I was saying was so outrageous. And then the butler came in and said time for dinner and everybody immediately got up like "BAM" and headed to the table. And Ted Kennedy put his hand on my arm and he said, "Joe, put that down." I put it down, and I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "That egg costs more than your house, that's a Fabergé egg." True story. Very sophisticated young man that I was.
So the governor took a long time. But I also had an opportunity to meet with him and President Tito in Split. I sat at a private lunch with Tito and him. Larry Eaglebuger was our Ambassador then, and myself. And they were both hard of hearing in their late eighties, close to ninety. And they (raises voice) talked to each other like this over the table. And they talked about people like it was, not many of you are old enough, but there used to be this program called "You Are There" back in the fifties, reenactment of major scenes, well I felt like I was in the television broadcast. And every once in a while Governor Harriman would say, "Joe tell them what the young people think." And I turned to Tito, and Tito, I didn't understand Croatian, but I could understand when he said, "Stalin!" It was the most animated conversation ever. Neither could understand the other, Larry Eagleburger was translating, but it was one of those moments that I'll never forget in my life thanks to the late Averell Harriman.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Averell Harriman taught me a lot. And sometimes I think the lessons he taught, and other great women and men, great internationalist people who knew we were required to be engaged in the world, with the full panoply of our power -- not just the power of our military, but the power of our ideas, the power of our ideals, the power of our thought, the wisdom that we have acquired -- that he would, I think today, be a little perplexed.
Fareed Zakaria wrote in a recent article in Newsweek, "In an effort to globalize the rest of the world, we have somehow failed to globalize ourselves, and hence we find ourselves living in a world in which we are not entirely comfortable." The Irish poet William Butler Yeats, speaking of his Ireland in a poem called Easter 1916 said, "All changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born." The world has changed utterly since Averell Harriman's day. The world has changed utterly since 1990. And democracy is in a death struggle with radical forces around the world and at the very moment it is about to hatch in various parts of the world.
And I think America, although we're rightly content with the example of our power, sometimes we've forgotten the power of our example. And it's NDI, the people you're honoring tonight, Chairman Dick Lugar, Madeleine Albright, and others of you in this room, who have not forgotten the power of our example. To me, that's what NDI is all about, it's about the power of our example. And at this very moment, at a time when we find ourselves not entirely comfortable in this globalized world, the need for NDI and all you who support it is more crucial than any time in our history.
We are at a hinge in history, we have an opportunity. If we are wise and remember our ideals, we have a chance, literally, to transform the world in a way, that the twenty first century will not reflect the carnage of the twentieth century. To me that is our obligation, to me there is no institution that is more ardent in its pursuit of that goal than NDI. I thank you for this award and I thank you for the honor.
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America at the Watershed
SEN. BIDEN: My name is Joe Biden and I'm a Democrat. (Cheers, applause.) Nearly 100 years ago, a great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, told us that the world has changed, it has changed utterly; a terrible beauty has been born.
Tonight our country stands at the hinge of history, and America's destiny is literally at stake, but we can shape that destiny if we seize the opportunities before us. And Americans must decide who they trust the most to shape that destiny.
The overwhelming obligation of the next president is clear: make America stronger, make America safer, and win the death struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. (Cheers, applause.) This struggle reached our shores on September 11th, 2001 and delivered this generation of Americans to this moment of awesome destiny. After 9/11, I believed, and I still do, that if we exercised the full measure of our power, including our ideas as well as our ideals, we could unite not only this nation but the world in a common cause. (Applause.)
9/11 was a moment of profound pain, but also of enormous opportunity. Americans stood in blood lines for hours, even though they knew no more blood was needed. The French ran a headline, "We Are All Americans Now." (Cheers, applause.) Imagine, imagine if Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy had been president and how they would have seized that moment.
Imagine if this president had spoken to the nation and the world and summoned that sense of solidarity. Imagine if he had said, "It is time for all who are able to do something for America. I'm calling for a new program of national service and an energy policy that will liberate us from the suffocating grip of the Middle East." (Applause.) And imagine if he said, "And I call -- I call on our allies to join us in a compact for freedom, because we are always stronger, safer, better, more secure together than we are alone." Just imagine, had he said that. (Applause.)
I do not question the motives of this administration, but I profoundly disagree with their judgments. And I believe history will judge this generation well and this administration harshly for the mistakes it has made. I believe this generation will look and wonder why this administration has squandered the opportunities that were before it.
Today we are rightly content in the example of our power, but we have forgotten the power of our example. (Applause.) And for all of America's great might, we are more alone in the world than ever before. As a result, we are less secure than we could or we should be. Our allies and our friends, the international organizations we've built over the past half-century, they do not hold us down; they help us share the burden of leadership.
And we were told by this administration we would pay no price for going it alone, but that is obviously wrong. Because we waged a war in Iraq virtually alone, we are responsible for the aftermath virtually alone.
(Applause.)
And the price is clear. Nearly 90 percent of the troops and the casualties are American. And because the intelligence was hyped to justify going to war, America's credibility and security have suffered a terrible blow.
Forty years ago, during the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy sent former secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to seek support. And Acheson explained the situation to President DeGaulle. He then offered to show President DeGaulle classified information as proof of what he said. And you know what DeGaulle did? He raised his hand and said, quote, "That is not necessary. I know President Kennedy, and I know he would never mislead me on a question of war and peace." (Cheers; applause.)
I ask you -- I ask you, would a single world leader today answer the same way?
AUDIENCE: No!
SEN. BIDEN: My friends, it doesn't have to be this way. America and the world deserve a president whose judgment they can trust. Americans are bigger and better than the past four years have led the world to believe about us. Americans know our military is the strongest on Earth, but we are not arrogant. Americans are proud, but we are not petty. Instead of dividing the world, we must unite it. Instead of bullying the world, we must build. And instead of walking alone, we must lead. (Cheers; applause.)
It is only -- it is only -- it is only leadership if someone follows, and no one is following. (Cheers; applause.)
But let no -- but let no friend or foe mistake our basic decency for a lack of resolve. Americans will fight with every fiber in their being to protect our country and our people. And John Kerry, when he is commander in chief, will not hesitate to unleash the awesome power of our military on any nation or group that does us harm, and without asking anyone's permission.
This is a man whose judgment can be trusted. This is a man tested in combat, who will never send our sons and daughters to war before exhausting every other alternative. (Cheers; applause.)
And then, if he must, he will not send them without giving them every tool necessary to win. (Cheers, applause.)
When John Kennedy is -- when John Kerry is president, military preemption will remain, as it has always been, an option. But John Kerry will build a true prevention strategy to defuse dangers long before the only option is war. When John Kerry is president, our friends and allies will have no excuse to remain on the sidelines. And above all, when John Kerry is president, he will level with the American people, for he will inherit a world and a nation that will require him to ask much of us and of our allies. (Scattered applause.)
And, ladies and gentlemen, listen to me. I have not a single doubt that this generation of Americans will rise to whatever is asked of them. They will rise to the moment, for as long as we are here they desire to do great things. And John Kerry, as a student of history, understands why we prevailed when our nation faced grave peril in the past. He understands that the terrorists may be beyond our reach and we must defeat them, but he also understands that hundreds of millions of hearts and minds are open to our ideas and our ideals, and we must reach them as well. (Cheers, applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, our friends on the other side love to quote the Bible. Just as Joshua's trumpets brought down the walls of Jericho, just as American values brought down the Berlin Wall, so will radical fundamentalists fall to the terrible, swift power of our ideas as well as our swords. (Cheers, applause.)
My fellow delegates, it's time to recapture the totality of America's strength. It's time to restore our nation to the respect it once had. It's time to reclaim America's soul. It's time to elect John Kerry president of the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)
Thank you.
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I See An America...
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
BIDEN: We live in a time of incredible opportunity, "the best of times, the worst of times," as Dickens said. Extraordinary times that call for extraordinary people.
As a consequence of the Clinton administration - when the economy boomed and deficits evaporated - we stood at the dawn of the 21st century - in many ways - better off than we were. Everything seemed possible.
And I for one had the hope - and still do - that if we had exercised the full measure of our power, our wisdom, and our ideals - we could have set in motion a series of events that would have changed the world so that we would have a chance - at least a chance - to not repeat the carnage of the 20th century.
Instead, the Bush Administration has squandered the opportunities it was bequeathed by the Clinton Administration:
A balanced budget.
The national debt paid down.
Growing employment.
Middle Class growth.
A muscular foreign policy, represented by Bosnia and Kosovo that had the respect of the world.
We have an opportunity to regain that respect.
That is what this election is about.
I realize that may seem an optimistic view, but I make no apologies for it. It is an optimism born of a set of values, and a pioneer spirit, that is the history of the journey of America. And the journey continues today.
We have done extraordinary things as a nation and a people.
When my generation looks back at the world of our parents and grandparents, we see hard times and obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable.
The stock market crashed. Fortunes were lost. The Great Depression displaced thousands and thousands of families. Family farms turned into a dust bowl.
And yet, no matter what the situation, our parents and grandparents did not lose hope. They did not give up. They did not give in. They dug down deep and survived. They overcame every obstacle. They thrived.
Then the promise was handed to us, to my generation, to all of us.
We fought the Cold War. The Korean War. The Gulf War. And when Vietnam came our way, men like John Kerry served with honor and, here at home, many exercised their right to dissent.
In the 60s, we had seen three of our heroes gunned down and a decade later the long dark wall of the Vietnam Memorial go up.
But with every challenge we renewed our values, our faith, and our ideals.
We passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. We were inspired when we heard John Kennedy challenge us to go to the moon; and white America and black America bowed their heads in recognition when Martin Luther's King told us he had a dream, and we shall never forget it.
Yes, we are a nation that thrives on challenge.
We are curious, tough minded, and resilient. We are, after all, Americans; sometimes we go against the grain. We question ideas. We question our institutions. We dissent. We debate. We demonstrate. We fight for what we believe is right with every fiber of our being.
We stand on principle and we never give in.
There is no mistaking it; an America challenged is an America engaged, ready to get the job done.
In the 90s, we literally reached the edges of the universe; and there seemed to be absolutely no reason - as the economy boomed - as science and technology and the internet exploded - as we went from an analogue to a digital world - that we could not find, in that almost perfect storm of progress, a prescription for peace and prosperity as opposed to war and carnage.
And then came 9-11.
Our enemy was not a uniformed army, not a rogue nation, not even a failed state. It was an army of terrorists who, as John Kerry has said, "use terror as a sword and religion as a shield."
Their enemy is civilization; but it is also a battle of Islam vs. Islam and it will require a fundamental change in our thinking.
We need to see our allies as our friends and old adversaries as potential partners in this war.
We need to understand that you cannot defeat an ideology with an army alone. It must be defeated with values as well. We need to understand there is a world that is shrinking at warp-speed - cultures colliding - that unilateralism is a prescription for isolationism.
We need to understand that a democracy that widens the gap between nations diminishes the prospects for progress and prosperity.
9-11 was a tragic but also a brutal awakening and an opportunity.
The first and foremost thing we had to do was readjust our priorities.
On September 10, 2001, I made a speech at the National Press Club that said exactly that.
I had decided to give that speech precisely because of this Administration's preoccupation with an ill-conceived, misguided formula on how to enhance our security... A preoccupation that, in my view, was based on radical ideology rather than well-thought-out policy.
They were talking about missile defense. I was talking about a vile in a backpack, a bomb in the belly of a ship.
They were talking about intercontinental ballistic missiles with a return address. I was talking about terrorists with no address at all.
The next day was 9-11, and - as traumatic and devastating as it was - it presented an opportunity for us to unite the nation and the world.
For the first time the enhanced security of one nation was not a zero sum gain. Every nation in the world and every American knew that international terror and its tentacles were a threat to nations everywhere, notwithstanding their forms of government.
Bin Laden should have been a uniting force for all nations and all Muslims who preach and practice the true word of Islam and the Koran, and the President should have recognized it.
We squandered the opportunity to unite America and the world.
We squandered the opportunity to capitalize on Americans' willingness to come together as thousands stood in blood lines after the attacks, and longed to do something for their country again.
We squandered the opportunity to unite the world after the French newspaper Le Monde ran a headline on September 12th that said: "We Are All Americans."
We squandered the opportunity to engage NATO after they spontaneously enacted Article 5.
History may not judge George Bush harshly for the mistakes he has made. But it will hold him accountable for the opportunities he missed to unite America and the world after 9-11. Of that I am certain.
Imagine if he had said: "I am calling on all of our of allies to meet me tomorrow in Paris to bring together the collective power of those who abhor terrorism in an effort to make victory a global imperative."
Imagine if he had said to every American, "I know how much you want to help in the war on terror, how united we are as a nation. I know every American is prepared to sacrifice to win this war. So I propose a National Service Corps to help unite this nation."
I could catalog his failures on domestic and foreign policy and the squandered opportunities to unite America and the world.
Each of you knows what those failures are. The American people know what they are. They can sense it. They know we have lost our way in the world and they want to get back on track.
We have all seen polling that shows that Americans have given Bush the benefit of the doubt. But the tide is turning.
Come September, the American people are going to pivot. They are going to turn and look at John Kerry and the Democratic Party. They are going to ask what we Democrats would do differently.
We have to do more than recite a catalogue of Republican failures.
We have to deliver on the promise of our Party.
We have to show them we understand that there is as much power in the minds of our children as in all the smart bombs in our arsenal.
But we also have to let them know that we are not afraid to use that arsenal to defend this nation, that national security is part and parcel of any Democrat's portfolio.
We know the Republican attack machine - with tens of millions of dollars at its disposal - is good at spinning our well-founded criticisms into a simple assertion that we - as Democrats - are rooting for failure.
Folks, no Democrat has ever rooted for failure. That's not only wrong. It's insulting. It's demeaning. It's not worthy of being part of our political discourse.
No Democrat has ever won the presidency on a platform of anything other than optimism, or without recognizing the indomitable spirit of the American people.
In foreign affairs, there is nothing in the war on terrorism that is at odds with America's ability to bring the world with us and project power in defense of freedom.
Truman said: "The world today looks to us for leadership. The force of events makes it necessary that we assume that role."
And here at home, no less than abroad, we long for a spirit of community again. Where we recognize we have so much more that unites us than divides us, and leaders who can bring out the best in all of us.
And I know John Kerry believes it as well.
As the well-oiled, well-greased Republican attack machine turns its blades on John Kerry and on every Democrat who dares to challenge either their veracity or their policies, we must reiterate our faith in the fundamental principles of this Party.
There is no reason we cannot provide economic growth for the Middle Class. Tax cuts not only for the rich, but for working class Americans struggling to send their kids to college, pay for prescription drugs, and take care of their aging parents.
There is no reason the richest country in the history of the universe cannot increase the minimum wage to provide a family with enough to pay the rent, pay for food, and live in dignity.
Most importantly, there is no reason we cannot unite the world in an effort to save the world.
In fact, there is only one reason - one thing - that can prevent that from happening. And that is four more years of George Bush.
That is the only thing that stands in the way of this great nation achieving its destiny.
As I have said many times, this generation of Americans is ready and anxious to do great things.
Let us give it the tools it needs to accomplish all it can accomplish.
Let this generation be defined by the depth of its knowledge, by its creativity, its ingenuity, and the goodness in its heart.
Let it be a generation of Americans - like every generation - one that thrives on discovery, on exploration, on invention... one that wants to know everything there is to know... see everything there is to see... build everything there is to build because they are resourceful committed and curious, and because we always believe in our capacity to do more and do better.
The only thing missing is leadership, leadership that does not pit one American against another, Catholic against Protestant, Black against White, Rich against Poor, Middle Class against everyone trying to get there.
That is not what political leadership is about.
Woodrow Wilson said, "A political party is worth no more than that for which it stands."
Robert Kennedy said in another context, "Our answer is the world's hope."
It is our responsibility to rely on the qualities of this great nation - and dare to challenge our fellow Americans to live up to their heritage - to reclaim their birth right.
Where is it written that we must mortgage our children's future with unbearable debt, saddle them with the enmity of the world, and burden them with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction?
Where is it written that our children must be consigned to an education that does not provide them tools for advancement, or that their grandparents have to chose between having a meal or taking their medicine?
Where is it written that in the 21st century Americans must live a life of fear and uncertainty and vulnerability, in a world less safe than it was for their parents?
Only one place: in the hearts and minds of those who espouse our ideals, but do not trust them enough to practice them...
...in the hearts and minds of those who appeal to our patriotism without appreciating the true nature of the unique idea that is America...
...in the hearts and minds of those who reference God as their guide - but who, in their heart, are so arrogant as to believe only they speak to God, and God speaks only to them...
...in the hearts and minds of those who view tolerance as weakness, compromise as capitulation, and cooperation as naive.
That is not my America... not the America of my mother and father... not the America that has been the proverbial shining city on the hill for all the world to see.
It is time to restore our nation to the heights of respect and admiration it once had - for that is the surest way to defeat those who would harm us.
It is time for another generation of Irish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Arab-Americans - and so many more - to live up to our birthright of what it means to be an American.
Early on, we learn this truth and this responsibility:
"One nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Yes, indivisible. All Americans. Linked together by the enduring traits forged in good times and bad, over 227 years.
It is time to challenge the notion that rigidly-held ideology trumps well-conceived policy, that division and deceit have a place in civilized political discourse.
It is time to restore America's soul.
We are at the hinge of history, and the door can swing one of two ways.
It can lead to greater estrangement from the world, and greater insecurity at home, or an era of American leadership that shapes a world of renewed alliances, greater trust, and opportunities as great as any in the past. We will be judged by the path we choose. The challenges before us - no matter how difficult - present enormous opportunities, even in this post 9-11 world.
My mother always says, "From every bad thing, something good will come."
It is how her generation engaged adversity and how they grew stronger because of it. That is the America I know.
It is captured in all those old family photographs on our mantle pieces, or buried in our attics - photographs of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents who suffered through the Depression and two World Wars. Much was asked of them, but much was given, and even more was learned.
But their very lives and the dignity with which they lived them taught us that there is nothing Americans cannot do, nothing we cannot accomplish when we put our hearts and minds to it.
In every family's old photographs are the stories of heroes and heroines who made our communities stronger and safer, men and women who, through a profound faith and extraordinary courage made us more secure and brought our hopes and our promise closer together.
In that spirit of hope and faith, let me leave you with the words of my favorite Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. He said:
History says don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge Believe that further shore Is reachable from here Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells.
I believe. I know John Kerry believes. And so should all of you.
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Nations on the Brink
Thank you, Nancy, for your introduction. And thanks to Ambassador Eizenstat, Congressman Porter, and all of the distinguished and accomplished members of the Commission that you assembled, including Dr. Jeremy Weinstein, the Project Director.
And welcome, Mr. Brown, and Dr. Hamre.
This Commission, and the Report that you bring us today, not only confirm the stature of the Center. They demonstrate why the work of the Center of will be indispensable in these extraordinary and difficult times.
Let me begin by saying: The weak states that are the subject of this Report are cracks in the very foundation of our international system.
Left untended, they can and they will, in my view, threaten the entire edifice of political and economic stability.
I know that every one in this room already recognizes that fact...
...and this Report will make that clear to a wider audience.
It makes clear the new kinds of security threats that weak and failed states present. That alone is a point that must be driven home. Those new threats have radically changed the world in which we live.
Just as importantly, this Report provides a blueprint to fashion an effective response to those threats.
It makes clear, specific recommendations to refocus our attention, reallocate our resources, and reform our institutions.
The threats to our security from weak and failed states are very different from the threats we are used to, and very different from the threats we are prepared for. It is not new that there are poor countries on our planet.
Nor is it new that those same countries often suffer under corrupt, incompetent, and misguided governments.
What is new in today's world is the effect on our lives, the threat to our own security, that can come from those age-old sources of human misery.
Now the very symbols of the technological superiority of our age, from the cell phone to the internet to jet airliners, have been transformed into weapons in the hands of those who are the declared enemies of our way of life.
They allow stateless actors the to reach out from the shadows, from weak and failed states, to attack us here at home.
Those states can destabilize their neighbors and whole regions, creating humanitarian crises as severe as any natural disaster.
With the proliferation of chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons, weak and failed states represent more profound and frightening threats, whether those weapons are in the hands of a rogue government, or in the hands of people beyond the control of any government.
Failed states are fertile ground for drug production and trafficking, feeding our own drug problems here.
With the scourge of AIDS and other diseases that know no borders, we cannot afford the existence of more states that cannot feed, house, educate, or innoculate their citizens. For all of these reasons, we ignore failed states at our own peril. We have both a humanitarian obligation and a national security mandate to pay attention.
That clear message from the Report makes it required reading.
What can we do? The Commission has challenged us with a clear list of specific proposals that will demand, as I said, that we refocus our attention, reallocate our resources, and reform our institutions.
You will hear a lot more about these recommendations when Ambassador Eizenstat, and Congressman Porter, along with Mr. Brown and Dr. Hamre, discuss them in a few minutes.
But I want to highlight a few of them.
First, the severity and urgency of the threats from weak and failed states demand that we take seriously - for our own sake - the task of economic development.
For my own part, I was encouraged to see broader and deeper debt relief among the very specific first steps that need to be taken to get the poorest of the poor countries on their feet.
Reforms, now in law, of the HIPC program that I introduced with Senator Santorum seek to find a more flexible, sustainable, and effective approach to debt relief.
I have personally asked Treasury Secretary Snow to put that new formula on the table at the G-8 Summit we are hosting this week.
As we seek ways to reduce the debt burden that Iraq has inherited from Saddam's regime, we should remember that same approach can help other countries now on the brink. The President's new Millennium Challenge Account offers an important new approach to economic development assistance - rewarding those countries that have shown progress in the basic reforms that can create sustainable growth.
But there is a risk that the Millennium Challenge Corporation will do the cooking, and it will fall to others to do the dishes. We must make sure that any country whose instability can threaten us receives the attention it needs.
Next, more attention and resources directed toward stabilizing countries on the brink must be backed up by better organization of our own institutions.
We need to be smarter, and to do that we need to have better coordinated and more flexible institutions.
In December of last year, Chairman Lugar and I began discussions with experts from in and outside government on whether the United States is adequately organized and equipped, and its personnel trained, to deal with post-conflict reconstruction.
We must make sure that we are faster on our feet and that we don't let artificial lines on a bureaucratic chart deny us the people and resources we need.
To that end, Chairman Lugar and I have introduced "The Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian Management Act", legislation which, among other things, would create a Rapid Response Corps that is able to respond to both emerging threats and emerging opportunities. I was gratified to see that our proposal fits with the thinking of the Commission.
I am also encouraged that the Administration appears to be moving in the direction of creating better mechanisms to coordinate civilian activities within the State Department.
This is a first step toward addressing serious voids in the ability of our agencies to effectively respond to complex stabilization emergencies.
We also need to do more to give individuals the ability to use their skills, abilities and initiative to contribute to post-conflict reconstruction efforts.
To that end, I have introduced legislation to create a Return of Talent Visa Program which would allow legal immigrants in the United States to return to their countries of origin to help with reconstruction, without their time out of the United States affecting their ability to meet their requirements for obtaining U.S. Citizenship.
I am pleased that this proposal is supported by the Commission. And finally, we are not in this alone. Virtually all of the civilized world faces the same threats from the terrorism, violence, disease, and instability that can breed in weak and failed states.
Without allies, without friends, without added resources, our efforts cannot succeed.
As the Commissioners put it in their report, we must leverage our own resources with those of other nations. The same logic that compels us to act applies to them.
Together, we can do more to meet this new common threat. Over the years, the Breton Woods institutions, the United Nations, and other multilateral entities have been created to meet evolving challenges. The new threats we face demand that we reform them to meet the very different tasks of stabilizing and supporting weak and failed states.
My brief remarks cannot do justice to the work that the Commissioners have put into this report.
You will have a chance this morning to hear from the Chairmen much more of their analysis and their prescriptions.
I want to close with a warning, based on my years of experience here in Washington. I don't have to tell anyone here, you who have been working on international economic development, that there are strong, built-in biases in our system against the project outlined in this report. If this were easy, we would already have moved against the threats posed by poverty, instability, and disease in the poorest countries of the world.
The consensus needed to move our Constitutional system is hard to come by, and is often only found in the face of immediate threats.
Even for the richest nation in the world, additional resources - directed, need I add, to countries, who if they are known at all, are known for their failings - will be hard to come by, especially given the reckless budget policy that has saddled us with record deficits.
The institutional reform we need will run up against bureaucratic inertia and entrenched stakeholders. And we have a lot of work to do to restore the trust and to secure the cooperation of other nations that we must have if we are to meet these new threats.
Nevertheless, with this report, I think we can say we have already taken the first steps - we have a clear view of the challenges before us, and we have concrete proposals for engaging them. So, Nancy, the Center deserves all our thanks for putting together this Commission.
And to the co-chairs, Ambassador Eizenstat and Congressman Porter, congratulations on your achievement. With your report, the problem of countries on the brink is now clearly before us.
If there is to be a solution to this problem, it begins here.
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University of Delaware Commencement
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. This is a high honor and a great privilege and, obviously, you didn't look at my grade point average.
I graduated, my sister and I attended the University of Delaware, I graduated, she graduated honors. But I did make it in four years which pleased my father a great deal.
Monica, the combination of that incredible voice and this magnificent day and the celebratory atmosphere, there is only one thing that could ruin this day and that's a commencement speech.
But I will try my best. I understand, I understand that it is my turn to be forgotten. I can't tell you who the hell spoke at my graduation either and you won't know yours. Unless I get in real trouble, then you'll remember.
Mr. President, distinguished faculty members of the board, alumni, the very distinguished alumni that marched in with us today, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, all of those of you who are happy today that you're getting a pay-raise because no more tuition, I say congratulations to you all. You have reason to be proud. This is a truly great university and that is not hyperbole. This is truly a great university.
When I am asked, as I told the alumni earlier this morning, by many of you, "My child has been accepted this place and that place, what would you recommend Senator?", I always say, "Pick a university that you can get into now and you are quite sure in ten years you wouldn't be able to get in." I picked such a university.
Let me begin by saying how proud I am to be here as a speaker and how honored I am to have been asked but, most importantly, what means the most to me in this opportunity today is this: I came to University of Delaware to play football, among other things, this has allowed me only the second opportunity to get into the end zone in my entire career and I want to thank you very, very much for that. It means a great deal to me. I wish I could have gotten here more often and sooner, with a ball in my hands, but here I am.
Graduating speeches are difficult. Your parents want me to say something significant to justify the tuition and to honor the moment. The faculty has heard five thousand of these speeches and they're going "Oh God, no, not another one." You are wondering "Let's get the hell out of here and let's party" and you want to get going and so it's a dilemma.
It's a dilemma it really is; I truly believe the single most difficult speech to give. And I'm inclined to give the speech that Bob Hope gave the year, after I graduated from the University of Delaware, at Georgetown University. He stood up and addressed the faculty and the families, etc., looked out at the assembled graduating class and said, "Don't go," and sat down. I am inclined to do that. Andy Hall, where are you? Stand up. Don't go. Don't go. And the rest of your teammates, don't go. I'd like you to stay for a very selfish reason.
I'll be serious with you for just a moment. Each graduating class, to state the obvious, is very different, and there are defining moments and stark images that mark each of you personally and each of you generationally. It's the same for all of us as we graduated, whether it was in 1932 or 1965 or 2004. Each generation is defined by the images in the world in which it graduates.
For me and my fellow graduates, the indelible images that were etched into our minds forever are ones that those who graduated in '65 can remember and when I graduated in '68 from law school. But although they did not determine the world we graduated into, did not determine what we would become, it became our destiny to try to shape that world.
And just as those of you who are graduating today graduate into a world that is very different than ours, there were defining moments in your career here at the university, both personally, nationally, and internationally. And those moments will tell the story of your generation based upon how you respond to them.
Let me explain what I mean by that. How you react to the world under which you are graduating is going to define your generation for all time. And your generation, like mine and my father and mother's, is a generation that graduates into a world where what happens beyond our shore will impact upon your daily lives more than anything that will happen within our shores.
The fact of the matter is that you are required to become informed participants in the debate about what role our country should play in the world, regardless of whether you have any political interest in anything. For how we define our role in the world this next decade, is literally going to determine what your life is going to be like. Regardless of whether or not you become involved, informed participants, you will be greatly affected by what happens abroad.
For my generation, it was Vietnam, and how the wise men of our day, written about and read by you, 'the best and the brightest', as they were determined to be called, about how the best and the brightest of my generation extended a doctrine of George Kennan's called 'containment.' Of containing communism, extending it from a doctrine that applied to Europe to a doctrine that applied to South East Asia, and affected every aspect of my generation.
For your generation, it is about terror and weapons of mass destruction, and how today's wise men, the neo-conservative intellectuals, have concluded that military force and unilateralism is the tool to defeat terror. In my view, the wise men of both my generation and your generation learned some of the wrong lessons from their past.
The fact of the matter is, unilateralism is no more applicable to fighting terror, in my view, than the doctrine of containment was in fighting communism was in South East Asia. Both were born out of wrongly-applied lessons and both were the product of some little intellectual arrogance. But that's for you to decide, not me. That is my view.
I graduated from here in '65, and then from law school into an uncertain world of 1968. Two months earlier, one of my heroes, Martin Luther King, was assassinated and two days earlier, two days before my graduation, a second hero, Robert Kennedy, had been gunned down in a kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The Vietnam War was raging in its bloodiest and most of us, who sat where you are sitting today, fully expected to be part of that conflict.
We wondered, as I know you wonder for different if not equally compelling reasons, if we would have a chance to fulfill our hopes and our aspirations. I know that you are very much like, believe it or not, we were in that graduating class of '68; anxious about the future, dismayed by uncertainty, wanting to do well and wanting to do good, and not quite sure about your chances of doing either.
In my generation, the images were stark. William Calley and the My Lai massacre, Bull Connor and his dogs in Birmingham. And there was another image from my generation that comes to mind and that is, there was a photograph of a young girl named Kim Park, running up a road in Vietnam, her hands outstretched, her clothes burned from her body and her skin burning so hot from napalm, that when water was poured on her, her skin literally began to boil. I've had the occasion to come to know Kim personally. She is a warm and charming woman, and remarkably unburdened by her experience. She has a family now and she puts the horror and the war behind her.
But looking back, thinking of those images and the nature of the times in which I graduated, I am more than a little surprised that our optimism was able to be sustained. We were no doubt naive, but I'm not the least bit embarrassed by that. I thought then, and I believe now that it was a great time to graduate into a promising world, although beset with real difficulties.
I felt, on that graduation day, a sense of purpose. The same purpose I brought with me to my first class here at the University of Delaware, and strengthened by my experience here in those formative years. It grew from the lessons taught by my parents, generous and gentle people, quick to offer help and very slow to judge but possessed by one absolutely raw intolerance: an instinctive outrage at the abuse of power and the arrogance that flows from it. That injustice inflicted upon the powerless at the hands of the powerful. That intolerance for the abuse of power, any kind of power, and the closely related values of personal integrity, of respect for individual autonomy, of responsibility to family, community, and, yes, country, was the foundation I brought with me to the University of Delaware and those are the values that I wanted to express as I entered my legal career seven years later in 1968.
For you, your generation, in many ways, began on September the 11th, 2001. I remember speaking to a thousand of you or so in the hall behind me, several days after the towers came down. The images of your generation are those planes, slicing into the Trade Towers, and the towers, incredibly, incredibly, almost beyond belief, crumbling to the ground. The images of courageous and tireless New York firefighters climbing into, not out of, those burning buildings. A president, rising to the moment, standing on the rubble of those crumbled towers, with a bullhorn in his hands, and saying to those who did this that they will hear from us and hear from us soon. The image of a tall Saudi, most Americans had never heard of, sitting with a laptop in a cave in Afghanistan, commanding a ragtag army of religious zealots.
And, last year, the bombardment of Baghdad when the war in Iraq began. The statue of Saddam being dragged off its pedestal and, most recently, the unfortunate images of extraordinary abuse of power in Abu Ghraib prison. Violence inflicted, not on us by others, but by us on others. Not withstanding the fact that our enemies have done much worse, it was nevertheless shameful for this proud, courageous, and brave nation.
We've all seen those images and they are no more a reflection of your generation than the images of Kim running down that crown top road in Vietnam, aflame with napalm, were a reflection of mine. They do not speak to who you are, what you believe to be just and fair, and what you know to be morally right. So don't let those images stand as a symbol of how the world sees us. Let us let your generation be defined by this day, by the degree you hold. Let it be defined by this great institution of learning. Let it be about a generation that thrives on discovery, exploration, invention, and tolerance. A generation that wants to know everything there is to know, see everything there is to see, build everything there is to build, because you are resourceful, committed, curious, and courageous.
Because you believe in your capacity to do more and to do it better than any generation has. I am so tired, the last five years, of hearing about how your generation has not been challenged. About hearing that your generation is not up to what the greatest generation, the World War II generation, did. About how your generation did not have to face what we had to face. Your generation is wiser, more decent, and better prepared to deal with the world, than any that went before it.
And I mean that. Don't let them categorize you. Don't let us be defined by the images that I mentioned. They're not you, they're not America, and they're not what this country can be.
But let's not kid ourselves, it is a graphic and hideous reminder of the potential for abuse of power at its most base and horrific power. Reminding us that even, even in a country as great and honorable as ours, horrific things can happen. An absolute, stark reminder that the majesty of the law that encapsulates our values must always, always, always be the guide of this great nation.
But the images of Kim, the young girl, just as it was an image that in some measure changed America's view of the war in my generation, similarly, make something positive out of the grim images that the world is judging us by now. The images from Abu Ghraib prison may, in some measure, be the turning point for your generation; your cry for reason and sanity in the war against terror. How we handle the situation now is no less important than how we handled the situation in 1968.
You are receiving your degrees in a time of extraordinary confusion and emerging self-doubt in American history. A time when the world is beginning to wonder who we are and who we stand for. We sent 135,000 American troops to Iraq as liberators, and I voted to do that, and now we are seen as occupiers. We were told that we didn't need a large force and now there is talk of reinstating the draft, a prospect that neither you nor your parents want to face.
And not long ago, America was respected; we were the envy of the world. But your world is vastly different than even it was a short few years ago when you entered college and it is, without a doubt, far more complex than when I received a degree.
For now, we are the world's only super-power, and during your generation we are learning how to wear that jacket. It is not an easy cloak to wear.
I know, and this is the one thing I ask you to take on faith, that neither optimism nor pessimism enables you to predict your future. But I also know, and I believe this as absolutely as anything else, that only a confident, optimistic attitude enables you to take a hand in shaping your future.
We didn't understand that simple notion when I graduated any better than I suspect some of you do and we were sobered by what we could see ahead. For your generation and mine, foreign policy has intervened in our lives unlike the generation that preceded you or the one that preceded me. Foreign policy is a call for every American to look out the window, rather than in the mirror, as we have been doing for the last decade and a half. You see the world for what it is and what it's become. What you see when you look out that window may be a terribly failed policy but a very real and ongoing war on terror does exist and is real.
Just as the Kennedy's administration 'best and the brightest' made the decisions that escalated our involvement in Vietnam, so today the neo-conservative intellectuals, bright, patriotic, honorable men and women, the best and the brightest of this administration, made decisions to not take certain actions once we got to Iraq.
My point is this, my generation ultimately demanded that our best and brightest in our generation take a long, hard look at the validity of the policies that were handed to us. That we had to distinguish between the real threat of communism, between the Soviet threat in Europe and the false threat in Vietnam. We had to examine whether or not what we were told was true, that this monolithic communism was gobbling up the world and if the dominoes fell in South East Asia, surely, surely, we would be at risk. That was the policy arrived at by honorable, bright, and decent, patriotic women and men. But a policy that warranted examination.
So, too, must you ask, the best and the brightest among you, to distinguish between the threat of rogue states like Iraq and international terror and the use of weapons of mass destruction. The irony is, that a man of my generation foretold the dynamics that are being played out in your generation.
I urge you to look out the window. I urge you to learn as much as you can about the situation in the world and what America's strategic responsibilities are. You will have to determine the real threats of terrorism from the false threats, just as we had to distinguish the real threats from communism from the false threats.
Let me tell you what I see with Iraq. We had to go into Iraq, not because Saddam was part of Al Qaeda, there was no evidence of that, not because he possessed nuclear weapons or because he posed an imminent threat to the United States, there was no evidence of that. The legitimate reason for going into Iraq, was he violated every single commitment he made and warranted being taken down. And the international community and us had a right to respond.
But the fact is, that we are in Iraq, and I voted for us to go there. But, first, principles have to be understood. We cannot want freedom for the Iraqi people more than they do, just as we could not want democracy for Vietnam more than they wanted it.
In Iraq, 65% of the Iraqi people want freedom and a government different than that exists in Iran and different than they had. But after being brutalized for three decades, they've learned to keep their heads down. We have to give them the security they need to raise their heads again. To be able to send their kid to the store, to be able to go to school, to be able to go to a mosque and know they're safe.
It is clear that the new government that we are about to endorse is going to need the continued presence of foreign troops. It seems clear that just as the photograph of Kim made it hard for the Vietnamese to trust us, the photographs of Abu Ghraib have made it hard for modern Iraqis to be seen as cooperating with us.
So in my view, we must change the face of the occupation. We have three choices. We can stay the course with no change, keep the American forces in occupation and send a new ambassador, an eminently qualified diplomat named Negroponte, and hope for the best. Or, as some have suggested, and I disagree, we can declare the mission impossible and we can leave.
Or, we can change the course, engage the major powers in the world and their Arab neighbors in the solution. Now, cynics will tell you its too late to do that, but the fact is, the future is as dangerous for our European friends, for their Arab neighbors, and for Russia, and the 'permanent five,' if we fail in Iraq as it is for us. They have every reason to see peace succeed; they have every need for this not to fail.
Iraq needs to be secured in order for there to be free elections in December of 2005 and, right now, American forces, alone, lack the legitimacy that is needed to be able to cooperate with this new Iraqi government. So here's, in my view, and I believe the President is likely to move in this direction, what we must do.
We must convene the major powers in the world in a summit and lead that summit of major powers to agree upon four important points. One, that the goal are free elections in 2005 and the means would be to move up the timetable for the elections in Iraq, to authorize a NATO-lead multinational force, to appoint a NATO high commissioner to be the referee between and among the warring factions, to speed up the training of Iraqi police and armed forces by accelerating European and American trained Arab leaders to train Iraqis, and, last but not least, we need to free, as the President is now doing, the bulk of the 8,000 prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib prison, and tear it to the ground.
And after we salt the ground on which they stood with a new edifice of a school or a hospital or a university, we have to hold those accountable who are responsible for the policy. Some people say that this would be too stark a departure, and, tantamount to us admitting to our mistakes, that it would be too costly politically.
But I would say to them, the war in Iraq and getting it right is bigger than either John Kerry or George Bush and I believe the President understands this. We live in Delaware. We know better than anyone else, when those giant transport planes, those C-5's fly from the Middle East at night, they're carrying the dead, the dead American soldiers, who gave every measure of themselves for this nation. It's about that last journey home, to the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, about 45 minutes here.
It's about those brave Americans, doing everything in their power to get it right, and we owe them no less than to get it right, for them, in Iraq.
Ladies and gentleman, in conclusion, I have to state, as difficult as things seem, I am optimistic, I am optimistic that we will get this right and that your generation will start the 21st century that will not allow for a repeat of the 20th century. That's why two stanzas from a poem of my favorite Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, whose poem, "The Cure of Troy," I think should become the anthem of our nation and this generation. He wrote, and I quote, "History says don't hope on this side of the grave, but then, once in a lifetime, the long, ford, tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme, so hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge, believe that future shore is reachable form here, believe in miracles and cures and healing-wells, as I believe in you." Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Getting It Right in Iraq
I come here today out of a deep and abiding frustration hardened by a nagging belief that time is rapidly running out on getting it right in Iraq.
Time is running out and there is a glaring need to be brutally frank about the challenge we face and completely honest with the American people about what will be required of them in this war.
It is long past time that the only Americans asked to contribute to this war are Middle Class and poor Americans whose children make up the overwhelming bulk of the fighting forces in Iraq, and OUR children who are being saddled with the sole responsibility of paying the enormous cost of this war. That is not fair.
There are tens of thousands of patriotic Americans who will go to bed tonight with a pit in their stomach, torn between their instinct to blindly support our President and a nagging doubt that he does not have a workable plan for either victory or to bring their sons and daughters home safely.
That doubt is complicated by a bewilderment as to why the fight against terrorism is the sole responsibility of Americans and American children.
We owe them answers.
But I'm also well aware that anyone who dares to suggest how we should proceed must come armed with humility. As I said a year ago, if the Lord Almighty had given the President every right decision to make for every tough issue he has faced, we'd still only have a slightly better than even chance of getting Iraq right.
It is that hard. And I still feel that way.
Having said that, there are certain basic choices this Administration has made over the past year that were seriously flawed and further reduced the odds of success. My critique is not the product of 20/20 hindsight. In the lead up to the war... during the war... in its aftermath... and today... thoughtful people of both parties... from John Kerry to Bill Kristol... urged the Administration to correct course. But I fear the Administration is far more worried about conceding mistakes than it is concerned about sticking to a failed policy.
Some believe that we've already lost Iraq. I disagree. Is the situation serious? Yes. Are we seeing more than the "flare-ups" to which the Secretary of Defense glibly refers? Yes. We are somewhere between an insurgency and widespread insurrection.
The result is that we may soon confront an untenable situation: American forces caught between an increasingly hostile Iraqi population that they were sent to liberate... and an increasingly skeptical American public, whose support they need and deserve.
I'm convinced we can still succeed IF we level with the American people about the costs and the risks... IF we develop a coherent plan for success... and IF we bring the Iraqi people and the rest of the world with us. That's what I want to talk about today.
II. Too Little Power, Too Little Legitimacy
This Administration is full of bright, patriotic, well-meaning people. But they began this undertaking with one fundamentally flawed assumption: that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America's security. And they compounded that mistake by failing to apply, as Fareed Zakaria has put it, sufficient power and sufficient legitimacy.
These deficits - of power and legitimacy - have cost us the visible support of the majority of Iraqis who reject a theocracy and support a pluralistic Iraq. And they have cost us the help of the major world powers.
The result is a vacuum... filled now by Sunni malcontents and Shiaa extremists and Jihadists... who are rising up against the American "occupiers."
To understand where we must go from here, we have to understand the mis-steps we've already taken.
First, the Administration failed to plan for the day after. And this despite dozens of Congressional hearings, think tank studies - and even the work of the Administration itself, such as the State Department's "Future of Iraq" project - that predicted virtually all of the problems we now face. Go back and read the transcripts and the reports. Everything is there. The sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure. The likelihood of post-war looting and resistance. The impossibility that Iraq's oil revenues would pay for reconstruction. The need for five thousand international police to train the Iraqis. The folly of relying on exiles with no constituency in Iraq.
Second, the Administration failed to build an effective coalition. Because Iraq posed no imminent threat to America's security, we could have taken the time to put together a real coalition. Not because we needed a single foreign soldier to win the war, but because we needed them to secure the peace and to make legitimate our temporary but necessary occupation of Iraq. Of course, for some of our allies, going to war was never an option, no matter what Saddam did. But by taking more time to bring others on board, we could have increased our credibility and isolated the hypocrites. Instead, we did just the opposite.
Third, the Administration failed to bring Turkey along. We took Ankara for granted. Then, the Administration flip-flopped between trying to bribe the Turks and bully them. We lost the option to attack from the North. As a result, we by-passed the Sunni Triangle, which is the source of so much of our trouble today.
Fourth, the Administration failed to go in with enough forces because of Pentagon's desire to validate a new theory of warfare. Gen. Shinseki was ridiculed for suggesting it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq. He's looking prescient today. So is whoever wrote an NSC memo that, extrapolating from past missions, estimated that we would require a force of 500,000 to stabilize Iraq. The failure to provide those forces made it difficult to establish full control of Iraq... to stop the looting... or to give the Iraqi people a sense of security. And it produced the power vacuum I mentioned earlier.
Fifth, the Administration failed to understand that it would take years, not months, to train Iraqis to provide for their own security. When Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel and I went to Baghdad last summer, our experts on the ground were clear and candid. They told us that it would take 5 years to train an Iraqi police force of 75,000, and 3 years to train a new, small Iraqi army of 40,000. But the Administration insisted on putting 200,000 Iraqis in uniform right away. We rushed people out the door. Now, fewer than ten percent of the police and army have been fully trained. Virtually none are adequately equipped. While many have acted with incredible bravery, others abandoned their posts and some even took up arms against us. This week, General John Abizaid called Iraqi security forces a "great disappointment."
Sixth, the Administration relied too heavily on Iraqi exiles, who have no constituency in Iraq. That dependence continues to this day. Why are we putting our thumb on Iraq's political scales by paying Mr. Chalabi and the INC nearly half a million dollars a month? Is the plan to help him buy his way to power after June 30? If so, it is profoundly misguided, because he lacks the legitimacy to hold Iraq together.
Finally, the President squandered repeated opportunities to bring the international community back together after the war. At the end of major combat operations, when our apparent success gave us the high ground, many who sat out the war were ready to help - if we had just asked. Instead, the Administration tried to freeze them out of contracts and served up "Freedom Toast" on Air Force One. And the President missed other opportunities to repair the rift over Iraq . After the U.N. headquarters was bombed. Last November, when we abruptly made a 180 degree change in policy - a change long advocated by our allies - to turn over sovereignty as soon as possible. And as recently as March 11, when the terrible bombing in Madrid should have inspired the President to go to Europe in solidarity. Maybe the French and Germans were beyond reach. But since Saddam was toppled, we've denied ourselves the help of tens of thousands of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Turks, for example, who could have changed the dynamic on the ground in so many ways.
III. Leveling with the American People
But I believe the costliest mistake the President made - and the one he can still rectify - was his failure to level with the American people about what would be required to prevail.
He didn't tell them that well over 100,000 troops would be needed, for well over two years. He didn't tell them that the cost would surpass $200 billion dollars - and far exceed Iraq's oil revenues. He didn't tell them that even after paying such a heavy price, success was not assured, because no one had ever succeeded before at forcibly remaking a nation and, indeed, an entire region.
Instead, he took us to war essentially alone... before it was necessary... on the heels of the largest and most lopsided tax cut in history... with half the troops we needed to succeed.
And then he landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and spoke to the American people dwarfed by a banner that read: "Mission Accomplished."
It is not too late to regain the trust and secure the support of the American people. I'm glad that the President made a start of it on Tuesday night. But the President must do more than express resolve... more than reiterate his intention to stay the course... more than describe a vision for Iraq that is increasingly divorced from reality. He needs to explain the hard road ahead and the commitment we must make in terms of time, troops and treasure. He needs to spell out the very real risks to come.
That's a tall order. No President likes to deliver hard truths. And even that is not enough. The President has to convince the American people, the Iraqi people and the world that we have a strategy for success, and secure their active participation in seeing it through.
Yes, the President has a compelling vision for what Iraq can become... but no concrete plan to realize that vision.
IV. A Plan for Success
So, what should be our plan?
I believe we need to start by recognizing two competing realities going forward:
The Iraqis desperately need significant political, military and economic support from the outside, for years to come. Even as they chafe at being occupied, they need a political referee to mediate their disputes. Foreign troops to prevent a civil war. And tens of billions more dollars than we already have spent for reconstruction.
We desperately need to take the American face off of the occupation. Iraqi nationalism is on the rise, bringing Sunni and Shiaa factions together against us. Even if their alliance of convenience does not hold, we will continue to be blamed for everything that goes wrong and remain a target for every malcontent.
And we will continue to bear the heavy burden of securing Iraq virtually alone: nearly 90% of the troops and nearly 90% of the non-Iraqi casualties are American.
How do we square this circle ? By augmenting our power and increasing our legitimacy in Iraq.
That's the only way to generate the single most important ingredient for success: the emergence of that silent majority of Iraqis who can provide an alternative to the extremes... and who can create a participatory republic that will endure when we leave.
And increasing our power and legitimacy is the only way to get the help we need from outside Iraq - in terms of troops, money and manpower - to see this mission to completion.
To this end, there are three things the President should do immediately:
First, he needs to send in more American troops now to gain control of the security situation... and to give other countries confidence that they will not be walking into a quagmire.
Second, he should seek agreement right away from the major powers with the most at stake in Iraq to form an international board of directors responsible for overseeing the difficult political transition in Iraq. It could be the U.N. Security Council. It could be an ad hoc group, like the kind we formed to deal with Bosnia or the Middle East Peace Process. It's members would include our European allies, Russia and our friends in the Middle East.
A senior representative of that Board would replace Ambassador Bremer and the CPA as Iraq's primary international partner, and speak with the authority of the international community, not just the United States. He would have the authority to seek consensus on a caretaker government... to help Iraqis decide what that government will look like and who will run it... to mediate the disputes that are sure to arise between June 30 and elections next January... and to oversee the elections themselves. Lakhdar Brahimi has begun to play that role informally. Let's make it formal, with a clear, authoritative mandate from the major powers. That would maximize his leverage... and our prospects for success.
Third, the President should ask the U.N. to bless this arrangement with a new Security Council Resolution. Look, I don't have any illusions about the U.N. I don't attribute to it any magic powers... or any special competence or capability. But it's central involvement would, to quote George Will, "usefully blur the clarity of U.S. primacy." Foreign leaders need political cover to convince their people who opposed the war to help build the peace. The Iraqi people are more likely to accept the words of a partner who represents the will of the world than to heed the decree of an American ambassador hunkered down in a new "super embassy."
If the President does these three things, I believe several major benefits would follow. Other countries would be much more likely to take part in rebuilding Iraq. During the 1990s... in the Balkans... in Haiti... in East Timor... the U.S. typically provided about 20 percent of the post-conflict reconstruction resources. By that ratio, the $20 billion Congress has already appropriated for Iraq should have generated $80 billion from the rest of the world. Instead, we've raised less than $15 billion.
An international stamp of approval would also open the door to NATO. I know that first hand from President Chirac and other European leaders with whom I've met. NATO cannot take over security in Iraq tomorrow. But over a matter of months, NATO could begin to patrol Iraq's borders, take over the North or the Polish sector, and train the Iraqi military. That would free up as many as 20,000 American troops to focus on hot spots - the very number of additional troops General Abizaid is now calling for. Giving NATO a formal role also would change the complexion of the occupation. And it would send an important message to the American people that we are not alone in doing the hard security work in Iraq.
Our ability to put this plan in motion will answer the vexing question of whether to stick with the June 30 deadline for transferring political sovereignty to the Iraqis. The Administration has created an expectations problem. It chose the June 30 date with an eye to the wrong political calendar - ours, not Iraq's.
If we push the date back, those who are with us in Iraq may be angry that we are moving the goal posts. Those who are against us will see vindication for the violence they've unleashed. Conversely, if the turnover occurs on time but the situation remains the same in the eyes of the Iraqi people - including the perception of an on-going U.S. occupation -- we will add fuel to the nationalist backlash.
But it's not the date - it's the plan that matters. If we can develop a coherent plan for the turnover... if we can invest the world in that plan... and if we can convince the Iraqi people that the turnover will result in a meaningful change in their circumstances... the June 30 date will cease to matter.
V. Presidential Leadership
Some argue this is an unrealistic strategy - that it's too late to get all these players in the game. And it's true: the worse the situation gets, the more reluctant they become to participate. It's like the old story about George misplaying center field... No one wants to be part of a failure. But I'm convinced that it is not too late.
Our European and Arab friends have as much to lose from our failure in Iraq as we do. Iraq is in their front yard - its failure would endanger the supply of oil, rile up Muslim populations, and create a lethal source of instability that fuels terrorism and sparks aggression. Abandoning Iraq to chaos will put radicals in the region on the offensive... moderates and modernizers in retreat... and regimes in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi under intense pressure.
The Iraqi people themselves have the greatest stake in our success - and the most to lose from our failure. Trading a dictator for chaos is an even worse deal for them than it would be for us.
At this late hour, it will take some powerful persuasion to get them all on board. But one man has the power to do just that... to change the dynamic... to finally make Iraq the world's problem, not just our own. That man is the President of the United States. Now is the time for him to lead.
The other evening, he told us he's been talking to the Italian and Polish Prime Ministers. That's nice, but they are already on board, and that just not enough.
The President should immediately convene a summit with our traditional allies in Europe... our friends in the Arab world and Asia... representatives of the U.N. Security Council and NATO... and Iraqi political leaders. He should tell them that we need their help. He should acknowledge that success in Iraq requires centrist Iraqis to step up... world powers to chip in... and Middle East countries to take a chance on representative government in Iraq. Then the President should ask each of them what they need from us in order to participate. And he should work with them to forge a common plan for Iraq that they can support.
I'm sure there are people around the President who will tell him to reject this idea. They'll tell him that reaching out will make him look weak... that it will be an admission of failure. I would say to them that the hour for hubris and arrogance is long past. It's time for leadership. And right now only the President of the United States can provide it.
VI. Conclusion
When the Cold War ended we were left virtually alone, a superpower seemingly secure in our position, driven by our faith in freedom, by democratic values and a belief that every man and woman is better off when they are free of tyranny.
What we have learned since then should be clear. The world has changed and so have the demands of leadership.
For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegiance to our vision of the world simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy. It must come with more than the restatement of a failed policy. It must come with the wisdom to admit when we are wrong and the resolve to change course and get it right.
Let me leave you with one thought. I come from Delaware. I have been to Dover many times. The men and women there who receive our soldiers and their families on that last long journey home know what this is about. When those planes fly over Delaware and land in the middle of the night, we are reminded that this is not about politics, about whether we believe with every fiber of our being that we are fundamentally right or that someone else is dangerously wrong.
This is not about assigning blame or about partisanship. This is about that last journey home to Dover Air Base. It's about those brave Americans who are doing everything in their power to get it right. We owe them no less than to get it right ourselves.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Address to the People's Congress of Libya
Salam ale Qum.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you. I traveled a great distance to get here, but in so many ways, in recent years, the distance between Libya and America has seemed even greater, almost insurmountable. Now, there is real hope that we will bridge the great divide that has kept us apart. But there is still much work to be done. It is in that spirit of hope that I stand before you... and that I send my greetings to the Libyan people who are watching these proceedings in their homes. At the outset, let me tell you who I am and why I am here. I am a United States Senator. I represent a small portion of my country - the state of Delaware, which is located between Washington and New York.
As you know, in America there are no Kings or Princes, no Lords or Dukes, no Emirs or Sultans. Like you, we fought a war against colonialism for our freedom. The central belief in our system is that each individual should have an equal opportunity to succeed.
At home, I am surrounded by very strong women. A mother who instilled in her children the values of faith and community. A sister who was better at her studies than I was, and upon whose guidance our large family depends. A wife who is a respected professor in our community, not just smart, but also wise. And a daughter who knows she can be anything she wants to be.
Like most of the nearly 300 million Americans whose families arrived on our shores from every corner of the globe, I was not born to wealth or stature. I was not promised anything other than the opportunity granted to every American -- the opportunity to go as far as I could dream.
I am sure that Libyan parents share the same hope for their children. I am sure it is a universal hope -- but not one that can be realized in many countries. That's one of the things that makes my country special.
I have served in the United States Senate for 31 years, elected democratically six times by the men and women of Delaware. Men and women. Young and old. Black and white, Hispanic and Asian. Christians, Jews, Hindus and yes, Arab-Americans and Muslims. You may not know that there are almost as many Muslims in the United States as there are citizens of Libya. And there are more Arab-Americans than all the people who live in Tripoli. Their votes count the same as everyone else.
I belong to the Democratic party. President Bush leads the other major political party - the Republican party. But I am here not as a representative of my party... not as a representative of Christian-Americans.... not as a representative of white Americans. I am here as a representative of my country who believes, along with many other Americans, that this is a moment of great possibility for Libya and for the relationship between our countries. But many of us remain skeptical.
For too long, our relationship has been marked by hostility. In fact, I have a personal connection to the terrible act that set back our relations for years.
I am a graduate of Syracuse University Law School. There is a wall at my school, erected to the memory of 270 people - including 35 young students who never returned home from their studies abroad. They lost their lives when Pan Am 103 was bombed out of the sky. Thirty-five is a number, a statistic. But each of those young people had a name. Each had a mother and a father, a sister and brother, and friends who loved them - and who still suffer their loss every single day. The victims were young men and women like Ken Bissett. He was an artist and a writer. Like Eric and Jason Coker, twin brothers. Eric was studying economics. Jason wanted to be a journalist. He might have been here today, reporting on this siginificant event. And like a kind hearted young woman named Keesha Weedon who wanted to help troubled children. Each of these young people had a past - and each had a future cut short by violence. Imagine if one of them had been your son or your daughter. Think about that for just a moment. Your government's admission of responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am 103 was not only necessary - it was the right thing to do. And it was consistent with your traditions. In the words of the Koran: "As for him who shall repent and believe and do right, he happily may be one of the successful." It appears now that your government wants to change in order to become "one of the successful."
Americans will never forget the past. But we cannot allow it to stop us from building a more peaceful world that can prevent such tragedies in the future. That must be the legacy of those who lost their lives, and for those who carry their memory. And so while Americans remain wary, we also stand ready to walk with you if you are willing to take the difficult steps necessary to rejoin the community of nations. By accepting responsibility for the past... agreeing to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program... and joining the war on terrorism... your government is beginning to end Libya's political and economic isolation. But what I want to say to you today is this: do not stop there. Aim higher. Go further.
For centuries, the people of Libya were denied the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential. First, you were held back by outside colonizers. Then, you were led astray by misguided ideologies. The result is a great gulf between your rightful expectations and the reality of your lives .
You are right to expect good schools for your children and first rate doctors for your parents. You are right to expect to own your own home and to build your own business. You are right to expect newspapers with competing ideas and an internet connection in every home. You are right to expect the freedom to speak your mind without fear of being thrown in jail. So the question is: How do you make sure that history does not repeat itself and that you are not denied the opportunity to which you are entitled?
Your economic potential is extraordinary because of the natural resources buried in the ground. But your national potential is limitless, because of the human resources that are spread all across this land.
You have tremendous oil power. But it will only be meaningful if you use it to unleash the brain power of the Libyan people - especially the awesome potential of your youth. In fact, oil can be more of a burden than a benefit if it used as an excuse not to develop all aspects of your society... and if its proceeds are not widely shared and wisely invested in education, training and a strong foundation for the future.
Let me offer you a concrete example. It concerns patents - the legal protection the world gives to new ideas and inventions. They're a good measure of the quality of a country's educational system, its entrepreneurship, its innovation and its rule of law. Between 1980 and 1999, the nine leading Arab economies - each built on oil wealth - registered a mere 370 patents in my country. During that same period, South Korea alone registered 16,328 patents. Why? In the 21st century, human resources are the true wealth of any nation. You have a historic opportunity to free those human resources to their full potential. I urge you to seize it.
It may strike you as presumptuous that an American politician is offering advice that you did not seek. After all, my country has its own problems. Let me be clear: I have not come here to impose American views on you or to suggest we have all the answers. But I know that more than ever before, your fate and our future are joined. There was a time when the United States would have been satisfied with the status quo in the Middle East, North Africa and here in Libya. But the events of September 11, 2001 marked a turning point in how my country views the world, and specifically how it sees this region.
Americans now understand that the promise of our time is matched by peril. Ideas and innovations can travel the planet at the stroke of a computer key, spreading progress far and wide. But the same technology and openness that power these forces of construction also enable forces of destruction. As a result, problems in any one part of our planet can plague the entire world, including the United States. There is no mountain high enough or ocean wide enough to protect us. The question for America is what, if anything, can we do about this new reality? Make no mistake: the United States will meet and defeat any threat to the safety of our people and the security of our country. We have the will and we have the way to prevail.
But our physical prowess alone cannot solve the problem. We are engaged in much more than a contest of force. We are engaged in a war of ideas. I am convinced that war will be won by those who offer hope, not hatred... progress, not paralysis... a vision for the future, not an obsession with the past.
Those who attacked us on September 11 were beyond the reach of reason. Their blind hatred was not the bitter fruit of poverty - they were relatively prosperous people. It was not the product of Islam - they perverted a great faith. It was not the result of America's support for Israel, as much as you may disagree with it. Osama Bin Laden almost never mentioned the Palestinian cause before the attacks. His focus was his own country, Saudi Arabia.
No, America's aggressors were foot soldiers in a new war pitting believers in freedom, openness, and tolerance against the forces of radical fundamentalism and regression. It is not a clash between civilizations, but within civilizations - especially within the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Today, violent radicals have turned their terror on us. But make no mistake: they regard the large majority of moderate Muslims as their enemies as well. Hundreds of Muslims were among the more than 3000 dead in the World Trade Center and the victims of attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Morocco. And if the radicals succeed, you will be their victims in another way as well, condemned to a future of hopelessness and despair.
I believe that the cause of hope and the tide of history is on the side of the moderates and modernizers -- in this region, in my region and around the world. Our challenge is to reject their cynicism and hatred and to build an alliance of tolerance and progress.
We each have a job to do. Our job - America's job - is first and foremost to listen to you -- to listen to your ideas, as well as your fears and concerns. And to do a much better job explaining our ideas and intentions.
But even if we do that well, human nature is the same world wide. It is rare to feel good about your neighbor's new car when you've just lost your job. America's military might, economic power and cultural reach make us present in peoples lives on every continent, in every country. Sometimes we do not recognize the conflicting emotions this can produce: respect and admiration, but also envy, resentment and fear.
There will always be those who do not like specific policies we advocate or the way we pursue them. That is your right. The burden is on us to make our case... and to have faith in our power to persuade, not just coerce. It may surprise you that most Americans don't like the fact we're the world's sole superpower. They understand it thrusts upon them a responsibility they did not seek and would rather not bear. For example, the people I represent in Delaware understood but did not like the fact I voted to send their sons and daughters to Kosovo. They went to Kosovo to prevent the genocidal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslim men, women and children by Milosevic.
For better or worse, one result of our standing is that people around the world think the U.S. is both the cause of, and answer to, their concerns.
I am proud that America is, more often than not, the solution rather than the problem. I am also proud of our generosity. Like your tradition of Zakat, we feel a moral obligation to share our good fortune. Every year, we send tens of billions of dollars far from our shores to help the impoverished... support economic development... combat AIDS. We should do more. We already do a lot. But it is also true that in the Middle East and North Africa, repressive political systems and closed economies generate deep anger, resentment, and extremism. I know that the United States has seemed, at best, indifferent to the plight of the oppressed and, at worst, complicit with corrupt and autocratic regimes - despite our generosity.
In the past, we've justified that support in different ways: the Cold War struggle against communism... the preference for stability over chaos...the need to ensure a steady supply of oil. The tragedy of 9-11 has taught America the hard way that we cannot afford such policies. As President Bush said recently: "stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."
Americans of all political persuasions agree that our security requires us to more actively support your aspirations to choose your own leaders... to express your own opinions...to associate freely with others... to worship in peace... to be treated with dignity. In a word, our security requires us to more actively support your desire for liberal democracy. That is the right thing to do. And it is the surest path to realizing your potential and your dreams. Democracy is first and foremost about preventing the concentration of power into the hands of the few... or the one. Elections are necessary - but not enough. Democracy is about creating individual rights and building independent institutions: courts of law, political parties, a free press, transparent government, property ownership, a private sector, non-governmental organizations. It is about schools that teach tolerance to your children, and teach them to think for themselves. It is about making women genuine partners in building a modern society.
Nothing about democracy is incompatible with Islam. For example, since the days of the Prophet, the shura - a council where community leaders gather to make decisions through discussion - has been a Muslim concept.
I know many resist change because of the uncertainty it brings. I understand the tension people feel between holding on to traditions that are comfortable and embracing modernity. In my own country, people contend with that tension every day. For example, free trade means that Americans have more choice and pay less for the many things in our stores. But it also means American jobs are lost to countries where people are willing to work for lower pay. That has made millions of Americans - despite our prosperity - angry and afraid.
So each of us, in different ways, has to contend with powerful forces of change and the uncertainty they bring. Every nation must find its own way. Let me share with you, in all humility, the path my country has chosen and some lessons we have learned.
Many see the economic, cultural and military power of the United States. What they may not understand is that those strengths flow from our democratic system, not the other way around. They flow from the freedom we afford every American to think, to question and to create. There are other paths to prosperity. South Korea once enjoyed extraordinary growth without democracy. Now, so does China. But I am convinced that in the long run, the freedoms we enjoy are a tremendous advantage in competing with other countries in the information age.
Our strength also flows from the great diversity of our people. More than two centuries ago, our founders recognized that America's enduring mission would be "to form a more perfect union". In other words, they understood the challenge of forging a single nation from many different parts. But they were confident that in working to overcome our differences, Americans would constantly move forward.
They were right. My country was born in the midst of slavery; we still struggle to overcome the legacy of racism. But we can also say that African Americans have made great strides and are making great contributions to our society.
The rights we enjoy and the institutions we built give every American the power to shine a light on the mistakes we make, and to demand that they be corrected. And the rules we live by protect us from the excess of absolute power... and have helped us build a country where each individual has the opportunity, but not the guarantee, to achieve his or her potential.
Please do not misunderstand me. I mean no disrespect. But the nations of the Arab world could be doing so much more to harness the enormous potential of their people.
Consider this: the combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries in 1999 was less than that of a single European country - Spain. Think about that for a moment. And then think back a thousand years. Spain was part of a great Arab empire which encompassed most of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Why did you thrive then? It was not your armies alone. It was your ideas, your civilization, your culture, your openness. Why has this one small territory - then called Al Andalus, now called Spain - outpaced the rest of the Arab world combined today?
Don't take the answer from me. Listen to the leading Arab scholars who recently completed a remarkable study of Arab Human Development, published by the United Nations. It speaks to the need across the Arab world to make progress in three critical areas: Empowering women, spreading knowledge, and expanding freedom. This is an incredibly difficult challenge - but also an extraordinary opportunity. 70% of your population is below the age of 30. Unlocking their minds and unleashing their talents can be a deep source of strength. Bringing women into the work place will boost your economies... just as women leaders past and present in Pakistan... in Bangladesh... in Turkey... and in Indonesia energized the Muslim world's politics. Giving your people access to the internet will connect them to a vast supply of knowledge and power your progress.
The United States wants to help you seize these opportunities in a spirit of cooperation. We are ready to share our experiences... to make investments in your economies... to welcome you into the international community. We are prepared to build these partnerships because it is on our interest.
It is up to you to take the necessary, important, unavoidable risks. The choice is yours. You can merely survive, with an economy that generates just enough wealth to get by and a society that provides few freedoms and opportunities.
Or you can thrive. I am convinced you can thrive. My conviction follows from your history. At a time when Europeans were barely emerging from the Dark Ages, the light of civilization was shining brightly in the Arab world. Scholars outpaced their European counterparts in math, science and other disciplines of modernity. Philosophers and poets, architects and artists enlightened the world from Cairo to Baghdad to Damascus to Granada.
I believe with all my heart that you can build a future as glorious as your past. And I am convinced that my country has a profound stake in your success.
Let me leave you with the words of a great Arab-American poet, Gibran Khalil Gibran, that speak powerfully to this time and this challenge: "O land veiled to our sight from ages past
Which way to you? Which path? How long? How wide? What wasteland hems you in? What mountain range Enfolds your realm? Which one of us the guide? Are you our hope? Or are you a mirage? In hearts where none but fruitless quests reside...
"O source of knowledge where our forbears dwelt, Where truth they worshiped, beauty was their creed; Uncharted source, unknown, unreachable Whether by crested wave or racing steed, Neither in East nor West can you be found, In southern reaches nor in northern field, Not in the skies we find you, nor the seas, Nor pathless deserts which beguile our art; Deep in the soul you burst, like light, like fire, You are within my chest, my pounding heart."
Thank you for listening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy
SENATOR BIDEN: John, thank you for that warm introduction. Your energy, dedication, and persistence have helped keep arms control and nonproliferation issues on the radar screen of Members of Congress for decades.
I also want to thank Daryl Kimball and the Arms Control Association for allowing me to address all of you today and for being such effective advocates of sensible policies to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reduce the risks of nuclear war.
We are gathered today at the Paul C. Warnke Conference on the Past, Present, and Future of Arms Control.
Paul may be known best for his image of the arms race as two apes "jogging in tandem on a treadmill to nowhere." But he also got to the nub of the arms control debate. In 1986, he wrote: "...until we recognize that no one can win a nuclear war, that no one can fight one rationally and successfully, we aren't going to be able to take the steps that are necessary to bring about strategic arms control."
Controlling the arms race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was the issue that galvanized us during the Cold War.
Today, although the Cold War is over, the issue of controlling the threat of a nuclear explosion has become more complicated. The result is not one, but three nuclear challenges we must meet and conquer:
● other nuclear powers, some of which are new and lack our experience with nuclear restraint;
● nuclear proliferation to states with unstable leaders; and
● the risk of nuclear terrorism.
In each of these areas, the Administration is pursuing policies more likely to lead us into, not away from, a nuclear abyss. Policies more likely to encourage, not stem, the spread of nuclear weapons.
I hope this Administration changes course. More realistically, it will be up to a new Democratic administration to put us back on the path to real security.
Let me talk about each of the challenges we face, about the fallacies of the Administration's approach, and about the policies I believe we should be pursuing.
Restraining Major Nuclear Powers
The first challenge is dealing with the major nuclear weapons states. Some are long standing, like Russia and China. Others are more recent nuclear powers like India and Pakistan - and much less experienced in securing their systems and showing restraint.
The administration seems unconcerned about crisis stability with Russia, arguing that our countries no longer contemplate attacking each other. That may be true, but it begs the question.
The risk of a nuclear exchange stems not from our intent, but rather from the fact that armies defend against worst-case scenarios.
So long as we and the Russians keep thousands of nuclear weapons prepared to respond within minutes of receiving a warning of attack, the risk of nuclear war remains.
We still need to ensure that Russia will not fear a U.S. attack - even in a crisis, and even if one of its radars reports an ambiguous signal.
We must also combat the tendency of some Russian officers and officials to still view us as the enemy. And we should take steps now to minimize the risks of war or an arms race with China. If we allow simplistic assumptions of U.S.-Russian accord - or of U.S.-Chinese competition - to govern our relations with the world's two largest nuclear powers other than ourselves, we will squander the opportunity to truly regularize those relations and to promote peace and predictability.
What, specifically, is to be done?
With Russia, we should get off the dime and get the Joint Data Exchange Center up and running. We also need to finally begin reducing our own nuclear stockpile, as the Administration promised last year.
Both of those steps will lower the risk of aberrant Russian actions during a crisis, or due to a false warning of attack.
We also need more attention to China's strategic weapons and to its space program.
China recently orbited its first astronaut and announced that it intends, "to explore outer space and make a good use of the rich resources of space."
Some people even foresee a military "space race" with China. Now is the time to head that off - by making China a full partner in space exploration, rather than a frustrated "new entrant" that has to catch up with us.
The challenge here, as with so many challenges we face across the globe, is to see the opportunity where others see only potential confrontation.
The same is true regarding India and Pakistan. As we reach out to India and Pakistan, the first rule is to "do no harm," as they say. Friendship with Pakistan must not include allowing that country (or its scientists) to proliferate nuclear weapons technology or equipment.
Friendship with India must not include selling it weapons that could trigger a nuclear crisis - like the special operations equipment "to attack terrorist troops operating behind enemy lines inside Pakistan" that India reportedly wants us to sell them.
The second rule is to never give up. As India and Pakistan explore ways to reduce tensions and address the difficult issues that divide them, we must do more to help them avoid a conflict that could spiral into nuclear war.
This might include assisting them to control their border - a project on which the Sandia National Laboratory has worked for several years.
It could also include working with other major powers to offer security assurances to both India and Pakistan if they will give up their nuclear weapons.
Stopping Proliferation to Rogue States
Our second great challenge is to stop the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons to its most dangerous states.
Here, the problem starts with the Administration's security and nuclear strategies. Taken together, the doctrine of preventive war amounts to a proliferation policy instead of a non-proliferation policy.
Consider the Administration's strategy of preventive war - including the possible use of nuclear weapons - against countries that may not even have weapons of mass destruction, let alone be threatening us with them.
This strategy runs the risk of prompting countries to develop nukes, since they risk a U.S. nuclear attack even if they don't go nuclear.
They will see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as the sole insurance policy against regime change.
Then consider the Administration's efforts to develop new nuclear weapons, such as low yield war heads and bunker busters.
In 1994, Paul Warnke warned especially that if we were to develop low-yield nuclear weapons for use against Third World countries: "The only logical response...would be for small countries to develop nuclear weapons and threaten the United States with a few primitive atomic bombs that could be delivered by comparably primitive means."
Warnke's warning certainly fits North Korea today, and might describe Iran in the future.
Further, it doesn't help when the new weapons the Administration seeks are largely useless.
New "bunker-busters" would cause tremendous civilian casualties, due to radioactive fallout as well as the actual blast of these high-yield weapons.
If biological weapons were stored in the bunkers, moreover, a nuclear attack would be more likely to spread the pathogens than to destroy them.
And new low-yield weapons would add little to a stockpile that already has low-yield options, but would lower the barrier between conventional and nuclear war.
Our search for new nuclear weapons has an aura of mindless devotion to nuclear war. This undermines the central bargain in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, that the Nuclear Weapons States would gradually move away from nuclear weapons, while the Non-Nuclear Weapons States refrained from acquiring them.
Consider how the Administration has alienated the very countries we need to promote and enforce non-proliferation.
We undermined international solidarity when we withdrew from the ABM Treaty.
And we make other countries less willing to obey and enforce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty when we fail to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, give up on START II, and badger our scientists to come up with ideas for new nuclear weapons.
The Administration is especially feckless on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. This has been a U.S. objective for eight years, because we have more than enough fissile material, while countries of concern continue to seek it.
For over two years, the Administration castigated other countries for preventing negotiations from starting. Now that there is a chance of success, however, the Administration announced that we may refuse to negotiate.
As my granddaughters say: what's up with that?
Will this promote solidarity with our allies, who worked for years to help us convince other countries to negotiate? Will this help maintain their support for a firm stand on the need for Iran and North Korea to dismantle their nuclear weapons programs? Not likely.
Finally, consider the delusion that the premature deployment of a missile defense will solve the proliferation problem.
Never mind that an ICBM with a return address is the least likely delivery vehicle a rogue state would use against us.
We all know that our missile defense will be untested, that several critical components won't even be ready when the President declares it "deployed," and that its ability to defeat even simple countermeasures will be uncertain at best.
Thomas Christie, the Pentagon's chief of test and evaluation - selected by this Administration - just made that painfully clear.
He wrote: "it is not clear what mission capability will be demonstrated."
So, why is the President rushing to deploy this?
Will it meet the only test that matters, making America more secure?
Or will it give people a false sense of security?
Missile defense is no substitute for the hard work of nonproliferation.
So how do we counter proliferation to rogue states? The apparently successful recent agreement with Libya is a product of international isolation, sanctions and hard-headed diplomacy.
Libya will let us see everything and cart it away. This shows that negotiations and agreements are indeed possible with countries of concern, even ones with mercurial leaders who have supported terrorism.
Iran recently signed the Additional Protocol letting the IAEA conduct more inspections, which is a vital step.
But the IAEA and the developed countries must be firm with Iran on the terms of its suspension of all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.
And the United States must work with them, rather than picking fights with the IAEA or our allies.
We must also address the long-term concern that the nonproliferation regime currently permits countries to manufacture fissile material in their supposedly peaceful nuclear power programs.
Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA Director General, has proposed production and management of nuclear reactor fuel be limited to multinational, transparent entities, rather than nation states.
That idea is worth exploring. It will also bolster our demand that countries like Iran and North Korea renounce sensitive fuel cycle activities.
Which brings us to North Korea. Here, the Administration has largely dithered and delayed.
It bungled the issue of their illegal uranium enrichment program, and now North Korea has reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods that had been stored under international safeguards.
That could provide plutonium for 6 or 8 more nuclear weapons. If North Korea has made those weapons (and the 1 or 2 more U.S. intelligence thinks it already has), then it now has enough weapons to think of actually using them - or of giving or selling a few to others. The Administration's inattention and ideological rigidity has left America less secure today than we were three years ago.
It's time to get serious about negotiations. That does not mean paying blackmail.
North Korea must dismantle its nuclear programs and stop selling missile technology.
But we won't achieve that unless the President instructs his officials to negotiate in good faith and gives them the leeway to do so. Perhaps he could keep his ideologues out of the loop, as he did on Libya.
One good thing to come out of the North Korea fiasco has been the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI.
To be sure, PSI cannot prevent North Korea from exporting a bomb. But better coordination and intelligence sharing with like-minded countries can help stem proliferation of the bulky equipment needed to produce a bomb, or long-range missiles to deliver it.
For PSI to achieve its full potential, however, we must get the whole world involved, rather than just 15-or-so of our best friends. We must also go to the United Nations, if we want to stop shipments in international waters or airspace.
Preventing Nuclear Terrorism
Our third great challenge is to counter the new threat of nuclear terrorism.
The terrorists aren't there yet.
Acquiring a nuclear weapon clearly is a desire of some groups, but not yet a reality.
But scientists tell us that if educated terrorists got fissile material, especially highly-enriched uranium, they could make a workable nuclear device.
Similarly, if they were to steal or be given a nuclear weapon, they could probably use it - or take it apart and build their own device.
If we are to avoid nuclear terrorism in the future, there is no more critical effort today than securing the world's fissile material. Most of the poorly secured material is in Russia, but there is also much highly enriched uranium in research reactors scattered around the world. Three years ago, Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler called on us to spend at least $3 billion a year on a Nunn-Lugar-like crash program to secure Russia's fissile material.
Today, the world spends only 1 to 2 billion dollars on this - and several U.S. programs are stalled by long-standing liability disputes.
U.S. and Russian bureaucrats are worrying too much about turf and too little about our shared need to ensure that fissile material is kept out of the hands of rogues or terrorists.
The U.S. and Russian Presidents need to take a hands-on approach, end the bureaucratic battles, and restore a spirit of cooperative problem-solving.
That's long overdue.
Similarly, our efforts to repatriate fissile material from other countries' nuclear reactors are laudable, but hardly sufficient. At the rate we are going, it will take over a decade to finish the task.
And that exposes us, for much too long, to the risk of true catastrophe. We need a major increase in our efforts to safeguard the world's enriched uranium - both in funding and in the urgency with which we pursue that program.
We need greater efforts to secure radioactive sources that could be used in a so-called "dirty bomb" - including a crash program to replace the nuclear generators in Russia's remote lighthouses, which are already being vandalized by thieves and could someday be stolen by terrorists.
And we need to maintain nuclear deterrence, even in a world of international terrorism.
One useful step would be an international compact in which nations agreed to wipe out any group that dared set off a nuclear device.
A step that we can take now is to improve our ability to collect and analyze nuclear debris, so that we can identify (and, if appropriate, retaliate against) any country supplying fissile material used in an attack on us.
My amendment on this passed the Senate last year, but died in conference; I plan to keep pressing this issue.
Let me conclude by saying, to stem nuclear proliferation and avert nuclear terrorism, we must loose the bonds of ideology. We must invent new approaches and foster new international cooperation to meet changing threats.
In the nuclear age, a Hobbesian world can be nasty, brutish, and very short indeed. Our military might is a vital force for good in this world, but we must also seek the Lockean alternative of agreed restraints and responsibilities.
If we are as clear-headed as Paul Warnke was, we may even succeed.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Joe Biden Biography. US Health System. Iraq. Polls 2008. Runs 2008. Presidential Election 2008. Joseph Biden
Toward Enlightened Nationalism
Let me start by saying that I listened to the President's press conference today, where he talked about the violation of UN Security Council resolutions constituting the casus belli for action against Iraq. And the President went on to say that the UN is an important institution, and to maintain its credibility there must be a price paid for violating its resolutions.
I am greatly encouraged if, by these comments, he means to say that he is abandoning the doctrine of preemption that many in his administration have counseled him to adopt.
Based on his comments, I continue to be hopeful that the Administration's recent U-turn on Iraq, its commitment to make Iraq the world's responsibility, and not just our own - is more than rhetorical.
But, I must say, the Administration's recent epiphany, welcome as it is still leaves our foreign policy headed in the wrong direction and that is what I want to talk about tonight.
Let me be clear at the outset.
I do not question the motives of either the neo-conservatives in this Administration who discount the value of alliances and the international institutions we've built or the pure multilateralists in my own Party who believe that we can only exercise power if we get the world's approval first.
It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes.
The stakes are much too high.
This is not a time for political rhetoric.
This is a time for hard facts, sober analysis, and decisive action that will make us more secure.
It is a time for a more enlightened nationalism that supports the use of force - without apology or hesitation - when we must.
An enlightened nationalism that is not so blinded by our overwhelming military power that we fail to see the genuine benefit and obvious need to work with others.
The American people understand very clearly what matters most. They "get it." It's pretty simple:
Do our priorities, our policies, our actions make us MORE SECURE OR LESS SECURE?
I believe this Administration's priorities, policies, and actions demonstrate much too narrow a definition of national security.
As a result, we have missed significant opportunities to make America more secure.
The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.
I've spoken many times recently about the pervasive sense of vulnerability and insecurity we feel, not only collectively as a nation, but in our personal lives, and it has not gotten any better.
We think twice about our travel plans.
We think twice about riding elevators in tall buildings.
We even think twice about letting our kids go on field trips.
Yesterday's soccer moms truly are today's security moms.
In the days after 9-11, those moms - and Americans everywhere - looked for a way they could do something to help.
It was a time that called for rallying the nation and tapping into the desire all of us had to do something for our country.
And I believe history will judge President Bush most harshly for squandering that opportunity.
These squandered opportunities persist to this day here at home, and beyond our borders.
Here at home, when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again, and rekindle an American spirit of community.
We squandered the opportunity to rally Americans to produce a rational policy to achieve energy security. We squandered the opportunity to rally Americans to build an effective homeland defense, to make our borders and ports safer, our transportation systems more secure, and our nuclear power plants less vulnerable.
And finally, beyond our borders, we squandered the opportunity to build an effective national security strategy to meet these new threats without alienating the world.
As you all know, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld likes to send internal memos that have been dubbed "snowflakes." Last week, one of them failed to melt before it floated into the public domain.
Or, perhaps, the Secretary of Defense never intended for this particular "snowflake" to melt at all.
In any case, most of the media focused on the parts of the memo that talked about our "mixed results" with Al Qaeda and the "long hard slog" still ahead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those are important points. But to me, the most astounding part of the memo was Secretary Rumsfeld's admission that we still lack a long term strategy for winning the war against terrorism. He asked:
"Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
"Does the U.S. need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists?"
Those are exactly the right questions -- only they're being asked two years too late.
And the short answer to that last question - "do we need to fashion a broad, integrated plan" - is a resounding yes.
Fifty or 100 years from now, historians will write many books about whether this generation rose to the occasion.
In the end, we will be judged by how well we marshal the forces of civilization to combat international terrorism.
We will be judged by how well we work with others to eliminate the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
We will be judged by how well we inspire the world to deal with epidemics and pandemics that can kill millions around the world.
We will be judged by how well we lead those who side with us as modernity and globalization are assaulted by fundamentalism and intolerance.
We will be judged by how well we help spread economic advancement around the globe and how wisely we manage our economic and finite natural resources.
To begin moving this nation in the right direction, I believe we need to embrace a foreign policy of enlightened nationalism.
Let me explain what I mean by that, and what we must do to get there. First, we need to correct the imbalance between projecting power and staying power. America's military is second to none.
It must and will remain second to none.
But staying power is just as important as projecting power and, on that account, the Administration is running a dangerous deficit.
In Afghanistan, we refused, until last month, to support the extension of ISAF beyond the capital.
The result is that President Karzai is the mayor of Kabul. Much of the country is in the hands of warlords, the Taliban is regrouping, reconstruction is way off track, and Afghanistan is the world's number one producer of opium. The proceeds will fund new tyrants and terrorists. Our failure to win the peace in Afghanistan risks being repeated in Iraq.
That failure would condemn both countries to a future as failed states and we know from bitter experience that failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists and become transhipment hubs for WMD and drugs.
Our failure also would undermine America's strategic interests by enhancing the power and influence of extremists in Iran, endangering moderates and modernizers from Jordan to Turkey, risking the collapse of Pakistan, and making even bleaker the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We have to show the staying power to write a different future.
The place to start is by securing the informed consent of the American people for finishing what we started in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The President should have leveled with the American people from the start about the hard road ahead in both countries, not just in private memos, not just from Secretary Rumsfeld, but in public statements, by the President.
He should have explained why success is critical and made clear it will take years, require billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops.
If the President had leveled with the American people from the start and if the Administration's policies and planning weren't so off the mark, there wouldn't be so much doubt about the President's leadership now.
The President is still not leveling with the American people.
Instead of laying out the strategic stakes in Iraq, he argues that Iraq is the front line in the war against terrorism, and that we're better off fighting the terrorists in Baghdad than in Boston.
That's a false choice designed to appeal to the most basic fears of the American people.
The plain truth is that even if we succeed perfectly in Iraq, the terrorists will be fighting on dozens of other fronts. If we fail in Iraq, they will continue to fight us there as well.
Besides getting the consent of the American people. how do we build staying power?
We should adopt a more enlightened approach, informed by the lessons of the 1990s in the Balkans and beyond.
A more enlightened approach would empower experts in our own government to plan for post-conflict security and reconstruction ahead of time, not on the fly.
A more enlightened approach would build up an international police force to handle security after we topple a tyrant.
A more enlightened approach would create training programs to rapidly stand up indigenous armies and police forces.
A more enlightened approach, in short, would recognize that, whether we like it or not, nation building is going to be central to our foreign policy for years to come.
This Administration came to office disdaining that idea, only to be confronted with the two biggest tests in nation building since World War II. To date, it is failing both of those tests.
If we're not prepared to do the post-conflict, we should think twice about doing the conflict. And so we've got to be better prepared.
Let me add a few more words about Iraq.
I voted to give the President the authority to use force in Iraq.
For me, the question was never WHETHER we had to deal with Saddam Hussein, but WHEN and HOW and by what RATIONALE.
And it's precisely the WHEN, the HOW and the RATIONALE this Administration has gotten dangerously wrong. And we're paying a terrible price for those mistakes. We went to war too soon. There was no imminent threat.
The administration hyped parts of the intelligence to create a false sense of urgency. Instead, it created a crisis of credibility at home and abroad. As a result, it will be that much harder to rally others against more dangerous weapons programs in Iran and North Korea.
We went to war without the world.
As a result, the occupation of Iraq has an American face, and we're providing almost all of the troops and treasure.
We went to war based on the dangerous doctrine of preemption.
As a result, the world believes that the preemptive use of force is the sum and substance of our national security policy, with terribly destabilizing consequences I'll discuss in a few moments.
And we went to war without a plan and with the wrong assumptions for the Day After.
We've made winning the peace even harder than it should have been. As a result, we risk losing the support not only of the Iraqi people, but of the American people. I predict to you, before Christmas, two thirds of the American people will say bring the troops home.
And I predict to you, that it will be a disaster in terms of our security.
And so, we are left with three options.
We can bring the troops home now and suffer the strategic consequences.
We can stay virtually alone spend another $100 billion in addition to the money we have already spent and keep over 100,000 forces in Iraq for at least another two to three years.
Or we can do everything in our power to make Iraq the world's problem, not just our own, by ceding more authority to the U.N. and our allies and building up an Iraqi army and police as fast and effectively as possible.
I'm glad the President has made a dramatic U-turn and now seems to be heading in the right direction.
The second step toward enlightened nationalism is to move away from the Administration's fixation on military preemption and focus on a true prevention strategy.
I agree with those in the Administration who argue that the nexus of new threats requires an additional response.
Deterrence got us through the Cold War, and it's logic still holds in most cases.
But it may not work against enemies, armed to the hilt, with no territory or people to defend. That's why the right to act preemptively against an imminent threat must remain, as it has been, a part of our foreign policy tool kit.
But this Administration has turned preemption from a necessary option into a one-size-fits-all doctrine that does away with any notion of imminence.
And that, too, will make us less secure. It tells our enemies that their only possible insurance policy against regime change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as they can.
It sends a message to fault line states - like India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Israel and its Arab neighbors and Russia vis a vis Chechyna or Georgia - that it is legitimate to use force first and ask questions later.
And it so lowers the bar on showing a clear and present danger that such a concept becomes almost meaningless.
One senior administration official even said that the mere presence of nuclear scientists in Iraq would have justified the war.
We should jettison this military preemption doctrine and fashion a prevention doctrine to defuse problems long before they are on the verge of exploding.
What would that require?
It would require broader and better funded programs like Nunn-Lugar to help secure and destroy the loose weapons most likely to wind up in the wrong hands - starting with the stockpiles in the former Soviet Union. It would require new international laws that allow us to stop lethal cargoes anywhere on the high seas or in the skies, not just bilateral agreements limited to the territorial waters and air space of the participating countries.
It would require new alliances of intelligence agencies, law enforcement officials, and financial experts to uproot terrorists and end their funding.
Just as we built NATO to contend with the primary threat to U.S. security of its day - the Soviet Union - we should look at creating IATO (the International Anti-Terrorism Organization) to deal with the leading security challenge of this day.
It would require fully funded development programs that demonstrate to those most likely to offer support and sanctuary to terrorists that we offer them a better future.
We spend a pittance on global education - about $200 million a year. Meanwhile, the madrassas fill the heads of students with hate, but also fill their stomachs with food and put clothes on their backs.
It would require a long term public diplomacy strategy to debunk the myths and lies our enemies spin about America's intentions.
A new initiative, Radio Sawa, already reaches an average of more than 30 percent of potential listeners in Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE.
We should put the same energy into television broadcasting and make public diplomacy a career-enhancing pursuit, not a bureaucratic backwater.
And it would require a sustained policy of democratization in friendly countries with regressive regimes. Not by imposing democracy from the outside with force, but by helping to build its institutions from within by promoting good governance, the rule of law and transparency, political parties, independent media, secular education, private enterprise, and civil society.
Finally, a policy of enlightened nationalism would put much more energy into working with the world instead of walking alone.
Ask yourself: one hundred years from now, what will historians say were the greatest challenges the United States and other nation states faced at the start of this new century?
International terrorism. The spread of WMD. Outlaw states. Ethnic conflicts. International crime and drug trafficking. Infectious diseases like HIV-AIDS. Economic dislocation and environmental degradation.
Not one of these threats has any respect for borders. Not one is susceptible solely to a military response. To meet each of these challenges, we need the help of other countries. And we need to reform old institutions and alliances and build new ones to make common cause of the world's common concerns.
That's the approach a previous generation took after World War II. It's the approach we should take now.
Unfortunately, this Administration's gratuitous acts of unilateralism have alienated the partners we need to meet most of the challenges we face... and to build the new institutions we need.
We ignored NATO when, in the hours after the events of 9/11, it invoked Article V for the first time in its history, saying an attack on one was an attack on all.
We rejected Germany's offer of troops for Afghanistan, even after its Chancellor risked and almost lost a no confidence vote to provide them.
We summarily rejected a long litany of treaties that meant a lot to other countries even if they meant little to this Administration... without any effort to find a compromise or to propose an alternative where we had legitimate problems.
Why has this Administration shown such disdain for potential partners around the world?
I've concluded it's because this is the most ideological administration in U.S. history, led by neo-conservatives who believe the only asset that counts is our military might.
Because our military power dwarfs that of other countries - we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined -- this Administration believes that alliances and international institutions are more of a burden than a benefit. They allow the Lilliputians to tie down Gulliver.
In this view, we have nothing to lose from acting unilaterally. Indeed, we have everything to gain.
By demonstrating we're prepared to act without the world and even against its collective will we can silence America's critics and create a bandwagon effect among reluctant allies.
But of course, there was never any doubt that we could topple the Taliban and defeat Saddam without the help of a single foreign soldier.
It's the day after victory and the many days, months and years after that that the price for our unilateral approach gets steeper and steeper.
Now, in Iraq, because we decided to wage war unilaterally, we're responsible for the peace - unilaterally.
And the price tag is not hard to calculate: 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the financial resources and 90 percent of the casualties are American.
There's another critical point here.
More than any country in the world, the United States benefits from an international system with clear, predictable rules and relationships.
This administration's approach - play by rules we like, ignore those we don't - will destroy that system.
In its place, we'll end up with a law of the jungle in which we will be the most powerful animal, but much less secure.
At the same time, those of us who preach the value and utility of international institutions and international rules must also understand that when they are flouted, they must be enforced.
Enlightened nationalism recognizes that there is a strong link between power and legitimacy. You can't have one without the other.
When we use force, we should go the extra mile to ground it in law and legitimacy.
But we must recognize that laws will prove meaningless if we do not summon the will to enforce them.
Let me say in conclusion, the foreign policy agenda pushed most forcefully by the neo-conservatives has run head-on into reality in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.
As a result, for now, we're less secure. We have fewer friends. And we're running out of time and resources to get it right. It is long past time for the President to understand that the advice he has received has been wrong advice, that none of the assumptions on the neo-conservative side have proven to be true.
The best way to change course across the board is to elect a Democratic president who will act wisely, not react rashly, and embrace a foreign policy of enlightened nationalism.
A foreign policy based on a comprehensive strategy - including military might - but not excluding our diplomatic, economic and political power. A foreign policy that reflects our values and our history as a strong nation founded on unshakeable principles.
A foreign policy that thinks bigger and does better, motivated not by fear, but by opportunity. Because for all the difficult challenges we face, the opportunities before us are limitless and within our grasp. Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Clinton and I have one thing in common.
We share a favorite Irish poet: Seamus Heaney, who said, in a poem called The Cure at Troy:
"History says, don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme."
If we get it right, and I know we will, we can make hope and history rhyme.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Joe Biden Biography. US Health System. Iraq. Polls 2008. Runs 2008. Presidential Election 2008. Joseph Biden
Toward a Democratic Foreign Policy
Two years ago, in a speech at the National Press Club, I argued for the United States to focus on the most urgent threats facing our country.
Not the Star Wars type national missile defense system this Administration was pushing - obsessively.
I argued that the real threat will come in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane, or will be smuggled over the border in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack.
I urged the Administration, to set aside its ideological bias and its determination to build a Maginot line in the sky, and, instead, focus on the real threats to America's security.
I argued that a national missile defense system was neither the highest priority nor the answer.
The next day was September 11th.
Last Sunday night, the President gave me some hope that he may finally be breaking out of that ideological straight jacket, at least concerning Iraq.
I hope that his commitment to make Iraq the world's responsibility and not just our own is more than rhetorical.
But, I must say, the Administration's U-turn, welcome as it is still leaves our foreign policy headed in the wrong direction. That is what I want to talk about today.
Let me be clear: I do not question the motives of either the neo-conservatives in this Administration who discount the value of international institutions we've built and put a premium on the use of unilateral military power even if it means alienating the world. Or the knee jerk multilateralists in our own Party who have not yet faced the reality of the post 9-11 world...and believe that we can only exercise power if we get the world's approval first.
It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes. The stakes are too high. The choices we make now are critical and will shape the next fifty years just as the consensus behind containment shaped the last fifty years.
This is not a time for political rhetoric. This is a time for hard facts, sober analysis, and decisive action that will make us more secure.
What we need isn't the death of internationalism or the denial of our stark national interest. What we need is a more enlightened nationalism that understands the benefit of working with others and the value of international institutions, but one that supports the use of military force - without apology or hesitation - when we must.
Are We More Secure Or Less Secure?
The truth is that while lots of analysts and other so-called experts talk about the so-called "bottom line" as they try to convince us about what's important or what we should think the American people understand very clearly what matters most.
Do our priorities, our policies, our actions make us MORE SECURE OR LESS SECURE?
I believe that this Administration's priorities, policies, and actions demonstrate much too narrow a definition of national security. As a result, we have missed significant opportunities to make America more secure.
The devastating punch we took on September 11th still reverberates throughout American society.
I've spoken many times about the pervasive sense of vulnerability and insecurity we feel, not only collectively as a nation, but in our personal lives, and it has not gotten any better.
We think twice about our travel plans. We think twice about riding elevators in tall buildings. We even think twice about letting our kids go on field trips. Yesterday's soccer moms truly are today's security moms.
In the days after 9-11, those moms - and Americans everywhere - looked for a way they could do something to help. It was a time that called for rallying the nation and tapping into the desire all of us had to do something for our country to unite us.
And I believe history will judge President Bush most harshly for squandering that opportunity.
Missed Opportunities Rather than readjusting priorities to meet the new realities we faced the Administration persisted in pursuing policies that were no longer relevant, and even counter productive.
Sadly and dangerously, the squandering of opportunities persists to this day here at home and beyond our borders, driven by a domestic ideological imperative - the Devolution of Government - that limits our options.
Here at home, we have squandered the opportunity to rally Americans to service.
Remember Americans standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? We should have taken that opportunity to rekindle an American spirit of community, and make service a noble cause again.
We squandered the opportunity to rally Americans to produce a rational policy to achieve energy security, to wean us from dependence on foreign oil, to ask Americans to make significant investments in alternative energy even if in the short term it meant altering our behavior.
We squandered the opportunity to rally Americans to build an effective homeland defense so that "security moms" can sleep more soundly at night.
We squandered the opportunity to make our borders and ports safer, our transportation systems more secure, and our nuclear power plants less vulnerable.
The question is: Why has this happened?
Why has this Administration failed to fully fund Homeland Security?
Why has it taken the President until now to begin to level with the American people about the tremendous cost of winning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and continuing to take the fight to the terrorists?
I believe it is because this Administration has another overriding priority: As part of it's Devolution of Government agenda, their central policy, sometimes their ONLY policy, is another huge tax cut.
I believe we need to cut taxes, especially for the Middle Class, as much as we responsibly can. But never has any Administration summoned Americans to war AND... at the same time... pushed for the biggest tax cut in history.
The result is a mixed message to the American people, who are left to wonder: How can we wage the fight against terrorism without paying any price?
And it reflects a woeful misunderstanding of the character of the American people, all the American people - Rich, Poor, Middle Class, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian - to meet and conquer these new threats.
If you add the 87 billion dollars the President has proposed for Iraq to the existing budget deficit, we're now looking at a 600 billion dollar shortfall - not counting the money borrowed from Social Security. It's not just the tax cut . The war on terrorism, the recession and other government spending all add up.
But the Administration's ideological fixation on tax relief for today's wealthiest Americans means that we're asking our grandchildren to pay for our security AND for their own which is exactly backwards.
We must have the discipline and the resolve to pay our OWN way and do what we have to do NOW to make sure our children and grandchildren are more secure.
Given the disproportionate amount of money going to the wealthiest Americans in tax cuts there are many things we can do that preserve the tax cut but reduce it enough to recoup the 87 billion dollars the President is asking for.
What if the President had said on Sunday night:
"To all of you who are making a million dollars and getting a 93,000 dollar tax cut, I'm asking you to forego a small part of your tax cut."
What if he said to the wealthiest Americans:
"I'm asking you to take just 10 times, not 100 times, the tax break we're giving to the middle class so that we can pay for peace in Iraq, security in Afghanistan, and the war against terrorism."
Do you think a single wealthy American watching on T.V. would have said: "No way. I want it all."
Of course not.
Deferring or decreasing the size of the tax cut would not alienate the rich or jeopardize an economic recovery.
But it would restore a sense of national purpose and unity that is our country's greatest strength.
Wealthy Americans are no less patriotic than anyone else. I have no doubt about how they would respond to such a call from the President.
I'm going to propose legislation to adjust the President's tax cuts so that we can pay the bill for Iraq.
I have no illusions about it passing, but it needs to be debated.
Those were some of the missed opportunities on the home front.
Beyond our borders, we have squandered the opportunity to rally the world to a common cause - to keep the focus on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
We have squandered the opportunity to build new bridges to our allies, and find common ground with old adversaries so that we do not have to endure in virtual isolation every threat and challenge, every burden and risk, every legitimate fight, all on our own. And finally, we have squandered the opportunity to build an effective national security strategy to meet these new threats without alienating the world.
Fifty or a hundred years from now, historians will write many books about whether this generation rose to the occasion. And one of the things that gives me some hope is the realization that every major world power today has the same interest in achieving a common goal. I'm not sure that has ever been the case before. But it is now.
In the end, we will be judged by how well we marshal the forces of civilization to combat international terrorism. We will be judged by how well we work with others to eliminate the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We will be judged by how well we inspire the world to deal with epidemics and pandemics that can kill millions around the world. We will be judged by how well we lead those who side with us as modernity and globalization are assaulted by fundamentalism and intolerance. And we will be judged by how well we help spread economic advancement around the globe and how wisely we manage economic and finite natural resources.
To begin moving this nation in the right direction we need to embrace a foreign policy of enlightened nationalism. Toward Enlightened Nationalism: Projecting Power vs. Staying Power
First, we need to correct the imbalance between projecting power and staying power.
America's military is second to none. It must and will remain second to none.
President Bush used it well in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein just as he did in Afghanistan to take down the Taliban.
But staying power is just as important as projecting power and, on that account, the administration is running a dangerous deficit. In Afghanistan, our failure to extend security beyond Kabul has handed most of the country back to the warlords, as many of us predicted.
The Taliban is regrouping and, in my view, the failure to win the peace in Afghanistan risks being repeated in Iraq unless we stay the new course the President set last Sunday night.
That failure would condemn both countries to a future as failed states... risking the collapse of Pakistan and enhancing the power and influence of Iran and lead to even wider regional instability.
We know from bitter experience that failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists. We have to show the staying power to write a different future. If we don't, Americans will be less secure.
A more enlightened approach would be to level with the American people about the importance of staying the course in Afghanistan and Iraq. Explain to them why success is critical and failure is not an option. Tell them - as we've known from the outset that success will take years, require billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of troops. I'm pleased the President has finally begun to do that.
A more enlightened approach would be to empower experts in our own government to plan for post-conflict security and reconstruction ahead of time, not on the fly.
It would be a more enlightened approach, for example, if we built up an international police force to handle security after we toppled a tyrant. If we're not prepared to do the post-conflict, we should think twice about doing the conflict.
Preemption Vs. Prevention Second, we have to move away from the Administration's fixation on military preemption and focus on a true prevention strategy. I agree with those in the Administration who argue that the nexus of new threats - terrorism, WMD, and rogue states - requires an additional response.
Deterrence got us through the Cold War, and it's logic still holds in most cases. But it may not work against enemies, armed to the teeth, with no territory or people to defend. That's why the right to act preemptively must remain, as it has been, a part of our foreign policy tool kit. But this Administration has turned preemption from a necessary option into a one-size-fits-all doctrine and that, too, threatens to make us less secure. It tells our enemies that their only possible insurance policy against regime change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as they can. It sends a message to India, Pakistan, China and Taiwan, to Israel and its Arab neighbors, that if the United States can shoot first and ask questions later, so can they.
Instead of a military preemption doctrine, we should focus much more on a prevention doctrine to defuse problems long before they are on the verge of exploding.
What would that require?
It would require better funded programs to secure, and destroy weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union and beyond in India and Pakistan, for example.
It would require new international laws so we can stop lethal cargoes anywhere on the high seas or in the skies.
It would require new alliances of intelligence agencies, law enforcement officials, and financial experts to uproot terrorists and end their funding. It would require fully funded development programs that demonstrate to those most likely to offer support and sanctuary to terrorists that we offer them a better future.
It would require a sustained public diplomacy strategy to debunk the myths and lies our enemies spin about America's intentions. And it would require a determined policy of democratization through support - not just for elections - but for good governance the rule of law and transparency, political parties, independent media, secular education, private enterprise, and civil society.
Walking Alone or Working with Others
Finally, we have to put much more energy into working with the world, instead of walking alone.
No one disputes that the first responsibility of our government is to defend the security of this country and the safety of its people. There may be times when we see a threat to our security, when we're right and the rest of the world is wrong. In those instances, we must retain the right to act alone.
Those cases should be the exception. But this Administration sees them as the rule, initially reinforced by our military success in Iraq and before that in Afghanistan.
Look, there was never any doubt we could take down Saddam alone if we had too. Just as there was no doubt we could topple the Taliban. But here's the rub: For every Iraq, there are ten North Koreas that require collective, non-military action. Something for which this administration has shown little aptitude.
Consider most of the threats we face - International terrorism; The spread of WMD; International crime and drug trafficking; Infectious diseases like HIV-AIDS; Economic dislocation; Environmental degradation.
Not one of these threats has any respect for borders. Not one is susceptible to a unilateral military response.
In each instance, we benefit from - indeed we need - the help of other countries.
Think about the war on terrorism. The most visible front has been our military intervention in Afghanistan. But to win the war, we must prevail on other, less visible fronts that demand cooperation like intelligence sharing and law enforcement. And it's just common sense to do everything we can to spread the physical risk and share the financial cost of a pro-active foreign policy.
Unfortunately, this administration's gratuitous acts of unilateralism have alienated the partners we need to meet most of the challenges we face. We said no thanks to NATO when it offered to help us in Afghanistan. We summarily rejected treaties on climate change, the international criminal court, a nuclear test ban, and so on. That meant a lot to other countries, even if they meant little to the Administration.
Should we sign on the dotted line just because our friends like a treaty and we don't? Of course not.
Should we roll up our sleeves, sit down at the table with our partners and try to come up with a compromise or an alternative? Of course we should.
This administration's "our-way-or-the-highway" approach is not a way to win friends and support.
Why should other countries help us with our concerns if we show disdain for theirs?
That's what has happened, until now, in post-Saddam Iraq and that's what will happen elsewhere. It's not leadership if no one follows.
There's another critical point here. More than any country in the world, the United States benefits from an international system with clear, predictable rules and relationships.
This administration's approach - play by rules we like, and ignore those we don't - will destroy that system. In its place, we'll end up with a law of the jungle - a jungle in which we will be the most powerful animal, but much less secure.
At the same time, those who understand the value and utility of international institutions and international rules must also understand that when they are flouted, they must be enforced.
Enlightened nationalism recognizes that there is a strong link between power and legitimacy. You can't have one without the other. When we use force, we should go the extra mile to ground it in law and legitimacy. But we must recognize that laws will prove meaningless if we do not summon the will to enforce them.
A Time to Face Reality
I think it's time for the neo-conservatives in the Administration to look in the mirror and see reality. And it's long past time that we had a foreign policy and national security agenda that addressed both the urgent threats we face and the long-term priorities we must have the vision and wisdom to see.
Terrorism is the most urgent threat. But if we were to win that war tomorrow, we'd still have to confront a long list of lethal threats coming at us in many different ways.
As my mother always says: "Out of every tragedy, some good will come if you look hard enough."
If we engage the war on terrorism, in a way that brings the rest of the world with us we can, and we will, build new relationships with old friends and former adversaries, from Russia to China to India.
We can and we will forge new alliances to tackle the threats that target us all.
That is enlightened nationalism.
That is the opportunity before us.
I hope that we demonstrate the wisdom to seize it.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Biden Speech: The National Dialogue on Iraq + One Year
Introduction: America's Place in the World
Most Americans don't know what you and I know, that there's a war being waged in Washington to determine the direction of our foreign policy. It goes well beyond the ordinary skirmishes that are the stuff of politics and tactics. This war is philosophical. This was is strategic and its outcome will shape the first fifty years of the twenty-first century, just as the consensus behind containment shaped the last fifty years.
Right now, the neo-conservatives in this Administration are winning that war. They seem to have captured the heart and mind of the President, and they're controlling the foreign policy agenda. They put a premium on the use of unilateral power and have a set of basic prescriptions with which I fundamentally disagree. Just as I disagree with those in my own Party who have not yet faced the reality of the post-9-11 world, and believe we can only exercise power if we act multilaterally.
I don't question the motives of either the neo-conservatives or the pure multilateralists. They genuinely view the world differently than I do. Suffice it to say, in my view the neo-cons and the pure multilateralists are both wrong. What we need isn't the death of internationalism or the denial of stark national interest, but a more enlightened nationalism - one that understands the value of institutions but allows us to use military force, without apology or apprehension if we have to, but does not allow us to be so blinded by the overwhelming power of our armed forces that we fail to see the benefit of sharing the risks and the costs with others.
In my view, the stakes are too high and the opportunities too great to conduct foreign policy at the extremes.
One Year Ago
Exactly one year ago today, when I was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee we began a series of bipartisan hearings on America's policy toward Iraq.
Our purpose was to start a national dialogue and give the American people an informed basis upon which to draw their own conclusions. At that first hearing, I said "President Bush has stated his determination to remove Saddam from power a view many in Congress share..." and I was among them. I also said as clearly as I could "If [removing Saddam] is the course we pursue....it matters profoundly HOW we do it and what we do AFTER we succeed."
Now, a year later, Saddam is no longer in power and that's a good thing. His sons Ouday and Qusay have been killed. That's another good thing. They deserve their own special place in hell. But the mission is hardly accomplished. The new day in the Middle East has not yet dawned.
We're STILL at war. American soldiers are STILL dying, one, two, three at a time. Iraq is STILL not secure. STILL no one has told our troops that they'll have to stay for a long time in large numbers; that they'll have to tough it out. Most Americans STILL don't realize it's costing us a billion dollars a week to keep our troops in Iraq, and billions more in reconstruction, and revenue from Iraqi oil will not cover these costs.
And we STILL haven't heard a single clear statement from the President articulating what his policy is in general and, specifically, that securing Iraq will cost billions of dollars, require tens of thousands of American troops for a considerable amount of time, and that it's worth it. And, most importantly, why it's in our national interest to stay the course.
Some in my own Party have said it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place, and the benefit is not worth the cost. I believe they're wrong. The cost of not acting against Saddam would have been much greater, and so is the cost of not finishing the job. The President is popular. The stakes are high. The need for leadership is great.
I wish he'd used some of his stored-up popularity to make what I admit is an unpopular case. I wish the President, instead of standing on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner that said: "Mission Accomplished" would have stood in front of a banner that said: "We've Only Just Begun." I wish he would stand in front of the American people and say: "My fellow Americans, we have a long and hard road ahead of us in Iraq, but we have to stay in Iraq. We have to finish the job. If we don't, the following will happen. Here's what I'll be asking of you and, by the way, I'm asking the rest of the world to help us as well. And I am confident we'll succeed and as a consequence be more secure."
I'm waiting for that speech.
I said a year ago that, "In Afghanistan, the war was prosecuted exceptionally well, but the follow-through commitment to Afghanistan's security and reconstruction has fallen short."
Our failure to extend security beyond Kabul has handed most of the country to the warlords. The Taliban is regrouping. The border area with Pakistan is a Wild East of lawlessness. Afghanistan is now the number one opium producer in the world. The proceeds will fund tyrants and terrorists, who will fill the security vacuum, just as they did a decade ago. And the billion dollars the Administration is talking about sending Karzai is a year late and about 2 billion short. The failure to win the peace in Afghanistan risks being repeated in Iraq with even graver consequences.
Those failures could condemn both countries to a future as failed states, and we know from bitter experience that failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists.
If we don't write a different future, Americans will be less secure.
I said at that first hearing and I still believe today that "We need a better understanding of what it would take to secure Iraq and rebuild it economically and politically. It would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq, only to leave chaos in his wake."
But that's exactly what could happen unless we make some significant changes.
Dr. Hamre, in his report to the Secretary of Defense and in testimony before the Committee, said that the window of opportunity is closing and it's closing quickly.
The Road to Baghdad
Nine months ago, I voted to give the President the authority to use force. I would vote that way again today. Why? Because for more than a decade Saddam defied more than a dozen U.N. Security Council Resolutions. He lost the Gulf War, sued for peace, and was told by the U.N. what he had to do to stay in power. Then he violated those agreements and thumbed his nose at the U.N. He played cat-and-mouse with weapons inspectors and failed to account for the huge gaps in his weapons declarations that were documented by the U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998. He refused to abide by the conditions and, when he refused, it became the fundamental right of the international community to enforce those rules.
I voted to give the President authority to use force because Saddam was in violation of his agreements. He was a sadistic dictator who used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranians. He killed thousands of Shiites. He invaded his neighbors, crossed a line in the sand, fired missiles into Israel. And if we'd left him alone for five years with billions of dollars in oil revenues I'm convinced he'd have had a nuclear weapon that would have radically changed the strategic equation to our detriment.
In my view, anyone who can't acknowledge that the world is better off without him is out of touch. That was the case against Saddam. The President made it well.
But then the ideologues took over and made Iraq about something else. They made it about establishing a new doctrine of preemption. And, in so doing, we lost the good will of the world. Let me be clear. We face a nexus of new threats and it requires new responses. Deterrence got us through the Cold War but it can't be the only answer now.
The right to act preemptively in the face of an imminent threat must remain part of our foreign policy tool kit, as it always has been.
But this Administration has turned preemption from a necessary option into an ill-defined doctrine. Iraq was to be the test case. In my view, Iraq wasn't about preemption - It was about the enforcement of a surrender agreement drafted by the international community and signed by Saddam.
Making Iraq the case for preemption, putting it at the heart of our foreign policy, made it harder to get the world to join us. Why? Because not one of our allies wanted to validate the preemption doctrine. Raising preemption to a doctrine sends a message to our enemies that their only insurance against regime change is to acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as they can.
It sends a message from India and Pakistan, to China and Taiwan, to Israel and its Arab neighbors - if the United States can shoot first and ask questions later, so can they.
Preemption demands a high standard of proof that can stand up to world scrutiny and "murky intelligence" is hardly enough to meet that standard.
Instead of a preemption doctrine, we need a prevention doctrine that defuses problems long before they are on the verge of exploding. And I'll be talking more about that in the coming weeks.
For now, suffice it to say, the Administration was wrong to make Iraq about preemption. But we were right to confront the challenge posed by Saddam.
Contrary to what some in my Party might think, Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I commend the President - He was right to enforce the solemn commitments made by Saddam. If they're not enforced, what good are they?
For me, the issue was never WHETHER we had to deal with Saddam. but WHEN and HOW. And it's precisely the WHEN and HOW that this administration got wrong. We went to war too soon. We went with too few troops. We went without the world. And we're paying a price for it NOW. We authorized the President to use force. Congress gave him a strong hand to play at the United Nations. The idea was simple.
We would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: disarm or be disarmed. In so doing we hope to make war less likely. If Saddam failed to listen and forced us to act, we'd have the world with us.
But the Administration mis-played that hand...undercutting the Secretary of State allowing our military strategy to trump our diplomatic strategy. The world was convinced that we were determined to go to war no matter what Saddam did, and there were those in Europe who said they'd never go to war no matter what Saddam did or didn't do.
We insulted our allies and the U.N. weapons inspectors. We failed to be flexible in securing a second U.N. resolution. For the price of a 30-day deadline, we could have brought a majority of the Security Council along with us. We didn't.
We flip-flopped between trying to bully and bribe the Turks. We lost the option to attack from the North and as a result, we by-passed the Sunni triangle, which is the source of so much of our trouble today. And worst of all, we hyped the intelligence. I said "hyped", not "lied about it." I don't believe the President lied. But I do believe he was incredibly ill-served by those in his administration who exaggerated the very pieces of intelligence most likely to raise alarms with the American people. It's not just 16 words in the State of the Union. It's that consistently, in speech after speech, TV appearance after TV appearance, the most senior Administration officials left the impression with the American people that Iraq was on the verge of reconstituting nuclear weapons. In fact, the Vice President Cheney said they had already done it that it was in league with Al Qaeda and complicit in the events of 9-11; that it had already weaponized chemical agents that could kill large numbers of Americans; and that it was developing missile capability to strike well beyond its borders.
The truth is there's little intelligence to substantiate any of these claims. The truth is that there was an on-going debate within our intelligence community about each of these allegations. Yet the administration consistently presented each of these allegations as accepted facts.
I believe the purpose was to create a sense of urgency, the sense of an imminent threat, and to rally the country into war. The result is: we went to war before we had to - before we had done everything we could to get the world with us. Does anyone in this room really, seriously believe that our interests would have been severely hurt if we had waited to go to war until this September or this October when we would have had much of the world with us? And there's another terrible result the damage done to our credibility.
What happens now when we need to rally the world about a weapons program in North Korea or Iran? Will anyone believe us?
In 1962, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to France to brief DeGaulle about Soviet missiles in Cuba. Acheson offered DeGaulle a full intelligence report to back up the allegations. The French President said that wasn't necessary, he didn't need to see the report.
He told Acheson he trusted Kennedy. That he knew the President would never risk war unless he was sure of his facts. After the way this Administration handled Iraq, will we ever recover that level of trust with any of our key allies?
What price will we have to pay for the mistrust we've created?
Getting It Right In Iraq
Last month, Senators Lugar, Hagel and I traveled to Baghdad. We left behind two of our senior staffers for an extra week to see more of the country and talk to Iraqis. We saw first hand that we have the best people on the ground. We met with military commanders with officers and with enlisted men and women and we spent time with Ambassador Bremer and the A-team he's assembled. There's no doubt we've got the right people in place. And we've made some real progress.
It was clear to us that the vast majority of the Iraqi people are happy Saddam is no longer in power. They want us to stay as long as it takes to get them back on their feet. Much of the country beyond Baghdad is relatively calm - hospitals and schools are open; the newly formed Iraqi Governing Council is encouraging; and so are the local councils, one of which we visited.
But this very real progress is being undermined by our failure so far to come to grips with some very fundamental problems, and security is problem-number-one. It's always problem-number-one. I've seen it in the Balkans. I saw it in Afghanistan. And it's just as true in Iraq. Without security, little else is possible. The problem breaks down into two parts: First, we haven't put down the opposition from forces loyal to Saddam. General Abizaid finally admitted we're facing "guerilla war." Almost every day that our troops continue to get picked off, sometimes by a lone sniper, other times by roadside bombs that kill two, three, four, or more at a time. This cannot, it must not continue.
There's a short-term fix: more foreign troops to share our mission and more Iraqis to guard hospitals, bridges, banks, and schools. If we had them, we could concentrate our troops in the Sunni triangle -- where they're needed and where they can do the type of military job for which they were trained.
The second security issue is the pervasive lawlessness that makes life in Iraq so difficult for so many of its citizens. During the day, many Iraqis are afraid to leave home, go to work, go shopping even for the basic needs of their family. At night that fear makes much of Baghdad a ghost town. Without cops, there are countless reports of rapes and kidnapings.
When I was at the Baghdad police academy run by former New York City Police Chief Bernie Kerik, they told us just how far we have to go to get a functioning police force up and running.
Under Saddam, Iraqi cops rarely left their headquarters. If there was a murder, they wouldn't investigate out in the field. They'd ask people to come to them, and if they didn't - they'd get shot. We're not just RE-training Iraq's cops, we're training them from the ground up.
We've got to build back to the 18,000 police cars that are needed from the 200 available now. We've got to rebuild Iraq's major prisons, virtually all of which were burned or looted. Ultimately, only Iraqis can provide for their own security.
The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps we've begun to establish will help, but all of our experts agree that it'll take five years to train the necessary police force of 75,000 and three years to field an army of 40,000. Until then, security is on our shoulders.
Meanwhile, the Administration seems to have lost interest in the very issue they told us was the reason to go to war - Iraq's WMD. I can't fathom how we failed to secure the known WMD sites after the war, leaving them vulnerable to looting and smuggling.
And I can't understand how the Deputy Secretary of Defense could say, just last week, that he's "not concerned about weapons of mass destruction."
On top of these overwhelming security challenges, the country's infrastructure is suffering from almost 30 years of neglect. That certainly shouldn't have been a surprise.
Even before the war, demand for electricity exceeded supply - 6000 megawatts were needed; 4000 was the capacity. There were brownouts and blackouts. Today we're not even back to 4000 megawatts and may not get there until September. It'll take several years and more than 13 billion dollars to stay even with demand. The same is true with water - we'll need five years and more than 15 billion dollars to meet Iraqi demand. This feeds the gnawing sense of insecurity that paralyzes life in the capital.
Ultimately, our goal has to be to revive Iraq's economy because idle hands, rising frustration, and 5 million AK-47s is not a recipe for security. Finally, we're doing a terrible job of letting Iraqis know how Saddam destroyed their country and that we're working to make their lives better.
In fact, when I was in Baghdad, the CPA was broadcasting just 4 hours a day. I'm told we're up to nearly 14 hours but the programming - bureaucrats reading dry, dull official scripts - makes public access television look good! Meanwhile, Al Jazeera and Iranian TV dominate the airwaves 24/7 with more sophisticated programming. The bottom line is this: Iraqis simply can't understand how the most powerful nation on earth, which toppled Saddam in three weeks, and, with exact precision, directed laser guided bombs through the side door of a house, how that all-powerful nation can't get the lights turned on.
In short, Iraqis have high expectations and we're not coming close to meeting them. Some of this is out of our control but we've brought a large part of this on ourselves. And that's because the problems in Iraq today were compounded by the false assumptions this Administration made going in, and by its failure to listen to its own people and outside experts. They assumed we'd be greeted as liberators. They assumed our favorite exiles would be embraced by the Iraqi people as new leaders. They assumed that the civil service, the army, and the police would remain intact and that all we'd have to do is replace their Baathist leadership. They assumed that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the lion's share of reconstruction. All these assumptions were wrong, wrong, wrong.
The result is: They failed to begin planning for post-Saddam Iraq until just weeks before we attacked forgetting that we began planning for post-war Germany three years before the end of World War II. They failed to plan for the looting and sabotage. They failed to account for the decay and destruction of Iraq's infrastructure. They failed to secure commitments from other countries to help pay for Iraq's reconstruction. They failed to see the critical importance of putting enough boots on the ground, both our own and those of other countries.
Back in 1999, our military planners ran an exercise that concluded we'd need 400,000 troops - not to win, but to secure Iraq. Just before we invaded, the National Security Council prepared a memo that said the number was more like 500,000.I don't know if the President read the memo... I wish he had!
We might have planned differently. We might have thought twice about trying out Secretary Rumsfeld's theory that the U.S. should put fewer boots on the ground in military conflicts. And all of this has led us into a box where we have few good choices left. If we don't change course if we don't bring others along with us; if we don't get 5,000 foreign cops to train and patrol with the Iraqis; if we don't bring in more than 30,000 foreign troops to help relieve us, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says we must; if we don't get the water running; if we can't make sure that a woman can leave home or send her children to school safely; if we can't get the lights on; if we fail to bridge the expectations gap by better communicating to the Iraqi people; if paralysis of progress continues for more than a couple more months; if ALL of this happens, we'll lose not only the support of the Iraqi people, but the support of the American people as the discontent and the death toll rise. At that point, I predict, this Administration will be seriously tempted to abandon Iraq. They'll hand over power to a handpicked strongman, dump security and reconstruction responsibility on the U.N., and we'll lose Iraq.
Imagine if we lost Iraq. In a worst case scenario, there'd be chaos and the threat of Iranian and fundamentalist domination of the country. The Middle East peace process would likely be derailed. Iraq would become a failed state and a source of instability. We'll have jeopardized our credibility in the world. And we'll be far less secure than when we went in.
So that leaves us with three options: We can pull out, and lose Iraq. That's a bad option; We can continue to do what we're doing: provide 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the money, and nearly 100 percent of the deaths. That's another, really bad option; Or, we can bring in the international community and empower Iraqis to bolster our efforts and legitimize a new Iraqi government which will allow us to rotate our troops out and finally bring them home.
That to me is the clear choice. We have to bring in our allies. And you may ask: why would they want to help? The answer is...it's in their interest. Iraq is in Europe's front yard. Most European countries have large Muslim populations. They have commercial interests. Stability in Iraq is vital for our European allies, and it's vital for the Arab world as well. They need to get invested just as we are.
Three Steps We Can Take
So what do we do to bring in the international community and sustain the support of the Iraqi as well as the American people? First, we need a new U.N. Resolution. We may not like it, but most of the rest of the world needs it if we expect them to send the troops we need and to help pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Let's keep in mind, the President personally tried for weeks to persuade India to send another 17,000, and they said "no...not without a U.N. resolution. With such a resolution, I think we could persuade France, and Germany, and NATO to play a larger and official role to secure the peace. But not without a resolution.
We have to understand that leaders whose people opposed the war need a political rationale to get them to support building the peace. We have to understand and be willing to accept that giving a bigger role to the United Nations and NATO means sharing control, but it's a price worth paying if it decreases the danger to our soldiers and increases the prospects of stability.
Second, it's time to act magnanimously toward our friends and allies. We are a superpower and we should be magnanimous because it's not just the right thing to do, but because it's the practical thing to do. Not simply because it's consistent with our values as a nation but because if we don't make the on-going war on the ground in Iraq the world's problem, it will remain our problem alone. The truth is, we missed a tremendous opportunity after 9-11 to bring our friends and allies along with us and to lead in a way that actually encouraged others to follow. We missed an opportunity, in the aftermath of our spectacular military victory to ask those who were not with us in the war to be partners in the peace. Instead we served 'freedom toast' on Air Force One.
The American people get it. They intuitively understand that we can't protect ourselves from a dirty bomb on the Mall in DC; a vial of anthrax in a backpack; or a homemade nuke in the hold of a ship steaming into New York harbor without the help of every intelligence service and every customs service in the world, without Interpol and yes, the French and the Germans and even the U.N.
Third, and most importantly, I said it a year ago, and I'll say it again: no foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. We learned that lesson in Vietnam, but we haven't applied it to Iraq. I cannot overstate the importance of keeping the American people fully informed of the risks, the costs, to the extent we know them, and the importance of staying the course in Iraq.
This Administration has been good at projecting power, but it hasn't been anywhere near as good at staying-power. Nor has it been good at convincing the American people that securing Iraq is a necessary, if costly, task... but that it's do-able.
If we learned one thing last year, it should be that the role of those of us in positions of leadership is to speak the truth to the American people - to lay out the facts to the extent we know them and to explain to the American people exactly what's expected of them in terms of time, dollars, and commitment.
Our role as leaders is not to color the truth with cynicism and ideological rhetoric but to animate that truth with the same resilience the same dignity, the same decency, and the same pragmatic approach the American people have applied to every task and every challenge.
It's long past time for the President to address the American people in prime time, to level with us about the monumental task ahead, to summon our support.
I and most of my colleagues will stand with him.
So yes, when it comes to foreign policy, I have a fundamental difference of opinion with some in this Administration and I'll be talking more about it in the next few weeks. But that's okay because I'm reminded of the words of Senator Arthur Vandenberg who said: "Bipartisan foreign policy does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity...It simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated and the loyal opposition is under special obligation to see that this occurs."
I think it is my obligation to articulate an opposing view.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Eulogy for Strom Thurmond
Nancy, Strom, Julie and Paul: James Strom Thurmond.
Fritz, he was one complex guy. For what else would explain that he asked, I'm told by Nancy, a guy named Biden from the state of Delaware to be one of his eulogists?
I'll never figure him out. And, Strom, I won't forget it. (LAUGHTER)
Lindsey, I always thought I was in control, but I knew down deep I wasn't, and I think this is his last laugh.
(LAUGHTER)
For what else could explain a Northeast liberal's presence here as the only outsider speaking today?
(LAUGHTER)
With the possible exception of Vice President Cheney.
(LAUGHTER)
Strom Thurmond was the only man whom I knew who in a literal sense lived in three distinct and separate periods of American history, and lived what would have been considered a full life in each of those periods, particularly in his beloved South.
Born into an era of essentially unchallenged and unexamined mores of the South, reaching his full maturity in a era of fully challenged and critically examined bankrupt mores of his beloved South, and living out his final three decades in a South that had formally rejected its past on race -- in each of these stages, my observation -- and I was only with him the last three decades -- Strom represented exactly where he came from.
There's an old hymn that includes these lyrics: "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide/ In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side/ Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside."
No one ever doubted Strom Thurmond's physical courage. You've heard much written about it. Not 15 years ago I was reminded of this. I was coming across to vote in the Senate and going up the escalator, and a fellow who apparently had held a longtime grudge against Senator Thurmond, a tourist, literally interposed himself between me and Strom and said -- and Thad may remember this -- and said, If you weren't so old, I would knock you -- and, Reverend, I will not say what he said -- I will knock you down. And I immediately stood between them. And Strom literally took off his coat and said, Hold my coat, Joe.
(LAUGHTER)
Swear to God.
And I looked at him and said, No, no, no, no, no, no.
And with that, he went down and did 25 pushups.
(LAUGHTER)
He had to be 88, 87. He stood up and looked at the man, he said, If you weren't so young I'd knock you down.
(LAUGHTER)
Strom Thurmond was also a brave man, who in the end made his choice and moved to the good side.
I disagreed deeply with Strom on the issue of civil rights and on many other issues, but I watched him change. We became good friends. I'm not sure exactly why or how it happened, Nancy, but you know we did. And Fritz could never figure it out. Neither could I.
(LAUGHTER)
Fritz is my very closest friend in the Senate.
But I do know that friendship and death are great equalizers, where our differences become irrelevant and the only thing that is left is what's in our heart.
I went to the Senate emboldened, angered and outraged at age 29 about the treatment of African-Americans in this country, what everything that for a period in his life Strom had represented.
But then I met the man. Our differences were profound, but I came to understand that as Archibald MacLeish wrote, It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived: Life is lived for better or worse in life. Strom and I shared a life in the Senate for over 30 years. We shared a good life there, and it made a difference. I grew to know him. I looked into his heart and I saw a man, the whole man, and tried to understand him. I learned from him, and I watched him change oh so suddenly.
Like all of us, Strom was a product of his time. But he understood people. He cared for them. He truly wanted to help. He knew how to read people, how to move them, how to get things done. I'll never forget we went down to see President Reagan. He and I had the Thurmond-Biden crime bill. And we sat in a room with President Reagan and with Ed Meese, Jim Baker, and William French Smith, the attorney general, and Strom started to try to convince the president to sign onto our bill, and he turned to me and he said, Joe, explain it to them. So I did my little bit, and it looked like the president was coming along.
And I swear to the Lord in the Lord's house this is a true story, and with that, as Ed Meese, Mr. Vice President, thought the president might be convinced, Ed Meese stood up and said, Mr. President, time to go, time to go.
And with that, the president very dutifully looked -- not dutifully, but very respectfully -- looked over and said, Well, Strom, you're sitting next to him either side. He said I have to go. And he had his hands on the table, and the president went to get up like this, and Strom grabbed his arm and pulled him back down in his seat.
(LAUGHTER)
I never saw anybody do that to a president.
(LAUGHTER)
And the president -- true story -- the president looked very sternly at Strom, and Strom said with his hands still on his arm, he said, Mr. President, when you all get to be my age you'll understand you've got to compromise.
(LAUGHTER)
And the president then was about 85 years old.
Strom knew America was changing, and that there was a lot he didn't understand about that change. Much of that change challenged many of his long-held views. But he also saw his beloved South Carolina and the people of South Carolina changing as well, and he knew the time had come to change himself.
But I believe the change came to him easily. I believe he welcomed it, because I watched others of his era fight that change and never ultimately change.
It would be humbling to think that I was among those who had some influence on his decision, but I know better. The place in which I work is a majestic place. If you're there long enough, it has an impact on you. You cannot if you respect those with whom you serve fail to understand how deeply they feel about things differently than you. And over time, I believe it has an affect on you.
This is a man, who in 1947, the New York Times ran a lead editorial saying, "Strom Thurmond, Hope of the South," and talked about how he had set up reading programs, get better books for separate, but equal schools. This is a man who was opposed to the poll tax. This is am an who I watched vote for the extension of the Voting Rights Act. This is a man who I watched vote for the Martin Luther King Holiday.
And it's fairly easy to say today that that was pure political expediency, but I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that Strom Thurmond was doing what few do once they pass the age of 50: He was continuing to grow, continuing to change.
His offices were next door to mine in the Russell Building, or more appropriately mine were next to his. And over the years, I remember seeing a lot change, including the number of African- Americans on his staff and African-Americans who sought his help.
For the man who will see, time heals, time changes and time leads him to truth. But only a special man like Strom would have the courage to accept it, the grace to acknowledge it and the humility in the face of lasting enmity and mistrust to pursue it until the end.
There's a personal lesson that comes from a page in American political history that is yet unwritten, but nevertheless, it resonates in my heart. I mentioned it on the floor of the Senate the other day. It's a lesson of redemption that I think applies today, and I think Strom, as he listens, will appreciate it.
When I first arrived in the Senate, in 1972, I met with John Stennis, another old Southern senator, who became my friend. We sat at the other end of this gigantic, grand mahogany table he used as his desk that had been the desk of Richard Russell's. It was a table upon which the Southern Manifesto was signed, I am told. The year was 1972.
Senator Stennis patted the leather chair next to him when I walked in to pay my respects as a new young senator, which was the order of the day. And he said, Sit down, sit down, sit down here, son. And those who serve with him know he always talked like this.
And he looked at me and he said, Son, what made you run for the Senate? And like a darn fool I told him the exact truth before I could of it, I said, Civil rights, sir. And as soon as I did I could feel the beads of perspiration pop out of my head and get that funny feeling. And he looked at me and said, Good, good, good. And that was the end of the conversation. (LAUGHTER)
Well, 18 years later, after us having shared a hospital suite for three months at Walter Reed and after him having tried to help me in another pursuit I had, we'd become friends.
I saw him sitting behind that same table 18 years later, only this time in a wheelchair. His leg had been amputated because of cancer. And I was going to look at offices, because in my seniority his office was available as he was leaving.
I went in and sat down and he looked at me as if it were yesterday and he said, Sit down, Joe, sit down, and tapped that chair. And he said something that startled me. He said, Remember the first time you came to see me, Joe? And I shook my head, I didn't remember. And he leaned forward and he recited the story.
I said to him, I was a pretty smart young fellow, wasn't I, Mr. Chairman? He said, Joe, I wanted to tell you something then that I'm going to tell you now. You are going to take my office, aren't you? And I said, Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.
And he ran his hand back and forth across that mahogany table in a loving way, and he said, You see this table, Joe? This is the God's truth. He said, You see this table?
And I said, Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. He said, This table was the flagship of the Confederacy from 1954 to 1968. He said, We sat here, most of us from the Deep South, the old Confederacy, and we planned the demise of the civil rights movement.
Then he looked at me and said, And now it's time, it's time that this table go from the possession of a man against civil rights to a man who is for civil rights.
And I was stunned. And he said, One more thing, Joe, he said. The civil rights movement did more to free the white man than the black man.
And I looked at him, I didn't know what he meant, and he said in only John Stennis fashion, he said, It freed my soul, it freed my soul.
Strom Thurmond's soul is free today. His soul is free. The Bible says, Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow, come now and let us reason together, though your sins may be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Strom, today there are no longer any issues to debate, there's only peace, a patch of common ground and the many memories that you've left behind.
For me, those memories are deeply personal, and they will stay with me as long as I live. Strom Thurmond stood by me when others didn't, and when it was against his political interest to do so.
I had been accused of something terrible, in my view, on the eve of the Bork nomination. I gathered the entire Senate, I was then chairman, the entire Judiciary Committee, and I said to Democrats and Republicans alike, I will stand aside as chairman so it will not affect this proceeding.
And the first man to jump to his feet was your father, and he said, No. And I said, Well, let me explain. He said, You don't have to explain anything to me. You're my chairman.
And with that, everyone ad seriatim stood up, but Strom Thurmond was the first man on his feet -- did not seek a single explanation for what I had been accused of.
And clearly, when partisanship was a winning option, he chose friendship, and I'll never forget him for it.
I was honored to work with him, privileged to serve with him, and proud to call him my friend.
His long life may well have been a gift of his beloved God, but the powerful and lasting impact he had on his beloved South Carolina and on his nation is Strom's legacy, his gift to all of us. And he will be missed.
The British essayist William Hazlett once wrote, quote: "Death conceals everything but truth, and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue."
It's a sort of natural canonization.
The truth and genius and virtue of Strom Thurmond is what I choose and we all choose to remember today. To Nancy, to Strom, to Julie, and to Paul, to all his friends, the people of South Carolina who knew him so well and love him so much, America mourns with you. I mourn with you. For I knew Strom well. I felt his warmth as you did. I saw his strength as you did. I was the beneficiary of his virtues, as you were. And I'll miss him as you will, as we all will.
He lived a long and good life. And I know that today a benevolent God has lifted his arms to Strom. I just don't know what Strom is saying to that benevolent God, because you know he's saying something.
So I say, Farewell, Mr. Chairman. We stand in adjournment until we meet again.
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From the Analog to the Digital Community
Thank you very much. Madam president, does this mean that I get to go to the parties tonight across the street?
Madam president, Rabbi, Dr. Axelrod, Sara, you said that wordsmiths greater than you were going to speak today. I don't know where the hell they are... (laughter)
Members of the Board, faculty, parents, grandparents, spouses, the rest of you who worked your way through your graduate four years or more here, and my fellow conferee today, Leo. I want to personally say that I am flattered to be in your company and to thank you for your incredible work in dealing with the pandemics that this world faces: AIDSs, HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. We just passed a bill the other night in the United States Senate which was much less than it should have been. And we're going to rely on you, Leo, and other leading activists, business leaders, and other humanitarian forces in the world to give it some life, and I look forward to working with you.
You know it is somewhat intimidating speaking before you; I've done many commencements at many great universities but never have I done a commencement speech where those who preceded me-each one of whom spoke, their speaking could have sufficed for the commencement speech-and have done it well. And to speak to a group of young people who people in my business seek to hire, seek to look to for help, communicators, professional communicators, and artists, this is somewhat intimidating. You are a remarkable class.
Recently, I spoke to a major state university, yesterday; I attended my daughter's commencement the day before from Tulane University; and I spend some time on, a little time on, college campuses in this town and around the nation.
The most remarkable thing about this class is that you arrived here, for the most part, possessing what most people go to college to find: And that is you know what you love; you know what matters to you; most of you are prepared to take the chance pursuing, in a very difficult environment, a competitive environment, the craft that you know you love. My dad who just died used to have a saying - You know I bet that each of you graduates today can come up with two or three sayings you heard you your mother and father repeat dozens of times - My dad used to say, "It's a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they're about to do, and thinks it still matters." Most people spend their entire lives searching for the thing that makes them feel whole; most people spend their entire lives, even those who are by society's standards extremely successful, trying to find something they love and love to do. You start out with an overwhelming, overwhelming advantage.
You know looking back on my commencement the only thing that I can remember for certain about my commencement is that I can't remember who the hell my commencement speaker was. I cite that to point out that I have no illusions, today.
And by the way, let's get one thing straight…Dennis Leary, Jay Leno, Henry Winkler and you got me? I don't get it. I don't get it. (Laughter)
Any of you of the class of 2004 in here? I would make my tuition contingent upon getting one of these guys as my commencement speaker. Anyway, I'll give it my best. I'll try to be concise and informative and keep what Steinbeck would the "Hooptedoodle"-that is those descriptive passages that add nothing but content-to a minimum.
Let me begin by saying what is so trite to say but is heartfelt by all those in this magnificent theater, and that is congratulations. This is an exciting day in your lives, a day to celebrate possibilities...a time to think about what you're going to do and how you are going to try to do it…to imagine the adventures life will bring…and, I can assure you, there will be many, some planned and many completely unexpected.
My mother-God love her-we're about to celebrate her 85th Birthday-would tell you, if she were here today, that, although in high school I was but in law school I wasn't, the best of students, she always believed that I and any of her three other children could do anything at all that they wanted to do. She believed that I could become anything I wanted. She even believed that I'd run for President once; She never thought I'd be dumb enough to try it twice. But the bottom line is, the bottom line is, my mom-God love her-Jean Finnegan Biden-still believes; She believes with an absolute steadfastness of blazing clear faith-that we are capable of doing anything we set our minds to.
Today, that seems like an awfully simple, and I guess trite, thought…and like many simple thoughts it proves to be profoundly, comprehensively true. With your degree from Emerson-even without your degree from Emerson-but particularly with your degree from Emerson, quite simply you are positioned to do anything you want to do. But fate will intervene. For some of you it will be harder; for some of you it will be easier. The first thing that I have to say to you today is: Decide, Decide if you can. That's why I said you have such an advantage, this class, decide what it is you want to do. Whether you want to write the great American novel --what my son wants to do…one of them. Whether you want to produce a hit movie. Win an academy award. Be the best sports broadcaster there is. Not only dream it, go and do it.
There is another core belief that I have from my mom to you. She believes that out of every bad thing that happens, every bad thing that happens to you, and some bad things have happened to you and will happen to you. She genuinely believes that out of every bad thing that will happen something good will come…if you look hard enough for it. I've found that that's a pretty important notion, as preposterous as it seems. Because the journey you are about to undertake is going to be filled, as I said, with a lot of rewards but a heck of a lot of surprises. There will be boundless hope, but there's also going to be extraordinary challenges, and you are just flat-out going to have to deal with them. You have no choice. And if you encounter those disasters in your life from the perspective that that's all they are, you are likely to have great difficulty working your way through them. They are opportunities just like my dear mom says.
And I predict to you something that you will not remember although someone else may repeat it to you sometime during the rest of your life… I predict to you that when you look back on your life, the things that will have made the difference between whether you have succeeded in your mind-not society's, yours-or failed will not be the roadblocks that are thrown in your way, but how you dealt with them, whether you dealt with them. Look back on your life now. Think of every single time that you have sought the prize, whatever it was, and did not succeed, and someone else succeeded. I suggest you all have learned by now that the person who succeeded was not necessarily more talented than you, was not necessarily more gifted than you, was not swifter than you, but that they had more confidence than you, and they had an attitude, an attitude, an attitude that they could.
I've mentioned my mother for a couple reasons: Not merely because she's a special person, but because she represents a different time in America…an analog time when life was simpler on the surface and the important sense of community was greater. Her sayings and observations are not very different from what you've heard your grandparents-many of whom are in this audience-say. They may not seem as important here in the fast-paced lifestyle of the digital age. In fact, they may seem almost quaint in the world of American Idol and The Osbornes. Hers are personal values that sprang from family, neighborhood, and the faith she practiced, and it all added up to one thing: you are your brother's keeper and that it is in our self-interest to be of service to our brothers and sisters.
When mom was growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania it made a difference whether her next-door neighbor, Johnny Colligan, lost his job. It made a difference whether or not Mrs. Flynn had breast cancer. It made a difference in the neighborhood. And it required everyone in the neighborhood to be of some service, even if it was merely a kind word. Service wasn't a career. It was an expectation, an essential part of living a meaningful life.
In a sense, helping the guy next door is sort of a uniquely American value, born out of the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. And our parents and grandparents came here…whether they were Jews on the lower East Side of Manhattan or Italians here in the North End or Portuguese in Fall River…or Irish in Scranton, we had to stick together. We had to help each other. It was how we survived. It was how we bonded. It was how we developed a sense of belonging, in the neighborhood and in the nation. Today, a whole lot of people don't even know who the hell there neighbor is, and they could quite frankly care less to their own detriment.
Most of you are probably not going to choose the course I've chosen. Most of you are more talented than I am, so you'll have other options. And I'm sure many of you hold what I do in relatively low esteem. Politicians and, my antecedent occupation, lawyers are not the most popular people in America-and with good reason. But my course of life was carved out, as yours will be, in large measure by the way I was raised, the opportunities I had, and the times in which I lived, just as yours will be carved out by these most extraordinary time. For me, I came of age in the shadow of the civil rights movement. I remember the images of Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama in '63…using fire hoses and dogs against elderly women marching in their Sunday best.
Two months before my graduation in 1968, I was sitting in an airport lounge waiting for a plane in Syracuse when I heard that Martin Luther King, one of my heroes, had been gunned down on a balcony in Memphis. That night, I listened to the extemporaneous words of Robert Kennedy when he said: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." And I thought 'My God' what grace can God bestow on this circumstance. Two days before I graduated from law school, I remember being physically shaken by the footage of Robert Kennedy, one of my heroes, lying in a pool of blood on the floor of a kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. And as we sat to receive our diplomas, listening to a speaker I cannot remember, most of us knew that our first employer was going to be Uncle Sam in Vietnam.
1968 was a cataclysmic year, not merely because of these tragedies, but because we lost the very people we thought were going to change the world we wished to change.
When you started high school, there were nothing but good times ahead. Life seemed absolutely filled with hope. The stock market was up. The Berlin Wall was down. The sky was the limit. Peace seemed inevitable. We were looking at governmental surpluses. The budget was balanced. We were filled with hope and optimism. And then the impeachment and disgrace of the President and many other things intervened, culminating in your sophomore year on September 11th with the witnessing of an evil that most in this country thought was beyond our shores. In a sense it was like 1968 again. Every generation, that does much, is challenged by the events of their youth. Every generation is shaped by such events, and they have the benefit, as my mom would say, if you look at the good things that's in this tragedy, they renew our resolve. They remind us of our core values; and in a sense, they call us to action in a thousand different ways.
And your generation is no different. All the talk about the X generation and the Y generation and you having been coddled and not being able to meet adversity, et cetera is so much crap. I went on show after show after show and if I heard one more announcer say to me… I finally got myself in trouble with Peter Jennings, when he talked about this generation's incapability of accepting this challenge. I repeated myself and he asked again, and I said "What don't you understand about my answer." Every single generation of Americans, including yours, when pressed has risen to the challenge. And the notion that you cannot handle this new world we find ourselves in-all of us find ourselves in-I find preposterous. We no longer have soccer moms living in our suburban counties; we have security moms. We no longer have people wondering whether or not we are impervious to being struck by terrorists, we have people who assume-out of all proportion-that they are likely to be the victim of terror.
And you, those of you who are communicators as a profession and artists and actors…you have a phenomenal opportunity, a phenomenal capability to put this country back in perspective. But quite frankly, and I mean this absolutely sincerely, the country will listen less to me and to President Bush than it will to the well-placed and well-timed comment of Jay Leno and David Letterman and the nightly entertainment shows. It will matter more whether you are honorable, reasonable, and decent commentators because you will get more face time and more of your words will be heard by the United States of America than will those of the President of the United States.
The Annenberg School of Journalism, where my son attended, and I spoke at their commencement at Penn, did a study and for a ten-year period during the Presidential elections: The amount of time on the nightly news the candidate-the president and/or his challenger-got for any action taken was on average seven seconds. The commentator, those of you who trained these young men and women, their average time was two and a half minutes on the same subject. So you have great power. You have great power, inordinate power, and inordinate responsibility. And I'm banking on the fact that your generation, having been shaped by the recent events of your life, being better educated…more technologically advanced is poised to do whatever has to be done, like I would argue previous generations have. And I dare say, I think you'll do it better. You'll take your diplomas and enter a world that is as awesome in its chaos and complexity as it is starkly beautiful in its seeming simplicity of its great technology.
I know that you are today very much as we were n 1968, anxious about the future and dismayed by uncertainty, wanting to do well, and wanting to do good, and unsure about the chances of doing either. I know-and this is the one thing I ask you to take from me on faith today-that neither optimism nor pessimism enables you to predict your future… It will enable you to deal with the consequences that befall you but not to predict your future. But I also know-and I believe this as absolutely as I believe anything-that only a confident, optimistic attitude enables you to take a hand in shaping your future and, in turn, mine and my children and grandchildren
We did not understand this 35 years ago any better than I suspect you do today-and we were sobered by what we could see ahead, but even in the face of the upheaval that characterized our world in 1968, we still graduated-and it seems implausible now-but graduated with this overwhelming sense of purpose and confidence that we could change the world.
My advice to you today is to hold on to that sense of purpose. If you're looking for a secret to life, you probably won't find it. But if you're looking for the potential in the commonality of human experience, you'll find that there's more power in the human heart, than in all the gigabytes technology can provide you.
It was William Faulkner who said, in accepting the Nobel Prize, and I quote: "I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
In the face of the unspeakable evil that your generation has recently witnessed, Faulkner's statement about the spirit of man, about the capability for compassion, sacrifice, and endurance, may be in doubt. As a matter of fact, that sentiment is at the core of a raging intellectual debate in this country at this moment, between the so-called, neo-cons - the neo-conservatives -- and the realists, and those who see the need for idealism. For we are being told, those in my profession, that it is our notion of compassion, sacrifice and endurance that has made us, as a nation, the target; and if we are to prevail, we must understand that man is basically evil and must be constrained. This debate, and the outcome of the debate, is going to determine a great deal, if not everything, about the nation we become and the lives you are able to live. Those of you who graduate today from this particular university, this particular college with its emphasis on communication and the arts, have a great deal to do with the outcome of that debate.
Will we be a nation that looks inward, smugly, in the certainty of our own decisions, intolerant in the differences in culture, religion, and governance that exist in this world? Are we going to remain an open, tolerant society that still believes that compassion and sacrifice and endurance are essential characteristics of a great nation who finds itself, without having sought it-I might add-as the indispensable nation in the world. When I meet with my counterparts-whether its Jacques Cherac or any other leader in Europe or anywhere around the world, and they start to lecture me about the responsibilities of a superpower, I try to get them to understand that America and the American people do not view this as some great boon to us.
The folks in my home state, the folks in this state, do not like the notion that we are responsible for every other nation's fate in the minds of every other nation. This is not a status we sought, but it is a responsibility that is ours. And as I said the issue, the issue is-and it is not on the front pages of the Times and the Post and the Globe-but the underlying issue, the intellectual debate and ideas are what change nations, is whether or not compassion and tolerance are a detriment or an asset for this great nation to possess. And I as one refuse to believe that mankind is fundamentally evil and that simply keeping evil in check should be the extent of our goal as a nation and as individuals.
I grew up from the lessons taught by my parents, gentle and generous people, quick to offer help and very slow to judge…But possessed of one absolutely raw notion, a raw intolerance-an instinctive outrage at the abuse of power, at injustice inflicted upon the powerless at the hands of the powerful…whether it's a man striking a woman, or a nation engaging in genocide to subjugate its people. From a generation that looked genuine and overpowering evil in the eye, my parents' generation stared down Hitler, Stalin, the Holocaust, and they did not blink. They did not yield to the influences and abuse of power, the intolerance of absolute power, any kind of power. And the closely related values of personal integrity and respect for individual autonomy, a responsibility to family and community, these were the foundation I brought with me to the United States Senate and those are the values I wanted to express in my career. And it is my prayer that they will be yours as well, for ultimately it is how we will be judged in my view.
There is one additional point that I would like to make to you and it is this: whatever success that you achieve and many of you will achieve inordinate success, and you will become known beyond that which anyone would ever think is capable of being known, and with it, with it you will find yourself subject to not only critics which we all should be, but subject to being caricatured when you fall. And without your personal integrity, without your reputation, you will find that you have nothing. Because if you become successful rest assured that your integrity will be questioned at some point. And at that that point it is not likely to be the facts that rescue you; it is much more likely to be the reputation that you took into the endeavor that rescues you.
What I am trying to convey to you is that whatever challenges or uncertainty you face--at any time in your life-over time, if you rely on the basic values and apply them consistently, your commitment will see you through both the good and the bad times…in your own eyes and in the eyes of others. And that is not a promise produced simply to suit the spirit of a college commencement; it is a promise pulled from the pages of my own life and the life I suspect of many on this stage and behind me. For with each of our good times and our bad and we have all had them.
God knows life has dealt all of us a few blows, I will not forget either that I volunteered for some that I got. In a very personal way and with challenge to my integrity and I suspect others as well that was both the most bitter and the most heartening.
Bitter because it wounded me to the core but heartening because it drew the immediate unreserved support of my family, my friends, my colleges, my laws school, my classmates, and my colleagues in the Senate, and the people of my home state who trusted my lifelong commitment to the principles I have annunciated.
And that's why I want to emphasize to you-some of you are going to be on a tightrope, some of you are going to be on a high-wire-because some of you are extremely talented. In this era of mass world-wide communication, people will take pride in making you and braking you very, very quickly. But knowing who you are, knowing what you believe, and never allowing that inner understanding to weaken will always be your most enduring defense against life's challenges and your own failures.
So let me say in conclusion, for better or worse, this is the world you inherit. Like my dear mom says: You can do anything. So it's up to you. Let your generation be the one to bring us to a time when we stand on principle and are moved to action by the power of our words and our ideals…when we put a premium on personal integrity and enduring values…
Let your generation be the one to bring us to a time when the decisions we make individually and as a community reflect those values, including reflected in the work that you are about to undertake.
And let your generation be the one that harnesses the explosive energy of the digital world but keeps it firmly planted in its analog world.
I look at you now, safe in an environment that nurtures creativity and new ideas…and it takes all my strength to refrain from quoting Bob Hope's famous commencement speech at Georgetown when he looked out at the crowd and said-he stood up, he was introduced; it was the middle of Vietnam after the Tet Offensive-he was introduced to this body of graduating students and dignitaries and parents. He walked to the podium; he looked out at all of them and said, "Don't go." And he sat down. That was the entire speech.
I'm tempted to say to you "Don't go," but we need you to go; for God's sake, we need you to go. If their was any endeavor, any profession, beyond mine-politics-that needs people with ideals and standards with a commitment to values that you've learned at the feet of your parents, that's the one all of you are about to enter. Whether it's in advertising, mass communications, public relations, arts, literature, My God, if we cannot count on you to be truthful, possess integrity, and be willing to judge everything other than by the bottom line, then we're in deep trouble.
So let your generation adopt as its anthem, in my view, what I think is presumptuous of me in a group of artists and potential poets and communicators to suggest - being surrounded by your professors -- what were I your age, I think would we be adopted to your anthem.
I'm always quoting Seamus Heaney and other Irish poets, I apologize to the poets behind me. Everyone thinks I quote them because they are Irish; that's not the reason, I quote them because they're the best. And Seamus Heaney has a stanza in his poem in the light of which your generation has recently witnessed the evil we must conquer as our parents conquered Nazi Germany, as my generation went a long way to conquering the Bull Connors' of the world, but you should adopt in my view as your anthem the stanza in the poem which says, "History teaches us not to hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime that long tidal-wave of justice rises up and hope and history rhyme." What I wish for you is that your generation catches the wave.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Law Enforcement's Greatest Friend in the U.S. Senate
Thanks for that kind introduction. For thirty years I've been trying to understand how it is that we can ask so much of our cops and yet give them so little support. Now more than ever we need you and you need our full and unconditional support. Sometimes it's a fight, but we're not ones to back down from a fight.
It's great to be with NAPO again with all of you. And to be recognized with this award is humbling to say the least. I can't tell you how much it means to me and I'm honored.
All those times I've met with you, all those times you came to my office and talked about what you needed in the way of funding and programs to keep doing the best job you could -- all those hours we spent figuring out how to get the COPS program off the dime. Those were times well spent. They paid off for you and for the country.
And by the way, nobody can tell me we're not better off when there's another cop on the beat. Nobody can tell me that we can't make a difference if we just listen to what you tell us you need, and then do the best we can to make it happen. It's a no-brainer.
Anyway, thank you again for this award. I sincerely mean that. And for all of your support. It's great to know that you think I've been there for you - but believe me - you make me look good.
The only reason we had any success getting the COPS program in the first place - and then saving it - is because of you.
I can assure you that when you speak Washington listens. I don't think I've seen my colleagues on the other side of the aisle move so fast as when they hear from their local police officers who say, we need this funding - don't mess with it. Believe me, they listen to you!
Let's talk about crime for a minute. Let's talk about Homeland Security and about the debate in Washington now about the budget, the tax cuts, and the deficits that threaten the progress we've been able to make.
I'm sick about it.
Look, tax cuts are easy, and there are many who say the hell with everything and just keep cutting taxes. Great, but what about homeland security? What about the need to modernize and upgrade your equipment and putting well trained, well equipped cops on the street.
What about it? How do we get there if the only thing we believe in is tax cuts even as everyone is looking for increased security to keep their kids safe when they walk out the door.
Look, I'm with you. And you've been with me, standing shoulder-to-shoulder to make things happen over the years.
I remember back in the early nineties you were there then for the Biden Crime Bill. You had a seat at my conference table when we put the COPS program together as part of that 1994 Crime Bill.
You were there for the 63 officers who died on September 11th. It was NAPO who came to me and said, "Joe, the death benefit the Justice Department pays just isn't enough for the sons and daughters and wives and husbands left behind. They can't make ends meet." You told me that payment needed to be doubled, and we were able to get that done in the USA Patriot Act.
I was so pleased to be able to stand with you and get that bill passed. But now we're facing huge deficits as far out as the eye can see. I'd by lying if I didn't say the pie is shrinking, and the tax cuts aren't going to help.
Let's talk about crime because the proof is in the pudding.
NAPO deserves a lot of credit for the crime drop of the nineties. When we created the COPS program in 1994 crime rates were pretty high. We ended up giving over 8 billion dollars to local police departments. Since 1994, we've funded 117,000 new cops.
The result? Crime dropped almost thirty percent from 1994 to 2000. There's no magic here. You made our streets safer and it was a heroic effort.
But mark my words: the current climate, both nationally and internationally, creates the conditions for a "perfect storm" for local law enforcement created by the budget cuts, the new homeland security responsibilities we're asking you to assume, and the end to the crime drop of the nineties.
Let me take that last point first. Crime rates are, in fact, going up again.
Last December, the FBI announced a two percent increase in crime from 2000 to 2001.
Violent crime was up 0.8 percent - the first increase in violent crime in a decade.
Murder was up two percent, property crime was up 2%, burglaries were up 3%.
Car theft - a crime that's often the work of professional criminals - jumped a full six percent.
I'll make you a prediction: when the FBI announces the 2002 numbers later this year, we're going to get more bad news.
The leading indicators from around the country are not good. The homicide rate in California's major cities jumped 11 percent in 2002.
Here in DC the murder rate is up from last year. In Chicago 2002 murders are expected to top 2001's levels. New York City is seeing a record number of bank robberies this year.
Is it a surprise? No. These crime hikes are not entirely unexpected. We all know that crime tends to follow economic and demographic conditions.
There's a recent study that says that a record number, over 2 million people, are in jail in the U.S. But buried in that study it says that, in nine states, prison releases outpaced prison admissions last year.
Those nine states include the four with the biggest prison populations: Texas, California, New York and Illinois.
Why is that a red flag? Because you know and I know that released prisoners are more likely to reoffend than the general public.
Put simply, today's demographics mean we could have more potential criminals walking our streets than in years past and that means your job gets tougher.
As far as the impact of budget cuts on what you do, it's obvious. You can't do more with less. Police departments are feeling the pinch. I saw one report last month that said that of the 44 biggest police departments in the country, 27 face personnel shortfalls. That's more than half.
I know that St. Louis has lost 168 officers from its high water mark for police employment in 2000.
Los Angeles has lost 570 officers from 2000 levels. Detroit has lost 224. Boston - 84 fewer cops than in 2000. After thirty years of studying this issue, there's one thing I know for sure about crime: If you've got an intersection with cops on three corners, crooks will go to the fourth corner to commit their crime. Fewer cops means more crime, and I'm extremely concerned your departments are being squeezed.
Then comes the kicker. Since 9/11, you now have to do a hell of a lot more than just walk the beat. You're expected to know how to respond to a chemical attack. You're expected to do intelligence work in some cases. And my friend Bob Mueller, the FBI Director, has pulled FBI agents out of local crime fighting task forces.
Five hundred eighteen have been reassigned from street crime and drug-fighting to counterterrorism. Don't just take my word for it. Here in Washington, the head of the DEA's field office is publicly questioning whether the FBI's personnel realignment has left a void in the city's drug enforcement efforts. It's a problem we're going to be hearing about nationwide.
When Tom Ridge changes the color, you need to know what to do. Be vigilant, they say. Just not on their nickel, apparently.
Why do I say that? Well, look at what the President has proposed for local law enforcement since taking office. In his first budget, the President asked Congress to end the COPS hiring program. Mission completed, he said. But we heard your call and we rejected his cuts.
Last year the President proposed an even more radical law enforcement budget. Completely end COPS, completely end the Byrne program, completely end the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program, he said. I'll replace all of those with a new grant, but I'll cut your overall funds by 40% in the process.
But it's not really a cut, he said, because you all can access the new 3.5 billion dollars in first responder money.
Give me a break. I'd call that robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Again we heard your call and we took a look at that budget and rejected it again. We wouldn't let them take your money so we restored the cuts to COPS, Byrne, and the Block Grant.
This year they're at it again. Police don't need help with salaries, overtime, and equipment purchases, the Administration says.
No, we're going to end those programs, evidence that they help cut crime be damned, and instead we're going to make you jump through hoops with your governor to get the money. And by the way, there are strings attached to the first responder money: Not one dime of the billions proposed can be used to add a new shield to the streets.
How many of you have seen any first responder funds in your departments yet?
I didn't think so. I'm not questioning the Administration's motives - they want to do the right thing. But their blind insistence on ending what works to pay for a first responder block grant makes no sense.
We should be doing both. Clearly there are training and equipment needs for first responders, needs that in many instances it does make sense to coordinate through governor's offices. But those programs should not be paid for on your backs.
COPS works. Studies indicate those hiring grants, and the work you are able to do because of them, directly contribute to cutting crime.
Your Executive Director Bill Johnson testified at a series of hearings my Crime Subcommittee held last year.
It was during those hearings that I released a study showing that COPS grants contributed to the significant drop in crime rates in the nation's 55 largest cities from 1994 through 2000.
COPS technology grants make you more effective. The Byrne program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program fund drug-fighting task forces, pay for prevention programs, and provide you with the flexibility you need to tailor Federal programs to fit local needs. We shouldn't be cutting them. We should be full funding them.
As recently as last year, the nation's "top cop", Attorney General Ashcroft, sang the praises of the COPS program. "A miraculous success," he called it. But the Administration doesn't put its money where its mouth is. They've cut law enforcement funds by nearly 40 percent.
Let me tell you a few things we can do.
First, you can keep up the good work you have done on my COPS bill. I introduced that bill a few weeks ago. It would continue COPS for six more years and provide enough funds to hire 50,000 more officers.
It would let COPS fund pay for overtime, something we're going to do this year for the first time. We should make that permanent. Thanks to you the bill has 46 cosponsors. I need a few more, so please keep asking your Senators to add their name.
You need to tell the Senators and Representatives who sit on the Appropriations Committees that these cuts are unacceptable. Tell Senator Gregg - he chairs the Justice Department appropriations subcommittee - that COPS works and that you still need it.
Tell him that first responder block grants to the governors are no substitute for police hiring, overtime, and technology grants made directly to your departments.
If they won't do the right thing in the appropriations committees, I think we will have to have this fight on the Senate floor this summer. So when I come to you asking to support my amendment to restore these cuts, I hope you'll do what you've always done and answer the call.
We also need to do something about all these prisoners being released. "Prisoner reentry" the experts call it.
I'm working on a bill that will help ease this transition back into society, and cut crime in the process. If you've got any suggestions, I'm listening.
So in short, friends, we face challenging times ahead for law enforcement. I will be working here to make sure you aren't forgotten in the brave new world of homeland security. Most folks are still more likely to be mugged in the mall parking lot than be attacked by an Al Qaeda terrorist.
I will keep reminding my colleagues what worked in cutting crime over the past decade. We need to keep doing what works.
I've always said, and you've probably heard me say it. Cutting crime is a lot like cutting the grass. You can mow your lawn on Saturday and it looks great. But if you don't keep at it, the grass will be back up a few weeks later. If we don't keep the focus on crime in America, it's going to come back up.
Thanks again for your support over the years. I think we have time for a few questions.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Winning the Peace: The Difficult Choices Ahead
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here tonight.
This is a momentous time, and even though I've used that word often since September 11, 2001, it remains true today.
Our vulnerability was exposed as never before. On that day, our national priorities came into much sharper focus. Yesterday's soccer moms became today's security moms.
Since 9-11, we have taken several significant steps to try to make America more secure. In many ways we are succeeding, but in other ways the jury is still out. And what we do in the days and months ahead may well determine whether our actions overseas will lead to a more peaceful world, and whether the security we seek is within our grasp.
The President had no choice but to use force in Afghanistan. He acted swiftly and with the full support of the nation. We struck a major blow against al-Qaeda, we deposed the Taliban, and we sent a message to terrorists that the long arm of America's might will come down heavily on those who do us harm.
But I fear our goal of ensuring that Afghanistan no longer serves as a safe haven for terrorists has not been accomplished. To put it bluntly, we have not demonstrated sufficient leadership in support of President Karzai's efforts to extend security beyond Kabul. Afghanistan is at risk of falling back into chaos or worse. Having won the war, we are in danger of losing the peace.
Today, we are at a pivotal juncture in a second war. As in Afghanistan, our military performed superbly in Iraq. We've removed a brutal dictator. If we get it right from this point, we'll have reason to hope the Middle East may become a more secure and progressive place.
But that's the big "IF." Getting it right is a huge challenge. We must have staying power, and we have to work with others -- others in the region, others throughout the world, and with all the stakeholders inside Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that the choices we make to win the peace in Iraq will shape our future for generations to come.
The problem, in a nutshell, is that we face two valid but competing pressures in Iraq.
The first is to withdraw quickly - to bring our troops home as soon as we can and to avoid being seen as occupiers.
The second is to stay for as long as it takes to lay the foundation for a secure, stable and pluralistic Iraq, back in the hands of its own people and on a path to democracy. And that will take years of efforts and billions of dollars.
There's only one way to square this circle -- to avoid leaving too early and leaving Iraq in the lurch or, alternatively, bearing alone the massive burden of a prolonged occupation. The answer is to internationalize the problem.
Our goal should be to encourage participation by other countries and key international organizations in building Iraq's peace.
The best way to do that is to get that much maligned organization - the United Nations - to endorse, but not to run, the necessary security, humanitarian, rebuilding and administrative missions in Iraq.
I said "endorse, not run." Especially on the security side, the U.N. should not be running the show. But its endorsement - through new Security Council resolutions - would open the door to full participation by countries around the world and to NATO, the EU and Arab allies. Without that endorsement, it will be hard for leaders whose people opposed the war - and that was the case in virtually every country in the world, including those whose governments supported us - to convince their people to help pay for and run the risks of waging the peace.
Iraq is not a prize that we should be fighting over. It is a complex society sitting in the heart of a tough neighborhood. As my friend Tom Friedman of The New York Times puts it, we may have to rent Iraq for a time, but it's not our desire to own it. Yet, at this moment, we hold sole responsibility for Iraq.
We do not -- repeat -- DO NOT want to be seen as going from liberators to occupiers, having to bear all the burdens, risks and costs.
An indefinite American military occupation -- even a temporary one -- could fuel resentment throughout the Middle East, bolster Al Qaeda's recruitment, and make us a target for malcontents everywhere.
If we do not get the help of other countries in a significant way, we will soon find ourselves making decisions in the most minute detail about the country's governance.
If we are the only ones running the show, we'll get the blame for anything that goes wrong. And things will go wrong, no matter how good and careful our soldiers are. The events of this week in Fallujah risk being repeated day in and day out.
If we alone choose the new Iraqi government, it will be seen as a puppet regime by the Iraqi people and by Iraq's neighbors.
And if we're the only ones on watch, it will be our sons and daughters patrolling the streets of Kirkuk and Najaf, running the risk of suicide bombers and snipers. It will be our taxpayers footing the entire bill on an overstretched budget - after they've already had to pay for the entire war. But the flip side, as I said earlier, is that building an Iraq that is secure, whole, free, and governed by its own people will be a long and expensive project. Just as the removal of Saddam should have been seen as serving the whole world's interest, so too is rebuilding Iraq.
The best way to buy time is to bring in the rest of the world. That will give us the cover to stay in Iraq long enough to get the job done without alienating the Iraqi people and without putting the entire burden and risk of this great venture on our backs. So how do we get others on board? It starts with the U.N. endorsement I talked about a moment ago. But it goes beyond that to our entire attitude. We have to be mature, not spiteful. We have to repair the ruptures that have developed with our allies. We have to realize that an inclusive rather than an exclusive approach is the correct approach.
Now, I understand the tremendous frustration in this country about the way France and other allies dealt with the Iraq problem. I share that frustration and so do many members of Congress.
But I would respectfully suggest that retaliating against long standing allies - no matter how right we were and how wrong they were - is beneath a great nation and profoundly against our interests.
Just imagine if once the heavy shooting stopped in Iraq, the President had made a speech in which he addressed the countries that opposed the war. Imagine if he had said:
'I deeply regret that you did not join our effort to end Saddam Hussein's reign of terror in Iraq. You know how profoundly I disagreed with your position. But I want you to know that, equally profoundly, I believe it was your right as great democracies and long time friends of the U.S. to hold those positions and to disagree with us. We could not come together in war, but I want us to come together in peace. I want you to be full partners in helping Iraq build a better future.'
Imagine if the President had done that. He could have erased so much anti-Americanism. He would have looked ten feet tall. And Chirac and Schroeder and the rest would have looked two feet tall if they did not respond in kind. Magnanimity in victory is a great virtue - and in our naked self interest. We must mend diplomatic fences - as Sec. Powell is trying to do. He deserves our support. And by the way, folks, in the face of the Rumsfeld/Cheney juggernaut, Colin Powell has the toughest job in Washington. I have the utmost respect and admiration for the way he does his job and the quality of advice he provides this President. It's time to make Powell's job a bit easier by moving beyond the finger-pointing and recriminations that have been flying across the Atlantic and around the world. It's time to heal the rift that has developed.
Let me briefly summarize what lies ahead.
The key to long-term success in putting Iraq on a path to stability and modernization is to establish from the outset a process that is viewed as legitimate. It must lead to a new Iraqi interim authority that is viewed as legitimate. And that authority must nurture the institutions that, ultimately, could lead Iraq to become a new liberal democracy in a region that desperately needs a democratic model. Before laying out the steps to get us from here to there, let's understand the goal. We cannot simply jump ahead several steps and call for elections. In recent years, we have often witnessed the futility of countries putting the cart before the horse -- neglecting to build the essential underpinnings of liberal democracy: rule of law, a viable police force to create order, a credible judicial system, a free press, a secular education system, non-governmental organizations and the other elements of a civil society that operate with transparency and accountability.
If we try to impose liberal democracy by force and consider the mission complete once the tyrant is toppled and elections are held, we will be in for a nasty surprise, as we were in Algeria.
Trading a Shah for an Ayatollah is not a good bargain. Deposing Saddam and leaving a vacuum filled by a radical, anti-Western Shiite clerical regime would not be a good bargain either.
We also should avoid the temptation to hand things over to a new authoritarian figure who may happen to be friendly to us. Some will argue that given the dangers of a reversion to a neo-Ba'athist regime or a religious tyranny, we can ensure a quick departure by imposing an Iraqi leadership and giving it the means to maintain control. There will be strong pressures to pull out of Iraq before its political process has a chance to mature.
In my judgement, that would be grievous error. If our goal is enduring political stability, there is no escaping the fact that we will have to be involved for the long-haul so that Iraqis can develop the institutions of liberal democracy.
It is no surprise that religious-based groups have emerged as the most organized forces in Iraq. In a society where any political activity outside of the Ba'ath party was brutally suppressed for over three decades, the only networks left standing were in the Mosque.
This gives the Islamists an early advantage, but it does not mean that an fundamentalist Islamic Republic that seeks to impose the Sharia is inevitable.
Indeed, there is a long tradition in Iraq of moderate Shiite clerics who believe in the separation of Mosque and state. And there is a powerful example in neighboring Turkey of an state led by an Islamic party that is nonetheless secular, modern and democratic. In Iraq, we must invest the time and energy to encourage the development of moderate politics by developing the institutions... political parties, professional associations, labor unions, PTAs, sporting clubs all of the groupings we take for granted which form the vital fabric of a democracy.
Obviously, building these institutions will not be easy, and they will not spring up overnight. We need to take the time to do this right.
What we must do immediately is begin the process of legitimization that leads to direct Iraqi involvement in the rebuilding of their country. But we can only get there if we have the rest of the world participating. Otherwise, those Iraqis able and willing to take on responsibilities will be seen and labeled as tools of America, as collaborators with an occupier.
The irony is that many countries around the world are ready to jump in, but they prefer to do so under the umbrella of the United Nations. We should be smart enough to understand that it is in our best interest to not go it alone, and that the UN imprimatur will open the gate for other nations to provide genuine assistance and generate greater legitimacy.
A timely test is coming. The recent meeting of Iraqi political figures in Baghdad decided to reconvene toward the end May. The Administration has indicated its desire to have the next meeting create an Iraqi interim authority.
Is there any doubt the interim authority will have much greater legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis and throughout the region if the UN, the EU, and key Arab allies like Jordan are involved in its formation? Folks: we get one good chance at doing this right. We do not have the luxury of a trial-and-error process where we go back to the drawing board after Iraqis have rejected an authority they view as illegitimate.
Yes, speed is important. Everyone knows Iraqis need to see Iraqi faces in their interim authority as soon as possible. But legitimacy should be the priority even if that means the process takes a little longer.
Legitimacy will come not just through a broader representation from the international community, but even more importantly from a broad representation from Iraq's many communities and political persuasions. We should not make the mistake of seeing Iraq's three main ethnic communities - Arab Shi'a, Arab Sunni, and Kurds as monoliths that have to be balanced against one another. There is rich diversity of ethnic identities and more importantly, political views, within Iraq.
We should strive to include as many as possible be they Turkmen, Chaldeans, or Assyrians be they tribal leaders, religious figures, secular democrats or Arab nationalists be they regional and community leaders, professionals or ordinary Iraqis ready to contribute to the rebuilding of their country.
The meetings held in Iraq thus far amount to two town hall meetings. Political activity is just beginning to manifest itself. It is hindered by the fact that many are afraid to leave their homes because of lawlessness. An independent media has yet to take shape. Getting law and order restored, getting the power back on, and making Iraqis aware of a transparent and inclusive process inclusive are critical to the legitimacy of the interim authority.
But the interim authority is only the beginning. We should help Iraqis convene a constituent assembly charged with drafting a new Constitution. The new Constitution should be put to the public in a referendum. Once it is approved, elections should follow under whatever governing structures Iraqis decide.
And there should be transparency allowing Iraqis to see authority being transferred to them. Working with our international partners, we should establish a timeline with targets for the gradual transition to complete Iraqi sovereignty.
All of this is an incredibly tall order. But in reality there's no alternative. We took this on when we made the decision to move on Saddam. Only by winning the peace in Iraq, by getting it right, will we enhance our ability to promote and support democratic reforms throughout the region. That, in turn, will enhance our own security. For when there are no democratic outlets, dissent moves underground. It turns to resentment. And then it's ventilated by extremism and even terrorism.
So we must make it clear to our friends in the region that their future - and their future with us - requires a move toward democratization. If we listen to the voices of Arabs themselves if we tie progress to empowering women, reforming economies, and expanding political participation, we will help infuse a sense of hope in the region.
And, finally, by getting it right, we will succeed in the fundamental mission that led us to take on these momentous actions. We will have made America a little more secure, diminished that sense of vulnerability we carry around silently with us day after day, in the shadow of our ongoing battle for freedom and liberty, at home and abroad.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Winning the Peace: The Difficult Choices Ahead
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here tonight.
This is a momentous time, and even though I've used that word often since September 11, 2001, it remains true today.
Our vulnerability was exposed as never before. On that day, our national priorities came into much sharper focus. Yesterday's soccer moms became today's security moms.
Since 9-11, we have taken several significant steps to try to make America more secure. In many ways we are succeeding, but in other ways the jury is still out. And what we do in the days and months ahead may well determine whether our actions overseas will lead to a more peaceful world, and whether the security we seek is within our grasp.
The President had no choice but to use force in Afghanistan. He acted swiftly and with the full support of the nation. We struck a major blow against al-Qaeda, we deposed the Taliban, and we sent a message to terrorists that the long arm of America's might will come down heavily on those who do us harm.
But I fear our goal of ensuring that Afghanistan no longer serves as a safe haven for terrorists has not been accomplished. To put it bluntly, we have not demonstrated sufficient leadership in support of President Karzai's efforts to extend security beyond Kabul. Afghanistan is at risk of falling back into chaos or worse. Having won the war, we are in danger of losing the peace.
Today, we are at a pivotal juncture in a second war. As in Afghanistan, our military performed superbly in Iraq. We've removed a brutal dictator. If we get it right from this point, we'll have reason to hope the Middle East may become a more secure and progressive place.
But that's the big "IF." Getting it right is a huge challenge. We must have staying power, and we have to work with others -- others in the region, others throughout the world, and with all the stakeholders inside Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that the choices we make to win the peace in Iraq will shape our future for generations to come.
The problem, in a nutshell, is that we face two valid but competing pressures in Iraq.
The first is to withdraw quickly - to bring our troops home as soon as we can and to avoid being seen as occupiers.
The second is to stay for as long as it takes to lay the foundation for a secure, stable and pluralistic Iraq, back in the hands of its own people and on a path to democracy. And that will take years of efforts and billions of dollars.
There's only one way to square this circle -- to avoid leaving too early and leaving Iraq in the lurch or, alternatively, bearing alone the massive burden of a prolonged occupation. The answer is to internationalize the problem.
Our goal should be to encourage participation by other countries and key international organizations in building Iraq's peace.
The best way to do that is to get that much maligned organization - the United Nations - to endorse, but not to run, the necessary security, humanitarian, rebuilding and administrative missions in Iraq.
I said "endorse, not run." Especially on the security side, the U.N. should not be running the show. But its endorsement - through new Security Council resolutions - would open the door to full participation by countries around the world and to NATO, the EU and Arab allies. Without that endorsement, it will be hard for leaders whose people opposed the war - and that was the case in virtually every country in the world, including those whose governments supported us - to convince their people to help pay for and run the risks of waging the peace.
Iraq is not a prize that we should be fighting over. It is a complex society sitting in the heart of a tough neighborhood. As my friend Tom Friedman of The New York Times puts it, we may have to rent Iraq for a time, but it's not our desire to own it. Yet, at this moment, we hold sole responsibility for Iraq.
We do not -- repeat -- DO NOT want to be seen as going from liberators to occupiers, having to bear all the burdens, risks and costs.
An indefinite American military occupation -- even a temporary one -- could fuel resentment throughout the Middle East, bolster Al Qaeda's recruitment, and make us a target for malcontents everywhere.
If we do not get the help of other countries in a significant way, we will soon find ourselves making decisions in the most minute detail about the country's governance.
If we are the only ones running the show, we'll get the blame for anything that goes wrong. And things will go wrong, no matter how good and careful our soldiers are. The events of this week in Fallujah risk being repeated day in and day out.
If we alone choose the new Iraqi government, it will be seen as a puppet regime by the Iraqi people and by Iraq's neighbors.
And if we're the only ones on watch, it will be our sons and daughters patrolling the streets of Kirkuk and Najaf, running the risk of suicide bombers and snipers. It will be our taxpayers footing the entire bill on an overstretched budget - after they've already had to pay for the entire war. But the flip side, as I said earlier, is that building an Iraq that is secure, whole, free, and governed by its own people will be a long and expensive project. Just as the removal of Saddam should have been seen as serving the whole world's interest, so too is rebuilding Iraq.
The best way to buy time is to bring in the rest of the world. That will give us the cover to stay in Iraq long enough to get the job done without alienating the Iraqi people and without putting the entire burden and risk of this great venture on our backs. So how do we get others on board? It starts with the U.N. endorsement I talked about a moment ago. But it goes beyond that to our entire attitude. We have to be mature, not spiteful. We have to repair the ruptures that have developed with our allies. We have to realize that an inclusive rather than an exclusive approach is the correct approach.
Now, I understand the tremendous frustration in this country about the way France and other allies dealt with the Iraq problem. I share that frustration and so do many members of Congress.
But I would respectfully suggest that retaliating against long standing allies - no matter how right we were and how wrong they were - is beneath a great nation and profoundly against our interests.
Just imagine if once the heavy shooting stopped in Iraq, the President had made a speech in which he addressed the countries that opposed the war. Imagine if he had said:
'I deeply regret that you did not join our effort to end Saddam Hussein's reign of terror in Iraq. You know how profoundly I disagreed with your position. But I want you to know that, equally profoundly, I believe it was your right as great democracies and long time friends of the U.S. to hold those positions and to disagree with us. We could not come together in war, but I want us to come together in peace. I want you to be full partners in helping Iraq build a better future.'
Imagine if the President had done that. He could have erased so much anti-Americanism. He would have looked ten feet tall. And Chirac and Schroeder and the rest would have looked two feet tall if they did not respond in kind. Magnanimity in victory is a great virtue - and in our naked self interest. We must mend diplomatic fences - as Sec. Powell is trying to do. He deserves our support. And by the way, folks, in the face of the Rumsfeld/Cheney juggernaut, Colin Powell has the toughest job in Washington. I have the utmost respect and admiration for the way he does his job and the quality of advice he provides this President. It's time to make Powell's job a bit easier by moving beyond the finger-pointing and recriminations that have been flying across the Atlantic and around the world. It's time to heal the rift that has developed.
Let me briefly summarize what lies ahead.
The key to long-term success in putting Iraq on a path to stability and modernization is to establish from the outset a process that is viewed as legitimate. It must lead to a new Iraqi interim authority that is viewed as legitimate. And that authority must nurture the institutions that, ultimately, could lead Iraq to become a new liberal democracy in a region that desperately needs a democratic model. Before laying out the steps to get us from here to there, let's understand the goal. We cannot simply jump ahead several steps and call for elections. In recent years, we have often witnessed the futility of countries putting the cart before the horse -- neglecting to build the essential underpinnings of liberal democracy: rule of law, a viable police force to create order, a credible judicial system, a free press, a secular education system, non-governmental organizations and the other elements of a civil society that operate with transparency and accountability.
If we try to impose liberal democracy by force and consider the mission complete once the tyrant is toppled and elections are held, we will be in for a nasty surprise, as we were in Algeria.
Trading a Shah for an Ayatollah is not a good bargain. Deposing Saddam and leaving a vacuum filled by a radical, anti-Western Shiite clerical regime would not be a good bargain either.
We also should avoid the temptation to hand things over to a new authoritarian figure who may happen to be friendly to us. Some will argue that given the dangers of a reversion to a neo-Ba'athist regime or a religious tyranny, we can ensure a quick departure by imposing an Iraqi leadership and giving it the means to maintain control. There will be strong pressures to pull out of Iraq before its political process has a chance to mature.
In my judgement, that would be grievous error. If our goal is enduring political stability, there is no escaping the fact that we will have to be involved for the long-haul so that Iraqis can develop the institutions of liberal democracy.
It is no surprise that religious-based groups have emerged as the most organized forces in Iraq. In a society where any political activity outside of the Ba'ath party was brutally suppressed for over three decades, the only networks left standing were in the Mosque.
This gives the Islamists an early advantage, but it does not mean that an fundamentalist Islamic Republic that seeks to impose the Sharia is inevitable.
Indeed, there is a long tradition in Iraq of moderate Shiite clerics who believe in the separation of Mosque and state. And there is a powerful example in neighboring Turkey of an state led by an Islamic party that is nonetheless secular, modern and democratic. In Iraq, we must invest the time and energy to encourage the development of moderate politics by developing the institutions... political parties, professional associations, labor unions, PTAs, sporting clubs all of the groupings we take for granted which form the vital fabric of a democracy.
Obviously, building these institutions will not be easy, and they will not spring up overnight. We need to take the time to do this right.
What we must do immediately is begin the process of legitimization that leads to direct Iraqi involvement in the rebuilding of their country. But we can only get there if we have the rest of the world participating. Otherwise, those Iraqis able and willing to take on responsibilities will be seen and labeled as tools of America, as collaborators with an occupier.
The irony is that many countries around the world are ready to jump in, but they prefer to do so under the umbrella of the United Nations. We should be smart enough to understand that it is in our best interest to not go it alone, and that the UN imprimatur will open the gate for other nations to provide genuine assistance and generate greater legitimacy.
A timely test is coming. The recent meeting of Iraqi political figures in Baghdad decided to reconvene toward the end May. The Administration has indicated its desire to have the next meeting create an Iraqi interim authority.
Is there any doubt the interim authority will have much greater legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis and throughout the region if the UN, the EU, and key Arab allies like Jordan are involved in its formation? Folks: we get one good chance at doing this right. We do not have the luxury of a trial-and-error process where we go back to the drawing board after Iraqis have rejected an authority they view as illegitimate.
Yes, speed is important. Everyone knows Iraqis need to see Iraqi faces in their interim authority as soon as possible. But legitimacy should be the priority even if that means the process takes a little longer.
Legitimacy will come not just through a broader representation from the international community, but even more importantly from a broad representation from Iraq's many communities and political persuasions. We should not make the mistake of seeing Iraq's three main ethnic communities - Arab Shi'a, Arab Sunni, and Kurds as monoliths that have to be balanced against one another. There is rich diversity of ethnic identities and more importantly, political views, within Iraq.
We should strive to include as many as possible be they Turkmen, Chaldeans, or Assyrians be they tribal leaders, religious figures, secular democrats or Arab nationalists be they regional and community leaders, professionals or ordinary Iraqis ready to contribute to the rebuilding of their country.
The meetings held in Iraq thus far amount to two town hall meetings. Political activity is just beginning to manifest itself. It is hindered by the fact that many are afraid to leave their homes because of lawlessness. An independent media has yet to take shape. Getting law and order restored, getting the power back on, and making Iraqis aware of a transparent and inclusive process inclusive are critical to the legitimacy of the interim authority.
But the interim authority is only the beginning. We should help Iraqis convene a constituent assembly charged with drafting a new Constitution. The new Constitution should be put to the public in a referendum. Once it is approved, elections should follow under whatever governing structures Iraqis decide.
And there should be transparency allowing Iraqis to see authority being transferred to them. Working with our international partners, we should establish a timeline with targets for the gradual transition to complete Iraqi sovereignty.
All of this is an incredibly tall order. But in reality there's no alternative. We took this on when we made the decision to move on Saddam. Only by winning the peace in Iraq, by getting it right, will we enhance our ability to promote and support democratic reforms throughout the region. That, in turn, will enhance our own security. For when there are no democratic outlets, dissent moves underground. It turns to resentment. And then it's ventilated by extremism and even terrorism.
So we must make it clear to our friends in the region that their future - and their future with us - requires a move toward democratization. If we listen to the voices of Arabs themselves if we tie progress to empowering women, reforming economies, and expanding political participation, we will help infuse a sense of hope in the region.
And, finally, by getting it right, we will succeed in the fundamental mission that led us to take on these momentous actions. We will have made America a little more secure, diminished that sense of vulnerability we carry around silently with us day after day, in the shadow of our ongoing battle for freedom and liberty, at home and abroad.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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A Remembrance of Harvey "Hob" Ryan
When I come here to speak to all of you - and this isn't my first visit - I've always been struck by the extraordinary spirit among firefighters.
There's a camaraderie and a commitment that is unique and - quite frankly - heartwarming.
This is a family and, like all families, you hold on to each other - you reach out to each other, you're there for each other, and when one of us falls, all of us feel the loss.
Just two weeks ago I attended a service for one of the family one of the best and most dedicated professional firefighters in Delaware. Some of you may have known him. Certainly everyone here from Delaware knew him.
His name is Harvey "Hob" Ryan. He was 78 years old and he was with the Holloway Terrace Fire Company - a life member, a past officer of every professional organization, one of the founders of the fire school and one of the best.
Hob personified everything good and honorable about firefighting. He had courage. He cared. He wanted to serve.
He was a professional who believed that the best schooling makes the best firefighter. And he put his beliefs into practice every day.
There was no better example of what it means to stand a post on the frontline of what is now part of our Homeland Security force than the life and work of Hob Ryan.
I had the pleasure of spending time with his brother John and his widow Joan.
They told me that Hob's father was also a member of the company, so I guess it runs in the family.
I won't take anymore time tonight, but I would like to ask you yo join me in a moment of silence for Hob Ryan.
Thank you and have a great evening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Toward Real Security
Mr. President, thank you. It's an honor to be here at such a great university. I know this particular law school must be the finest law school in America because my son applied here, was rejected and got accepted into a second rate university, Yale. And so I measure how important and how significant undergraduate and graduate institutions are based upon how they have rejected me or accepted my children.
I'm going to embarrass her but it's great to see my niece here who, for a brief shining moment was the deputy press secretary in the last administration and worked in the White House, and who is now attending law school across the way, my niece Missy. It's great to see you honey. So it almost doesn't matter how this speech goes today because I know one person in this room will love it, and I'm delighted you're here.
I was supposed to speak here two weeks ago and the city became paralyzed to the significant snow storm. I'm speaking here today and it may be the coldest day of the year. I hope you don't think I'm like that old, bad joke about the guy who is married for 65 years and is sitting on the porch with his wife and he goes through all the bad times in his life and how his wife was always there for him. And he turns to her and says, "You know what, you're bad luck." Well, I hope you don't think I'm bad luck by being invited here.
Two weeks ago we were waiting to see what Saddam would do. Would he meet the demands of U.N. resolutions, or not, particularly 1441? Would we go to war, or not? I happen to think we will, not should, but will. And I happen to think the military phase of this likely conflict will move relatively well, in the sense that we will be successful and will be relatively short. I happen to think the aftermath will be an incredible undertaking for which we have not prepared the American people, and for which we are not fully prepared.
Today, two weeks later, we're on the verge of war - a war that is justified, but make no mistake, one that is elective.
Colin Powell has been working hard at the U.N. to gain the broadest consensus possible to show the world as a united world against Saddam Hussein and his possession of weapons of mass destruction. That show of unity is the last best chance to avoid this war. Unfortunately, I don't think in light of other actions on the part of the administration we are likely to get the show of unity I believe we could have had.
Showing Saddam we mean business is the only hope to get him to comply with the U.N. resolutions that he has ignored. But before we go any further, I think it's important to look at the events that have taken us from the Cold War to this new Borderless War, to understand more fully where we are today. On August 14, 1961, East Berliners awoke to find their borders closed. It was a Saturday and East German troops had dug up the streets and had begun to install barbed wire fences.
The next day, troops brought in the first concrete blocks to wall-off the city. When the wall was finally built, it was eleven feet high in places, and stretched for 66 miles.
Twenty-eight years later, on November 9, 1989, after 5,000 people had risked their lives to cross it -- after 3,200 were arrested trying - and 192 died in desperate attempts to reach freedom - the Wall finally came down.
In those 28 years the threat we faced was clear and obvious to the whole world. It was the threat of communism and it was unmistakable. The political map of the world back then was one dimensional. On that map only one line mattered.
It was the line - sometimes advancing, sometimes receding - between East and West, between our way of life and theirs.
We were spending billions of dollars on an arms race, building fallout shelters and teaching our kids to duck and cover. We fought surrogate wars around the world and lost 36,940 in Korea, and 58,178 in Vietnam.
Back then, the containment of communism was the cornerstone of American foreign policy. The wild card was mutual assured destruction. Everything else was secondary to holding the line.
When the Wall came down we felt a boundless sense of what was possible -- that technology, ideas, and information would spread our values and help share our prosperity.
By the late 1990s, for the first time in history, more than half the world's people lived under governments of their own choosing.
In our own hemisphere, where just a few decades earlier a third of the countries lived under authoritarian rule, every country but Cuba was a democracy. But for all the promise, there were signs of peril.
Countries were not going to war with each other but with themselves in the Balkans, Haiti, and Rwanda.
Almost imperceptibly, America's place in the world was changing. People were looking to us for the leadership no one else could provide. We were viewed at that moment as a potentially healing positive force.
When we assumed our new role of unchallenged pre-eminence, we became the focal point for a broad range of powerful emotions: admiration and attraction, but also anger and resentment. Many identified with us, but many feared losing their identities to us.
Some began to see us as the ugly Americans, others saw us as their salvation. American music was playing on radio stations around the world. People were watching American television programs and movies, eating American food, and wearing American jeans.
We became a symbol of the status quo, and so, unfairly, we became the target for people everywhere who didn't like their lot in life.
At the same time, our justifiable international activism in places like Bosnia and Kosovo, threatened every thug, every despot who liked things just the way they were. And they got the message.
We had entered a new era, but had trouble defining it. We still have trouble finding the right words to describe it. We called it the post-Cold War era, defining it by the period that had just ended. This reflected our struggle to define our place in the world.
Then came, in this very city, not far from here, the events of September 11th. In many ways, it was the first morning in America no longer defined by the Cold War. Everything was fundamentally different. We suddenly realized old notions no longer applied. I n fact, the notion of war itself had suddenly changed. It was no longer 40 Russian divisions crossing the Fulda Gap, bearing down on the rest of Europe to tear down democracies and establish communist regimes, it was something much more sinister.
Armies that once were uniformed forces deployed by nation-states had become stateless criminals in the service of international terrorist organizations.
It was clear that the notion of national security had also changed. We could no longer define our security in old Cold War terms like mutual assured destruction, when thousands of missiles on both sides were aimed at millions of innocent civilians to assure neither would ever use those weapons.
That morning - a few blocks from here - we were hit by a new reality. Suddenly, there was a new line on the map. It was multi-dimensional, and very difficult to follow.
It divided not just one ideology or even one civilization from another. It divided the powerful forces of order and construction from the emerging forces of chaos and destruction.
Those forces of destruction make up a nexus of new threats with no respect for borders: religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, rogue nations, and failed states.
They will become even more lethal if we allow them to get together in an environment of economic dissolution, environmental degradation, or the spread of infectious disease. Failure to understand the environment in which these forces have joined together is to deal at our own peril, and will prove disastrous for us - not only for us, but for the security of the rest of the world.
Our new war is not a Cold War, but a Borderless War for which we must reorganize ourselves and our resources. And the fateful question is, how do we reorganize ourselves? What should be the elements of that reorganiztion?
It seems to me the first thing we have to realize is that we have, and the administration has, too narrow a definition of what constitutes security. We are still mired in Cold War thinking. We have yet to develop a comprehensive approach to national security that addresses the growing vulnerability people are feeling.
Yesterday's soccer moms have become today's security moms. And we have to do all we can to make them feel less vulnerable, but in fact to make us less vulnerable. And the answer does not lie in the formulas of the past.
It seems to me real security needs to be viewed as a Rubik's Cube, one thing closely tied to and affecting the other - national security, homeland security, economic security, energy security, security in our homes, our schools, our neighborhoods. They're all related. Until we retool and begin to see security in this new light, we will remain insecure and vulnerable.
We need a long-term strategy and none has been articulated so far. We need an offensive and defensive strategy, not an ad hoc reactive policy that relies on tired old notions or shortsighted ideas that deal with the urgent at the expense of the important. If we were in Washington the pundits would call it a "new paradigm." But what that really means is we have to do this right, and do it wisely.
The first question is: Do we have the right offensive strategy to deal with these new threats? Do we have the right offensive strategy?
Well, I don't think we have a strategy. The central focus of our offensive strategy, for the foreseeable future, must be to to deal with, in order of priority, what the most urgent and immediate threat is. When New York goes from code orange or yellow to red -- or whatever the hell these codes are these days -- it doesn't have a damn thing to do with anything that is happening in the nation states, including Iraq. It has to do with Al Qaeda. It has to do with loosely knit and large fabric international terrorist organizations which represent the most clear and present danger to our security.
Everyone, with the possible exception of the president or some of his advisors, understands that our number one enemy in the world at this moment is unbridled international terrorist organizations with the potential capacity to lay their hands on weapons of mass destruction at it's worst, and innovative means of using conventional weapons at it's least.
The sense of vulnerability shared by today's security moms is not because of Saddam, it's because of Osama and Al Qaeda.
And it will take a sustained effort to build new kinds of international cooperation that will be our most effective weapon in the war against terrorism so we share intelligence better, cooperate on law enforcement, on disrupting financial networks, on extraditions.
This should have been our number one priority after 9-11. We could have, should have, and should still rally our allies, the U.N., NATO, and others to build this cooperation.
Let me just give you one example of what I mean about lost opportunity. The whole world watched as we boarded, with the help of the Spanish, a vessel traveling in international waters that had embarked from North Korea that had missiles with the capacity to deliver lethal quantities of weapons of mass destruction long distances, in the hull of a ship buried beneath cement in an attempt to camouflage the existence of that cargo. But because there exists no international standard for stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or the means to deliver them, the whole world stood by as we uncovered this shipment and had to let it go, destined for God knows who, sent by an unstable dictator of the most isolated communist regime in the world, North Korea.
How did we get to that place? Why did we not spend the better part of the last year working out in conjunction with our allies in Europe and around the world an international regime that would benefit everyone of the single nation states despotic or other wise?
Immediately after 9-11 it became clear to everyone including the Chinese leadership, with whom I met, that, as was stated to me, that they could picture that second plane going into an 87 story tower in Shang Hai as well as they could into the World Trade Towers in New York City. It was the ultimate wake up call. And we had immediately after that action the world united in a way that it has not been for a century.
But what did we do? Did we move toward this cooperation? It seems to me we have to recognize that we cannot expect other countries to share our concerns if we show disdain for their concerns.
We made it clear to the rest of the world what we thought our priorities were, and when they told us, regionally and internationally what theirs were, we found little regard for their concern. We unilaterally announced our pulling out of the ABM treaty, we suggested we would not negociate any further on the international criminal court, we pulled out of the Kyoto agreement without any willingness to negociate any changes, and we sent a stark message to the rest of the world at the very moment that it was prepared. It was prepared at least in its rhetoric, to consider whether or not there would be new rules of the road.
In taking on failed states like Afghanistan that become a haven for borderless thugs like bin Laden, or outlaw states like Iraq that break their commitments to the world, and their peace agreements that they sign - my dilemma here is, I think this administration is so badly handling the situation in Iraq that it frustrates me because I think Iraq must be dealt with. I separate myself from those who think that Iraq is this feckless state that is of no concern and those who think it requires us to immediately invade it.
I find myself with choices that frustrate me, frustrate me beyond belief. But, what happened when we in fact moved on Afghanistan? We showed the ultimate resolve of the American people, but at the same time what did we do? We raised questions about not our military power but our staying power. In Afghanistan, our military did a terrific job ending the Taliban's regime. But Al Qaeda continues to be a dangerous threat in the region, but there are tens of thousands of Taliban alive and well and functioning in the region. And we now risk seizing defeat from the jaws of victory by relying on warlords to secure Afghanistan beyond Kabul.
There is a growing power vacuum, with Al Qaeda sneaking back in, not withstanding the significant arrest that took place in Afghanistan this past weekend. We run the risk of allowing fundamentalism and terrorism to take root again, outside nations to begin to influence the shape and policies of Afghanistan.
So let's be very clear: This Administration has not, in my view, done nearly enough in Afghanistan to win the peace, and if we go to war in Iraq, we can't afford to repeat that mistake. We'll have to stay until the country is secure, its weapons of mass destruction destroyed, and a stable, pluralistic - if not a democracy which I think would be almost impossible to guarantee -- but a pluralistic government in place of Saddam Hussein. For failure to do so, we'll not just be letting down the Iraqi people, we'll be jeopardizing our national interest in the extreme.
Winning the war but losing the peace in Iraq is not an option. We don't want to make that mistake again, but make no mistake, in order to avoid that mistake it will be timely and costly. Very, very costly. And that's all the more reason, I might note parenthetically, why we need more support than we have among the coalition of the willing.
In this Borderless War, perhaps the single most important element of an offensive strategy is to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
It's not enough to preempt problems when they erupt. We have to prevent them from happening in the first place. And the single most important preventive action we can take is to help Russia secure and destroy stockpiled weapons, which Russia is seeking assistance to destroy. So that these very weapons do not fall into the hands of agents of chaos.
I find it fascinating we are so concerned about the possibility and the unlikely prospect of Saddam turning over weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who would have him if not their first target, as at least their second target, and yet we seem so caviler about the weapons of mass destruction that exist in other parts of the world. Over the past decade, with Russian cooperation, we've spent millions of dollars paying U.S. scientists, paying U.S. contractors, not Russians, to go to Russia and destroy thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia. We've made major progress and in the process we've made everyone in America safer and in the world for that matter.
We've destroyed or deactivated 6,032 nuclear warheads, 491 ballistic missiles, and countless backfire bombers.
We are employing 22,000 scientists formerly employed in weapons of mass destruction programs, but there still are another 60,000 out there trying to raise families -- available to the highest bidder, and with no work at all in sight.
Unfortunately, this Administration came in predisposed against these programs and initially sought to cut their budgets when, in fact, we need a significant increase in the budgets for these so called threat reduction programs. So there is much more to be done.
We need to extend threat reduction programs beyond Russia to countries like India and Pakistan. Let me give you one example, there is a -- it looks like a Home Depot, about 40 to 60 kilometers South, I believe West, of Moscow. In that "Home Depot," and I say that because it has these large shelves that are lined up just like when you walk into a Home Depot, there are stacked 1,987,000, chemical tipped artillery shells. The smallest of which, if dropped on Giants stadium on game day, would kill every single solitary person in Giants stadium. But this administration, for almost two years, blocked the construction of a 200 million dollar facility that we were going to build with American money and American contractors, where we were going to take every single one of those shells, convey them to this destruction facility, drill two holes in the bottom of the shell, take out the offending material, dilute it, and crush the cannister.
The far right within this administration, and the administration is not all far right, there is a real split in this administration, the far right in this administration argued we should not do that because fungible money. If we were to spend the money to do that then the Russians wouldn't spend the money to do that and they'd take the money they didn't have to spend and do bad things with it. A little focus for you here, the entire Russian budget, for everything from highways to agriculture, to defense, is less than 40 billion dollars. A half a dozen states have budgets bigger than that. New York's budget is bigger than that, and I believe by a long shot. Their entire military budget is 9 billion dollars. Fungible money? Fungible money?
Once again, we cannot be reactive and shortsighted in dealing with weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. The situation in North Korea may be the best and most immediate and striking example of the single most immediate danger we face. The situation has gone from bad to worse, with no apparent policy to deal with it. If you note there are no red lines drawn by this administration with regard to North Korea. There is no policy besides the fact that they want a multilateral discussion. Yet, the multilateral participants say they do not want to be part of the discussion and insist we should be discussing the future with North Korea.
North Korea is on the verge of producing enough plutonium to make more than an additional 6 warheads in a matter of months, or taking a portion of that plutonium, which is very difficult to detect, it is not in the minds of the average American radioactive that can be picked up a Geiger counter. It can be put in a tin and put in your suitcase and transported across borders, with very little capacity to be detected. It's the stuff of which small portions of which can be made part of what is fully in the realm of possibility, a home made nuclear device, a rifle device, that if you had small portions of this radioactive material that is about the same circumference as the bottom of this bottle of water and about a quarter of an inch thick, in the right configuration, smashed together rapidly can in fact produce a nuclear chain reaction that would have brought down the trade towers, I'm told by the scientists of Las Alamos, in three, t-h-r-e-e seconds and kill over 120,000, New Yorkers, New Jersey, or Connecticut residents depending on which way the wind is blowing.
We also need a much clearer and clear-eyed policy of dealing with Korea. North Korea is the world's worst proliferator. It is on the verge of becoming the plutonium factory of the world. Keep in mind their entire trade exchange is 200 million dollars. How much could they get in the open market for just small amounts of the plutonium? It would be very difficult to protect against moving. What do we do, how can we account for our security, if in fact they began a reprocessing facility, in taking these 8,000 spent rods which contain the plutonium now, and they have the capacity to take it out in weapons grade form? How do we account for it? What does that mean we have to plan for? How uncertain does that make our policy? For fear that it may show up in the hull a container ship coming up the Hudson River or the Delaware River.
North Korea may be to blame for the crisis. But two years of American policy incoherence has not helped matters. We've see-sawed between engagement and name calling. But in the end, there's no substitute for direct talks. It's the most effective way for North Korea to understand what it must do if it wants more normal relations with us and the rest of the world. For I know of no other alterative. When the president asked my view, I said what we should be doing is negotiating with South Korea and speaking to North Korea. For how can we go to war against the North if the South will not participate?
Our final offensive hurdle is to continue to adapt our armed forces to new demands and new missions. That means making them lighter and faster. It means downsizing our permanent presence in Europe and Asia in favor of rapid rotations and smaller deployments. It means fielding more unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator. It means expanding and fully funding our Special Forces. And it means developing international security force gendarme, which I have been proposing for the last 12 years, that is a police force that has quasi military capability, that's international in scope and can move into those areas of the world where they must act to deal with despotism, whether it's Milosovic or whether it ends up being Saddam Hussein and take the place of warriors who are trained to fight wars not to maintain peace. There is much more to do that I will not bore you with, but we have to reshape the nature of our defense establishment.
There's a lot at stake, and getting this right won't be easy. It's not unreasonable to wonder how we're going to manage it all. It certainly won't get done "the right way" by sticking our heads in the sand when it comes to making the tough choices.
The president's budget doesn't suggest any choice we have to make that is tough. Think about this -- you students in here are obviously very bright or you wouldn't be here at this great university -- I challenge you to think of a single time in American history when an American president has called a nation to war, deployed a quarter million of its men and women, and said simultaneously that we are going to take care of your health care problems, we are going to give you a three quarter of a trillion dollar tax cut, and by the way, there is no sacrifice. None, don't worry, we can do al of this.
The point is, a strong offensive strategy doesn't come cost free. It doesn't come without setting priorities and making trade-offs. Some of you may have heard, if you're insomiacs or watch C-Span or other networks, what I say to my colleagues when I'm on those shows. To those who are most ready to move, I say: "I want you to look out there at the American people right now and tell them that when we make this commitment to go and to stay that you are prepared to vote against a tax cut to pay for those military forces to stay in place. Or you, who may have a different focus, are you prepared to delay voting for a prescription drug plan for a nation because you know you're going to have to spend the money to be in place for a significant portion of time?" For I challenge you to tell me how it is remotely possible to meet our economic needs, our domestic needs, and this foreign policy agenda, whether it's going to war or developing a way to deal with this new borderless enemy without making some sacrifices.
My dad and Missy's grandpa, who just died, used to say, "If everything is equally important to you Joey, nothing is important to you." We have to make some hard choices.
In my view, the American people should at least have a clear estimate of the cost ahead of time as well as a clear understanding of the trade-offs and there has been no national discussion about that. None. I've been a broken record nationally for the last 11 months that the one thing my generation, the Vietnam generation, no matter what our view was on that war, could agree on is that no foreign policy can be sustained, no matter how well informed it might be, without the informed consent of the American people ahead of time.
I believe our nation's single greatest responsibility, our federal governments single greatest responsibility, is to provide for the physical security for the people of the United States of America, and if that means we must forgo other things that we need then so be it. But we must tell the American people forthrightly, up front, ahead of time. And there has been no honest discussion about that at this stage of our debate.
The second part of a strategy for real security is a smart defense. That means retooling to make sure ports, airports, highways, trains, power plants, public buildings, and neighborhoods are as secure as we can make them.
Look, Osama bin Laden sat in a cave in Afghanistan with a laptop and communicated by satellite phone, through internet sites, and with e-mail to his minions around the world. So it'll take more than duct tape to defend ourselves.
What do we do? The President was right, in my view, to implement a Democratic idea: the Department of Homeland Security. But, as Cuba Gooding said in his movie, the movie that he won the Academy Award for: "Show me the money Remember that line? Well, follow the money. Follow the money in this new homeland defense initiative. Look at the new budget with a reckless 42 percent cut in state and local law enforcement and homeland security assistance. Ask your republican mayor, ask any mayor, ask any governor whether or not he or she has one additional police officer, one additional first responder, one additional piece of equipment, one additional program to deal with the threat that lives on our streets.
It's not going to be somebody wearing a camouflage uniform, night goggles, and trained as a special forces person that is going to run into the next Al Qaeda operative on a street in New York or Wilmington, Delaware. It's going to be a cop, it's going to be somebody on the street. It eliminates all direct support for police departments at a time when police are being asked to do more with less that we're going to have a 40 percent cut in the help to deal with local law enforcement.
We've got to have a defensive strategy that empowers those charged with defending us, and brings to bear the power of our technology. We need to give state and local police access to terrorist watch lists which they don't have now. We should expand the National Guard's role in homeland security, including disaster relief and emergency response.
We should ensure the security of 100 percent, not 2 percent of the 21,000 cargo containers that arrive in the U.S. every day, that our ports have secure entrances, sufficient inspectors, and state-of-the-art screening. And we should insist that countries at the point of origin keep the right records and bills of lading to be able to attest to what is in those containers before they are shipped. This is not rocket science.
First responders need radios that work, the proper gear to protect themselves, and the training to protect others. We have no public health service in this country. Frontline health workers must be trained to recognize the symptoms of biological and chemical attack and given modern tracking equipment to spot outbreaks in days, not weeks. For if we have this capacity, the thing that people live in fear of will be manageable.
We don't tell you all that if tomorrow a out in the square a dirty bomb goes off in an orderly fashion in the next 24 hours exit on the other side of the building, none of you would be harmed. The cancer rate is 1 in 20,000 right now your risk would increase from 1 in 20,000 to, if I remember correctly from the information I have been told, 1 in 19,975. But because no one explains that to anyone, more people would die stampeding out of this room and out of the city, than the few that would die from the blast.
If we have detection equipment to determine whether or not a pathogen has been released in the air, if you in fact are exposed to smallpox and we know within seven days, we have enough vaccine in the US to inoculate every single person in the United States. It's a matter of notification. It's a matter of coordinating the health departments in every city so they can spread online that there is an outbreak of smallpox in the city. We need not have serious loss of life even with a terrorist distribution of smallpox. So why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we taking the action, defensive in nature, fully within our capacity?
We have to improve security at our nuclear plants and toxic chemical facilities. Remember that little explosion in India of a chemical facility? Thousands of people died. Ask your Senators, who are working like hell to do all of this, ask your congressmen, Democrat or Republican, whether or not the chemical plant in your area is anymore secure today than it was on 9-11. Ask how many resources have been expended to be sure that it has significantly reduced the possibility of being sabotaged. We have 103 nuclear plants in the U.S. - 21 of which are within 5 miles of an airport.
Implementing a strong defensive strategy will take time, but government has to do everything possible to make homeland security a top priority. We are not going to stop someone from walking in here with an explosive device in their backpack and blow up a restaurant and or this room. But we can significantly increase the possibility that no one will do that at a nuclear power plant, which can in fact, have disastrous consequences for large number of people.
Finally, along with a strong offense and a good defense, we need a long-term strategy.
We have to ask ourselves: how do we shape the international environment to make us more secure? This may be the toughest question of all and the one in which I believe the administration is paying the least attention to.
The attack on America provided an opportunity to unite other nations. We have to remember that the world is not against us.
Remember, not long after September 11th the French newspaper, Le Monde ran a headline that said: "We are all Americans." NATO spontaneously invoked article five. Article five of the NATO treat says an attack on one is an attack on all and requires the common defense.
It was an extraordinary statement when both of those things happened. But then we began to dictate to the world and appeared to be the unilateralists the world feared we might be. We told NATO that we didn't need their troops in Afghanistan. We announced a new doctrine of preemption, that to this day no one can explain, and we said at the U.N., "No matter what you do we are going, it doesn't matter." These are not things that encourage people to cooperate with us. And we have never laid out a clear rationale as to why we must go in now but why we must stay and will we stay.
But let's not misunderstand. The world is not against us. A minority of fundamentalists are. Only a very small number of them are terrorists.
The cause of their hatred isn't poverty. Most of the 9-11 hijackers were middle class. And no grievance can justify their actions. They are beyond the reach of reason.
But a far larger number of people around the world are all too prepared to explain terrorism, to turn the other way, and even to provide sanctuary, support, and successors. These are the people we have to reach.
And we cannot reach them if we abdicate our role to help resolve regional conflicts that matter to them, to stand for democracy, and to stand with those trying to build better lives. Remember Saddam Hussein did not come into being because of us, he came into being because he thought the Saudi kingdom oppressive. And it wasn't until we placed troops in Saudi Arabia that we became his direct enemy, we were the thing in his view that stood between him and taking down that regime.
My grandfather and Missy's great grandfather, every Sunday we had dinner at my grandmom's house, supper at 3:00, and we always had this big pot roast. It was always cooked in a big old pressure cooker. I remember my grandmom used to make me get out the pressure cooker and it was heavy when I was 12 years old. And it had this great big lid on it with this valve on top. And I remember saying to my grandmom one day, "What's this for?" And she said, "Honey, it's to let the steam off. It's kind of like your grandpop." She said, "I have to let him let the steam off, if I don't this pot will blow off the top." If there is no quasi let alone democratic outlet in a country, the only place that dissent goes is underground and it becomes the fodder for terror.
It is very much in our interest that we push in the direction of progressive governments in that region of the world. In the Middle East it deserves our utmost attention. On its own terms the path in my view to security in the Middle East is through a peace agreement, not through Bagdad.
We're deeply invested in seeing an end to hostilities between Israel and all its neighbors. And when we were, we did not face this same dilemma. But progress would also pay dividends by securing Arab support on Iraq and the war on terrorism.
We have an opportunity to promote democratic change and good governance in the Arab/Muslim world, a region desperate for progressive reform.
As the world's most powerful country, we must be seen as determined leaders, in empowering people economically and politically.
Only then can we overcome the resentment of so many who see us as indifferent to their plight.
Let me tell you, in my thirty years as a Senator, I've never met a world leader who doesn't view the United States as the reason for all of his difficulty, and the solution to all of their problems. It is an unfair burden, but it is a reality.
The fact is: we are where we are. At this moment in history, at the same time we are at our most vulnerable, we are at our most unchallenged militarily, economically and ideologically. Some people don't like our power.
Others resent our progress, so we have to do a better job of explaining ourselves and use our power in a way that doesn't dissipate our influence - but enhances it.
In conclusion, we've obviously entered a period of increased vulnerability, of transforming shifts in the political landscape. Our security is no longer a one dimensional game played out in Washington or in capitals around the world. It's much more complicated, it demands cooperation, and it requires more profound leadership to build that cooperation. The decisions we make in the next several months are going to seal our fate for the next several decades.
In 1947, Harry Truman said something that should be said by a President today. He said:
"This is a critical period in our national life. The process of adapting ourselves to the new concept of our world responsibility is naturally a difficult and painful one. The cost is necessarily great. It's not our nature to shirk our obligations. We have a heritage that constitutes the greatest resources of this nation. I call it the spirit and character of the American people."
We have not called on that spirit. We have not, to date, reflected that character.
Where is that voice today? This too is a critical period in our national life. A time to accept our responsibilities and our obligations and understand and adapt to this new world. Most importantly, our most important weapon is if we share our values. And, without doubt, a time for that American spirit in a way that we have been silent thus far. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your indulgence and I will be happy to try to answer any questions you have.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Two Crises: Iraq and North Korea
Usually, at this time of year, I would have come here to speak primarily about the President's budget proposals. Now, our primary concern is war and peace. But we can't talk about one without talking about the other. So let me briefly comment on the budget before I give you my take on the international situation.
Let me say at the outset, and I know some of you will disagree, the President can't have it both ways.
He can't call on this country to go to war, send our men and women in uniform into harm's way, and then cut the resources of the federal government to stand behind them.
As the stock market reminds us every day, there's enormous uncertainty that comes with the prospect of going to war. But, in my view, you can't tie the government's hands when we have all said how important it is to fund homeland security, continue the war on terrorism, and, now, look seriously at the prospects of a war in Iraq. And let me say this - never before in modern times have we gone to war and, at the same time, cut taxes.
Not to mention cutting them in the face of ballooning deficits.
Over the past two years we've gone from a projected surplus of 5.6 trillion dollars over ten years to 2.1 trillion in deficits for the next decade.
We've been down this road before, and we paid a high price. During the decades of deficits, we paid hundreds of billions of dollars in interest on the national debt, getting nothing for the hard-earned tax dollars we collected to do that.
We had higher interest rates because the government was borrowing from capital markets and pushing private borrowers - from corporations to car buyers, from small businessmen to homeowners - to the end of the line.
When we finally got rid of deficits, by making hard choices, we enjoyed the longest strongest period of economic growth in history. Astonishingly, this Administration is now telling us that deficits don't really matter all that much. Budget Director Mitch Daniels told us last month that we've returned to an era of deficits, but now he said, "we ought not hyperventilate about this issue." He said it with a straight face.
Alan Greenspan, on the other hand, warned us last September that "an abandonment of fiscal discipline will eventually push up interest rates, crowd out capital spending, lower productivity growth, and force hard choices on us in the future."
Amazingly, the budget assumes that the big tax cut passed in 2001 will expire, as current law requires in 2010. But the President wants to make it permanent - at a cost of an additional 665 billion dollars. And that doesn't include the cost of the stimulus package that would, with interest, add another 900 billion dollars, almost a trillion dollars more, to the deficits over the next ten years.
I'm not sure these numbers add up.
Today, we face budget deficits over 300 billion dollars in the next two years. But those numbers, and future deficit projections, as disturbing as they are, don't even reflect the huge cost of a war with Iraq, or the cost of managing the repercussions of such a war. It could run to the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Look, as war becomes a more certain prospect, our first duty is to make sure we're strong enough and well enough equipped to meet the challenge and compete the mission.
Now is not the time to handcuff our budget with massive deficits or irresponsible spending.
For years I came here and the one thing you all told me was that we had to balance the budget. Well, we did. And we even paid down the debt. Now look where we're going.
Having said that, let me turn to the prospects of war in Iraq, and then briefly mention the situation on the Korean peninsula.
There's an old quote. I'm not sure who said it. It was from a seventeenth century theological treatise.
It said, "Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, and justice."
Peace is always the goal, but sometimes war is the only course. Sometimes war is necessary - as it may be in Iraq. And sometimes diplomacy is the better part of prudence - as it is in North Korea.
Either way, the goal is the same: doing what's necessary to make the world more secure, not less secure.
War is everyone's business. The nation is mobilizing for it. But there are questions. There are fears. There's uncertainty and doubt. We're told it will be a potentially short war, but - let's be clear - winning the peace could be a much more daunting task. I'm not certain Americans understand what it will take to hold the separate parts of Iraq together once Saddam is gone. I'm not certain they've been fully informed as to how we plan on balancing the conflicting interests of the Kurds and the Turkmen in the north and the Shi'a in the south.
I'm not certain Americans are fully aware that we will have to commit ourselves to staying in Iraq for a significant period of time.
It will mean doing something the President has said he would not do, and that is nation building.
Nation building is a word the Administration may not like, but something that may be necessary if we are to ultimately secure the weapons of mass destruction and stabilize the country, make sure a government is in place that won't reignite the fuse.
This week Secretary Powell brought America's case to the United Nations. He showed the world compelling evidence that Saddam is in material breach of United Nations resolutions.
He made the case. He made it forthrightly and he made it well. I may not agree completely with every detail of what he said or the implications of every detail.
But bringing the case to the United Nations was the right thing to do. Solidarity in the United Nations Security Council is the best means to avoid war. Let me repeat that. Only when Saddam realizes there is a strong international consensus will he stop trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our allies. Consensus is our best and probably our last chance to concentrate his mind clearly about his choice of war or peace.
While a second UN resolution isn't a requirement, and while we can win a war on our own, we are much better off if we have the support of the UN and a broad coalition.
I think we'll have the French with us eventually. The Germans will not be with us. They'll abstain. But there will be a coalition when and if the time comes.
The harder part will begin AFTER the war, with what will likely be a lengthy and costly period of nation building and/or occupation.
It's better to have our allies with us on the take off so they'll be with us on the landing. Just as importantly, we need the American people with us on the take off.
The challenge is for the President to be straight with the American people. I do not believe they have, as of yet, been fully informed of what is expected of them to win the war, and what will be expected to win the peace.
Let everyone here be absolutely clear: I supported the resolution to go to war. I am NOT opposed to war to remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. I am NOT opposed to war to remove Saddam from those weapons if it comes to that. But the lesson of the past is clear.
To sustain any foreign policy - especially when it comes to war - it is absolutely essential that the American people be completely and thoroughly informed as to what to expect or they will lose their resolve quickly.
I've urged the Presdient to be straightforward with the American people about the burden they will be asked to shoulder.
They're being told the war in Iraq will be a short war, essentially bloodless, and Johnny will come marching home again in several weeks, if not several months. They're being told the war will be prosecuted quickly and successfully and I believe that may well be true.
Our military is the strongest in the world. The best in the world. The most powerful military force history has known.
Let me tell you - on December 8th I was in Qatar being briefed by General Franks, witnessing the war games that were being conducted. We were assembled in a secure room - a gigantic hanger with a huge movie screen. There were around a hundred high ranking officers.
I've never seen so many stars in my life other than when I was a kid looking up at a clear summer night.
I was asked, being briefed by these officers, whether or not I would address the assembled crowd, all active military personnel planning this war.
I've got to tell you, these men and women to a person were ready to go and were secure in their knowledge that they would successfully complete their mission by defeating Saddam Hussein, if ordered to do so.
They're prepared. They're ready. They know what's expected of them and they know what must be done.
What they were unsure of was us - the politicians. Whether we were willing to tell the American people exactly what was likely to be asked of them. Whether we were willing to tell them the cost of the war. The economic disruption it will cause, and explain how we can have the first wartime tax cut in history while we face a potentially prolonged engagement.
Those troops wanted to know whether the American people were going to be willing to give them the support they would need over the long haul, not the short haul. And, make no mistake, it will be a long haul, no matter how quickly and successfully we wage the war.
In my view, it could take from one to five years to win the peace and may take as many as 75,000 troops to secure victory with a cost of 20 billion dollars or more.
The point is, we have every reason to have faith in our military. But while it is reasonable to expect the best, it would be irresponsible not to prepare for the worst.
Iraq could start giving away its weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. It could create a humanitarian nightmare among the Kurds in the north and the Shi'a in the south, denying them food and medicine, even use chemical weapons against them. Saddam has done it in the past and could do it again.
Maybe none of these things will occur, but if we prosecute this war without the American people fully aware of the possibilities - without understanding the consequences - without an explanation of the implications of our actions around the world, we will be hard pressed to win the peace and even harder pressed to win the hearts and minds of the world.
To be honest, some in the Administration think it doesn't matter what other nations think. All that matters is that we win, because everybody loves a winner. That's wrong! Dead wrong! Let me tell you, it matters.
It matters because our basic immediate interests cannot be fully secured without longer term cooperation with other nations.
We must convince them, not coerce them.
Our allies in Europe resent it when they hear us saying that Europe is tired, indecisive, and ultimately unwilling to do what's necessary to keep the peace.
They resent it when they hear us say that Europe commands too much of our resources and attention. We must understand that words matter and how we convey our values matters deeply.
Let me give you an example. There's a new government in Turkey, led by an Islamic party.
That Islamic party is, in turn, led by Prime Minister Gul and the party chief, Erdogan. They have decided they want Turkey to remain a secular state and they want to be integrated into Europe and the West. It is very much in the the interest of the United States of America - very much - that happens.
We do not want an Islamic state in Turkey. We want a secular state looking West. Turkey can be a predominantly Muslim but secular, democratic and modernizing state.
We could have essentially bought their support to allow us to launch military strikes against Iraq from Turkey.
But if we did that, without winning the support of the Turkish people - 85 percent of whom are unalterably opposed to war with Iraq and unalterably opposed to their government cooperating with us - we may meet our immediate goal and lose a lot more down the road.
So what happens if we go to war and we launch from Turkey with the support of the new Islamic leadership but without the support of the people. Well, the majority of this Islamic party that is radically Islamic will play to its populist instincts and cause incredible trouble for the existing administration in Turkey.
And, I believe, ultimately they will force the leadership to move away from their commitment of a secular, westward-looking state. We've already seen backsliding in Afghanistan where one war lord is returning to the repressive customs of the Taliban.
I'm reminded of that old Biblical proverb - what does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul - what does it profit us if our actions and our methods, without world opinion behind us, without being circumspect about our words and our actions - what does it profit us if the end result is that we radicalize the Islamic world?
So what do we do now? First, it is clear that Saddam is in material breach and the world must act.
Second, we must lower the rhetoric. We cannot appear to be a petulant nation.
Third, if we are to go to war, we must tell the American people what is expected of them and what will be necessary to win the peace.
Fourth, we must clearly articulate our commitment, once the war is over, to stay until there is a stable Iraq - that, after Saddam is removed from power, we will, we must, we have to engage in nation building.
Make no mistake, we will win the war, but, if we are to win the peace, we must have the American people with us on the take-off, if we want them with us on the landing.
They have no idea what's expected of them.
They do not know what the cost will be to remove Saddam, and they should.
They do not know how many troops - how many of you - will have to stay in Iraq to secure the country. They do not know whether we can count on our friends and allies to share the burden once the war is over. They do not know whether we can afford to attack Iraq, fully fund homeland security, have the first wartime tax cut in history, finish the unfinished war on terrorism in Afghanistan and other places, fund missile defense, equip our military, take care of veterans and the elderly at even current inadequate levels, not to mention crime, drugs, education, and cops on the street.
But let's be clear. These questions are not excuses for inaction.
They are not a reason to wait. They are not a rationale for standing down. The American people support the President. We are in this together. We stand with our troops. We support them. But, if we are to win the peace as well as the war, let's not forget the lessons of the past. To sustain any foreign policy, to further our interests around the world and make us more secure, the best thing we can do is have the informed consent of the American people before we got to war with Iraq.
Now let's talk for a minute about North Korea and what the difference is between the two crises.
The challenge is clear. We must stop North Korea from going into serial production of fissile material and nuclear weapons.
The threats are real but our options are few.
Some support a military strike to take out North Korean nuclear facilities. I don't think we should ever rule out force, but in this case it's hardly an attractive option - it must be a last option.
Even if we could destroy the North's nuclear facilities - and I would note, parenthetically that we don't even know where many of them are - the risk of sparking a general war on the peninsula would be very real.
And let's be clear, it would be a messy bloody war. North Korea forward deployed artillery tubes can hit Seoul without warning from hardened firing positions.
There are also political obstacles to a military strike. South Korea and Japan strongly oppose any attempt to use military force to compel the North's nuclear disarmament.
As for sanctions, we don't have many arrows left in the quiver. We've already cut off North Korea's access to international loans and the U.S. technology. Moreover, the North's largest trading partners, China and South Korea, are opposed to pressure tactics.
Wise handling of this evolving challenge on the Korean peninsula must, therefore, rely on diplomacy.
We must make every effort to convince North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, that his pursuit of nuclear weapons makes him less secure, not more secure.
We must try to convince him that if North Korea behaves responsibly, it will find true peace on the Korean peninsula, and its people will enjoy the benefits of that peace.
That's going to be a tough sell, but, in the case of North Korea, war is not an answer.
Having said that, these are not easy decisions. Certainly going to war in Iraq has not been an easy decision, but before we make it we must be fully aware of the consequences and the costs. Tom Paine said: "War involves in its progress such a train of unforseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end."
He was right. We may not be able to calculate the end, but we must be informed at the beginning about the costs and consequences of our actions, and what will be expected of us to win not only the war, but to win the peace.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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On the Possibility Of A War With Iraq
Thirty years ago my generation learned an important lesson: No matter how brilliant or how well thought ought a foreign policy may be, it cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. It cannot be sustained without every one of you understanding what is being asked of you and why.
I do not believe that, even after the President's State of the Union Address last week - how many of you saw it? I don't believe that he adequately informed the American people as to what a war with Iraq will mean.
I'm not saying he's wrong to go to war. What I'm saying is that he needs to be very clear about his reasons for it, what it will cost, what the consequences of our actions will be around the world.
I would bet the majority of you and the majority of the American people are willing to support the President. They're willing to go to war. In the Senate, I voted to give him the authority to do it. But we need to know what it will take to the win the war and what will be expected of us to win the peace.
How many of you know about the President's new preemption doctrine? Raise your hands.
How many of you who have heard of it, wonder exactly what it means?
I can tell you that most American who understand it are confused by it and are wondering whether or not this is the basis upon which America should act around the world. But we are about to test it.
How many of you think this war in Iraq will be short and essentially bloodless?
How many of you think that the war will go well and be over quickly?
How many of you think that defeating Saddam Hussein will be a major setback for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations?
How many of you think Saddam is months away from having a nuclear weapon that could strike American soil?
How many of you think the cost of the war will be manageable and not cause further economic disruption?
How many of you know that this is the first time in history that a President is calling for a war at the same time he's calling for a 674 billion dollar tax cut?
In short, how many of you think you've been honestly told why we're going to war and what it will entail - what the costs are and what the reaction around the world will be.
Look, I'm one of those who believe the war will go well.
I believe it will be prosecuted in such a way that showcase American military prowess. But it may not.
It may take a year. It may take two. It may take as many as 75,000 troops five years to secure victory in Iraq. It cost 20 billion dollars more. It cost the lives of innocent women and children in Baghdad and we could become the bad guys in the eyes of the many more Muslims around the world.
While it is reasonable to expect the best, it would be irresponsible not to prepare for the worst.
Iraq could lash out against Kuwait, Israel, or Saudi Arabia in an effort to start a wider war.
It could use weapons of mass destruction against its neighbors or against our troops.
It could destroy its oil fields.
It could start giving away its weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
It could create a humanitarian nightmare among the Kurds in the north and the Shi'a in the south, denying them food and medicine, even using chemical weapons against them as Saddam has done in the past and as I saw myself when I met with survivors a month ago in northern Iraq.
Maybe none of these things will occur, but we must prepare the American people for what could happen.
Your generation, my generation, every American would pay whatever price and pledge support to the President, to rid the world of the threat of Saddam, but the President's policy will not be sustained without informed consent.
I just returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos where I found myself confronted with the most uniform and significant anti-American sentiment I have ever encountered in my 30 years of dealing with foreign leaders abroad.
It raises several questions: Why do they feel this way? Why should it matter? And, if it does matter, what should we do about it?
Why do they feel this way? Several reasons. There's a lack of strong leadership in their respective countries that's unwilling to tell their people the truth about Saddam and the commitment their countries made 10 years ago to deal with him.
There are selfish economic motives with regard to oil, or telecom issues, and scores of other areas.
They don't like America's predominant military, economic, and cultural position in the world - from Coca-Cola, to rap music, to English on the internet.
They don't want to be Americanized.
There's a feeling that the President is being pushed by the right wing of his party to further leverage this predominant position.
And there's a seething resentment at our unwillingness to use the forces they offered in Afghanistan after declaring a Article 5 breach had occurred under the NATO treaty.
All of the above compounded by this new doctrine of preemption that is yet to be explained to us, let alone to them - gives the world the appearance of a great power being petulant.
And there's one other thing. How many of you are following what's happening in Korea?
Well, there a lot of people around the world who think there's an apparent contradiction between our treatment of Iraq and our treatment of North Korea which already has weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, and has ejected international inspectors.
In contrast to its approach toward Iraq, the Bush Administration has now apparently settled upon a diplomatic path to try to bring North Korea back into the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and prevent a grave crisis on the peninsula.
Until recently, the Administration's Korea policy has been incoherent and ineffectual.
The Administration dug itself quite a hole on North Korea.
When Bill Clinton left office, we had what is called a nuclear Agreed Framework - a fancy term for an agreement that was stemming North Korea's ability to produce plutonium.
We were negotiating a deal to end its long-range ballistic missile programs.
But the new Administration rejected those negotiations.
So what happens? North Korea has predictably upped the ante, and it remains to be seen whether they are using their nuclear program for leverage or whether they want to become a nuclear power.
They say they have no intention to build nuclear weapons, but the facts on the ground suggest otherwise.
What you need to know about North Korea is that there bottom line is survival.
But, given the President's thinly disguised disgust for North Korea, his national security doctrine of preemption, America's new limits on food aid, and its talk of "tailored containment," - another fancy word that means a little special treatment for an evil nation - North Korea might conclude that we're trying to strangle them, and that the only remedy is to become nuclear power.
So what does that all mean?
It means we need to convince North Korea's leaders that only by giving up their nuclear weapons programs - and their long-range ballistic missile programs - can they develop truly cooperative relations with the United States and the rest of the international community.
It means we have to convince them that their future is more likely to be secure without nuclear weapons than with nuclear weapons.
Because, if North Korea develops a nuclear arsenal, there is a real risk that South Korea and Japan will do the same - and you know that means? It means destabilizing Northeast Asia and dealing a death blow to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Worse yet, North Korea could sell nuclear weapons - to countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria or Libya? Or to al Qaeda?
The stakes could not be higher.
But here's the problem. How many of you think we're treating North Korea differently than we're treating Iraq?
How many of you think we're being tougher on Iraq?
How many of you think the world sees us as acting on our own, unilaterally, unceremoniously withdrawing from international agreements and structures?
How many of you think it matters what the world thinks?
Well it does matter. And let me tell why?
There are those in the Defense Department saying, if we move in the face of world public opinion, rogue nations will know we mean business and they could be next.
Some in the Administration think all that matters is that we make it work in the long run because everybody loves a winner.
Wrong! It matters what other nations think because our basic immediate interests cannot be fully secured without longer term cooperation with these other nations. We must convince them, not coerce them.
You've all taken history. You've all learned about World War I and World War II.
Well, I can tell you that France and Germany resent it when they hear us saying that Europe is tired, indecisive, and ultimately unwilling to do what's necessary to keep the peace, that it commands to much of our resources and attention, particularly, as the Secretary of Defense said, "Old Europe," meaning France and Germany.
I think this is an inaccurate description of where President Bush is, but I do believe that words matter. And his choice of words and failure to clearly explain his choices, and basis for action when we DO act, has undermined our standing in the world.
Conveying our values to the rest of the world so as to diminish the misunderstanding of our motives, constantly runs into the assertions that come from some in this Administration.
It matters what other nations think.
How many of you know there's a new government in Turkey?
Well that government is led by an Islamic Party. The Islamic Party is leg by Prime Minister Gul and the party chief, Erdogan.
They want Turkey to remain a secular state, integrated into Europe and the West. We want that to happen.
We can offer $5 billion and essentially buy Turkey's support to allow us to launch military strikes against Iraq from turkey.
But if we do that in the absence of a worldwide consensus, we may meet our immediate goal but lose a lot more down the road.
The radical Muslim minority in the Party will play to its populist instincts and could force the existing leadership to move away from their commitment to a secular state.
So, paraphrasing the old biblical proverb - what does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul - what does it profit us to move on Iraq from Turkey if the end result is that we radicalize the government there?
So what do we do about Iraq and what do we do to get the American people and the world behind us?
First, we need to lower the rhetoric.
We need not to appear to be a petulant nation, wondering why the rest of the world won't act with us, showing our impatience.
We need to make the case with proof, not only privately to our partners but to the American people and the world, of Saddam's crimes and the weapons he possesses. And we need to support the inspectors because their presence in Iraq diminishes the possibility of Saddam sharing weapons of mass destruction with terrorists or continuing his quest for nuclear weapons.
Fourth, we need to articulate clearly and repeatedly not only the legal basis for our action, if we must move, but our commitment to stay until we have a stable Iraq.
We need to clearly state that our objective is to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and not the destruction of Iraq.
And we have to make it clear that we will participate in nation building.
But most importantly - and I'll leave you with this thought and then answer your questions - the lessons of the past cannot be forgotten. We need the informed consent of the American people and the world if we want them to be with us and if we want to this right.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Delaware National Guard Deployment Ceremony for 280th Signal Battalion
The whole of America's strength and power is only as good as its parts. A standing army is only as powerful as the reserves which reinforce it. A reservist is only as strong as the Guardsman or woman who can fill their position so that Homeland Security is not compromised. The Guard is only as dependable as the community which can support its deployment.
This is the business of America, and we are all in it together.
We are all in it together in that the war on terror cannot be fought without sacrifice and struggle. Your parent unit may sacrifice the Delaware Guard, your employer may sacrifice a worker, your family may sacrifice a parent. But what's critical here, as we all know too well, is that the nation gains a soldier.
I understand that this deployment, however honorable, however necessary, is disruptive. I understand it causes conflict. I pledge to continue to help work-out those conflicts inherent to Total Force.
The business of America, the business of national defense, the business of democracy is always a work in progress.
To rearrange your private life for public service - that is the unique and noble commitment of the citizen soldier. That is your part to play, and on behalf of all Americans, I thank you for your dedication and loyalty. I assure you, I'll be working on my end, too.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Remarks to The World Affairs Council
John: Welcome Senator Biden to the National Conference of the World Affairs Council of America.
Do let me know in the back when either I or the Senator speaks if you cannot hear properly. I also want to extend a special word of thanks to Mike Haltzel and Frank Jannuzi of the Senator's staff who have helped arrange this meeting during an extraordinarily busy week during the American Congress.
As you know we heard one spokesman for the executive branch this morning Jim Kelly and we'll hear from Secretary of State Powell tomorrow. But any comprehensive discussion of American foreign policy must include a discussion with members of the Congress and no one with a more respected, knowledgeable or influential of the Congress than our guest today, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.
I had the pleasure of meeting Senator Joe Biden about 30 years ago. We were organizing a meeting of our Atlantic Conference involving leaders from Europe, North America, South America, and the United states. The chairman of that conference Senator Frank Church said to me, said: "John, one of the priorities of this conference is to identify young leaders who will someday be running the Western world," and he said, "I strongly recommend that you invite a young man from Delaware who had just recently arrived in the US Senate, his name is Joe Biden, you probably have never heard of him but you are going to hear a lot more about him in the coming decade."
Senator Church's words were too true because now Senator Biden in the last three decades has become one the most influential and respected members of the United States Congress. In his 30 years in the Senate he has served as chairman of tow important committees, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Here today we are going to focus on his record in the foreign policy field but those who know his record well know he has made significant contributions in the Judiciary field, the Civil Rights field, and the environmental field to mention only a few.
After graduating from the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School, Joe Biden practiced law for several years, served on the local county council and was elected to the Senate in 1972. He has, over the years, become recognized as the leading foreign policy spokesman of the Democratic party and over the years working closely with his friend and partner Senator Richard Lugar, he's come to epitomize the best of the non-partisan foreign policy tradition in the United States with a record that is widely recognized not only in the U.S., but in Europe and Asia as well.
He's been a wise counselor to seven presidents in the last three decades. And they have listened to him, some more than others, in great part because of his knowledge and expertise and his non-partisanship. He has also been a strong proponent of educating the American public about foreign policy issues and he's been extraordinarily generous with his time despite the great pressures in the Congress in Washington and has traveled around the country on many occasions addressing many foreign policy institutes, including many world affairs councils represented today. And therefore, it is a special pleasure for me to introduce Senator Joe Biden who will speak to this National Conference. He is going to speak briefly and then take questions with whatever is on your mind. Joe Biden.
Senator Joe Biden (D-DE): Thank you very much.
Let me begin by saying there is high praise and high praise. I just want you to know I have been a student of this man for at least the first ten years of my career. John was kind enough to not only invite me to that conference but also to instruct me and to help me in exposing me to those in this country who are part of the foreign policy establishment and give me constructive advise in my career, and I appreciate it very much. It's a very high praise coming from you John.
There are a number of exaggerations John engaged in a moment ago. Not the least of which is me being a counselor to seven presidents. I have been a witness to the personalities and the policies of seven presidents. I got here when I was 29 years old, I've been here for 30 years and I have offered some advice more to some presidents than others. And I've had the opportunity to be listened to by fewer presidents than seven.
But I'd like to suggest that, if I could make one editorial comment about the World Affairs Council, I think you have, as an organization, a tremendous opportunity and its presumptuous of me to suggest this: a serious obligation. I have had the great pleasure of speaking in front of many different chapters, but I also have the opportunity frequently to speak to the foreign affairs community, the New York council, the Chicago council.
You have a distinction that is an asset that is slightly different than other foreign policy organizations. And that is more of you are in the community and are quote "not professional" foreign policy experts. The last time I spoke to the New York Council on Foreign Relations, I spoke to people from former Chancellors of Germany to several Secretaries of State to a number of Under Secretaries and that is important and it is an opportunity for me to exchange ideas and hear what they have to say. These are not people who are probably like many of you, who, I don't mean this as a criticism, but who are not part of your home communities who are involved in other civic clubs in your city or state.
It is no way to diminish your significance and importance, but you have broader range of involvement, and, I may be wrong about this, but a broad range of contacts and opportunities that spread across the spectrum of the community than some of the quote elite unquote foreign policy establishment groups. But I think there is no time, quite frankly, in modern American history where there has been a need to expose and educate the average American to foreign policy.
People often ask me why I haven't chosen to be governor of my state of Delaware, which I have had to opportunity to do. I've never had the slightest interest to be governor of my state because to do so would mean I could not engage in the single most important pursuit that I think I am able to contribute to. The fate of my children and grandchildren is going to depend so much more on how well we order our affairs internationally and establish our place in the world, than anything, anything, anything else we could do. The only thing that could even rival affecting my children and grandchildren's futures is the Supreme Court of the U.S. and who chooses who sits on it. Nothing else is as important.
We have a rare opportunity and the opportunity is after 9/11 for the first time in, at least my career -- and there are only six Senators who have served here longer than I have at this point. In my career, there has never been a time when the American public so intuitively and intellectually understood the connection between what happens to them in their home, what happens to their job, what kind of future their going to have, and America's place in the world.
And there is a gigantic educational requirement, and I don't mean that in an elitist sense. The American public is a heck of a lot smarter than their leaders are most of the time. Their intuitive instincts are pretty damn good. And foreign policy professionals try to make it sound complicated to make ourselves feel important. Well, foreign policy is complicated for one reason, in my opinion and then I'll cease this editorial comment, its complicated because all it is, is a logical extension of human relationships with a heck of a lot less information to go on.
I'm not being simplistic, think about that for a minute. That's all it really is. Healthcare is a more complicated subject than foreign policy, but we're able to know more about the healthcare industry, than we are able to know about the motivations, the desires, and the instincts of other parts of the world and people with whom we have to deal.
And so this is not the stuff of which average Americans are incapable of understanding and we tend to treat it like it's beyond their competence. Which leads me to the first major point I would like to make.
I come out of a generation that many of you do, this so called Vietnam generation. And even to this day, as we continue to re-litigate that war, its amazing how there is such an incredible overhang in American politics among my generation. The one thing and only one thing we could probably all agree on is that the lesson learned from Vietnam is that no matter how brilliantly conceived a foreign policy strategy is, it cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. It cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. And the importance of that informed consent rises in direct proportion, in my view, to the gravity of the circumstance and circumstances we face and the decisions we have to make.
And that is not being a democrat with a "small d" and talking about the right of the people to know. It is a very practical, practical prescription. For if we lead the public and commit America to a course of action, for which the public is unprepared and uninformed, our ability to sustain the policy we started is in jeopardy from the outset.
Let me be very specific: Iraq. There is an overwhelming consensus, believe it or not, in this place about the principle points relating to our debate on Iraq.
The strategic objective that I think we should be articulating probably has what 90% of my colleagues would agree with, Democrat and Republican. To vastly oversimplify it, it is in the best interest of the United States and the world that Saddam Huessen at some point be separated from his weapons of mass destruction with as much support and consensus the world community can muster under our leadership. They're concurrent objectives, we tend to speak of them as if they're separate, but if the Lord almighty came down and sat in front of this dais and said that, I can guarantee you that all the civilized nations of the world will support disarming Saddam if he will not do it himself that would be the only, in my view, and the most likely prescription for us to be able to avoid war because only then would Saddam have to make a fundamental decision, essentially not only his power but effectively his life or his weapons.
In that circumstance the prospect of the latter being surrendered is at its highest probable point. We do have disagreement tactically here, as to how immediate the danger he presents and the manner in which we are most likely to be able to bring about the prospect of him at whatever point separating himself from his weapons, absent a war.
It is my view that there is no immediate threat in the sense that Saddam Hussein presently possesses the capability to wreak havoc upon the United States or is there any historical basis to suggest that he is more inclined than say the Iranians or the North Koreans or anyone else to cooperate with Al-Qaeda.
As a matter of fact, the historical record shows that as a secular dictator in a Muslim world he is the most likely target for the Osama Bin Laden's of the world. Now it does not mean that he may not reach the point that the enemy of enemy becomes my friend and therefore there is cooperation. But this notion that somehow there is an immediate clear and present danger because he is likely to cooperate or has cooperated with Osama bin Laden, and/or because he has the capacity to thrust upon us biological/chemical or nuclear weapons, is possible but unlikely.
But there is no doubt in my mind, speaking as a Democrat who is not happy with this Administration's foreign policy and the way it approaches it generally, there is no doubt in my mind that, left unfettered over the next five years with access to roughly two billion dollars a year and an unimpeded ability to import material, which it is clear that he has had, that he will have a nuclear weapon within that time frame.
Does that mean that he would use them against us? No. Does that mean that it would fundamentally change the foreign policy option of any president of the United States? Yes.
Because I believe he seeks them for only one reason. He seeks them for the ability to increase regional hegemony. And I don't want another President faced with the prospect of a nuclear Iraq if he moves into a Kuwait again.
We are told that we can assemble two hundred and fifty thousand folks to route him. And then we are told in a closed briefing, when asked of the intelligence community, Defense Department, or Secretary of State, what would be the effect of him using a tactical nuclear weapon on those assembled troops and they say: "Well, a hundred and fifty thousand people would die." Many presidents would very well make the decision that they could not take that chance and we would begin to conclude that its not much in our interest that there be stability in that region.
That to me is the worry. But what happens when you're in a job like mine, and I'll never forget Frank Church saying this to me. He said two things which stick in my mind. One I will not speak to. But he said in that meeting: "Joe, you have to understand there are nuclear theologians," he said. "You're the only guy I know that read Summa Theologica. This is like the argument of how many angels on the head of a pin," he says. "These guys are in a different world."
He said something else to me as well, if I recall correctly. He talked about us usually being left by presidents with Hobson's choices in my position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Now I'm the ranking member. That's a euphemism for having no power. (Laughter)
We are left with Hobson's choices. That is to say, most of the good choices, many times, have been obviated. Presidents have discarded them in my view, from my perspective, mistakenly.
Guys like me and women like-minded women get left with having to make a judgement about which of the two not so good choices is the better to be made and that's where we are right now, in my view. I would have, and some of you were kind enough to suggest, followed what I have been saying on some of these issues for a while, I believe we have approached this in somewhat of a ham-handed way.
Thank God for Colin Powell. I mean that sincerely. (Applause)
I think that we have made it much more difficult for ourselves, but that's irrelevant at the moment. As the old saying goes: we are where we are where we are. And where we are right now is with over one hundred and approaching two hundred thousand in the most awesome concentration of military power in the history of the world in the theater and with a man who is in fact in material breach of 1441, the resolution most recently passed in the United Nations.
If we withdraw in these circumstances without a fundamental change in his behavior, I have reached the conclusion that that is even more damaging to us then if we were to go with an anemic cast of the willing to take him down. If he does not -- as my fundamentalists friends in southern Delaware say - have an altar call and see the light, which I do not think he is likely to do.
So the place which I began from this moment, after having the four hour hearing with Mr. Armitage and Ambassador Negropante before our committee. And that's where I just came from. We are left with a dwindling number of choices. I do not believe that the most urgent threat to our security is Saddam Hussein.
I believe our most urgent threat is the unattended and unfinished business of al-Qaeda and it is very unfinished. We are making a botch of Afghanistan in my view. We are putting ourselves in a very dangerous circumstance.
North Korea presents more of a clear and present danger because not only can they become the plutonium factory of the world, and, I might add, all you need is two pieces of plutonium less than the circumference of the top of this glass an eight of an inch thick pushed together at very high speeds to develop a one kiloton nuclear weapon.
I asked our national laboratories if they could construct off a shelf what a terrorist group possessing reasonable but not exceptional knowledge could build. And they not only said they could, but they'd build it for me, literally not figuratively. All off the shelf. All, all, in the open market. Absent the fissile material.
We know for a fact that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda have had a full blown effort to gain the technological expertise to do such things, including as you recall, rough diagrams found in Kandahar by news organizations of such devices.
So to put it in perspective, our failure, if you notice, I was told if you check Lexis-Nexis, since 9/11, or shortly thereafter, the President only mentioned Osama Bin Laden 6 times. He probably mentioned Saddam Hussein 6,000. In relative terms they're not close. I would note parenthetically that we no longer have soccer moms in San Diego or Wilmington or Washington or Seattle, we have security moms. An abnormally high percentage of women between the ages of 25 and 40 with children, believe that they are likely to be a victim of a terrorist attack, which is not accurate but close to 40% believe that. Which has another destabilizing effect on us as a country.
So to make a comparative point, I think Saddam Hussein is a genuine danger and cannot be left unattended. Do I think it should have been moved front and center to the degree it has now? My answer to that is no, but it has. I think there are other things that are of a much more immediate concern, but that's not where we are right now. And so what do we do? What do we do?
My suggestion is that we should, and what I have attempted to do, and I will not speak for Dick Lugar, who is a close friend and whom - which will shock you all, we agree on almost everyone of these major issues - is to weigh in on a side of an incredibly divided administration. I have been a relatively good observer for seven presidents. I have never seen an Administration so fundamentally divided on basic animating principles of foreign policies as this Administration is.
They would deny it, necessarily, but Colin Powell and Rumsfeld and Cheney have about as much in common as this glass of water and this microphone. (Laughter)
If you think I'm joking, I am not joking. For those of you think, and those of you who are very strong and supportive Republicans who don't like my saying that, I ask you and suggest to you, you should read. We tend not to read what people say. For ten years John, you have had foreign policy experts coming out of the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the intellectual right, who are very bright people, these are very bright people who truly believe that at the pinnacle of our power what we should be doing is further increasing the leverage we have around the world and that can most be done by the exercise of unilateral power. Not because these are bad guys seeking domination over the rest of the world, because they really believe the better way to order the world in the 21st century is to avoid the sins and carnage of the 20th century, to jettison the old Europe - and keep in mind there is a, connect the dots here, the same people who have taken the position on how to approach Iraq that fortunately the president has not adopted, are the same people who have been saying for 20 years -- John, with or without NATO what difference does it make? We spend too much money, Europe is unimportant, other parts of the world are more critical for example.
And so some folks believe, and I will not use names, but these folks sincerely believe that if we go it alone even when help is offered to reject it, we will demonstrate to the world our resolve. We will leverage the power we have, and to put it in colloquial terms Khomeini will sit there and say, " Oh my God! Look what they did in the face of the whole world of objecting, in Iraq we better straighten up our act." Kim will say, whoa, we see what's coming we'd better, you think I'm exaggerating. The only thing I'm doing here is unfairly and not fully, because of time, giving the complete rationale for their argument. And there is a chance they may be right. But I disagree with it.
But understand, let's assume that there is a serious possibility that's the way we should conduct ourselves. Let's assume they're right. That is not a view shared by the State Department and Colin Powell. They are more traditional internationalists who believe multinational organizations have a value. Speaking for myself, I would argue what's going to sound to you very counterintuitive: to the degree we increase our relative power around the world, politically, economically, culturally, to the degree that happens, we need even more a thing called the United Nations.
The more powerful we are, the more we need international institutions because the option is we become somewhat schizophrenic. Think about the intellectual rights argument. Do you ever wonder how the same people could be called isolationists and unilateralists? They're not inconsistent terms.
There are the isolationists of old, which is a strong strain that has run through American history for over 200 years. Yet we find ourselves in a position not sought, but a fact, as being the world's sole superpower.
So that creates a dilemma, that's why you get things like, how could we suggest we intervene but not nation build? They are not people who are there to build societies, they should come home. Think about that. How do they rationalize what I think is a third inconsistency? They don't want international organizations having no faith in them, they don't want to stay and clean up the mess, yet they want to intervene to eliminate danger. I don't argue that they have a difficult task reconciling the three, which is why we have what I call "intellectual schizophrenia" going on now.
I've been here a long time in this Senate, it is an important body, but I do understand the limitations of even the most powerful senator within the context of affecting and determining foreign policy. I understand it is important, but I understand it's limitation. So I and others - and I will not say their names in fear of them being associated with everything I said and hurting them - what I and others have attempted to do is weigh in at strategic moments on the side of the argument that is represented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Powell, on the one hand, an unusual alliance, think about that, those of you who are seasoned in this.
Name me the last time the State Department and the Defense Department uniforms have been in agreement on almost everything and the civilian Defense Department in the White House have been in agreement or at odds with one another.
So we are going through a period that is some what difficult. I realize I'm not speaking to specific issuses. I'm going to end with this and then try to put within the context I have spoken very briefly. My staff has a brilliant speech here for you that I have ignored that we'll make available to you if you'd like, seriously. (Laughter) It is really quite first rate.
But what I'm trying to do here, and probably because I'm doing it extemporaneously I'm not doing it well, is try to paint a little bit of a picture for you of the place we are at at the moment and the conflict that exists within the Administration between the Administration and the Congress and the country at large, and the fundamental divide we are going to have to remedy. We're going to have to choose one of these paths and once chosen its not very easy to change in the near term.
We can come up with this cockamamie tax proposal that the president has, which, probably if you're wealthy you like it some of you. But its crazy in my view and it will do harm to the economy in my view.
Aassume, for the sake of the discussion, I'm right. Let's argue in the alternative for a moment here, let's assume I'm right. And guess what? As my father, who just passed away, he'd say: "Joey, America is so big, so strong, so capable. No one could screw it up in four years, unless they go to war." We can rectify a tax cut, pass a piece of legislation next year and change it, but if we go into Iraq based on a theory of preemption and lay that out we will have undone a basic tenant that the civilized world has operated on since 1648.
Preemption is dangerous and unacceptable internationally. Can you tell me how we convince India or Pakistan that they do not have the right to engage in preemption? You tell me how you put humpty dumpty back together again. We will not be able to undo in a Congressional semester, if you will, in the life of a Congress, or the term of several presidents, what we may get wrong now. And so, from my perspective, I think we require at this moment a little patience, a little less questioning of each other motives, not our judgement but our motives and a healthy dose of humility with a little bit of perspective.
Let me explain what I mean by that and then I'll stop. And that is that if my granddaughter, I have three granddaughters, the one who is most precocious - she has to be, her name if Finnegan Biden. When my 4 year old Finnegan Biden is writing her thesis at the University of Chicago, and hopefully by that time the Chicago School of Law and Economics will have passed into history, she will be writing and her classmates will be writing about "why didn't my grandfather understand that this chaos was predictable?" Think about it.
There is an Irish poet named William Butler Yeats, you're all familiar with him, who writes about the Easter rising. He wrote a poem, one line of which said "the world has changed, it has changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born."
The world has changed utterly in the last 12 years and a terrible beauty has been born. Meaning, there is an overwhelming opportunity and incredible peril if you don't do it correctly. That is to be expected that we would have this ringing out of new ideas, new principles, new rules of the road for international relations. Because never before, I would argue, in the history of man, including the Roman empire, has any one nation relative to any other single nation has been so predominant, politically, militarily, economically, and culturally. And it's a hard and difficult process to work our way through.
And so my one admonition is, even though I have strong disagreement with the intellectual right -- I'm not talking about the Christian Coalition, I'm talking about the intellectual right in this country -- I have strong opposition, I do not question their motives. Their motives are not oil, their motives are not domination. Their motives are what they believe to be the most secure stability and peace for the United States of America. But I will say I think they are dead wrong.
But if we only speak of motives we will never get to our fundamental differences and work out a consensus as to what should be the guiding principles in the 21st century in American foreign policy. I apologize for the disjointed presentation. I'd be happy to take your questions.
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Making the Right Choices for Delaware Seniors
You know, my dad is 87 now and he's not doing too well these days. But he always says to me, "Joey, it's a great day when you can get up, put both feet on the floor, and make a difference."
Folks, if I've learned one thing in the thirty years I've been in the Senate it's that my dad is usually right.
He's certainly right about making a difference. It's what it's all about. It's what public service is about and I'm proud to have served in the United States Senate.
But the job won't be done until we get a few more things right. Like a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug plan.
One that's fair. One that's affordable. One that's reliable.
Medicare is one of the greatest public policy successes of the 20th century.
It has made life better for millions of American seniors for more than a generation.
But to provide seniors with the comprehensive care they desperately need, Medicare needs a prescription drug plan now.
A prescription drug benefit must meet several criteria. First, it must be available to everyone. A program which gives vouchers to seniors so they can purchase drug coverage from a private insurance company fails the test because the insurance companies would have little if any interest in providing such coverage.
A prescription drug benefit must be affordable. Plans in which the government picks up only a small fraction of prescription drug costs is an invitation to disaster. It will lead to many more instances of seniors having to chose between food and medicine, a choice none of us should have to make.
A prescription drug benefit must be voluntary. But, in order for such a program to attract enough participants to make it work, the specifics of the plan must be acceptable. If there were high monthly premiums, large deductibles or gaps in coverage you wouldn't sign up.
A prescription drug plan must be stable and reliable. You shouldn't have to deal with new standards, rules, and providers every year. If you're disabled, you shouldn't have to start over with a new plan if you move across state lines. Medicare has been and must remain universally accepted.
And finally, a prescription drug plan must provide extra help to those with the lowest incomes or the highest drug expenditures. A reasonable subsidy to help poor seniors, and caps on out-of-pocket costs to help those whose medical conditions require expensive medication, are essential to a successful plan.
It's a new world... What used to be cured only by dangerous surgical procedures now can be cured with a pill.
But I don't have to tell you how expensive those pills can be.
People like my dad are lucky. He can afford his medical care. But what if he couldn't? What would he do then?
So many Americans are caught in a middle-class squeeze. So many of our seniors on fixed-incomes keep seeing prices go up.
So many in my generation are trying to save enough for their own retirements. Trying to save enough to put their kids through college. Hoping government will help them with Student Loan Tuition Deductions or Tuition Tax Deductions.
And at the same time we have an obligation to protect Medicare and Social Security and make sure every senior has a safe and secure retirement... Isn't that true?
And isn't it true that you're just as worried about your children and your families as they are about you?
Isn't it true that they seem stressed-out and caught in the middle, doing too much and being too busy, having too many responsibilities, and working longer hours just to make ends meet?
I know that my father wants to be able to take care of himself. He doesn't want to rely on me. He's strong-willed with a lot of pride.
And he gets furious when he reads the news and hears about people's hard earned pensions being lost, leaving them with no retirement.
And, when he gets upset, I know it won't be long before he says, "Joey, you've got to do something."
And then I know I've got to go back to Washington and try like hell to make sure that we pass a law that protects every worker's pension. Not just because my father said it... But because it's fair and just and right for someone who works for thirty years in good faith to reap the rewards of their labor... Isn't it?
Don't you think it's fair and just and right to have decent health insurance at a time in life when you need it most?
Isn't it right to expect every doctor to TREAT patients, not FIGHT insurance companies?
The other day my dad said, "Joey, the insurance companies seem to always measure health care by how much money they earn. But shouldn't they be measuring it by how many lives they save?"
And, as usual, my dad was right, as usual. Insurance adjusters should be processing claims, not patients.
And the medical records of those patients should be private, and should remain between a patient and his or her doctor.
Folks, the bottom line is that the middle class is being squeezed. Not just the young. Not just seniors. But everyone who's trying to make ends meet and live a decent safe life.
Sometimes it seems that the more we try to hold on to what we have, something happens to take it away. And all any of us really wants is to just keep what we've got and give something back to our children.
We want our pensions safe. We want to give our kids a chance at a decent college education. We want Medicare to pay for a life-saving course of antibiotics as well as for surgery.
We want to find the proper balance between openness in the information age and a person's right to privacy in their financial records and their medical records.
We want to make sure the air we breathe and the water we drink is safe and clean and if it's not we want the polluters to pay.
These are common sense things that will make all of us more secure because real security means more than winning the war on terrorism. It means making sure we have a decent life here at home. Let me tell you, my dad has some stories to tell. When I hear about all he's seen and done in his lifetime, I realize why his generation - your generation - is the Greatest generation because you got up every day and put one foot in front of the other and made a difference.
Now it's up to my generation to keep going, to keep moving forward. To keep making a difference. Do more, and dig deeper to find the best in each of us, and put it to work for all of us.
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The Power of Words
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for asking me to come and speak this evening. It is fitting that this museum is the venue for the theme "the power of words." The Jewish people know better than anyone else that words can have profound consequences - both good and evil.
For centuries, words like justice, tolerance, honor, and truth have moved us. They have brought us to our feet. Words like peace and hope have made us believe in ourselves and the goodness of our fellow man.
When leaders like Jefferson said, "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," - we saw how the power of words could shape a nation.
In 1985, we rose to our feet when Elie Wiesel said: "I've learned that suffering confers no privileges. It all depends on what one does with it. And that is why survivors ...have tried to teach their contemporaries how to build on ruins, how to invent hope in a world that offers none. How to proclaim faith to a generation that has seen it shamed and humiliated."
But there are also words that can drop us to our knees and expose our greatest frailties. Words like hatred, vengeance, prejudice, and intolerance.
When Pope Eugene the Fourth said Jews "could never be partakers of eternal life," ...
When Saint Augustine said, "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver,"
When Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisitor of the 15th century, decimated the largest Jewish community in Europe to achieve the cult of "pure blood"... ...we realize that words can sow the long-lasting seeds of intolerance.
When a century ago the Russian czar's secret police concocted the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion and said that the Jews had plotted to seize the world, we realize that those seeds of intolerance can grow into a powerful hatred.
When in 1935, Adolf Hitler took those same words and used them to his own ends saying, "... they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner context as well as their ultimate final aims," we realize that those seeds of intolerance can not only endure but they can change the course of human history.
And consider this: "They (the Jews) always try to warp and distort everything fair and beautiful! Basically, they are a model of moral ugliness, debasement, and degradation. If only Allah would curse them more and more, to the end of all generations. Amen."
Or this: "During this holiday, the Jew must prepare very special pastries, the filling of which is not only costly and rare - it cannot be found at all on the local and international markets.
"Unfortunately, this filling cannot be left out, or substituted with any alternative serving the same purpose. For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries. In other words, the practice cannot be carried out as required if human blood is not spilled!"
These words were not spoken in 1492, or 1901, or 1939. They were spoken today. The "blood libel" repeated again, in our time. In Al-Akbar, the Egyptian government daily, on April 29, 2002. And in Al-Riyadh, the Saudi government daily on March 10 and March 12, 2002!
Over the past 54 years since Israel's founding, the vile lies of anti-semitism have found new fertile ground in the Middle East.
And the echo of words from a century ago reverberate in our time, threatening us with the same hatred and the same intolerance. Once again, we see seeds of intolerance taking root.
Even in Europe, we've witnessed the phenomenon of anti-semitism without Jews having taken hold in many countries. And in recent months, in those few countries where Jews still live, attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions have demonstrated that anti-semitism is alive and well.
I am happy to inform you that tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be voting on a resolution condemning anti-semitism in Europe and calling on governments to take measures to protect their Jewish citizens.
Folks, the scourge of anti-semitism has proven to be incredibly resilient for over two millennia.
We hope that we have turned the corner here in the United States, but we can't take that for granted.
We need to be vigilant and we need to use our words to effectively counter the voices of those who would propagate hate to destroy our freedom.
Words matter. They can change history or force us to repeat it.
But make no mistake, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about a new rise of anti-semitism. We must understand that every leader in every nation must actively oppose the language of hate to prevent it from taking root again.
When we celebrate the power of words, let's understand that there are those who would use words to twist the truth, to cajole, persuade, and mislead.
We were reminded of the powerful effect of words just recently when the Israel Defense Forces were accused of carrying out a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp.
Massacre is a very powerful word, conjuring the most grotesque images of human suffering. But as dozens of relief workers, human rights activists, and journalists have swarmed to the camp in recent weeks, it has become apparent that there was no massacre in Jenin.
There were not 500 civilian dead, as some Palestinians claimed.
In fact, a senior official in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement acknowledged that the death toll was about 50. So let me repeat: there was no massacre in Jenin.
Even one civilian death is one too many, but the word massacre serves to breed only more outrage and incite more violence. The word TRUTH is more important here.
The large number of Israeli deaths in Jenin - 23 in all - demonstrates that something far more complicated went on there.
Israeli soldiers could easily have pummeled the camp from afar. Instead, they went from booby-trapped house to booby-trapped house -- not to inflict civilian casualties, but to prevent them.
By contrast, how many journalists were allowed to investigate the Syrian massacre at Hama in 1982, which killed as many as twenty thousand?
Was there ever a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the genocidal campaign carried out by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in the late 1980s?
Indeed, was there ever an investigation of the violence emanating from refugee camps like Jenin itself, which spawned some two dozen suicide bombers, who murdered more than 50 Israelis and wounded more than 1000?
Of course not. There is a double standard when it comes to Israel.
The point is, when we use a powerful world like massacre, we must follow it with an equally powerful word like truth.
One more example of the Power of Words:
There is a disconnect between the proposal by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia calling for peaceful, normal relations with Israel and some of the hateful words that we hear emanating from the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia cannot have its ambassador to Britain writing poetry praising suicide bombers without firing him.
Period. No "ifs, ands or buts."
Saudi Arabia cannot have articles in leading newspapers claiming that the blood of non-Jews is used in making Jewish holiday pastries.
Saudi Arabia cannot have its textbooks warning students not to befriend non-Muslims. Saudi Arabia cannot talk about peace and support Jihad.
Should we be surprised that the Arab street is so violently hostile to Israel when it is fed a steady diet of vile lies about Israel in the official media...
When Arab youth, comprising 65 percent of the population, are taught intolerance...
When religious leaders preach hate...
It is up to Arab leadership to change the culture of their countries - to open minds and hearts to change, not to close them. Nothing is more important for laying a solid foundation for peace and security.
And nothing will be a clearer signal that they have changed their attitudes than a change in their lexicon - using Arabic words as well as English.
It is profoundly in the self-interest of Arab states to take these steps. They are painfully aware that the very existence of their regimes is at stake.
And it appears we are beginning to see tentative signs of change. An Israeli newspaper reported this week that official Saudi publications have stopped using the word martyr to describe those who carry out terrorist attacks in Israel, and have started using the term suicide.
The distinction is a critical one in Islam. I hope that the report proves correct. And I hope this step heralds many more like it.
Even better would be to call such attacks what they really are: Homicide.
In the end, genuine peace must be built not just on painful compromises, but also on the truth. And telling the truth means using the right words.
Given the theme of tonight's gala, I think it would be appropriate to share with you some of my favorite words from a translation of Sophocles' "Cure at Troy" by Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, who was thinking about his native Ireland, though he just as easily could have been thinking about the Middle East:
Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols Beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker's father Stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils Faints at the funeral home.
History says, don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing: The utter, self-revealing Double-take of feeling. If there's fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cry Of new life at its term.
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The Chances of a Lifetime: Making a Difference
Thank you, Dean Fitts, for that kind introduction. And congratulations to all of you who have worked so hard to earn that law degree. You've done well, and have done yourselves and your families proud. We're all familiar with Gary Trudeau's now famous quote - that commencement speeches "were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated."
I suppose that applies to Law School as well. And I suppose that's why I was invited to speak here today - to properly sedate you...
Or it might be because, when I graduated, I just happened to choose a path that led me to the practice of law and then into public service - a path I hope many of you will likewise follow.
But whether it's public service, criminal law, constitutional law, or corporate law, I'm sure you have a plan, a very specific, well-thought-out plan setting out where you'll be next year and where you hope to be twenty years from now.
Well, let me tell you from experience - law degree or not - life doesn't always stick to a plan.
Before I speak about the law, before I extol the virtues of the our legal system, our constitution, and constitutional law....
Before I talk about the rewards of a life devoted to the practice of law, let me say, life is a series of chances, a string of accidental occurrences over which you may have no control.
What you can control is your response to those occurrences, and what you make of them.
With every twist of fate comes an opportunity. What you do with those opportunities will shape who you are.
How you adjust to happenstance, for better or worse, will be the sum total of your lives.
But those accidental occurrences may force you to reshuffle priorities and change your plans.
Plans are good to have. And a checkmark next to accomplishments every now and then is a good thing. The law degree you receive today is an extraordinary accomplishment, one of those good things... But understand that the magnificence of the journey may be in the diversions on the road ahead.
Some will bring great joy. Some will inspire. Some will confound.
Some will make you wonder. Some will make you think. Some will require unanticipated action. Some will demand hard choices. And some will shake you to the very core of your being.
But your rule should be: Accept them all with the same resolve and the same passion. See them all as opportunities. Take them. Shape them. Let them move you, and most of all, learn from them.
They'll come when you least expect it. They'll take you left or right of your goal and sometimes far off the mark.
Call them the luck of the draw. Call them fate. Call them divine intervention.
But whatever you call them, they will change your perspective...
Let them. And maybe, in the process, they will bless you with the opportunity - as corny as it may sound - to be a better person, a better citizen, a better lawyer, a better father or mother, a better friend and a better partner.
With the hours of study, the late nights, the personal sacrifice that went into earning that Law Degree, I'm certain you want it all to go right. I'm here to tell you that it will.
Part of what you learned here, at the University of Pennsylvania, was the experimental approach, the creative approach to law and life...
You've learned to broaden your focus and your horizons...
You've learned an interdisciplinary approach - that the law, like life, doesn't exist in a vacuum...
You've enhanced your legal education with classes in other fields... And that will give you a broad perspective and a clear focus when the unforeseen rears its head.
I have some experience with the power of unforeseen events to dramatically change our perspective.
There's an old proverb that says, "adversity introduces a man to himself."
I don't know if many of you know it, but I almost did not take the oath of office after I was first elected to the Senate. I almost didn't serve.
A few years after I sat where you're sitting, filled with the same brash confidence, I started a family and my own law firm. Just two weeks before my thirtieth birthday, I was elected to the United States Senate.
Less than four weeks after that, my family was shattered by a double fatal car accident.
Needless to say, that tragedy shook me, and I hope and pray none of you have to endure such loss. That shaky time in my life gave me a clear perspective on what IS and is NOT important in life.
It made me realize that in the face of the greatest tragedies we can choose to stand still or put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.
Until that day, I thought I'd done everything right, that I was in control of the Fates, that the plan was working, that nothing could change my focus, nothing could alter my goals, my vision, and how I lived my life.
But I found out that life is sometimes a roll of the dice.
Sometimes it happens to us and sometimes all we can do is reach down into the depths of our soul and find the strength to keep going and hopefully make a difference.
My dad is almost 87 now, and he still says what he's been saying since I was a kid. He says, "You know, Joey, it's a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they're about to do, and thinks it still matters." And when I get up every day, I still believe that it matters.
When you leave here, each of you can make a difference, and let me tell you why.
You have chosen an honorable, noble profession at the heart of our way of life. You will be men and women who practice law in a society built on law.
Being Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is my day job. At night I'm a constitutional law professor and I know that what separates this nation from every other is the magnificence of our legal system.
We are not defined by a common nationality or a common culture, but by an idea set down in our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and a dynamic legal tradition that guarantees equal justice under law.
Think about it. We cannot define an American in any other way. Is an American an African-American? Is an American an immigrant from China? Is an American an Irish Catholic from Scranton, Pennsylvania? Or a Hasidic Jew from Bensonhurst? Or a shrimp fisherman from Baton Rouge? Or a lumberjack from Idaho?
Is an American a Muslim?
In fact, there are more Muslims in America than there are Episcopalians.
So, what really defines an American? You can't define it by religion. You can't define it by race? I would suggest that an American is defined by a powerful idea which was established in our Constitution and maintained in our legal system.
Walk into any church, any school, any town hall any legislature. Walk into any park where people gather and express their ideas in a demonstration, or a parade, or from a soapbox. And ask the least educated person what gives them the right to be there.
They'll tell you that it's the Constitution. In their gut, in their heart they know that the idea, the essence of being American, is embedded in that document. Whether they can quote the words or not, they know that it absolutely guarantees them the right to be there.
When the Russians came to see me in 1989 and asked for help in writing their new constitution, a delegation of twelve sat in my conference room. They were led by a man named Oleg Rumianstev who was like a young James Madison.
The first thing he asked was: What is the most significant element of American constitutional law?
I told him that in every place where there's a dispute between the government and the individual, the Constitution leans toward the individual. In every single case, we err to the side of the individual. It was a fairly revolutionary notion then, as it is now.
The founders of this nation had great admiration for the strengths of human nature, and they had no illusions about its shortcomings...
They had no doubt that people could and should govern themselves. But they knew from bitter experience that government is power, and power is always a temptation to abuse...
So they wrote a constitution designed deliberately to guard against that abuse. They created a society that served the interests of the community, and preserved the freedom of the individual. They embedded in the Constitution the values that we should make our life's work - like equal rights and equal justice under law and the values that flow from them, like personal integrity, respect for individual autonomy, and responsibility to family and community and service.
Those are the values that can empower you to make a real difference as you begin your practice.
What I'm trying to convey is that no matter what challenges you may face, no matter what uncertainties you encounter, no matter what obstacles stand in your way - match your principles with your purpose and apply them consistently.
In time of great adversity, when your judgement as a lawyer is second guessed, when your actions are criticized, or your motives come into question, all you will have is your integrity and the pride of your profession.
Whatever life brings, lean into it. In good times and bad, your integrity will see you through.
That's not a commencement speech promise. It comes from the pages of my life.
No amount of material success, no catalogue of honors and achievements, and no reputation based on anything other than your commitment to principle can defend you when you're called to account.
As men and women of law, you will have an unparalleled opportunity to make a difference in your community and in your profession.
But making a real difference will require knowing who you are, knowing what you believe, and keeping the flame of that knowledge burning as brightly as you can, every day.
It will be your most enduring defense against life's challenges and your own frailties.
Make no mistake, your frailties will always be tested and the tests will surpass any that have challenged you here.
All I can say is hold on to your values, and let them guide you.
It is a privilege to be a lawyer, to be a custodian of the ennobling principles of the Constitution, and to uphold the trust and standards of this most honorable profession.
But there are a few rules to keep in mind:
First, like doctors, do no harm.
Breed respect for law.
Feel a sense of public obligation and be of service to the community as you serve the law.
Take special care to assure that equal justice under the law is as much the heritage of the powerless as the powerful.
And never forget the words of Judge Learned Hand who warned: "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice."
So I say to you today, take that diploma and get out there and make a difference.
For guidance, look to those who made history and just happened to be lawyers. Look to Thomas Jefferson who created the idea we call America, and challenged the nation to form a new government that respected the inalienable rights of each individual.
Look to Abraham Lincoln who signed the emancipation proclamation and challenged anew our commitment to equality and justice.
Look to Clarence Darrow who stood up for an unpopular cause and challenged a Tennessee Law barring the teaching of evolution - losing a trial but striking a blow for academic freedom.
Look to Thurgood Marshall who challenged the notion that "separate" could ever be "equal" - establishing the right of every individual to the best education offered by a state and calling into question the practice of rationing opportunity by race.
But also look to those whose names may have been forgotten, but whose deeds will be remembered.
Look to the abolitionist, Louis Tappan who orchestrated the stunning legal strategy on behalf of a group of Africans on the slave ship Amistad.
Look to Alabama Circuit Judge James Horton who presided over the "Scottsboro boys" trial in which young black men were convicted by a racist jury of crimes they didn't commit... And then set aside those verdicts costing him his judicial career.
Look to Charles Hamilton Houston. The pioneering civil rights lawyer who fought racism across the south, all the way to the Supreme Court... And argued the Gaines case, challenging the constitutionality of the University of Missouri law school policy of excluding blacks.
Look to Sarah Weddington who argued Roe v. Wade. Look to Thomas Emerson who argued for holding right to counsel in Griswold v. Wainwright.
Look to Ed Masry, Erin Brockovich's boss, who challenged the toxic dumping practices of public utilities.
I remember how I felt 32 years ago when I took my diploma and, with it, the opportunity and the obligation to do good. To do justice.
It's a powerful and exhilarating sensation. Feel it. Go with it. It's the best feeling for every young lawyer to have and to keep - because you are now the custodians of not only our conscience, but our Constitution.
St. Thomas Aquinas called the law "an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community."
In that spirit: Get out there and practice the law.
Work for the common good.
Accept life's accidental occurrences with integrity and resolve. See them as opportunities. Make a difference for the community and maybe, in the process, change the course of history.
Both opportunity and obligation come with that diploma. Don't let them slip away.
Congratulations and good luck.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Securing the Future and Getting It Right
-Text of Remarks AS PREPARED-
Thank you Dean Van Zandt. Thank you President Bienen. I'd also like to express my gratitude to Northwestern and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations for sponsoring my remarks today as part of the Alan Weber Lecture series.
There are many foreign policy academics and professionals here today. But first let me speak to the students in the audience.
I've been surprised recently when people in MY generation have asked me if your generation is ready to do what has to be done to win the war on terrorism.
The answer is: Absolutely...Certifiably...Yes.
I want to tell you about my firsthand observations of dedicated American troops in Afghanistan. Courageous young men and women your age whom I met when I was there.
They have a crystal clear understanding of why they're in Afghanistan. They haven't forgotten the reason we went in the first place. And neither should any of us.
September 11 brought this nation together. Yet, from a generational point of view, it resonates differently for my father than it does for me. And I'm sure it resonates differently for me than for you.
We speak of the World War II generation as the greatest generation. They were challenged more than most, they faced greater hardship, had great expectations, and knew great victories.
They suffered through a Depression and a World War. They witnessed the rise of communism. They watched the Wall go up, fought the Cold War, and watched the Wall come down.
For them, September 11 presented yet another opportunity to unite in victory over yet another enemy.
For my generation - the Vietnam generation - September 11th has been a kind of catharsis. It seems decades of pent-up animosity have been pealed away. In fact, the will and resolve of the American people to win this war may be the salve that heals the wound of Vietnam once and for all.
But for your generation - September 11th will be the one seminal moment that changes history. It probably will change your lives. Like the deaths of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy changed mine.
For you, the war on terrorism may be as long and as hard-fought as the Cold War was. But it also presents extraordinary opportunities for strategic realignments.
Every student here will not only bear witness to the post-9-11 world - you will be the ones to help shape it.
If we get it right, we will have made the world a safer place. If we get it wrong, we will be condemned to repeat our wars rather than move beyond them.
I think we'll get it right, because, in many significant ways, we've changed.
Before September 11th we were a nation focused on ourselves, constantly looking in the mirror, but rarely out the window.
We seemed to leap forward with answers, before asking the right questions. Some pushed for a massive investment in missile defense. Others, as late as September 10th, believed that the more imminent threat was from a terrorist attack.
Then, on September 11, we came face to face with our worst fears. A horrified world stood with us. And, rightly, the President reached out. In a moment of epiphany, which we can only hope will be permanent, the President saw the benefits of multilateralism.
Now, every American has a better appreciation of why foreign policy matters. Every American better understands what it means to our security, our economy, our way of life.
Now we're focusing on the real threats. We've engaged in a serious national discussion about bioterrorism, dirty radiological devices, a vial in a backpack, cropdusters and anthrax spores.
We're focusing on the wisdom of a multi-year, multi-billion dollar commitment to increasing our conventional military forces. And we're talking about homeland defense.
Now, we're more circumspect about leaping forward with answers before we know the right questions, here at home and abroad as well.
Which brings me to Afghanistan and the war against terrorism. Make no mistake, both are far from over.
We had two objectives that were clearly laid out after 9-11. First, Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network had to be brought to justice. Second, security and stability had to be brought to Afghanistan.
Like the soldiers I met, let's remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place. It was a lawless, failed state. It was a safe haven where bin Laden operated with impunity. How well have we met our objectives? We've come a long way, and had some major successes. But no one seems to have a clue where bin Laden is today, al Qaeda is still a force, and Afghanistan is in grave danger of backsliding. Without a strong international security force, it could, once again, erupt into a genuine conflagration.
Just last week, hardcore militants were captured in Kabul with plans to assassinate Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai.
They wanted to derail plans for the Loya Jirga - the Grand Council - and kill as many U.S. and western troops as they could.
The author of the plot, a man by the name of Hekmatyar [Heck-MAHT-yar] is one of the most vicious warlords in recent Afghan history. He ordered much of the destruction of Kabul during the 1990s.
Before his return to Afghanistan, he had been living in Iran, and he maintains very close ties to the government there.
And the warlord in the western city of Herat, Ismael Khan, also seems to have a better relationship with Tehran than with Kabul.
It's clear the job in Afghanistan is far from complete. Without a strong international force to keep order, Afghanistan will fall prey to warlords like Hekmatyar.
Succeeding in Afghanistan is critical to our security, but our resolve may be waning. We haven't gotten Bin Laden. Al Qaeda is still there, seeping across the border to and from Pakistan, apparently at will.
The Taliban has melted into the hills, but it has certainly not been eliminated. We've never found Mullah Omar. The Karzai government is under constant threat.
To say the least, this is an extremely critical period in Afghanistan. And, just as important, it is a critical period for the United States. If Afghanistan fails, we will pay a heavy price.
If we don't stay the course, the "swamp" everyone talked about will fill up once again. If we don't stay the course, other nations in the region, especially Pakistan, will be in great jeopardy.
And if we don't stay the course, it will be impossible to get even our erstwhile allies in the Middle East and Europe to take us seriously.
The fact is that even with a 5,000 member international security force presently on the ground in Kabul, there is no security. And as much as we have accomplished in the war, we have not done enough to secure the peace.
With the arrival of spring, time is of the essence. There are serious threats of renewed attacks. Taliban and Al Qaeda forces are massed along the Pakistan border.
Warlords are consolidating power. And Afghanistan's neighbors, Iran and others, are maneuvering for influence again.
And now we find that our NATO ally Turkey is having cold feet about assuming leadership of the international security force. They're uneasy about America's real commitment. They're not sure we'll provide even the financial support to pay the troops.
It turns out that the ambivalence shown by the Administration in staying the course has had a real impact. And that's as true for our allies as our adversaries.
They've actually been paying attention. They understand the consequences of our unwillingness to be part of a long-term strategy. When I was there three months ago, I spent four days in Kabul. Virtually every conversation I had revolved around a single question:
Would America have the will to stay the course? After all our military success. After all our promises on reconstruction. After all our commitments to prevent Afghanistan from relapsing into chaos and warlordism - would we really have the stomach to get the job done?
Would we stay engaged? Would we demonstrate the leadership necessary to keep the international coalition together?
I'll tell you what I told them: Leadership matters. We have no choice but stay engaged. We have no choice but to take the lead. We have no choice but to see this to a successful conclusion. We have to get it right.
If Afghanistan descends into lawlessness and disorder, two things are certain:
First, the Taliban or some new and equally brutal group will establish control over all or part of the country. They'll provide safe haven to any terrorists, drug traffickers, or thugs willing to pay their price.
Second, terrorists will use Afghanistan as a base to launch attacks on the U.S. again, and destabilize regimes around the world.
If we exit prematurely, mark my words, U.S. troops will be right back in Afghanistan. Only then, we'll be doing the fighting all by ourselves.
Moreover, if we leave and have to come back, we may find ourselves in Pakistan, a nation six times as large and possessing a nuclear arsenal.
The victories we've seen over the past five months have been American victories - but they've been Afghan victories as well.
At every step along the way, we've relied on our Afghan allies. The pattern has generally been hundreds of American troops spearheading thousands of Afghan fighters.
This pattern is far from perfect. The porousness of our cordon at Tora Bora and, most recently, Shahi-Kot demonstrates that.
Afghan troops may not be a substitute for U.S. infantrymen, but they helped us achieve quick and impressive victories. And that point is vital to our future strategy.
I was constantly reminded, when I was there, that we abruptly backed away from Afghanistan in 1989, just as soon as we felt we had met our short-term objectives. If we do it again, when a new nest of terrorists emerges and military action is needed in the future, we shouldn't expect Afghans to fight along side us.
What should we be doing? We need to help with everything from economic reconstruction to helping clear minefields. We need to help build-up Afghanistan's political institutions.
We need to help Afghans create their educational infrastructure, their medical infrastructure, their legal and judicial infrastructure for their long-term self-sufficiency.
But none of it is possible without first having security on the ground. That's the central piece of this puzzle.
If we establish security, all else can follow - and without it everything is at risk. And without a genuine U.S. commitment, no one on the ground believes the mission can succeed.
As the British commander, Major General John McColl, told me in a briefing in Kabul, "How long do you think my Parliament will let me stay once America leaves?"
So what's the solution?
Right now the International Security Assistance Force is strictly limited by its UN mandate. Its 5000 troops are confined to Kabul, and even there they have to tread gingerly.
The mandate ends in June, precisely when its continuing presence is most needed. That's when the Loya Jirga is to be convened as the next step in the process of political rebuilding.
So here is what we've got to do.
First, this international security force must be extended from Kabul to Mazar, Khandahar, Jalalabad, and maybe Herat and Gardez. It will need more than the current force of 5000.
Some say it will take 25,000. I won't presume to know the number needed, but we should let the military planners have as many troops as it takes to do it right.
Second, the mandate of the international security force should be extended for two years. This would provide sufficient time for the creation of an indigenous Afghan army and police force, and it would ensure a smooth transition to the new Afghan government.
Third, the international security force must be given robust rules of engagement. It must be given all the equipment, airlift, and intelligence necessary to accomplish its mission.
Let's be clear here. These troops need to be rough, tough, combat-ready peacemakers with the ability to impose order.
Fourth, the United States must be fully engaged as the guarantor of last resort for the mission. That doesn't mean we have to send U.S. troops, but we shouldn't rule it out.
I'd prefer it if we could accomplish our mission without deploying a single U.S. soldier. I'd prefer it if other nations could do the job without our troops on the ground. Maybe they can. But recent experience, in the Balkans and elsewhere, suggests this will not be possible.
We have a mission to accomplish in Afghanistan, and if the deployment of American troops is deemed necessary, we must step up to the plate.
The stakes are too high to get it wrong this time. But the stakes will be just as high in the next phase of the war on terrorism - wherever that takes us - and in the Middle East. In closing, let me say again: Leadership Matters and American leadership matters most.
It matters that we keep our word and our commitments in Afghanistan. It matters that we maximize our opportunities to realign vital relationships with former adversaries like Russia and China.
It matters that we stay engaged in the Middle East, where the consequences of disengagement are measured in blood. It matters that we hold true to our values and leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of peace everywhere and terrorists anywhere.
It matters that we lead with a sword when threatened and plowshares when possible, and that American resolve is brought to bear at the peace table as well as on the battlefield.
Leadership is a challenge we must meet and an obligation we must accept.
To the students here, the choices will be yours.
Robert Kennedy said,
"The world demands the qualities of youth, not a time of life, but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and thus it is young people who must take the lead."
Your generation has greater opportunities and greater challenges than, perhaps, any generation in history. It'll be up to you to lead, to move forward and make a better world.
Thank you very much.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Prospects for Progress: America and Iran After 9-11
-Text of Remarks AS PREPARED-
It is an honor to be invited to speak before such a distinguished gathering.
The number of accomplished individuals in the audience today is a testament to the extraordinary achievements of the thriving Iranian-American community. You have enriched the United States with your many talents, and your cultural traditions have strengthened the diversity of our country.
You also have a critical role to play in serving as a bridge between Iran and the United States.
Today, I would like to share with you my views on United States policy toward Iran and the kind of relationship I believe Iran and the United States should have. To save you the suspense, the short answer is - a much better relationship than we currently enjoy.
I say this for one simple reason - I believe that an improved relationship with Iran is in the naked self-interest of the United States of America.
Iran sits in the geo-political heart of a region that has long been important to our security concerns.
On its Eastern frontier sits a newly-liberated Afghanistan where the military mission is far from over. Farther East is a nuclear-armed Pakistan that just a short while ago stood on the precipice of a potentially devastating conflict with its arch-rival India.
To the West is a recalcitrant Iraq, with a dangerous leader who Iranians grew to know all too well during the long and bloody Iran-Iraq war. To the North are the undemocratic, potentially energy-rich states of Central Asia and the conflict-ridden Caucasus.
To the South are several American allies that sit atop the largest known oil reserves on the face of the earth.
So it is not an understatement to say that the direction Iran takes in the coming years will have a significant impact upon American strategic interests in this region.
Clearly, we cannot speak of Iran's direction without addressing its internal political dynamics. Since President Khatami's election in 1997, Iran has been embroiled in a gradually escalating power struggle that the outside world has watched with considerable interest.
While elections haven't been perfect, the Iranian people have made clear in four separate ballots over four years that they are demanding fundamental change.
The result of these elections has been the creation of a divided government. An elected branch consisting of the parliament and the Presidency that, by definition, is more in touch with the will of the people.
Juxtaposed to that is an appointed branch which holds many of the key levers of power including the judiciary, security organizations, and other bodies populated by those whose vision largely revolves around the perpetuation of their own authority.
It is this hardcore clique which refuses to give way to the will of the people. Over the past few years they have thwarted the goals of Iranian reformers. They've arrested journalists. They've imprisoned close allies of the President, and often resorted to violence.
They've harassed and persecuted minorities in Iran - Jews and the Baha'i.
They direct policies that pose a threat to our interests. Not the least of which is that Iran continues to support terrorism and the escalation of violence in the Middle East.
Its recent involvement with the Karine-A arms smuggling incident is a reminder of the policies that Iran must abandon if there is to be a true rapprochement. And many questions remain unanswered about the role played by some Iranians in the Khobar Towers attack that left 19 US servicemen dead.
But shortly after September 11, ordinary Iranians held a spontaneous candlelight vigil in Tehran in solidarity with the victims. Yet some of Iran's leaders don't appear to understand how drastically the world has changed after September 11.
Their continuing support for groups such as Islamic Jihad puts them on the wrong side of the new fault-line separating civilization and those who seek chaos. As you all know, Iran is continuing an aggressive drive to develop weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile systems. In these efforts, it receives considerable foreign assistance, especially from Russia. While support for terrorism appears to be directed by those in the hard-line branch of the government, the support for Iran's missile and nuclear weapons programs is more broad-based.
The reason is a combination of three main factors: first, fears over Iraq and to a far lesser degree, Pakistan. Second, the belief that nuclear weapons will enhance Iran's stature. Finally, we cannot dismiss the fact that some elements within the government see a potential blackmail value in the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile capability.
Whatever the motivation, the United States must place the highest priority on preventing Iran from gaining such dangerous and destabilizing capabilities. There are a number of options for doing so.
We cannot simply dismiss Iran's security concerns. They've been the victims of chemical weapons attacks by Iraq. But the neighborhood has the potential to change for the better.
Already, the Taliban menace no longer threatens Iran. Next door, Pakistan's President is reigning in religious extremism.
And I believe that the U.S. will ultimately have to facilitate a regime-change in Iraq.
These three developments alone would dramatically alter Iran's security environment for the better.
We must also be willing to hold discussions with Iran to develop creative solutions as we did in North Korea. And we must step up our efforts to end support by Russian entities for Iranian nuclear and missile efforts. In my view, this hasn't received enough attention over the past year.
Clearly, although we must combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction to any country, the threat from Iran is not simply a function of capability, but of intention as well.
If Iran evolves in a more democratic direction and the U.S.-Iranian relationship improves, then the threat it poses certainly will be reduced.
This, then, raises the question of the ongoing power struggle underway in Iran.
The United States is not in a position to have a major impact on this struggle. Nor should we intervene in any direct way.
We should be mindful of the painful history between our two countries, which includes reported CIA support for a coup in 1953. And it still resonates with many Iranians, and it should counsel us to be extra-cautious.
Nonetheless, we should be clear about where we stand. We are squarely with the Iranian people in their desire for a democratic government and a democratic society.
Iran has a disproportionately young population. Half of its people were born after the Revolution.
These young people and many of their parents and grandparents have grown wary of Iran's isolation.
They want Iran to take its rightful place in the international community and to embrace a rapidly-changing world. They want the same kinds of social, political, and economic freedoms that others enjoy. And they deserve to have these aspirations fulfilled. As I said, we should have a better relationship with Iran. Unfortunately, that is not for us to decide. And it is unlikely to come about absent a change in the attitude or composition of the present Iranian regime.
While the Bush Administration continues the policy of its predecessors by seeking dialogue with Iran, some in Tehran have a different view.
Part of the government clearly wants to talk to us and has talked to us over Afghanistan for example. But hard-liners regard us as a useful bogeyman to continue to stir up the passions of their most zealous and ardent stalwarts.
So the question is what can we do from the outside to help the Iranian people realize their aspirations.
In my judgment, we must direct our policies in a way that they do not rest on the principle of reciprocity.
In other words, we should assume that the continuing power struggle will prevent Iran from responding to any particular American gestures. And take steps that are carefully calibrated with the aim of assisting those who seek change within Iran.
How do we do it? First, we must recognize that the most entrenched elements in Iran seek to perpetuate Iran's isolation through confrontation with the outside world.
Those who seek change want to increase Iran's international linkages.
Let me outline five specific steps the United States can take.
First, the Bush Administration should issue a general license to permit American non-governmental organizations to financially support a broad range of civil society, cultural, human rights, and democracy-building activities in Iran. Such funding is currently banned by Executive Order.
It is unfortunate that it is our own government, not hard-line clerics in Tehran, that have prevented practitioners of democracy in America from aiding their struggling counterparts in Iran.
Second, we should continue to work with Iran on matters of mutual interest as we did on Afghanistan.
It is true that some hard-line elements in Iran are clearly interested in stirring up trouble in Afghanistan, but the story that many don't know is that Iran and the United States coordinated their efforts on Afghanistan closely over the past several months.
The dialogue on Afghanistan should serve as a model and should be extended to other areas of mutual interest, like the future of Iraq - another topic for discussion and cooperation.
Third, the United States should acquiesce to Iran's bid to begin accession talks to the World Trade Organization. The process of accession would take several years, but Iran would have to make structural changes that would increase transparency and undermine the key power bases of the hard-liners.
Fourth, we should be willing to indirectly assist Iran on refugee and narcotics matters. Iran has a huge population of Afghan and Iraqi refugees. American non-governmental organizations that assist refugees are willing to help and should be supported in their efforts by our government.
Likewise, Iran has paid a heavy price in blood and treasure in battling narcotics traffickers on its eastern frontier. Iran has asked the international community for help and it makes sense to assist them through the United Nations.
Fifth, we should continue to encourage citizen exchanges. A track-two circuit has developed in recent years and it is important to keep it going. Organizations such as the American Iranian Council, the Open Society Institute, and the Nixon Center have played a critical role, and I applaud them.
I also applaud the President for his view that there should be a direct dialogue with Iran. In that regard, let me also extend an invitation in my capacity as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. I am prepared to receive members of the Iranian Majlis whenever its members would like to visit. If Iranian parliamentarians believe that's too sensitive, I'm prepared to meet them elsewhere.
Without speaking for any of my colleagues, I am confident that many of them would join in such an historic meeting. Indeed, some - including my friend Senator Arlen Specter - did participate in an earlier brief encounter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized by the American Iranian Council.
We should be under no illusions that these steps will by themselves have a decisive impact. The direction that Iran takes - the form of government it chooses - are ultimately matters for the Iranian people to settle.
As we all know, Nowruz marks the start of Spring. Let us hope that in this season of renewal that Iranians and Americans can find a way to build on shared interests and work constructively to overcome their differences peacefully.
I pledge to do my part and I know that all of you will lend your energies to this critical effort.
Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Rising to the Challenge
Let me begin with a little bit of good news for Delaware and Milford in particular. You know, the Boys and Girls Clubs have always been the places where we pass on the values of our community to a new generation.
This year, under the Crime Bill for which all of us, police chiefs and local officials, have fought so hard, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Delaware will receive $400,000 in federal funding to keep up their good work which includes a 20 million dollar capital campaign this year that will double the number of kids served.
But the best news is that, with that campaign, there will be a new Boys and Girls Club opening here in Milford
I mention this, because, as I said, these Clubs are where the values of a community are passed on to the next generation, a generation that will grow up with new challenges in a world fundamentally altered by the events of September 11.
I've been surprised recently when people have come up to me and asked if I think that this generation is willing to do what has to be done to win the war on the terrorism.
The answer is: Absolutely. Certifiably yes.
You should have seen our men and women in uniform I met during my four days in Kabul and my seven days in the region. They're dedicated and courageous young men and women. They know what they're doing and they have a clear and reasoned understanding of why they're in Afghanistan.
My parent's generation may have been the greatest generation because it may have been challenged more, but this generation is ready.
For those in my generation, the Vietnam generation, oddly enough, this has been a kind of catharsis. For the first time we're totally united.
It seems that decades of pent-up animosity have been pealed away. In fact, the war on terrorism may be the salve that heals the wound of Vietnam once and for all.
So, when someone asks if this generation is up to it, if it has the right stuff to win the war, to do what it takes, the answer is definitely yes.
Our resolve and our success so far in Afghanistan has a leveraging effect.
We're showing the world that we mean business, and a leader like Musharraf in Pakistan has to look at the U.S. and say; "they mean it, and it's in my interest to listen."
But at the same time, we must understand that our credibility depends on finishing what we started in Afghanistan.
There are three notions that became clear to me in my meetings with Chairman Karzai, and talking with Ministers and ordinary Afghans, all of whom understand why we're there.
The first notion is that the war is not over. Al Qaeda is still there. We are holding a few hundred prisoners, but there were thousands of Al Qaeda and Taliban. And they're still out there unaccounted for, maybe in Afghanistan, maybe in Pakistan. But they're out there.
Second, everyone in Afghanistan, everyone with whom I spoke, understands that the most immediate need is security.
They need troops on the ground. They need an international force to police the streets and keep the peace. And America needs to be part of it. If others want to do it, fine. But we need to have a presence.
President Bush is in somewhat of a box on this. He berated the Democrats for nation-building, and now he's confronted with the prospect of having to do it himself. I don't mean that as a political jab. I mean it in all sincerity. He has a difficult decision to make. How does he stay the course in Afghanistan, prevent it from becoming a lawless breeding ground for terrorism again, and not help rebuild the nation?
Which brings me to the third notion: There is no doubt that we have to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it takes, or I will guarantee you, as surely as I'm standing here, the swamp we drained will fill up again in six to eight months, and we'll be back where we started.
I'm not talking about another Marshall Plan or anything like rebuilding Europe after World War II. Afghanistan is a Third World nation that needs the most basic infrastructure.
It needs water purification. It needs sewage treatment. It needs to be cleared of land mines. It needs a reliable power supply.
The country is devastated. Destroyed. It needs new roads and communications, and the most rudimentary reconstruction of buildings so life can get back to normal.
We need to engage in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
If we don't show leadership in the international community, if we don't sign on to at least a 15 percent share of the cost to help rebuild, no other country will do it.
Folks, we have to remember why we went there in the first place.
We have to remember that we have an interest in staying and getting it right this time.
We can't afford to let the swamp fill again, and have another bin Laden operate a new Al Qaeda in another failed state.
So, what do we do?
We have some hard choices to make.
Everyone is talking about Iraq and the President is talking about a so-called Axis of Evil, a great rhetorical flourish that connects Roosevelt and Reagan.
But this Axis - Iran, Iraq, and North Korea - are three very different countries which pose very different threats, requiring very different solutions.
When it comes to Iraq, there is some tough talk in this Administration, and I agree that Saddam has to go. I can't imagine that, five years down the road, we could claim to have won the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.
There are those who believe we should decapitate the regime now. But before we do, we need to have some reasonable vision for a post-Saddam Iraq.
We need to have an idea of what Iraq will look like and what the impact of our actions will be on the region.
Folks, the world is watching what we do in Afghanistan because if we don't stay the course and get it right there, they know we won't get it right in Iraq either.
What we need is a plan. What we have now is hubris, but we need a plan.
The President seems to think we can do it all and do it now.
He seems to think we can fight the so called Axis of Evil, build a missile defense system, even though estimates are that a mid-phase system alone will cost somewhere around 50 billion dollars.
That estimate, by the way, leaves out the cost of defending our allies, which the President insists he also wants to do.
With the President's budget calling for 7.8 billion dollars for missile defense for FY '03, the Administration is well on its way toward an expenditure in the hundreds of billions for missile defense.
Then add to that what I believe to be necessary increases in conventional military spending - which I've always supported. Today, the cost estimates for the top six modernization programs begin at a minimum of 350 billion dollars. 339 F-22s to replace an aging F-15 fleet will cost 62 billion dollars. 2912 Joint Strike Fighters to replace aging F-16s, A-10s, and F-14s will cost about 223 billion. 30 new C-17s will cost six billion.
A thousand Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles to move Marines from water to land at high speed will cost 14.9 billion.
And one more aircraft carrier will have a price tag of about 6.5 to 7.5 billion.
And we haven't even mentioned Social Security for my generation, for all of us baby boomers who will be retiring soon.
We haven't mentioned education. We haven't mentioned Medicare. We haven't even mentioned a real prescription drug plan.
I hope I'm not dating myself too much by quoting Senator Everett Dirksen's famous words: "A billion here, a billion there...before you know it, you're talking about real money."
I may not be a mathematician, but the President's budget just doesn't add up.
The point here is: We can't do everything. We have some hard choices to make and we have to set priorities.
I've always said, even as late as September 10th, that we should prioritize the threats we face, that the greatest threat is from a terrorist attack, not an ICBM with a return address. Missile defense couldn't have saved the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, and it won't defend against a ship coming into the Port of Wilmington with a dirty bomb in the hold.
A dirty bomb is fissile material wrapped around a massive explosive devise. It's a real threat. If it happens, it would mean not only thousands of casualties, but radiation that would render Wilmington uninhabitable for generations.
And then there's the threat of what I like to call "the candy story." Some call it Russia.
I think of it as a global candy store for weapons of mass destruction protected, in some cases, by nothing more than a fence and a padlock.
There are 60,000 unemployed nuclear scientists in Russia with the key. They have no pensions who are looking to take care of their families. It's not unreasonable to think they might consider selling their expertise. It's not unreasonable to think they might sell the key to that padlock to the highest bidder. And then the candy store is open for business.
The threat of the spread of weapons of mass destruction is out there, folks, and it has to be among our highest priorities.
We have to focus on what's most important, what's most immediate, what makes the most sense given the limited resources we now have.
The 400 billion dollar surplus that we were projected to have by 2004 is gone. Now we're facing hard choices.
But there is a way out. There is an answer. It will come if we understand that we can't stuff ten pounds in a five pound bag.
What we need is plain talk from our leaders on what we can and cannot do, what is and isn't possible and then we have to decide what does and doesn't make sense.
America is at its best when we're challenged, and today the challenges and the choices are tougher than ever. But the American people are bold and visionary.
We understand the need to win this war and are willing to make the sacrifices to do it. And America's leaders have to find a way to work together, rise to the challenge, and come up with solutions as bold and visionary as the people of this nation.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Hard Choices for America's Future: Strategic Opportunities for a New Century
As the shock of 9-11 begins to wear off, one unanticipated consequence now emerging is a fuller appreciation of why foreign policy matters. Before 9-11, few Americans believed that what happens beyond our borders affects their lives. We were a nation focused on ourselves, constantly looking in the mirror, but rarely out the window.
But on September 11, our perspective abruptly changed. Suddenly foreign policy became something that affected our economic security as well as our personal security. Before September 11, only a few of us were discussing the real threats we face, and how to defend against them. Even fewer were discussing anything even remotely resembling a multi-year, multi-billion dollar commitment to homeland defense. A few weeks later, a half dozen letters made threats of biological or chemical weapons, or a deadly vial in a backpack, much more real.
We were forced to come face to face with our worst fears. We saw the kind of death and destruction that could be wielded by religious fundamentalism, anti-Americanism and terrorists fueled by blind hatred. And we learned that we should not leap forward with answers before we're sure we've asked the right questions - like whether or not to invest in missile defense when a more imminent threat was transnational terrorism. Now we are faced with the hard choices about what we need to do and how to do it.
The good news is we are the world's only superpower. The bad news is we're the world's only superpower. All too often nations expect us to make their problems our highest priority. So, while we can't be all things to all people, we should not shrink back from our unavoidable responsibility to bear the burden of international leadership. If 9-11 was a wake-up call to the American people, it was also a wake-up call to the unilateralists in the Bush Administration.
George Bush came into office disdainful of engagement with the world. He spoke of "nation-building" as an unacceptable option.
When he became President he pulled back from treaties on nuclear testing, on germ warfare, on environmental protection, and announced his intention to withdraw unilaterally from the ABM Treaty.
Less than a year after he was elected, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, the notion of unilateralism was put to the test. To his credit, he realized it was time to reach out to allies and embrace new partners.
I commend him for this. Epiphanies, I believe, are veto-proof. We can only hope they're permanent as well.
The response has been positive. NATO soldiers flew surveillance flights over the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Musharraf made the strategic decision to align Pakistan with the West.
Putin provided us with intelligence on Afghanistan. He helped secure our presence in the Central Asian republics, and countries around the world joined with common purpose in a common struggle.
Today we must ask if President Bush is going to maximize the strategic opportunities we now have to shape the next fifty years as the Cold War shaped the last fifty, and make long-term engagement one of the strategic weapons in his diplomatic arsenal.
U.S. foreign policy must recognize that many of the new threats we face will require multilateral responses. But no one, least of all the enemies of the United States, should have any doubt that another attack on this nation would lead to our use of overwhelming force, in concert with others or alone, and with the full weight of American power and resolve. But more and more, from law enforcement to intelligence, we have to work closely with international partners. The reason is obvious: Al Qaeda is neither limited nor deterred by national boundaries.
Isolation is not an option. Unilateralism is not an option.
We must be engaged -- the question is how.
Let me be clear. I don't believe engagement is simply supporting treaties on biological weapons, or the environment, or even the ABM Treaty, although these are important, if not critical, symbols of our intentions.
America's engagement around the world is a long-term investment in our security, and should be at the core of our foreign policy.
The first real test of post- 9-11 engagement is to stay the course in Afghanistan. After twenty-three years of almost constant war, the country is in total chaos. Food and water are scarce. Kabul is a moonscape. Devastated. Destroyed.
Not, primarily, by American bombs but by years of war, failed regimes and struggles among armed warlords.
Our military personnel call it: "the other end of ground zero..."
And yet after four days in Kabul, I was surprised at the deep pool of goodwill from a nation so often portrayed as bitterly resentful of any foreign presence.
The Afghan people want us to stay. They need our help. They need security. They know the difference between those who come as enemies and those who come as liberators.
Let me share with you a story Hamid Karzai told me just a couple weeks ago in Kabul... Let me give you two more examples of what I mean. I met with the Minister of Education and asked him what he needed most urgently. I expected to hear about rebuilding shattered schoolhouses, or the need for desks, books, pencils, and so on. But he looked me in the eye and said, "Security. Without it, nothing can be built."
When we went to the old Soviet Embassy, we met with some of the 20,000 refugees from the Shomali Plain living in absolute squalor with little water, little food, and no hope.
But even the prospect of escaping those conditions to return home could not overcome their fear. The Shomali plain, a vast and fertile agricultural area just north of Kabul, was the breadbasket of the nation before the Taliban turned it into an arid sea of dust.
All they wanted was to go back to their farms, but the refugees told us they couldn't because they had no assurance their families would be safe if they tried to return.
Security is the basic issue in Afghanistan.
If Chairman Karzai is to govern effectively, the first things he needs are a military, a police force, and an infusion of economic assistance. And he needs them now.
Tokyo was a start, but more will have to be done, and the United States will have to take the lead. If we don't, no one else will. And like it or not, our leadership role must include soldiers on the ground. If others step forward, fine, but whatever it takes, we should do it. History will judge us harshly if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we failed to stay the course.
A robust multi-national force helping the nascent Afghan government extend authority to all its borders is a wise investment by the West and our regional allies in Central Asia.
President Bush's aversion to even the rudimentary elements of establishing order and stability -- because it might put him on the road to "nation building" - must be outweighed by our national security need to prevent Afghanistan from backsliding into a lawless safe haven for anti-American terrorists. This means a continued engagement in Afghanistan until we can transition from a multi- national to an Afghan force. But first things first.
Pockets of Al Qaeda and Taliban still need to be rooted out. Incidents of firefights and even major battles continue throughout the country.
Just last week the Kabul government suffered a setback with the reversal at Gardez.
At a Kandahar hospital there was a shootout where Taliban with grenades strapped to their chests had been holed up for six weeks.
Their leader, Mullah Omar, is still at large. No one knows where Osama bin Laden is hiding, if he's alive. Their top lieutenants are still on the run. Others have been killed or fled to other countries. And we have to finish the job before we talk about what comes next.
But we can't seem to talk about what comes next without talking about Iraq. It's obvious we must end the reign of Saddam Hussein. It would be unrealistic, if not downright foolish, to believe we can claim victory in the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.
But rather than talking about it now, let me in the interest of time, save my thoughts about Saddam for the Q&A at the end of my remarks. Clearly, whatever strategic decision we make on what comes next - it will require hard choices.
Engagement in Afghanistan, engagement with allies and friends around the world, waging war on terrorism, and homeland defense will take more than our will and resolve. It will take a huge increase in the level of spending. But most of all it will require us to prioritize, something many in elected office find it hard to do. Our job in Washington is to debate what comes first, to determine priorities.
Some people are calling the new budget a "guns and butter" budget, while this morning's Post calls it a "War Budget". Either way, without the squandered 400 billion dollar surplus we were projected to have by 2004, we've got more than a numbers problem. We've got a priorities problem.
Let me focus for a few moments just on the guns side of the equation. I agree with the President, and have argued for some time, that an increase in conventional military spending is necessary to prepare the nation for the next generation of challenges.
Let's look at the top six modernization programs. The cost estimates today begin at a minimum of 350 billion dollars.
339 F-22s to replace an aging F-15 fleet will cost $ 62 billion.
2912 Joint Strike Fighters to replace aging F-16s, A-10s, and F-14s will cost about $223 billion.
30 new C-17s will cost $6 billion.
A thousand Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles to move Marines from water to land at high speed will cost $14.9 billion. And one more aircraft carrier will have a price tag of about $6.5 to $7.5 billion.
And let's not forget about national missile defense estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that an effective mid-course intercept system alone would cost more than $50 billion. And that estimate leaves out the costof defending our allies, which the President insists he also wants to do.
With today's budget release calling for $7.8 billion for missile defense for FY '03, the Administration is well on its way towards an expenditure in the hundreds of billions.
We haven't even gotten into President Bush's promise of pay raises for our men and women in uniform and other high ticket items to enhance the quality of life for military families.
And we haven't gotten into what demands we'll encounter in combating the so-called Axis of Evil, three very bad actors, for whom we must devise very different approaches.
Today, with delivery of the President's little blue budget book, it's not too soon to begin prioritizing the most pressing threats to our security. In my book, not to mention that of the Joint Chiefs and the National Intelligence Estimate, terrorism with weapons of mass destruction - but without ICBMs - is the greatest threat we face.
There are many sources for these weapons, and it takes years to get or build them. But there's a shortcut, a place that has it all. It's "the candy store." Other people call it "Russia."
A year ago, Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler issued a report on the state of Russia's nuclear materials. Baker testified to the Foreign Relations Committee regarding "the enormity of this danger." He said: "And the fact that we have not blown ourselves up so far is no guarantee that we could not still; or that some rogue nation or rogue group has not yet successfully stolen a nuclear weapon does not mean that they cannot still do it if all you have is a padlock out there."
How shall we meet that threat, along with the threat that chemical or biological weapons might find their way from Russia to the rogues?
Senator Richard Lugar and I believe one way is to reduce Russia's Soviet-era debt, in return for Russia investing the proceeds in non-proliferation programs. We hold over $3 billion in such debt, and our allies hold several times that. Debt reduction could help Russia secure its sensitive materials and technology - and avoid an expected payment crunch next year.
Baker and Cutler proposed spending 30 billion dollars over 8-to-10 years to secure Russia's nuclear materials and technology.
I would add another $10 billion for our share of chemical weapons destruction in Russia, a few billion dollars to keep their chemical and biological weapons experts out of harm's way, and some more to track down and secure their missing radioactive materials that could be used to make a radiological "dirty bomb." That adds up to roughly $ 45 billion - which is still less than the price of that mid-course intercept system to defend us against ICBM's. Does anyone doubt that our first priority must be to close Russia's candy store? By the way, we haven't begun talking about things the American people believe ought to be very high priorities: Social Security, Medicare and a real prescription drug program.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I'm not dating myself too much by recalling former Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen's famous words: "A billion here, a billion there...before you know it, you're talking about real money. I may not be a mathematician, folks, but this budget doesn't add up. You just can't fit ten pounds into a five pound bag.
No one could have imagined the tragedy of September 11, or the associated financial costs we're still incurring. But when our nation is challenged, that's when we're at our best. And our best means we must have the will to make the hard choices.
Now we need to prioritize, to determine how best to secure America's future. In my capacity as Chairman, I want the Foreign Relations Committee to reclaim its highest function and shine a bright light on the issues of the day. To discuss with experts how our national security concerns abroad are indivisible from the physical and economic security of the American people here at home.
Starting tomorrow with Secretary of State Colin Powell we hope to lay out for the American people the difficult but inevitable choices we must make to ensure our continued well-being and prosperity.
We will be looking at a broad range of issues: How do we protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction? What about nonproliferation? How do we take advantage of new opportunities to enhance key bilateral relationships?
What's next in the war on terrorism? What do we do about infectious disease, democratization, human rights?
Folks, in a twist of fate, we may be able to turn recent calamity into good luck. History may have given us the best chance we've had since the end of World War II to build a new framework for international affairs.
So far, the American people have been served well by the President and his Administration in the prosecution of the war on international terrorism, but the war is only five months old and the new patterns of cooperation and support are young and fragile. We should nourish them and help them flourish.
Today the doors to international cooperation and American leadership have opened, but if we slam them shut too often we will lose our chance to realign forces for decades to come - and we will be condemned to repeat our wars rather than move beyond them.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Speech to the World Economic Forum
- as prepared for delivery Feb. 1, 2002 - It's an honor to be here among such a distinguished group of people. Thank you for asking me to introduce the session with a few words about next steps in the war on terrorism and other US foreign policy priorities.
Winning the war on terrorism is absolutely critical, but let me begin my remarks with a question. When someone writes the history of this time fifty or a hundred years from now, what are they going to say about how well we identified and addressed the major challenges facing us? I'm not saying that fighting terrorism is not critically important - it is. And we know that the Bush administration is going to be focusing most of its energy on doing this. But we still have some very critical issues other than terrorism that we've got to focus on. First, we've got to focus on international economic turmoil and work to create a stable international economic order? The world's biggest economies have been relatively immune from recent events in Argentina, but are we prepared for what could happen if the Japanese economy continues to falter? We need to think about how we protect the world from dangerous financial crises in an increasingly globalized economy. We also need to consider how we help the world's poorest countries develop economically and enter the stream of global commerce. Second, we need to do more to control the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We can not allow rogue states and terrorist organizations to gain access to chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or the materials or critical specialists to produce them. Third, it's an old fashioned concept, but big power relationships still matter. The future historian will ask whether we seized the opportunities of the post Cold War period to establish a stable international order. Did we build strong, cooperative relationships with our key partners in Russia, China, and Europe? Did we let the potentially nuclear conflict over Kashmir fester? Did we allow states to fail or oppressive regimes to export their dissatisfaction? Did we let rogue states threaten their neighbors? Fourth, we've got to do better at dealing with new, transnational issues such as terrorism, but also including crime, the environment, and infectious disease. The events of September 11th were a wake up call on these issues. America was struck by a transnational network of terrorists who had found safe havens in a series of failed states, who used the tools of globalization - international banking systems, airplane travel, and the Internet - to exploit America's openness. Fifth, we must focus on the development of outer space. We need to ask hard questions about whether we weaponize space or establish a regime to keep it demilitarized. And sixth, we need to do a lot more thinking about how we manage the other impacts of technological change. What are the international implications of the biotechnology and information technology revolutions? What mechanisms should we use to establish globally applied rules for human cloning? What is our obligation to help the world's disadvantaged populations gain access to the electronic dialogue of modern civilization? The United States is in a difficult and sometimes lonely position as the world's superpower. We know that we must cooperate with our allies to address common threats, but we must also often lead. This is a difficult situation to be in. As we all know, it's difficult to lead without alienating someone. We can see that even with the people outside protesting against globalization even though world living standards across the board have dramatically improved in most parts of the world as a result of global trade. But although America must lead, I believe that our foreign policy must recognize that transnational threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction require transnational, multilateral responses that bring together governmental and non-governmental partners at all levels. Our police forces, intelligence agencies, customs officials, military and diplomatic corps must work with their international partners to fight terrorists, money launderers, traffickers in drugs and human beings, and other criminals whose crimes do not respect national boundaries but threaten us all. We have more to gain from multilateral engagement that we do from going it alone. Let me just say just a few words about the war on terrorism. Several blocks south of here is ground zero. The other end of ground zero is Afghanistan. I have visited both places and in both places there is now hope amidst despair. If Hamid Karzai's interim government is to succeed, America must remain fully engaged in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. We must remain committed militarily and economically if we are to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a failed state again. We have to finish the job in Afghanistan. But we also need to keep the pressure up so that the terrorists have no time to regroup or places to do it. And we must ask hard questions about what we can do to better address the social, political, and economic conditions that create fertile grounds for terrorists. In the aftermath of major world cataclysms and wars, there is often an opportunity to do things differently and to build a new paradigm in international affairs. When the international community fails, as it did after World War I, the results can be disastrous. But when we succeed, as we did after the Second World War, we build a better world that helps our friends and allies, protects America's security, and makes the world a better place for all. I believe that we have such an opportunity now, but the window is fast closing. I look forward to learning your views on how you believe the United States can best seize these opportunities. Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Rebuilding A Nation In Ruin
The Wilmington Rotary Club - Wilmington, DE
I've just returned from Afghanistan, from four days in Kabul, where I learned that America may have won the war, but winning the peace will be a long and hard-fought battle.
If Hamid Karzai's interim government is to succeed, America must remain fully engaged in Afghanistan. We must remain committed militarily and economically if we are to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a failed nation again.
When I was there, I asked the Afghan Minister of Education, Rasul Amin, what resources his department needed most urgently. He looked me in the eye and said, "Security. Without that nothing can be built."
The answer was not what I expected.
He was less concerned about textbooks, teachers' salaries, or bricks and mortar than he was about ensuring the physical safety of his students.
In four days in Kabul I heard the same refrain from minister after minister, from refugees, from humanitarian workers, from American soldiers, from the international community trying to help reconstruct a ravaged nation, and from Chairman Hamid Karzai himself.
The chaos of twenty-three years of almost constant war is evident everywhere. Water is scarce. Food is scarce. Power is sporadic at best. The centuries-old city of Kabul, on the ancient Grand Trunk Road, is now a moonscape. Devastated. Destroyed.
Few buildings are left standing. Mounds of sand-colored rubble litter what once were thriving streets. It's hard to imagine Kabul once was a modern city.
Almost everyone is armed. Guns and lawlessness make the capital almost unliveable for thousands of Afghans trying to rebuild their lives and return from refugee camps to homes that may no longer exist.
If Karzai is to govern effectively, the first things he will need are a military, a police force, and a massive infusion of economic assistance. And he needs them yesterday.
He needs 20 million dollars right now - today - if he is to even begin the long process of rebuilding a nation bombed to ruins. And, by the way, bombed to ruins not by the power of American weapons, but by the accumulated destruction of years of war, failed regimes, and the struggle for power among armed warlords.
He needs it to pay the salaries of civil servants, to get the phones working, to turn the electricity on, to establish the bare minimum of a functioning government, to organize and equip a police force that can bring some level of law and order to a nation at the edges of anarchy.
We've pretty much won the war in Afghanistan militarily, though operations must continue until the last remnants of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership have been captured or killed.
But the hunt for Osama bin Laden is as likely to take place in Somalia, Yemen, and the Philippines as it is in Central Asia. In Afghanistan the question is whether we can win the peace and keep it.
It's a crucial question, because if we don't win the peace, we may soon find ourselves right back at square one.
If we don't follow through in Afghanistan, we could face a failed state providing safe haven for drug traders, terrorists, and another bin Laden.
If we are willing to make a commitment to win the peace, we will avert a humanitarian catastrophe. And we will demonstrate to Muslims, and the world at-large, the power of American values and American resolve.
What surprised me most during my visit was the deep pool of goodwill from a nation portrayed as bitterly resentful of any foreign presence.
Time and again, people didn't ask why America was there; they asked whether we were committed to stay.
The answer must be an unequivocal yes.
At the old Soviet Embassy, twenty thousand refugees from the countryside pressed for a promise that this time, unlike after the Soviet retreat in 1989, the United States will not abandon them.
In one of my meetings with Chairman Karzai, he told me about conservative mullahs near Kandahar who - when the entire region was still in Taliban control - handed him a map.
Chairman Karzai thought the mullahs were going to tell him that the Americans cannot bomb the area because there were civilians there. He thought the mullahs were there to blame America for the bombing.
Then the most powerful of the mullahs pointed to the map, showing a civilian area in one place, and a Taliban stronghold in another. The mullah stood and held out the map. He said. "Here," pointing to the Taliban stronghold. "Tell the Americans to bomb here."
Afghans have always fought ferociously amongst themselves.
They were forced to become a warrior nation, but united solidly against foreign powers. They drove out the British. The drove out the Russians. And we were warned: they would band together to drive out the Americans.
So why were the people I met practically begging me to make sure the United States stayed? Part of the answer is that Kabul is multi-ethnic and the people there have a greater interest in an American presence than the people in predominantly Pashtun regions to the south or those controlled by locally powerful warlords like General Dostum in Masir-i-sharif, and Ismail Khan, now the governor of Herat.
Even as recently as a month ago, the Northern Alliance publically demanded that outside security forces be severely limited in size and authority.
And yet, when I met with a top minister in the interim government, he told me, flat out, that if a referendum were held in Kabul today whether people would prefer an international security force or to have all power vested in the hands of the former Northern Alliance troops, they would overwhelmingly vote for the international force.
Why do Afghans seem so anxious for an international force now, after rejecting foreign intervention so decisively in the past?
The answer, as stated to me repeatedly, is simple: invaders and occupiers will be fought to the death, but friends and liberators will be welcomed with open arms.
Put more bluntly: America isn't the Soviet Union.
So what do we do to make absolutely certain that Karzai succeeds, that his government holds, that he can keep the peace and win it as well?
First, we should provide an immediate grant of 20 million dollars today. Right now. The amount is relatively small, but unless this money is made available immediately, I fear the central authority in Afghanistan may lose credibility.
Second, we should ensure the maintenance of a strong, no-nonsense international security force.
It should be deployed not only in Kabul - as it is now - but in Masir-i-sharif, Herat, Kandahar, and other parts of the country. We should understand that it may be necessary for American troops to be part of that force.
But, at the very minimum, American airlift extraction capabilities, and an ultimate guarantee of support are vital to the success of any international security operation.
Third, we should make good on President Bush's promise to stay the course in Afghanistan. In concrete terms, that means we must pay our fair share.
If the world community is called upon to may 15 billion dollars, our share would be in the neighborhood of 5 billion.
What can we expect to receive for it? First and foremost we can turn Afghanistan from a haven of terrorism, a place where madmen like bin Laden can operate with impunity, into a bastion of pro-American sentiment in a part of the world that could use some pro-American sentiment these days.
We can deny future bin Ladens a base of operations.
We can send a clear message to other would-be state sponsors of terrorism; if you support the enemies of the United States, you'll find your regime overthrown and your world-view decisively discredited.
We can show any doubters that America's word is our bond.
Osama bin Laden gambled that Americans wouldn't have the heart or the stomach for a long fight, that we would cry uncle rather than commit American forces and American money for an extended battle halfway around the world. He gambled that we would send a message with a limited tomahawk missile attack and call it a day.
By keeping our promise to the people of Afghanistan, let's prove bin Laden dead wrong.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Keynote Address to Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Thank you, Reverend Dr. Edgar - it's good to see you again - some people may think that Bob Edgar, quote, "found religion" after he left Congress, but the truth is, as you all know, he is one of the few people who has always had religion - both the sacred and the civic versions, and again, Bob, it's good to be with you.
Ambassador Graham, it's good to see you, too; we've been in the same diplomatic trenches on more than one occasion, not always successfully but always with a good fight - and the fight continues, especially on behalf of our mutual old friend, the ABM Treaty.
Bishop Bartlett, it's nice to see you up north - you are always a very welcome, and usually much needed, influence on any gathering.
We know you are deeply devoted to your diocese, but, you can admit here - I do - it's good to get out of Washington from time to time.
And Fred Heldring, it is my great privilege and pleasure to be here as you are honored, so deservingly, with the Caring Business Leader Award.
It is evident tonight that you have achieved the elusive dual success of earning both respectful admiration and deeply felt affection.
Now, as we say in the Senate, if you would allow me a point of personal privilege, I would like to recognize, to lay blame where it is due, the two people who are most responsible for my being here tonight.
First, Peter Buttenweiser, who conveyed the invitation, and who is, simply, one of the most gracious people I know.
And second, our other award recipient, John Haas, who is apparently the most gracious person Peter knows - very honestly, John, I have never, in all the years I've known him, heard Peter speak so glowingly about anyone.
It is high praise, indeed; and I am honored, sir, by your invitation to be here.
Since September 11th, this nation has had a single overwhelming priority. However far to the left or right of the political spectrum we may have found ourselves on September 10th, on the morning of September 11th, that distance narrowed considerably.
Every American's definition of security seems to have converged that day. To a family in South Philly, security may have meant a decent job, food on the table this Thanksgiving, and a little hope. To a family on the Main Line it may have meant something different. Then came 9.11 and, suddenly, security became a national imperative.
Now we have a single focus: to end terrorism, root our those responsible, and make the world a safer place.
My mother always says, "Out of every tragedy, if you look hard enough, you can find one good thing." The one good thing that may have come from September 11th is that we now have the best chance since the end of World War II to make the world truly safe.
And we have to get it right this time.
Our goal should be this: From the vantage of the end of the twenty-first century, our great-grandchildren should be able to look back and say, "They made the right choices. They seized the opportunity and formed new alliances and relationships that made the world safer and shaped this century just as the Cold War shaped the last."
We are, in fact, at war and we must and we will win it.
The Senate passed a resolution, the equivalent of a declaration of war, which I had a hand in drafting. That resolution gave the President the authority to go after bin Laden and Al Qaeda and prosecute the war in Afghanistan.
The President told us, from the outset, that it would take time; and it will.
He told us it would not be easy; and we know it won't.
He told us it would be a hard-fought war waged against enemies a world away, and against enemies within; and it is.
Some have criticized me for not being supportive enough, even though, on many occasions, I have publically supported his conducted of the war in Afghanistan.
But make no mistake, supporting the President cannot and should not mean that we will be silent on other issues of national importance. I know THIS organization will not be silent, nor should it be.
Yes, we must do what needs to be done to stop Al Qaeda's reign of terror. We must spend what needs to be spent to win.
But we cannot shy away from a lively national debate, based on deeply held principles and values, to set our priorities and keep them straight even in time of war.
We do not, for example, need a missile defense system that could cost almost a half trillion dollars when the REAL priorities of REAL people in REAL cities across America are far more earthbound and far less costly than missile defense.
No one denies that we have a single focus now. This is not the time to short-change the military.
But when it comes to military spending priorities, there are other spending choices we could make for a tiny fraction of the almost five hundred billion dollars it might cost for missile defense:
● We could expand unemployment benefits to cover the 415,000 jobs lost in the biggest single month jump in twenty-one years;
● We could make certain that families on unemployment have access to health care;
● We could get people back to work by fully funding national infrastructure upgrades - safer air travel, safer passenger rail service, maritime facilities, and upgrading and protecting tunnels and bridges.
We could stimulate the economy, not with accelerated tax breaks for those who are not in need, but with REAL stimulus where the need is greatest. That means more jobs in police and security work, more construction jobs to improve a vulnerable infrastructure. It means giving people the spending power they don't have now, and giving businesses the customers they need to start hiring again.
We can wage this war. Win the war. And have missile defense and what I consider to be a wrong-headed, trickle down stimulus package. Or we can wage the war. Win the war. And provide real economic stimulus to those who need it, thereby, making us more secure, not less secure, like we will be if we chose missile defense over common sense.
Make no mistake, the world will not be a safer place if we raise the starting gun on a new arms race and provoke the Chinese to increase their nuclear arsenal tenfold, from eighteen ICBMs, which is what they have now, to two hundred ICBMs.
A Chinese arms build-up could lead to more nuclear arms in India and Pakistan. And nobody needs more nuclear weapons along a border that is already getting too hot for comfort.
Not to mention the fact that moving forward with missile defense could jeopardize Chinese cooperation on the Korean Peninsula.
It is abundantly clear that circumstances changed on September 11th. What must be done now may not be what we planned to do, or what we hoped to do on September 10th.
Reality has intruded on our vision of the world.
I'm reminded of the ship captain who saw what looked like lights of another ship heading toward him. He had his signalman blink to the other ship: "Change your course ten degrees south."
The reply came back, "Change your course ten degrees north."
The ship's captain answered, "I'm a full captain - change your course south." To which the reply was, "Well, I'm a seaman first class - change your course north."
This infuriated the captain, so he signaled back, "Dammit, I say change your course south. I'm on a battleship."
To which the reply came - "And I say change your course north. I'm in a lighthouse."
The reality is that we will have to make difficult choices, but every choice should, in the end, make us more secure.
Having said that, in a different world, a simpler world, I would rather educate every child and fix every school in West Philly, rather than have to give a generation of young Afghan men a real education to replace the fanatical indoctrination of the madrasses.
I'd rather make sure every child in Northeast Philly can read and write than have to free a generation of young Afghan women from the bondage they suffered under the Taliban.
I'd rather spend more to make Amtrak safe and secure than build simple roads from one Afghan village to another.
And I'd rather be spending more to secure our own water supply and power grid than build water purification systems and generating plants in Kabul and Kandahar.
But we are confronted with the hard reality that we must help stabilize Afghanistan to protect America.
So first things first. Let's do what it takes to win this war, get bin Laden and Al Qaeda and bring them to justice one way or the other.
Let's destroy their cells around the world, join with the United Nations and our coalition partners to provide the most basic elements Afghanistan needs for successful governance. It will cost money, but it is not like rebuilding Europe at the end of World War II, or Sophia, or Belgrade.
But, as we help rebuild Afghanistan, let's have a full and honest debate about our priorities at home and make spending choices that ultimately will make us more secure.
The truth is, the future is not about budgets; it's about opportunity.
I have said many times that nations, like people, use crises to resolve differences and create new opportunities.
If the President and his Administration act pragmatically and not ideologically, the same tools they used so skillfully to build this coalition could help, in the long term, change the dynamics of bilateral relations.
Where they may have once been tempted to see only the strategic differences with China over national missile defense and Taiwan, today there is growing recognition that we have common strategic interests as well - like fighting terrorism and maintaining peace and stability in Central Asia as well as the Korean Peninsula.
Where the Administration may have once seen relations with Russia through the prism of the Cold War, today there is the promise of entering into a fundamentally different relationship with Russia.
Where they may have once viewed relations with Iran within the confines of a twenty-year time warp, today Iran has signaled a desire to at least explore a relationship based on newly defined common interests.
The leadership in Iran has said, uncharacteristically, that they would assist in search and rescue operations of any downed American pilots. I believe that signals at least the possibility of further discussions.
I won't say - and we should be under no illusion - that we will see full-blown rapprochement with China, Russia, and Iran.
But if we do this right, if we look at our adversaries in a new way, there could be at least a solid foundation upon which to build in the future.
Since September 11th, China's leaders must see more clearly than ever the threat posed to them by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic missile technology.
They will probably never think of their nuclear and ballistic missile exports to Pakistan in quite the same way.
But let me be clear. Working with China against terrorism does not mean jettisoning our concerns about China's human rights record, or overlooking proliferation.
In fact, we may need to remind China's leaders that respect for the human rights and religious liberty of China's Muslim minorities is not only morally right, but also essential if we are to deprive the terrorists of recruits.
In Russia, President Putin has emerged as a strategic thinker who realizes that, in order for Russia to advance into the ranks of highly developed nations, he must cast his lot with the West.
He has shown a willingness to confront entrenched, reactionary domestic opposition when necessary.
He has overruled his senior military, and has given the green light for American planes to overly Russian territory and to permit troops on former Soviet territory in Central Asia, actions virtually unimaginable not long ago.
Putin has, to use the vernacular, stiffed both the browns and the reds, the nationalists and the former communists, with his fundamental decision that the future of his country lies in the West.
These are the ingredients for a fundamentally new beginning. Bush and Putin have a real opportunity now to reach solid, verifiable agreements on strategic arms reductions and missile defense.
They should not leave that to chance.
In the months ahead, we should maximize the opportunity and build on the progress we've already made, but, in the process, we should take Ronald Reagan's advice: "Trust but verify." In my view, even if the president thinks that, to reach agreement on arms reduction with Putin, all he needs is a handshake, perhaps he should think again.
What we may really need is a new START III treaty to ensure not only rigorous verification, but also proper respect for the constitutional role of the Senate regarding international agreements.
Without a formal agreement that ensures verification, we can never be sure what was promised, and that breeds mistrust on both sides.
When there is doubt about issues like nuclear weapons, we tend to err on the side of the worse case scenario. We can't afford not to. So, whatever agreement is finally reached, we will need a verifiable treaty.
The point is, we now have a genuine opportunity, in the case of Russia, to pursue a new relationship and we should.
It may well be possible to reach agreement on mutually limiting offensive capabilities and allowing tests of missile defense systems.
The President should, however, resist those in the Administration who would have him risk squandering this opportunity by withdrawing unilaterally from the ABM treaty.
Just as it might have been difficult to put together a viable coalition if President Bush had already walked away from the ABM treaty, so too will it be difficult to nurture bilateral relations if we decide, when the going gets tough, to go it alone.
The opportunity for enhancing bilateral relations presented by the tragic events of September 11th is clear.
I can only hope that, far from the black and white of campaigns and up against the gray of governing in time of crisis, the President now realizes the virtues of multi-nationalism and the shortcomings of unilateralism.
It was Sir Francis Bacon who said, "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
We can only hope we have that kind of wisdom.
Let me say, in closing, that we have a duty to support the President when we believe he's right. And we have an obligation to tell him when we think he's wrong. I think he has prosecuted this war well, to this point. I think he's made the right choices. But I think he's wrong about missile defense. I think he's wrong about the ABM treaty.
And before the President's trickle down stimulus plan becomes law, before he gives more tax breaks to people who don't need them, I hope he comes to Philadelphia. I hope he stands in an unemployment line this holiday season with a single mother who needs to chose between paying the rent or keeping her health insurance.
I want him to look her in the eye and say, "We can't extend your unemployment benefits because under my proposal you'll be better off tomorrow if I give a tax credit to your former employer today." I want him to repeat to that single mother what his Secretary of the Treasury said, that the Democratic alternative "was a huge reach and change in policy, putting the federal government into a position where it's now going to create a new entitlement class." And then I want the President to look that woman in the eye and tell her that she's one of them.
Folks, I believe we have the single greatest opportunity to shape this century so that our great great-grandchildren will live in a safer time, in a safer world. But do we have the wisdom to make it a better world?
Ladies and gentlemen, there's an Irish poem, and I expect some of you might say that Biden thinks all poets are Irish...true. But this is a poet who won the Nobel Prize a few years ago, and it's called "The Cure of Troy," written by Seamus Heaney. There's a stanza in that poem I truly believe best describes where we are at this moment in our collective history, and it goes like this:
History says don't hope
On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells.
I believe, as true as I am standing here, that if we act appropriately as a nation, if our policies are resolute and clear, we can make hope and history rhyme. I truly believe that.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Biden Delivers Speech to the Council on Foreign Relations
When I accepted this invitation I expected to be talking about the ABM treaty, about our military priorities in the context of an evaporating budget surplus, or about missile defense versus the more urgent threats we could face - and now, in fact, do face.
I thought the questions I might be asked would be about strategic doctrine, about relations with traditional adversaries like Russia and China, and whether the Yankees will win another World Series.
I certainly did not, for one instant, think we'd be here today wondering about our short and long-term goals in a war against terrorism: Will we succeed? How long will it take? What constitutes victory?
But those are, in fact, the questions facing the United States, and, I confess, they're not easy to answer.
First, our immediate goal is to cut off the head of Al Qaeda, break up the network, leave them no safe haven. That means the removal of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the Taliban leadership.
I don't know how long it will be before the regime is toppled. I wouldn't want to guess. But the handwriting is on the wall. They've lost the support of their key sponsors and are essentially isolated. But some of these sponsors may need reminding that they've got to make a clear break with the past, and we should not hesitate to spell that out.
After Al Qaeda and the Taliban fall, and -- to use the phrase of the day -- we drain the swamp, the medium term goal is to roll up all Al Qaeda cells around the world.
Then, with the help of other nations and possibly with the ultimate sanction of the United Nations, our hope is we'll see a relatively stable government in Afghanistan - one that does not harbor terrorists, is acceptable to the major players in the region, represents the ethnic make up of the country, and provides a foundation for future reconstruction.
In the long term, our goals are easy to articulate, but much more difficult to achieve.
We'll need to deter any potential state sponsors of terrorism from providing support or haven to future bin Ladens.
We'll work with others and try to help rebuild a politically and socially stable Afghanistan that does NOT export terrorism, narcotics, or militancy to its neighbors and to the wider world - more like it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
We'll need to stabilize Southwest and Central Asia and prevent the Taliban-izing, if you will, of Pakistan and other countries.
And we'll need to address some of the economic and political forces that can be manipulated by men like bin Laden. We must do this with the full awareness that attention to social and political development alone won't prevent another bin Laden from emerging. But, at least, it will severely limit the pool from which he can draw recruits and support.
If we're successful in prosecuting this effort in Afghanistan, it ups the ante for other nations harboring or sponsoring - directly or indirectly - other terrorist groups.
The President believes, and I agree, that we must stay involved in the region, not necessarily with American troops, but with American leadership, and resources.
The President has repeated many times, and it's important that we say it over and over again: This is not a war against the Afghan people or any one faith. This is a war between nation states and transnational terrorist organizations, between civilization and chaos.
We need to remind the world's 1.2 billion Muslims -- the vast majority of whom are sickened by the attempted hijacking of their faith -- that our beef is with bin Laden and Al Qaeda, not with them.
American policy has long been marked by a blend of the Wilsonian trend and realpolitik, but whatever our motive, it has not been guided by religious imperatives.
When we sought to bring peace and stability to the Balkans, the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo were the primary beneficiaries.
When we went into Somalia, our aim was to feed starving people who happen to be Muslims.
And, when we provided 170 million dollars in humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people in the last year, it had to do with our principles, and the people there were Muslim, too.
Unfortunately, we're doing a terrible job of disseminating information. We have to take a fresh look at public diplomacy and determine the most effective ways we can get out our message.
But I'm under no illusions. Winning the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens in the Islamic world is an uphill battle, but one we must undertake.
We must enhance the means we use as well as the message - whether it's people to people visits that explain our principled respect for the diversity of all faiths and cultures - or radio and television broadcasts that inform and ultimately empower moderate Muslim voices.
What we cannot do is let the Taliban wage the same propaganda war Saddam waged in Iraq, with photographs of mothers and children scrambling for food and endless footage of destroyed buildings - all designed to portray America as anti-Islam. That's a bald-faced lie.
Regardless of whether we succeed in getting our message out, the truth is, we CANNOT and we certainly WILL not walk away from seven million displaced and desperate Afghans surviving on little more than grass and locusts.
We must do more to help the Afghan people, and we must do FAR more to make our aid visible across the Muslim world.
I'm reluctant to use the word "nation building" because it's such a loaded political term - but, if we leave Afghanistan in chaos, it'll be another time bomb waiting to explode. And there's an enormous powder keg right next door in Pakistan.
If we think we have a problem now, imagine a nation with six times the population of Afghanistan, a nuclear arsenal, and a Talibanized government.
To avoid that scenario, we have to work with the World Bank, the IMF, the U.N., other NGOs and our allies, especially those in the region, to help build an infrastructure in Afghanistan that works.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said it will take nearly $600 million just to get the Afghan refugees through the winter. But that's only the beginning.
In the long term, Afghanistan will need to find a way to break the hold that the madrassas have had on a generation of young men.
They will need to educate a generation of young women, to give them the tools necessary to seize the rights so cruelly denied them under Taliban rule.
They'll need to de-mine the most heavily mined nation in the world.
They'll need crop substitution programs to rid themselves of the title of the world's foremost producers of heroin and opium.
They'll need wells, water purification centers, hospitals, village clinics, even simple roads from one town to the next.
I commend the President for promising $320 million in Afghan aid. In my opinion, this might be the best investment we could make. I say this notwithstanding the many obstacles to achieving these goals that exist in a region that has not proved fertile for incubating democratic institutions. Clearly, we can't do it alone.
As demonstrated since September 11th, it's even more obvious, at least to me, that our national interests can't be furthered, let alone achieved - in splendid indifference to the rest of the world.
Our interests are furthered when we meet our international obligations, keep our treaties, and engage the world.
Far from the black and white of campaigns and up against the gray of governing, it's much easier to see the virtues of multi-nationalism and the shortcomings of unilateralism.
The same tools we used to build this coalition may, in the long term, help change the dynamics of bilateral relations, and present real and unexpected opportunities to define this new century.
And by the way, the Administration has figured it out.
Where the Administration may have once been tempted to see only strategic differences with China over national missile defense and Taiwan, today there's a growing recognition that we have common strategic interests as well - like fighting terrorism and maintaining peace and stability in Central Asia.
Where the Administration may have once seen relations with Russia through the prism of the Cold-War, today there's the promise of entering into a fundamentally different relationship with the Russian Federation.
Where the Administration may have once viewed relations with Iran within the confines of a twenty-year time warp, today Iran has signaled a desire to at least explore a relationship based on newly defined common interests. They've even said they would assist in search and rescue operations of any downed American pilots.
Clearly there's an internal rift in Iran. The reformists would like to go further. All they could get through the system was this modest gesture. But because the system operates on consensus, I'm virtually certain Khamene'i approves, which is significant in itself.
Let's not be under any illusion that there will be full blown rapprochement with China, Russia, and Iran. But if we do this right, if we look at our adversaries in a new light, there will be much to build off in the future.
This weekend the President was in Shanghai for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. He met with China's leaders, who now see more clearly than ever the threat posed to them by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic missile technology.
I guarantee that Jiang Zemin can imagine a plane crashing into an 80 story office tower in Shanghai. I expect that China's leaders will never think of their nuclear and ballistic missile exports to Pakistan in quite the same way.
Working with China against terrorism, however, does not mean jettisoning our concerns about China's human rights record, or overlooking proliferation. In fact, we may need to remind China's leaders that respect for the human rights and religious liberty of China's Muslim minorities is not only morally right, but also essential if we are to deprive the terrorists of recruits.
In Russia, President Putin has emerged as a strategic thinker who realizes that, in order for Russia to advance into the ranks of highly developed nations, he must cast his lot with the West.
Putin recently said, "Today we must firmly declare: the Cold War is over." And with respect to our efforts in Afghanistan, he said "I have no doubt that the U.S. leadership and President Bush will do their best so that the peaceful population does not suffer, and they are already doing their best."
Putin is willing to confront entrenched, reactionary domestic opposition when necessary. He overruled his senior military, and gave the green light for American planes to overfly Russian territory and to permit troops on former Soviet territory in Central Asia, actions virtually unimaginable not long ago.
We have a genuine opportunity to pursue a new relationship with Russia, and we should. If the news out of Shanghai this weekend is accurate, it may well be possible to reach agreement on mutually limiting offensive capabilities and allowing tests of missile defense systems. I hope the President will resist those in his Administration who would have him risk squandering this opportunity by withdrawing unilaterally from the ABM treaty.
I've always said: nations, like people, use crises to resolve differences, or create opportunities.
In the case of Russia, we have a momentous opportunity. It may well be possible to deal not only with strategic forces, but also with NATO enlargement and our non-proliferation concerns.
That new relationship could shape this half-century as the Cold-War shaped the last.
Three days ago, Secretary Powell said in Shanghai, "Not only is the Cold War over, the post-Cold War period is also over."
If the Administration proceeds pragmatically, rather than ideologically, the new era could be good, indeed.
But let's remember that Russia is NOT the only country that matters in developing a new strategic doctrine. We must take care not to provoke a major Chinese arms build-up, which could lead to more nuclear arms in India and Pakistan. We need the help of both in the war on terrorism. And nobody needs more nuclear weapons along a border that is already getting too hot for comfort.
The time is right to consider joint efforts to reduce strategic arms; commit to a joint program to combat terrorism; develop a bilateral plan to prevent other countries or terrorists from gaining weapons of mass destruction; find ways to counter infectious disease epidemics and clean up the residue left by our weapons programs. And we should do everything we can to help Russia stay on a path of economic and political growth and stability.
Once the foundation of cooperation is firmly established, we can pursue missile defense -- if that's what we want -- without rocking the boat of strategic stability.
Look, in the long-term -- even if the coalition breaks down -- we'll have the potential opportunity to create a new day of enhanced bilateral relations with China, Russia, and maybe even with Iran.
So, in the short term we want to eliminate bin Laden and his top aides and remove Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership.
In the medium term, we'll need to establish a relatively stable regime in Afghanistan and roll up Al Qaeda cells around the world.
And in the long-term, we have to deter state sponsorship of future bin Ladens, help rebuild Afghanistan, and stabilize Southwest and Central Asia.
What will be much more difficult, will be to clearly identify and address some of the root causes of this hard-core, hate-driven zealotry so we can limit the pool from which another bin Laden can draw recruits.
The list of root causes is long -- from the lack of legitimate channels of dissent in the Arab world, to desperation, resentment at American material success, a perception that our actions don't match our ideals.
All of these issues are worthy of our attention, but they can never be excuses for terrorism.
Which brings us to Israel. Let me just say, Israel did not produce bin Laden, and we can't let Israel be the scapegoat.
We are in a tough stage right now, and there are many cross-winds buffeting our relationship, but our friendship with Israel is not a transitory event, a marriage of convenience, or a short-term alliance.
Differences are normal even among friends, but airing them in public is never useful. Surely there are sufficient channels to communicate our views. Let us not create any false impressions about the fundamental, long-term basis upon which the U.S. - Israel relationship rests: we continue to be bound by unshakable, shared democratic values.
After all this, the question remains - what constitutes victory in the war on terrorism?
If we cut off the head of Al Qaeda, help to rebuild a stable Afghanistan, and, if, in the process, we find a way to stabilize the relationship between Pakistan and India, and enhance bilateral relations with China, Russia, and Iran, then we have achieved a victory that may well define the 21st century.
In sum, just as we could not have put together a viable coalition if President Bush had already walked away from the ABM treaty, so too will we have trouble nurturing future bilateral relations if we decide, when the crisis is over, to go it alone, again.
We should be figuring out right now how we revive the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Biological Weapons Treaty, move on arms control proposals that go to Start III, environmental treaties, and how to amend -- and not jettison -- the ABM Treaty.
Before I take some questions let me leave you with these final thoughts. On September 11th the world changed for the terrorists. It was, I believe the beginning of the end of a way of life, not for America, but for international terrorism.
Out of our dark grief our nation is newly united and abroad we have new opportunities.
As my mother says, "Out of every tragedy, if you look hard enough, you can find one good thing."
Or, in the words of another great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney:
"History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme."
I truly believe, notwithstanding incredible difficulties we face in doing even half the things I mentioned here, that we're on the verge, if we do it right, of making hope and history rhyme. But we cannot squander this opportunity. I believe the President has made a genuine transition in his thinking on foreign policy. I hope I am not kidding myself. If he has, I think not only will he go down as a great President, I think we will have marked the beginning of a new era in international relations.
Thank you all for listening.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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From Tragedy to Opportunity: Acting Wisely in a Time of Uncertainty
When I accepted this invitation I expected to be talking about the ABM treaty, about our military priorities in the context of an evaporating budget surplus, or about missile defense versus the more urgent threats we could face - and now, in fact, DO face. I thought the questions I might be asked would be about strategic doctrine, about relations with traditional adversaries like Russia and China, and whether the Yankees will win another World Series.
I certainly did not, for one instant, think we'd be here today wondering about our short and long-term goals in a war against terrorism: Will we succeed? How long will it take? What constitutes victory?
But those are, in fact, the questions facing the United States, and, I confess, they're not easy to answer.
First, our immediate goal is to cut off the head of Al Qaeda, break up the network, leave them no safe haven. That means the removal of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the Taliban leadership.
I don't know how long it will be before the regime is toppled. I wouldn't want to guess. But the handwriting is on the wall. They've lost the support of their key sponsors and are essentially isolated. But some of these sponsors may need reminding that they've got to make a clear break with the past, and we should not hesitate to spell that out.
After Al Qaeda and the Taliban fall, and -- to use the phrase of the day -- we drain the swamp, the medium term goal is to roll up all Al Qaeda cells around the world.
Then, with the help of other nations and possibly with the ultimate sanction of the United Nations, our hope is we'll see a relatively stable government in Afghanistan - one that does not harbor terrorists, is acceptable to the major players in the region, represents the ethnic make up of the country, and provides a foundation for future reconstruction.
In the long term, our goals are easy to articulate, but much more difficult to achieve.
We'll need to deter any potential state sponsors of terrorism from providing support or haven to future bin Ladens.
We'll work with others and try to help rebuild a politically and socially stable Afghanistan that does NOT export terrorism, narcotics, or militancy to its neighbors and to the wider world - more like it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
We'll need to stabilize Southwest and Central Asia and prevent the Taliban-izing, if you will, of Pakistan and other countries.
And we'll need to address some of the economic and political forces that can be manipulated by men like bin Laden. We must do this with the full awareness that attention to social and political development alone won't prevent another bin Laden from emerging. But, at least, it will severely limit the pool from which he can draw recruits and support.
If we're successful in prosecuting this effort in Afghanistan, it ups the ante for other nations harboring or sponsoring - directly or indirectly - other terrorist groups.
The President believes, and I agree, that we must stay involved in the region, not necessarily with American troops, but with American leadership, and resources.
The President has repeated many times, and it's important that we say it over and over again: This is not a war against the Afghan people or any one faith. This is a war between nation states and transnational terrorist organizations, between civilization and chaos.
We need to remind the world's 1.2 billion Muslims -- the vast majority of whom are sickened by the attempted hijacking of their faith -- that our beef is with bin Laden and Al Qaeda, not with them.
American policy has long been marked by a blend of the Wilsonian trend and realpolitik, but whatever our motive, it has not been guided by religious imperatives.
When we sought to bring peace and stability to the Balkans, the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo were the primary beneficiaries.
When we went into Somalia, our aim was to feed starving people who happen to be Muslims.
And, when we provided 170 million dollars in humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people in the last year, it had to do with our principles, and the people there were Muslim, too.
Unfortunately, we're doing a terrible job of disseminating information. We have to take a fresh look at public diplomacy and determine the most effective ways we can get out our message.
But I'm under no illusions. Winning the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens in the Islamic world is an uphill battle, but one we must undertake.
We must enhance the means we use as well as the message - whether it's people to people visits that explain our principled respect for the diversity of all faiths and cultures - or radio and television broadcasts that inform and ultimately empower moderate Muslim voices.
What we cannot do is let the Taliban wage the same propaganda war Saddam waged in Iraq, with photographs of mothers and children scrambling for food and endless footage of destroyed buildings - all designed to portray America as anti-Islam. That's a bald-faced lie.
Regardless of whether we succeed in getting our message out, the truth is, we CANNOT and we certainly WILL not walk away from seven million displaced and desperate Afghans surviving on little more than grass and locusts.
We must do more to help the Afghan people, and we must do FAR more to make our aid visible across the Muslim world.
I'm reluctant to use the word "nation building" because it's such a loaded political term - but, if we leave Afghanistan in chaos, it'll be another time bomb waiting to explode. And there's an enormous powder keg right next door in Pakistan.
If we think we have a problem now, imagine a nation with six times the population of Afghanistan, a nuclear arsenal, and a Talibanized government.
To avoid that scenario, we have to work with the World Bank, the IMF, the U.N., other NGOs and our allies, especially those in the region, to help build an infrastructure in Afghanistan that works.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said it will take nearly $600 million just to get the Afghan refugees through the winter. But that's only the beginning.
In the long term, Afghanistan will need to find a way to break the hold that the madrassas have had on a generation of young men.
They will need to educate a generation of young women, to give them the tools necessary to seize the rights so cruelly denied them under Taliban rule.
They'll need to de-mine the most heavily mined nation in the world.
They'll need crop substitution programs to rid themselves of the title of the world's foremost producers of heroin and opium.
They'll need wells, water purification centers, hospitals, village clinics, even simple roads from one town to the next.
I commend the President for promising $320 million in Afghan aid. In my opinion, this might be the best investment we could make. I say this notwithstanding the many obstacles to achieving these goals that exist in a region that has not proved fertile for incubating democratic institutions. Clearly, we can't do it alone.
As demonstrated since September 11th, it's even more obvious, at least to me, that our national interests can't be furthered, let alone achieved - in splendid indifference to the rest of the world.
Our interests are furthered when we meet our international obligations, keep our treaties, and engage the world.
Far from the black and white of campaigns and up against the gray of governing, it's much easier to see the virtues of multi-nationalism and the shortcomings of unilateralism.
The same tools we used to build this coalition may, in the long term, help change the dynamics of bilateral relations, and present real and unexpected opportunities to define this new century.
And by the way, the Administration has figured it out.
Where the Administration may have once been tempted to see only strategic differences with China over national missile defense and Taiwan, today there's a growing recognition that we have common strategic interests as well - like fighting terrorism and maintaining peace and stability in Central Asia.
Where the Administration may have once seen relations with Russia through the prism of the Cold-War, today there's the promise of entering into a fundamentally different relationship with the Russian Federation.
Where the Administration may have once viewed relations with Iran within the confines of a twenty-year time warp, today Iran has signaled a desire to at least explore a relationship based on newly defined common interests. They've even said they would assist in search and rescue operations of any downed American pilots.
Clearly there's an internal rift in Iran. The reformists would like to go further. All they could get through the system was this modest gesture. But because the system operates on consensus, I'm virtually certain Khamene'i approves, which is significant in itself.
Let's not be under any illusion that there will be full blown rapprochement with China, Russia, and Iran. But if we do this right, if we look at our adversaries in a new light, there will be much to build off in the future.
This weekend the President was in Shanghai for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. He met with China's leaders, who now see more clearly than ever the threat posed to them by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic missile technology.
I guarantee that Jiang Zemin can imagine a plane crashing into an 80 story office tower in Shanghai. I expect that China's leaders will never think of their nuclear and ballistic missile exports to Pakistan in quite the same way.
Working with China against terrorism, however, does not mean jettisoning our concerns about China's human rights record, or overlooking proliferation. In fact, we may need to remind China's leaders that respect for the human rights and religious liberty of China's Muslim minorities is not only morally right, but also essential if we are to deprive the terrorists of recruits.
In Russia, President Putin has emerged as a strategic thinker who realizes that, in order for Russia to advance into the ranks of highly developed nations, he must cast his lot with the West.
Putin recently said, "Today we must firmly declare: the Cold War is over." And with respect to our efforts in Afghanistan, he said "I have no doubt that the U.S. leadership and President Bush will do their best so that the peaceful population does not suffer, and they are already doing their best."
Putin is willing to confront entrenched, reactionary domestic opposition when necessary. He overruled his senior military, and gave the green light for American planes to overfly Russian territory and to permit troops on former Soviet territory in Central Asia, actions virtually unimaginable not long ago.
We have a genuine opportunity to pursue a new relationship with Russia, and we should. If the news out of Shanghai this weekend is accurate, it may well be possible to reach agreement on mutually limiting offensive capabilities and allowing tests of missile defense systems. I hope the President will resist those in his Administration who would have him risk squandering this opportunity by withdrawing unilaterally from the ABM treaty.
I've always said: nations, like people, use crises to resolve differences, or create opportunities.
In the case of Russia, we have a momentous opportunity. It may well be possible to deal not only with strategic forces, but also with NATO enlargement and our non-proliferation concerns.
That new relationship could shape this half-century as the Cold-War shaped the last.
Three days ago, Secretary Powell said in Shanghai, "Not only is the Cold War over, the post-Cold War period is also over."
If the Administration proceeds pragmatically, rather than ideologically, the new era could be good, indeed.
But let's remember that Russia is NOT the only country that matters in developing a new strategic doctrine. We must take care not to provoke a major Chinese arms build-up, which could lead to more nuclear arms in India and Pakistan. We need the help of both in the war on terrorism. And nobody needs more nuclear weapons along a border that is already getting too hot for comfort.
The time is right to consider joint efforts to reduce strategic arms; commit to a joint program to combat terrorism; develop a bilateral plan to prevent other countries or terrorists from gaining weapons of mass destruction; find ways to counter infectious disease epidemics and clean up the residue left by our weapons programs. And we should do everything we can to help Russia stay on a path of economic and political growth and stability.
Once the foundation of cooperation is firmly established, we can pursue missile defense -- if that's what we want -- without rocking the boat of strategic stability.
Look, in the long-term -- even if the coalition breaks down -- we'll have the potential opportunity to create a new day of enhanced bilateral relations with China, Russia, and maybe even with Iran.
So, in the short term we want to eliminate bin Laden and his top aides and remove Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership.
In the medium term, we'll need to establish a relatively stable regime in Afghanistan and roll up Al Qaeda cells around the world.
And in the long-term, we have to deter state sponsorship of future bin Ladens, help rebuild Afghanistan, and stabilize Southwest and Central Asia.
What will be much more difficult, will be to clearly identify and address some of the root causes of this hard-core, hate-driven zealotry so we can limit the pool from which another bin Laden can draw recruits.
The list of root causes is long -- from the lack of legitimate channels of dissent in the Arab world, to desperation, resentment at American material success, a perception that our actions don't match our ideals.
All of these issues are worthy of our attention, but they can never be excuses for terrorism.
Which brings us to Israel. Let me just say, Israel did not produce bin Laden, and we can't let Israel be the scapegoat.
We are in a tough stage right now, and there are many cross-winds buffeting our relationship, but our friendship with Israel is not a transitory event, a marriage of convenience, or a short-term alliance.
Differences are normal even among friends, but airing them in public is never useful. Surely there are sufficient channels to communicate our views. Let us not create any false impressions about the fundamental, long-term basis upon which the U.S. - Israel relationship rests: we continue to be bound by unshakable, shared democratic values.
After all this, the question remains - what constitutes victory in the war on terrorism?
If we cut off the head of Al Qaeda, help to rebuild a stable Afghanistan, and, if, in the process, we find a way to stabilize the relationship between Pakistan and India, and enhance bilateral relations with China, Russia, and Iran, then we have achieved a victory that may well define the 21st century.
In sum, just as we could not have put together a viable coalition if President Bush had already walked away from the ABM treaty, so too will we have trouble nurturing future bilateral relations if we decide, when the crisis is over, to go it alone, again.
We should be figuring out right now how we revive the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Biological Weapons Treaty, move on arms control proposals that go to Start III, environmental treaties, and how to amend -- and not jettison -- the ABM Treaty.
Before I take some questions let me leave you with these final thoughts. On September 11th the world changed for the terrorists. It was, I believe the beginning of the end of a way of life, not for America, but for international terrorism.
Out of our dark grief our nation is newly united and abroad we have new opportunities.
As my mother says, "Out of every tragedy, if you look hard enough, you can find one good thing."
Or, in the words of another great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney:
"History says, don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme."
I truly believe, notwithstanding incredible difficulties we face in doing even half the things I mentioned here, that we're on the verge, if we do it right, of making hope and history rhyme. But we cannot squander this opportunity. I believe the President has made a genuine transition in his thinking on foreign policy. I hope I am not kidding myself. If he has, I think not only will he go down as a great President, I think we will have marked the beginning of a new era in international relations.
Thank you all for listening.
The following transcript of the Question and Answer period has been provided by the Council on Foreign Relations. The moderator is former GOP Congressman Vin Weber.
VW: Thank you. It's my job to screen questions for the Senator without trying to get too much between the questioner and the answer. Under the rules of these engagements, when I call on you will you please stand up and state your affiliation, and try to state your question as concisely as possible. To get things going, though, I'm going to take the prerogative of the Chair and ask the first question.
Senator, you talked at some length about some possibilities in terms of relationships around Russia and other places. Talk about a place where there might be some strains, the American people at least are being fed a significant diet of negative information about our relationship with the Saudi's and their relationship to terrorism over these past many years. Is there a deeper problem there than we thought, and how should the American people and the government think about that relationship?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: I've been admonished to make the answers very, very brief, so I will make them brief, if you want me to expand I will attempt to do that. Number one, I do not doubt the pressure that the Saudis are under, like other Arab states in the region, having to essentially buy off their extreme groups in order to maintain themselves. But the Saudis have gone above and beyond the call in destabilizing the region, in my view, in terms of essentially funding a significant portion of what we are now dealing with in the extreme example of Islam gone awry. It's one thing to decide you're going to export Wahhabi Sunnism, by setting up Madrassas around the region. Okay, I get that. But what I don't get is setting them up where they have a third feature: that they're a hate-filled, anti-American breeding ground.
I think we should have a very simple, straightforward discussion with the Saudis and they should understand that they have a hell of a lot more to lose in the break up of the relationship than we do. That is taking a great risk. I am not sanguine about the fact that we get 1.6 million barrels of oil a day from there, but I would be prepared, were I the Secretary of State, or I was in another position, to tell the Saudis: Don't push it. Don't push it. Cease and desist on this activity. There will be consequences. At any rate, that's my view.
SR: I'm Steve Robert of Robert Capital Management. As I listened carefully to your address, which I thought was very good, it seems the center of gravity in the debate over missile defense has changed. Because while the opponents of missile defense prior to September 11th would have just probably said it's a foolish idea and the wrong priority, what you seem to be saying is that, it's almost inevitable if we also cut nuclear arms stockpiles, renegotiate the arms control treaty and the strategic arms treaty and so forth. So is this in fact what you mean to communicate, that we're now just talking about how we get to missile defense, as opposed to whether we should have missile defense at all?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: What I'm suggesting is, and it's a very good question, what I'm suggesting is, we should be prepared to explore, assuming we can amend the ABM Treaty to do the exploration, whether or not a viable missile defense system is feasible without starting a new arms race, and without producing an economic hemorrhage of a half a trillion dollars with little return on our investment.
Right now we're caught between the rock and the hard place. In order to go forward, according to this administration - and I think they're inaccurate - but the gentleman sitting behind you has forgotten more about this issue than I am going to know. But in order for them to go forward with the testing program they have in mind, they can do it without having to violate the ABM Treaty. But it has become sort of religious doctrine on the right that the ABM Treaty is, per se, bad. I'm hopeful that we're at a place now, where the President, if we in fact - and I happen to support significant further reductions in all offensive capability - if we get the Joint Chiefs to agree upon a number significantly below where we are, I'm willing to go along with an amendment of the ABM Treaty, assuming that we have scrubbed this in a way that we understand what the likely response in China will be to such a system.
If in fact, notwithstanding the fact that the Russians would agree, this will start a significant - and our intelligence agencies publish widely, and I can only tell you what was in the paper, only confirm ... I won't confirm, I'll state what's in the paper - that they will do ten times as much as they would have otherwise done in offensive capability if we build such a system. If we cannot get through that wicket, then it seems to me it is not worth a candle. The cost is not worth it, and the consequence of going forward with the limited benefit that would flow from it may very well start that arms race which I worry most about in the most dangerous part of the world. It was dangerous before, and it's considerably more dangerous now.
So I cannot fathom India sitting by if China rapidly racks up their nuclear capability, and I cannot figure Pakistan doing the same, and so I see it as a disaster. But this is a beginning step, and I guess the polite way of saying this, I'm happy the President seems to be moving in the direction where he may not unilaterally walk away from the ABM Treaty. That's a big deal.
VW: I want to go to Rita next, but if there are other questions on either strategic defense or the ABM Treaty, I'll take them now, before we leave that topic. If not, we'll go to Rita.
RH: Rita Hauser. You didn't mention Iraq. Do you see Iraq in the second stage as a target for the terrorists counter-offensive, and what is your view on the continuation of our policy of sanctions?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: I happen to think that the sanctions policy needs to be changed. The Secretary of State has discussed a smarter sanctions policy. I thought he was going in the right direction, I was hoping that it would be embraced, although I now think there's an opportunity to embrace it because the dynamics have changed in Moscow, and the dynamics have changed in France, and the dynamics have changed in China somewhat, and I would further explore going back to that approach, that is, a smarter sanctions policy.
I'm of a view that what has changed has all been bad from a Iraq standpoint, for the Iraqis. The idea now that we are going to just disregard what Saddam has done, walk away and just seek economic opportunity, as some of our friends and allies have done, I think is being reconsidered in those very capitols. Rather than have a second phase, the way in which the press uses it, and I assume you're talking about, that is, after we finish with Afghanistan, do we invade Iraq? I think that is not the prudent approach. I think what we attempt to do is to build a coalition, reconstruct a coalition that is tighter and stronger and with more demands placed upon the behavior of Iraq.
My view is, if we're able to do that, and the behavior is still as bad as it has been in the past, you will be able to much more likely generate a consensus on at least standing by as we took action, or having multilateral action. But to just go from here to there I think would be a disastrous mistake in the near term.
VW: Go back to that table. I'm going to try to move around the audience as best I can.
FW: Frank Wisner from the American International Group. The current crisis ... (Overlap)
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Why are you taking folks out of Delaware? We want to talk about that ...(Laughter) ... I want to know this, Mr. Ambassador, this is parochial, this is serious stuff. (Laughter) I'm only joking ... (Overlap)
FW: ... we have a commitment ... (Overlap)
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: ... I just want to kind of throw you off. (Laughter)
VW: ... He's not really joking. (Laughter)
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: ... Former Congressman, I can tell you, I'm worried about it, but...
FW: Senator, coming back to the subject of your terrific speech today, (Laughter) ...
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: It went from good to terrific. (Laughter)
FW: This crisis has brought to light other tensions, and among them has been the sparking of tension between India and Pakistan, with very heavy Indian shelling, acts of terror in Kashmir. As you look at that aspect of the challenge to American diplomacy, what message do you have to the parties in the region, how they can get on top of the problem they have and the role the United States can play?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Let me answer it in reverse order. The role of the United States. The United States should stay engaged the way the Secretary has gotten engaged in the last week. It's made a difference already. I think there has to be a clear understanding, both in Delhi and Islamabad that we are interested, we are looking and we are watching.
Secondly, I think a message should be delivered very strongly to the Indians, do not attempt to take advantage of the circumstances this moment, it's against your interests across the board. And thirdly, we have to make clear to the Pakistanis that, notwithstanding the fact we need you very much right now, you are in a position where if you are going to continue to foment the terror that does exist in Kashmir, then you are operating against your own near term interests, because that very viper can turn on you. And I think we have to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, and engage and engage and engage. Because as you well know, part of the cry on the part of India has been, just somebody pay attention ...or excuse me, in Pakistan, someone pay attention.
And on India, we don't want any part of anybody being involved and looking at any of this problem. The truth of the matter is, the whole world is looking at their problem now in Kashmir, not just us, the spotlight is on and the consequences for how they will be treated relative to all other nations in the world is very much up in the air right now, and they should be made constantly aware of how tenuous the circumstance is for both of them. In this case, particularly India... in my view, particularly India.
VW: Can I follow up on that myself? Because at the beginning of this administration, the administration seemed to be tilting, to use a term, toward India, the Indian Foreign Minister was given a meeting with the President, and it seemed as if the administration was going to try to, as one of the cornerstones of their foreign policy, build a much better relationship with India than we've had in the past. In view of what you just said, do you think that that was then, and this is now, or is there still an opportunity going forward to forge a much closer relationship with the Indians?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: I think that was then, and it's almost still that way now. (Scattered Laughter) And let me explain what I mean by that. I may be mistaken, and I may be a bit cynical, but I think the initial, quote, tilt toward India was related to Beijing more than it was to Pakistan or anything else. And I think that the relationship with Beijing was going south very rapidly. And continued to move south in a precipitous way until Powell made his visit.
I coincidentally happened to take a small delegation of Senators to some very high level meetings for six days in China, just on the heels of that visit, and you could literally see, maybe a mild exaggeration, a sigh of relief on the part of the Chinese, that maybe this collision is not inevitable, is not inevitable. I think it chastened the Chinese a little bit, I think it made them focus on the precipice, as well as us.
Now what's happened is, I think, you have, and it's a ... I cannot prove this, I think what you have in India now is a look north and saying, whoa, it looks like these guys are talking again. We may have moved past our opportunity to make a substantial change in the relationship. That would be a mistake on their part, to think that. Because I think that there is a desire in the administration to actually, genuinely better relations with India. I think it is an absolute essential element of American foreign policy that that be done. And part of that is simply engaging ... engaging them and treating them like what they are. They will, in not too long, be the largest, most populous nation in the world. They are a democracy, as flawed as you may think it is. They are someone with whom we should and must have a much, much, much better relationship and understanding.
And the whole world has changed for India. It has changed not only when the Wall came down, and when their protector evaporated, it changed now as the relationship with China begins to mature, and they're going to have some great difficulty internally figuring out how to deal with that. But we should be engaged at the highest level on a daily basis, literally with India. So I don't think the administration is jettisoning India, but I think they're beginning to look at India in a different way, not as cynically as just a card to have been played against Beijing.
VW: Questioner behind Frank, then I'm going to try to go to the back of the room for a question.
ME: Monsoor Ejaz. Senator, it's always good to hear you speak so frankly, so I'm going to try and get you on the record on another sensitive issue. Does the United States need a military policy to deal with an eventuality in which a Taliban-like force would hold control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons? And if it does, what should that policy look like?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Well, I think we're engaged in that policy right now. And I have every reason to believe from my conversations with the President, and I don't pretend to be his confidant, I don't want anyone ... I know you all know that, but the CNN audience might think I'm trying to foist myself off as the President's close advisor. I've been flattered the President has engaged me as the opposition and as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and we've had, as they say, full and frank discussions, probably five, six hours worth in the last several months, and ... but my impression and my understanding is, coming from both the Secretary of State as well as the Secretary of Defense and as well as the President of the United States personally, that that is the essence of their policy at the moment.
It is reflected in certain ways. You see, and I'll be very parochial, and I'm going to give you a specific example. Right now there has been, and continues to exist, a real dissatisfaction on the part of the Northern Alliance that we have not done, which is fully within our capability to do now, and that is with air power, essentially provide air cover that could decimate the Taliban capability of holding them back, not only from Mazar i Sharif, but also holding them back from the capitol.
And the President has not been as blunt as I'm going to be, because I don't speak for him, so I can say it, I believe the President's actions have been somewhat circumspect for very good reasons. He understands that if in fact the Northern Alliance marches into Kabul and sets up a government, that we will have the potential for a disintegration in Islamabad, and that Pakistan may very well, and Musharraf may in fact collapse, it may be gone.
And so I think that ... I'll give you that as one example of my view of the President's understanding of how difficult this is. We have also done things which were not particularly comfortable for me to do, quite frankly. I'm the guy, as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that was responsible for either facilitating and/or proposing the lifting of all the sanctions, of which I have supported relative proliferation, not to proliferation questions, as well as democratization. And we've even looked at Section 508, and so my point is that we have taken extraordinary actions, which is sort of against our instincts, with only the promise, only the promise of elections a year from now, with the commitment to be kept, and only the hope, the hope that we will be able to stabilize, that the region will, with our help and others, be stabilized in such a way that we don't have to face that God awful specter of radical Islamic groups taking over a country that is multiple sizes larger than Afghanistan, with nuclear weapons.
So I think the administration is fully appraised, fully understands, and is doing everything within its power, understanding, and I don't ... in defense of the administration, no one has a hole card here. No one that I know, maybe some of you do, and if you do, let me know because I want to nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize in advance. No one I know has a surefire way to assure that stability in this part of the world will result from the actions undertaken. Conversely, I don't know of anyone who ... I do know of some, I don't know anyone in this room would like to suggest we should not and need not have taken the action we are taking. We're not going to get into the weeds here. It's going to start to get ... we talked, and I hope I don't offend anybody saying this, at our table here, we talked about how long the honeymoon, how long the unquestioning period of unabashed support for the President's policy will continue. I think everyone ... I shouldn't say everyone ... I mean the vast majority of the foreign policy establishment, of the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle, in fact share the view that up to now the President's done a pretty darn good job of assembling this multilateral force, resisting what were very strong entree's from parts of the administration to bypass Afghanistan and go straight to Iraq, et cetera. I think he's done well. But now we're going to get into the tough calls.
Case in point, and I'll stop with this. How much longer does the bombing continue? Because we're going to pay every single hour, every single day it continues, we're going to pay an escalating price in the Muslim world. We're going to pay an escalating price in the region. And that in fact is going to make the aftermath of our, quote, victory more difficult to reconstruct the region. Conversely, the President's in a very difficult spot. How much does he have to do to make the environment in which we are going to send, and we will, American forces, hospitable to the extent...
(Council on Foreign Relations tape turned to side B...several seconds missing...)
... tell you, though, I hope to God it ends sooner rather than later, because every moment it goes on, it makes the aftermath problem more severe than it is ... was an hour ago. And so that's what I mean when I say they're fully appraised of their problem. They are going to engage in activities that we may ... I may be able to Monday morning quarterback and second guess, but I know of no clear path that suggests how they secure the notion that there is no possibility of Pakistan degenerating into chaos, and us dealing with a problem there. The ultimate answer would be, if that were the case, we would find ourselves with a whole hell of a lot more forces in that region than we have now, which would be a very bad idea.
VW: Going to go right straight to the back of the room, and then I have a question at the middle table up front.
DG: I'm Davey Gaw(?), with the conference board. Senator, you gave us a picture that was historic, and it raised the question in my mind, to this effect. Is there an advertising problem, is there a genuine insoluble intellectual issue, or simply have we not solved the following? It seems to me that for the past 50 years or so, the U.S. has always been stuck in a corner, on the one hand we launch into the world with noble causes, and then we tie ourselves to ignoble regimes so that we have (Inaudible) for purposes, but people think that we're married to these regimes, and the same thing is occurring now in the Middle East. What's wrong? Why can't we do a dual track strategy? Why can't we send a message that's credible, that we do serve double purposes on the one end, but we also do not want to marry ignoble regimes on the other? Why can't we solve that issue?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Because life's tough. (Scattered Laughter) There are hard choices. I don't know, I don't want to get him in trouble, but I suspect Les Gelb may remember, about a dozen years ago, my proposing we start to distance ourselves from some of those various regimes, and for example, during the Gulf War, one of the reasons I voted against the resolution that was put forward was, I did not get any commitment from the administration personally that they would in fact make sure that when we freed Kuwait, the circumstance in Kuwait would change. I did not see merely putting the Emir back in power as anything that inured to our great benefit. The territorial principle of not crossing a border was a big deal, and important and oil mattered, but it seemed to me we should have extracted in return for that some commitment toward the movement toward, some movement toward, not outright democracy, but some movement toward a liberalization of the system.
I have been the odd man out on that for a long time with regard to Saudi Arabia as well, and other countries in the region. But I acknowledge to you, it is incredibly difficult to do. And you got to be prepared to take a risk, and the risk is serious. The down side is high. The costs economically are severe. But I think we're at the point now where we have to take those risks. But it's not easy. It is not easy because the truth of the matter is, we inherited what was there, we helped make and sustained what was there, but we did it for reasons relating to our immediate self interests that were of consequence to us, enabling us to do other things in other parts of the world that were necessary to be done.
So, it's, yes, as a former President once said, life ain't fair. Well, the world ain't fair, and we're left with a lot of Hobson's Choices. If I can elaborate on one piece. This dissemination of information, I put together a proposal that I've been discussing with the administration. I've been sort of the guy who has, and a lot of you have as well, but I mean in the Senate, in the House, I've been sort of the godfather of the radios lately, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, et cetera. It's woefully underfunded. For example, in the largest Muslim state in the world, where they have 220 million people, we spend two million dollars on the radio, for example. So I put together a proposal at the President's urging, quite frankly, because one of the things I discussed with him, that I'm going to present to him when he gets back, is over a half a billion dollar initial investment, 250 million dollars a year, for public diplomacy, and fundamentally altering the way in which we're able to broadcast to that part of the world. As part of this, I asked my staff, and I have some very talented staff people who know the region well, have worked in the region, and are very academically qualified as well as practically qualified, if they would get together some two or three or four of the most knowledgeable folks on Islam in the world, so that we in fact, when I propose this, I was not doing something that was counterproductive. So that we wouldn't find we were causing more problems than there were solutions. And I sat with these four folks, I'll tell you what they said to me. Now, they're not the end of the day, but they said to me, they said, look, the idea of winning the hearts and minds of the Islamic world, and the Arab Islamic world is not likely. The best you can do is give some reasons for the moderates within that regime to have a reason to sustain their position against the extremists in ... did I say regime? I meant to say region, against extremists in the region. And they went on to say, the problem isn't with the American people, it's with American foreign policies, and then they ticked off the foreign policy. Being part of propping up regimes that in fact are anti-democratic and are part of the problem, because again, Osama Bin Laden is after Riyadh, not after Jerusalem.
And it's a different problem. And also they then point out Israel, and they say part of the problem relates to our policy relative to Israel. Well, there are certain things we're not going to change. There are certain things we're not going to change, so the question is, what utility would a significant investment in our public diplomacy have? And it seems to me the minimum what it would have, it would give a context in which we were able to ...they were able to make judgments about the totality of our action, and would not in fact change the attitude in that part of the world toward us, but would moderate it. And so these are very difficult questions, though, but I am going to propose we make this major investment, and I think it will fall on, quite frankly, friendly ears in the administration, based on my conversations with the President.
VW: Is there an opportunity to take that a step further to the whole foreign policy budget of the government, the United Nations that you've been involved in, support for our embassies abroad that's been underfunded for some time, foreign aid budget, is that a part of the whole response?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: No, because ... and I'm not being ... I didn't mean to be so sure. (Laughs) I don't mean ... (Overlap)
VW: ... short answer(?) ...
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: ... that's right. (Scattered Laughter) Now, well ... the answer is no for the following reason. For the federal government to engage in public diplomacy at home is a very dangerous thing, in my view. For us to fund news organizations that promote a governmental position, it seems to me is not what we need, domestically in the United States. But we do need it abroad. What will change, and has changed that, as Ambassador Negroponte knows, he not only ... I mean, I love the guy. We held him up for God knows how long before we approved him, so everybody made sure any accusation ever against wouldn't rub off on them, and they all turned out to be false, and we approved unanimously, wasn't it? I don't think anybody voted against it. And he went up there and did something no one's been able to do, including Prince Holbrooke, no one's been able to do this. (Laughter) And you know what he did? He went up and there and got immediately the right wing Republicans to free up the money in the House. You know what did that? The world changed. They did not want to have to, as former Senator Carol Moseley Braun would say, wear the jacket of us not being able to put together a coalition because he was unable to do his job in the United Nations because he had to face the constant charge that we weren't meeting our end of the deal.
So I think events alter those kinds of things and I think you're going to see foreign policy much more on the front burner of American domestic politics for the reasons that were stated at the outset, that we'll, in fact, up those budgets and people are beginning to understand the complexity. It's not all military, it's diplomacy. We have to lead in other ways, and I think that will be helped by this terrible circumstance.
VW: Senator Biden, thank you for ... (Overlap)
DG: I'm Dick Garwin, Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you for an insightful and constructive presentation. Now, on the ABM Treaty and missile defense, I can just say amen, but the rest of the topics you mentioned, we need to have not only some priorities, but more than that. The administration and the Congress are going to have to do a number of things together. First, it seems to me that we have to have refugee camps, and the refugee camps have to be training grounds for democracy. So, we need to work with the United Nations to do this, and to accomplish that. We need to provide security, but we need to provide more than security.
The next priority I think has to be the chemical and biological weapons conventions, especially the BWC ... essentially all the nations of the world have signed up, but they're not all obeying it. They're not all doing what they said. Before we have any compliance, we've got to have them say, we're going to do this, we're passing a law, everybody has to stop affiliating with biological weapons and we're going to destroy our stocks. Seems to me that's the next. And finally, in my talk, is the Pakistani nuclear weapons. You read in the New York Times Bruce Wehr(?), saying we ought to provide means of going in and capturing them in case Pakistan regime falls. Well, we'll get a lot more cooperation if we fund Pakistani regime in order to destroy their own, or render them ineffective if the regime falls, and with uranium weapons that can be done in reasonably expeditious fashion. But how do you solve the problem of priorities, and doing a number of things at the same time with neither administrations or Congress are good at?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Let me tell you, I fully agree with your list, I shortened my speech on the fly here, I'll give you a copy of it, it mentions all three of those things, particularly the biological and chemical weapons treaty and the implementation. And I think you do just what you said. Those discussions are underway with the Democratic Congress and the Republican members of Congress and the President on setting those priorities. The question is, the President has an internal dilemma he has to overcome first. He is focusing on first things first, but then he has to deal with ... and I'm going to get in trouble for saying this ... but he has to deal with what has not gone away. There is, for lack of a better phrase, still a Rumsfeld-Powell split on how they look at the world, and how they look at these very issues that you've stated here. I was discussing here at my table, my perception, and maybe, what's that old expression, the father is ... the wish is the father of the thought, or whatever it is, that maybe I'm just sort of making this up as I go along because I want to feel it. But my impression is, this President is arriving at his own foreign policy. He is arriving at his own foreign policy. I think he accepted wholesale sort of the movement right position on foreign policy issues, because as a Governor he hadn't paid much attention to those. And I think he's finding that those as a prescription don't fit the modern day world as easily as he thought they may.
And so I see the first thing that has to happen is the President himself has to decide what he thinks about these issues. And I hope we throw in CTBT here, because I think to me that is one of the ... that is the single most important thing we could do at the front end. But ... Vin is looking at his watch, understandably, I happen to agree with you. With regard to priorities, Dick Lugar and I are going to be introducing this week a call for a commission that is, I know we got a lot of commissions, but a commission made up, appointed by the President, the House and the Senate, made up of the leading people in America that we could find with the greatest stature, to come forward with us with a threat assessment, a threat assessment that in fact reflects, for purposes of deciding what priorities we should be focusing on. And so I can talk to you more about that later, but my time is ... (Overlap)
VW: I don't know if we have time for one or two more, but one there, and if there's time for two, it's over there. Les is telling me only one, I'm sorry to say, (Inaudible).
M: (Inaudible) Talbot(?). Senator, thank you for this broad gauged approach to the problems we face. My question is this, do you foresee the need or the expectation of a Congressional declaration of war, which the Constitution calls for, and if so, against whom? (Scattered Laughter)
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: The answer is yes, and we did it. I happen to be a professor of Constitutional law. I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction ... Louis Fisher(?) and others can tell you, there is no distinction between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. And we defined in that Use of Force Act that we passed, what ... against whom we were moving, and what authority was granted to the President.
And why don't you take that question, it's not two o'clock, I'll give a yes or no. He may be from Delaware. (Laughter)
RP: Roland Paul, Senator, I concur with everybody else in commending you on your comments, and anyone who's heard you before would certainly not be surprised at how good they were. I would return to a question you answered earlier, and you said as long ... the bombing, every day it goes on, the harder it may be for us to do something in the past(?). What do you see as the situation if we don't defeat the Taliban in the next four weeks, and winter sets in in Afghanistan?
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008: Again, I'm not a military man. I think the American public and the Islamic world is fully prepared for us to take as long as we need to take, if it is action that is mano-a-mano. If it's us on the ground going against other forces on the ground. The part that I think flies in the face of and plays into every stereotypical criticism of us is we're this high tech bully that thinks from the air we can do whatever we want to do, and it builds the case for those who want to make the case against us that all we're doing is indiscriminately bombing innocents, which is not the truth. Some innocents are indiscriminately bombed, but that is not the truth. I think the American public is prepared for a long siege. I think the American public is prepared for America losses. I think the American public is prepared, and the President must continue to remind them to be prepared, for American body bags coming home.
There is no way that you can in fact go after and root out al-Qaeda and/or Bin Laden without folks on the ground, in caves, risking and losing their lives. And I believe that the tolerance for that in the Islamic world is significant ... exponentially higher than it is for us bombing. That's a generic point I wish to make. I am not qualified enough to tell you, although I can tell you what the military guys have said to me, this is not 1948. This is 2001, I'm not at all they're correct, and our ability to wage conflict in the winter, in parts of this region, is within our control, I don't know enough to vouch for that or not, but I do think it clearly makes it more difficulty, and the weather window is closing, as opposed to the tolerance window for our behavior, in my view. Thank you all very, very much. (Applause)
M: Thank you. That was wonderful.
VW: Thank you all.
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University of Delaware Forum: Respect & Understand
Thank you very much. President Roselle, Mrs. Roselle. Father Szupper, thank you for your prayers. Student speakers, students, professors. I was thinking as I sat on the stage that it was 40 years ago, god-awful 40 years ago, not too many blocks from here, up in the old student Scrounge, not as many of us [as here] but as many as could, were in the basement of the Scrounge, where there were pool tables and a big television. And, we were packed to the point that the city fire marshal would have emptied the building, hushed, as a young president sat behind a desk with maps behind him, telling us we were in a moment of crisis, for the Russians had put nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba, or were about to. It wasn't totally certain. And we looked at the maps, and I can remember all of us calculating: Can those missiles reach Delaware? Not figuratively, literally. And, knowing if they did, we would all be annihilated. Not a hundred of us, not 5,000 of us, but tens of thousands and millions of us. And, we know, after the fact, how perilously close we came to that showdown with Russia over Cuba and missiles.
Ralph [Begleiter] indicated to me, and he's absolutely right, that this is a day for the students. I'm here for one reason and briefly. With the permission of the president of the University, I'll come back at any time and sit in any forum and answer questions for as long as students or faculty have them. I'm not certain I'll have the answers to all of the questions, but I'm prepared to do that. Today's not the day for that, at least in terms of my role. My role is, as I see it and after a brief discussion with President Roselle, simple and straightforward.
And, it's to tell you: Have faith. Be not afraid. This is not a time for fear. This is time for a sense of proportion.
You are going to hear from experts on terrorism. I've had the benefit of having them and others-the leading experts in the world-sit with me and the Intelligence Committee in rooms that are closed, that are constructed in such a way that there can be no eavesdropping-for 10 years when I was on the Intelligence Committee and, for the last 25 years, on the Foreign Relations Committee. I have what they call a STU, which is a secure phone, in my home that I can speak with-and I have-with the president and the secretary of state and the national security advising team, and George Tenet of the CIA and the FBI. You're going to hear about terrorism. Put it in perspective. Don't let yourself get carried away. What happened was horrible. Some have called Sept. 11 a "Second Day of Infamy." Some are telling you that it will change our way of life. I'm here to tell you it will not, cannot, must not change our way of life.
It is the beginning of the end of the way of life for international terrorist organizations-not ours!
I'm telling you, we're not talking about a Soviet army of millions of people; we're not talking about the Japanese empire; we're not talking about 50, 100, 200 thousand people. We're talking about tens and hundreds of people for whom we can suck the oxygen out of the air that they breathe if we change a couple things, but not our way of life.
There is one parallel between that Day of Infamy when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and these madmen, these deranged people, who have attacked innocent civilians. Admiral Yamamoto was prescient on the day of that [Pearl Harbor] attack. Do you know what he said to his fellow officers in Japan? He said, "We have sown the seeds of our own destruction. We have awakened a sleeping giant. We have filled it with a terrible resolve."
That is what has happened here. A sleeping giant has been awakened, and the American people and the civilized world have been filled with a terrible resolve.
I received a copy of a letter, and I hope Mrs. Roselle will forgive me for reading it, a letter that was sent by the Roselles' son, Arthur, to them. I became aware of this when I called Dr. Roselle and I said, "The students have got to understand. They listen to these commentators about how this is the end of the world and the end of our way of life. It's the wrong message."
And, then, he read to me what I wish I had written about the present situation. Arthur Roselle, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., wrote, in part:
The press has provided around-the-clock coverage of this event, and we have repeatedly been told that our country will "never be the same," that on Tuesday we lost our "innocence." Unfortunately, we have heard that refrain several times before, and it is nonsensical due to its sheer repetition. After all, we supposedly had long since lost our innocence in Vietnam, JFK, Watergate, Beirut, Oklahoma City and countless other media frenzies. The flaw in all these dire predictions, past and present, is the concept that America is a nation of glassy-eyed innocents in the first place. The United States of America is unique in the history of humankind, and its survival has been guaranteed not by its innocence, but by its character and its resilience. Unlike most nations, ours was not created from geography or religion or language or any other factor of convenience. Ours is a diverse nation of seekers, who left other lands to overcome adversity in America. They risked everything for the opportunity to create a better life. Far from being innocent, ours is a nation whose people are largely descended from oppression or hardship. These individuals, through sheer will and effort, became part of this country, this different and special place, and started over. The democracy and freedoms that we have today were not stumbled into through innocence or luck. Instead, they were built from experience and a deep and wary understanding of human nature and its capacity to do evil. We are shocked by Tuesday's act, but we are not surprised, for we have seen and fought evil on a worldwide scale, throughout our nation's existence. As we have fought evil, we have preserved our constitutional rights, our values that are so important to America. We have preserved our values, and we have won these battles in the past, and we must-and we will-win this one as well.
I think that Arthur Roselle has it dead right-flat dead right.
Make no mistake about it-the terrorists have ruthlessly attacked not the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but our way of life. That is their purpose. That is their purpose-to change our way of life-not to take down two buildings and the Pentagon or kill thousands of people. Their purpose is to change our way of life. You will hear from some very brilliant women and men why many of the [terrorists] feel the way they do, why they are disaffected, and we should take all that into account in seeking a solution to our problem. But, make no mistake about it-it is our way of life that they are attempting to change.
One thing which has changed is the nature of the threat and the enemy who poses these threats. They're no longer easily identified. They wear no uniforms and they're not armed with traditional weapons. What they hope most for, by the way-to reinforce in the shaky minority they have in the Islamic world-is they hope we turn on all those in this country who look as though they are Arabic. They hope we turn on anyone who practices Islam. For that is the propaganda they need to make the case to a relatively small minority of people in the world that we are the bad guy.
So, my first plea to you, and it is a plea: Do not aid and abet them. Do not yield to your fear or any sense of prejudice you may have welling up in you. Do not make the mistakes that we have made in the past. Show the world who we are. And, thus far, we have. Why is it that everyone, including me, is talking about Rudy Giuliani? It's not merely because he's organizing the recovery. He has repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly-in the face of the most abject face of hell you'll see on Earth-reminded Americans and New Yorkers: Don't look at people differently. Don't. Don't. Don't. For if you do, and I expect none of you will, you will be adding to the bombing. You'll be adding to the effect of the attack. You will be helping make the case that they hope to make.
They're stealth-like, they're dedicated and they're fanatical in their cause. But, they have underestimated us. With one horrific act, they may have done what no one else could do, something even they could not have anticipated and probably did not intend. And that is that they have united every American. They've not only united every American, they've united our allies, but even more than that, they have united those with whom we do not have particularly good relations.
I'm receiving calls from the North Korean officials. I'm receiving calls from Pakistan. I've met for an hour and half in my office with the number-two man in Pakistan who helped create this very monster.
And, I might add, we helped create the Taliban, because we did what every other nation was doing and is now about to come to an end: We played geopolitics. You know, up until this horrific act, China could, with some degree of satisfaction, play their geopolitical game with Pakistan and get some solace from it. Russia could do it with Iran. Others could do it with other countries. But, I can tell you from the calls from heads of state that I've received, every head of state could see that second airplane-which was most vividly depicted-moving into the Eiffel Tower, crashing into a 102-story building in Shanghai, taking out a mosque in another country, taking down a national symbol in any other country. What the world has come to realize is this is a battle between nationhood and chaos. They are not uniting with us out of a newfound zeal for democracy or human rights. This is the most cohesive of efforts when it occurs. It's born out of self-interest. The self-interest we should, and to his great credit the president has begun, to take advantage of.
Whoever did this, however much they hedge, deny or sidestep their involvement or condemn the attack, all terrorist groups and states financing and harboring them have to share responsibility for the madness of even contemplating, let alone condoning, this attack.
A number of you students have called me. Several of you, believe it or not, I'm still young enough to know, and you're worried about a war, all this talk of war. I worried about a war-matter of fact, one occurred when I was here. But, this is not that kind of war. If you notice, Gen. Powell has changed the rhetoric today, rightfully so. This is not a war in the traditional or conventional sense. You're not going to see hundreds of thousands of military amassing, ground troops invading and a call up of all of you and a reinstitution of the draft, to send you off somewhere. Although I have no doubt, I might note parenthetically, if I hear one more commentator talk about your generation not being up to it! I have had it up to here! I want to remind you-I'm serious, I'm not being solicitous-I want to remind you that all of Europe, including the British army, was literally swimming in the English Channel before any of the "greatest generation" did anything. But, once we were attacked, that generation that did, in fact, come to deserve the title, "the greatest generation in our history," rose up. And the reason they were the greatest is they faced the greatest challenge. That's why they were the greatest.
But they were no better than you! They're no different than you. And I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind. If I get asked one more time on Larry King or Meet the Press or CNN Town Meeting, I think I'm going to strangle the person who asks me the question, because every single generation in this country that's been faced with a serious challenge has risen to the occasion. The only difference is you're a hell of a lot smarter than we were. That's the only difference.
This isn't a time for vengeance. This isn't a time for fear. This is a time to keep going, not to retreat; to mourn those who died, but not to despair. It's a time for resolve, but not remorse. But most importantly, it's a time to unite and not debate, because we all know what we have to do.
No matter what you hear today or tomorrow from me if I come back, and from everyone else, cut through it all. There are three things that are self-evident that we have to do.
The first is don't make these guys bigger than they are. Don't do what we've always done. When I got out of school here, I was a United States senator seven years later, and all that generation told me about and the experts I'd hear were about how the Soviets were 10 feet tall and how they were so powerful and they were so overwhelming. And, they didn't look, jeez, they didn't look 10 feet tall to me. They looked a little bit shorter than me. They looked not as robust as me. I wrote a report in 1979 predicting the end of the Soviet Union because it couldn't sustain itself. And, everybody in my staff said, "Oh, God, don't file that. You'll end your career." Actually, it was 1977, and the rise of Euro-Communism, you remember that. "Euro-Communism is coming back." But I sat in that same Intelligence Committee and I saw things like they stole a very sophisticated computer from us 18 months earlier and we couldn't find it. Guess what! We found it though satellite imagery sitting on a dock in Vladivostok. They hadn't even taken it out of the box because they didn't know how to work it. They didn't even know how to catapult planes on and off aircraft carriers. Don't make them bigger than they are. They did a horrible thing, and they got lucky. And, they can do harm again. But they are no great juggernaut.
The second thing we have to do is focus on the things we can do at home. Some of them are a pain in the neck, and now's not the time to remind people of it. I've been talking about this for eight years. I'm in the midst of holding hearings on homeland defense. We are having this half-a-trillion-dollar nightmare that we're going to build a national missile defense. For what purpose? When we have $30 billion underfunded because the Russians have all these chemical weapons stored in houses that look like giant outhouses with padlocks on them. And they say, "We can't control it. Can you help us? Can you come and take this for us?" And, we say, "No, they're still basically 'commies.' We don't want to do that." We know we have a public health system that cannot sustain a massive biological or pathogen being released. We know there are antidotes to many of the things that are out there that have been developed that we aren't spending money on. There's a lot of things we can do, from making our airports safer without denying us our civil liberties to changing our laws, like the bill we introduced in 1995 that now finally everybody wants-the anti-terrorism bill-that deals with the realities of wiretaps today as opposed to before. There's a lot we can do. But, we don't have to change our way of life when we do it.
And the third thing we know we have to do if we're going to win this struggle-not war, this struggle-is we have to do it multilaterally. It cannot be done alone. They cannot be allowed to breed, if you will, in an environment that looks the other way, allows their camps, allows them transport, gives them intelligence.
Am I saying to you if we do all these things there won't be some madman who will strap dynamite to his body, walk in a restaurant and blow himself up? No. I'm not saying that. But you have as much chance, listen to what I say here: You have as much chance of being injured by a terrorist attack as you do being struck by lightning. You have a better chance of getting brutalized if you walk up on Aramingo Avenue right now than you do if you live the next 20 years in this country from a terrorist attack.
Put it in perspective! Because if we don't, if we don't, they will prevail. We don't fly; they win. Airlines go under; they win. We don't put our markets back in shape; they win.
I'm not saying it's irrational to be fearful. It's a horrible thing that's happened. But, I'll tell you one thing-you want to talk about courage--20 minutes before I came down here I got off the phone with a very good friend of mine and he gave me permission to say this. His name is Davis Sezna. Those of you who are Delawareans, he owns the Columbus Inn, he owns the Hartefield Golf Course. Davis' son was tragically killed in the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal in August or July of last year in a boating accident, and Davis was with him. Davis' oldest son was in the 102nd floor of the World Trade Tower, the second one, and is missing and presumed dead. If there's anyone who has reason to despair, if there's anyone who has reason for anger, if there's anyone who has reason to fear because lightning has struck twice in his life, it's Davis Sezna. And, he says, "I'm willing to go and stand with you anywhere, any time, any place and tell people, 'Don't be afraid.'"
There's more to say, but we conclude with this. It's time to be protective at home, to strengthen our more earthbound homeland defenses. We need to bolster our health organizations at federal, state and local levels to be able to respond to the possibility of biological or chemical attacks so there is minimal damage. We need to be vigilant in detecting and dealing with pathogens. We need to increase our intelligence capabilities, which we have let go too long. We have to convince some of you brightest students that being part of an agency like the CIA-because you can speak Farsi or you can speak dialects of Chinese or you can speak any number of languages-it's important and it's a public service. These are the kinds of things we need to do to deal with this enemy.
We do not yet know how many people lost their lives in these attacks last week. What we do know is that the victims were unarmed. They were no threat. They were civilians. They didn't represent a cause or ideology. They represented a vast cross-section of America, races and beliefs. And guess what, folks, more Pakistanis were killed in this attack than any other terrorist attack. More Brits were killed than any other attack. More Indians were killed in this attack than any other attack in India-300 in that tower.
So, in the name of all truly God-fearing men and women, we have to unite the world and end this threat decisively and once and for all.
To the loved ones of the victims, there is nothing really we can say to erase this tragedy. And, those of you who think it's presumptuous of me to say that… in a different circumstance, I got one of those phone calls. I got one of those phone calls like Davis Sezna got. I got a phone call saying, "Your wife's dead; your daughter's dead." And I've only said that three times in public before. But, I say it here because it's so important for you to understand. I got one of those phone calls. It was an errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive and hit a tractor-trailer, hit my children and my wife and killed them. It wasn't an airplane, but it was a phone call: "They're dead." And, I can tell you from experience, and some of you can, too, that feeling that inside your chest is a black hole and you're being sucked inside it. I know from experience there's nothing in the near term we can do to bring solace, relief or peace to those people.
But, there is a lot we can do, and another time will be the time to speak to it.
Let me leave you with a quote from "The Cure of Troy" by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. I'll just read one paragraph. It's my favorite. And I believe this is appropriate and will happen now. I believe it with every fiber in my being. He wrote,
History says, don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.
Hope and history are about to rhyme. This is not the end of our way of life. It's the end of the way of life of international terrorist organizations. Be strong. I'm proud as hell of you. You're better than any generation that's come down the pike. Don't let them win.
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U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century: Defining Our Interests in a Changing World
My mother wanted me to be a priest or a politician, and for the longest time I didn't think you could do both. But you can. Any rate, obviously not a lot of Irish-Catholics in this room.
Well, what I want to know before we begin is -- Chestnut Hill Academy is here, I'm told, from Philadelphia. And what I want to know is, when I went to a Catholic boys' school in Claymont, Delaware, called Archmere, Chestnut Hill Academy used to occasionally beat us -- more occasionally than was necessary. And I want to know, are you guys here in support or opposition? What's the deal?
Welcome, fellas. I don't know why you're here, but it's nice to see you all here. Thank you for being here.
It is true, I am now the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee -- through no fault of my own. My dad has an expression: It's better to be lucky than good. I am chairman because one man in Vermont decided he was going to leave one political party and giving my party the ability to organize the Senate. For that, I am grateful, but I want you to know I understand that this could change any day.
By the way, the president and I agree on a lot of things, and we sincerely do. I thought the president's first trip to Europe quelled a lot of concerns and nerves on the part of our European friends, who are always upset and always nervous with any transition in power in the United States. I think the president did an extremely good job in the incident relating to our, quote, "spy plane" being down. I think the president has done some very, very good things.
I do have a profound disagreement with the president's view of national missile defense and whether or not, at the end of the day, it would make us more or less secure.
At the end of the Cold War, when the wall came down, we found ourselves on the brink of extraordinary changes. All of us were wondering what it would mean and where this would lead. Was it the beginning of something or the end of something? And if it was the beginning, were we, the United States, the only remaining superpower, going to get it right?
On that night, we were all idealists, but a new day dawned and a harsh reality came into focus. It became clear that long-standing ethnic, religious, tribunal and nationalistic divisions had not changed, while America's place in the world had changed profoundly.
From that day on, we inherited a profound obligation of leadership, and an even more profound obligation to get it right in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Europe and Asia, in our hemisphere, in our commitments, our treaties and in our defense policy--missile or otherwise.
Now, the spotlight remains on us and is brighter than ever. We're at a pivotal moment when American values and principles have taken center stage like no other time in our history in the global theater. How we perform on that stage is as much about our honor, our decency, our pride, as it is about our strategic policy.
So before we go raising the starting gun that will begin a new arm's race in the world, before we dip into the Social Security trust fund to satisfy the administration's almost theological allegiance to missile defense at the expense of more earth-bound military and international treaties, before we watch China build up its nuclear arsenal and see an arm's race in Asia and in the sub-continent, before we squander the best opportunity we've had in a generation to modernize our conventional nuclear forces, let's look at the real threats we face home and abroad. Let's re-engage and rethink and meet our obligations with a strength and resolve that befits our place in this new world.
American foreign policy should not be based primarily on the principle of national self-interest that defines strength as rigid adherence to inflexible theory, or positive results as emotionally satisfying unilateral action.
I don't believe our national interests can be furthered, let alone achieved, in splendid indifference to the rest of the world's views of our policies. Our interests are furthered when we meet our international obligations and when we keep our treaties. They're furthered when we maintain an unequal military, able to deter any threat at any place at any time and anywhere, when we keep our economy strong, when we make wise choices that solves real problems, when we stand bound together as democracies -- multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious beacons of hope -- not some dark house next door.
President Reagan's image of a "shining city on a hill" held out America as an ideal to millions and millions of people around the world, a nation that reaches out to its allies and adversaries alike, with undiluted, unequivocal message that democracy works, freedom is worth the fight, and that America will always be a reliable friend of those who take the risk of achieving the goals of democracy.
We can't forget or simply disregard the responsibilities that flow from our ideals. We can't lose sight of the fact that leadership requires engagement, and partnership demands inclusivity. Let there be no mistake, America must remain at the table because walking away comes at a price. Our European allies should never think that America ignores international opinion or that we're ready to go it alone when we feel like it. They should never think that our commitment to a vital multi-national institutions, or projects, which are built upon common values and common concerns--and that includes NATO--has diminished.
We became a European power in the 20th century, and out of our self-interest, we must remain a European power in the 21st century. We've got to get it right in Europe. We have to stay engaged in the Balkans--as this administration appears to be doing--and bring them, the Balkans, into the European community. It's in our naked self-interest.
But let's understand that our foreign policy is as much about American values as it is about complex multinational treaties or arcane intricacies of strategic policy.
When I think of the moral imperative of American leadership, I think of an America founded upon the unshakable, bedrock democratic principles, but willing to accept the principal ideals and cultural dynamics and genuine concerns of our allies; a nation that has a powerful sense of place in the geopolitical scheme of things -- one that is tough-minded when it comes to our own security, yet has broad enough vision and a strong enough will to contribute to peaceful solutions where age-old strains of nationalism and religious-based divisions wreak havoc; a government that doesn't abandon arms control treaties with the excuse that they are relics of the Cold War.
I might note parenthetically, I think many of those uttering that phrase are in fact themselves the relics of the Cold War. They have not come to understand the wall is down and the last time they were in power it was up. Half this city doesn't realize that.
And not abandon these agreements as relics of the Cold War because it's (inaudible) to honor them because we've negotiated them in good faith, we signed and ratified them, and because they have stood the test of time in serving our national interest and other nation's expect us to keep our promises; a unique and strong nation that isn't confused about its role and responsibilities and doesn't walk away from the table, but sits down, rolls up its sleeves and convinces the world of our position; a nation that thinks big and sees freedom in global economic growth as consensus ideals.
I think of America vastly different--so unburdened of the old Cold War fears and feelings that it's willing to do a little soul-searching. Are we a nation of our word or not? Do we keep our treaties or don't we? Are we willing to lead the hard way, because leadership isn't easy and requires us convincing others? Diplomacy isn't easy. Multilateral policy initiatives aren't easy.
Or are we willing to end four decades of arms control agreements to go it alone -- a kind of bully nation sometimes a little wrong-headed, but ready to make unilateral decisions in what we perceive to be our self-interest, and to hell with our treaties, our commitments and the world?
Are we really prepared to raise the starting gun in the new arms race in a potentially more dangerous world? Because, make no mistakes about it, folks, if we deploy a missile defense system that's being contemplated, we could do just that.
Step back from the ABM Treaty, go full steam ahead and deploy a missile defense system, and we'll be raising the starting gun. If the president continues to go headlong, headstrong on this theological mission to develop his missile defense system, if he does what he says and drops objections to China's missile buildup, not only will we have raised the starting gun, we'll have pulled back the hammer.
Let's stop this nonsense before we end up pulling the trigger.
China now has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles, but according to press reports, the National Intelligence Council thinks that China might deploy up to 200 warheads, develop sophisticated decoys and perhaps move to multiple warheads in response to a missile defense system.
It seems to me it's absolute lunacy for us to invite China to expand its arsenal and resume nuclear testing, not to mention that moving forward with missile defense could jeopardize Chinese cooperation on the Korean Peninsula.
Let me remind you all that there are two types of modernization they talk about. And there's no doubt the Chinese are going to modernize. But up to recently, what most people thought the modernization meant and our community thought it meant was moving, for example, from liquid fuel rockets to solid fuel rockets. Moving from systems that were not mobile at all to more mobile systems.
Not increasing, as the press has reported, 10-fold more than they would have if we build a national missile defense. Not MIRVing their missiles, meaning put more than one atom bomb or hydrogen bomb on top of an ICBM. The most destabilizing weapon that exists.
I found it interesting, on MacNeil-Lehrer, Secretary Rumsfeld saying that it wasn't the question of MIRVing that was important, it was a question of the total number of missiles.
Well, George -- President Bush, the first President Bush -- understood that it was more than that. We fought for years and years to do away with the big SS-18 Soviet missiles. Why? Because they're what we saw, I say to the gentleman from Chestnut Hill Academy, they're what we call a use-or-lose weapon.
Because they have such an incredible concentration of power, you assume that they will be struck first. Therefore, if there is a warning that you're under attack, which sometimes they're mistaken, they're on a hair trigger and you must launch them or lose them.
That's why we're so fearful that the Russians will keep their MIRVed systems, because they have such a porous defense system. They have such a porous early warning system. And as a nun I used to have would say, in a slightly different context, "the only nuclear war that's worse than one that is intended is one that wasn't intended."
In Seoul, I spoke with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea about ways to bring North Korea, which is the new bogeyman that we're all looking at now, which is the justification for this pell-mell race to produce the international missile defense, how to bring them into the family of nations.
He urged me to encourage the administration to engage North Korea in senior-level dialogue and not allow a theological commitment to missile defense to blind us to the prospects of signing a verifiable agreement to end North Korea's development, deployment and export of long-range missiles.
Yesterday, Dr. Rice, on Meet the Press -- she and I were on Meet the Press -- she talked about how ubiquitous these long-range missile systems were. I don't know what she's talking about. We're getting briefed by two different groups of CIA people, I guess, because none of these rogue nations have that capacity yet. They may get it. It is maybe within their reach, but it does not exist now.
If we spur on an aggressive Chinese buildup, including the need to test -- and you know why they will have to test. When you put more than one -- I know most of you know this, but it's worth repeating -- you put more than one atom or hydrogen weapon on top of a rocket, it requires more throw weight in that rocket. It has to be more powerful.
So practically what you have to do is you have to make smaller, more compact missile warheads. And in order to be able to be sure they work, you've got to test them. So if, in fact, the Chinese are going to move to a modernized system that requires -- that's going to contemplate MIRVed ICBMs, they're going to have to test.
That's why I got so upset by the statement read by the press account that we appeared to be willing to trade off, in return for them not objecting to our building the national missile defense system, the possibility that we would look the other way when China tested and that we understood they were going to have a considerable buildup.
That's what I call a self-fulfilling prophesy.
And let me ask you the question: Consider what India is likely to do if China tests. Those of you who know the subcontinent know that there's been an incredible political tug to have another test of their, quote, "hydrogen weapon," because they believe the world does not believe that they successfully tested one, and they want the world to believe they have one.
And what do you think happens when India tests, if China tests?
What do you think happens in Pakistan? Pakistan, I believe, would ratchet up its production. And consider that Taiwan, the two Koreas or Japan or all of them could build their own nuclear weapons. Japan has the capacity within one year to become a nuclear power.
That greatest generation that Tom Brokaw speaks of, my mother and father's generation, did two incredibly good things, and I mean this as not an insult, to particularly my German friend. Germany is a non-nuclear power and Japan is a non-nuclear power. That's good for the world. I want to be no party to setting in motion a series of events that will cause the Japanese Diet to reconsider whether they should rely upon the nuclear umbrella of the United States.
And as the former chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, once said to me, sitting in his office 15 years ago, he said, "You don't understand, Joe, my son's generation does not feel the same sense of obligation or guilt that mine does."
Are we so dead set positive that a missile defense system furthers our national interest that we're willing to risk an arms race? So sure of the science that we're willing to weaponize space and nuclearize Asia?
Are we so sure of the feasibility that we'll divert potentially hundreds of billions of dollars from the real needs of our military?
Look, the fact is we could weaponize space or we could buy 339 F-22s to replace our aging F-15 fleet for $62 billion. We could replace aging F-16s, A-10s, A-14s with a Joint Strike Fighter for the cost of $223 billion. We could replace the Cobra and Kiowa warrior helicopters for $39 billion. I could go on and on.
But in short, we could provide our Army, our Navy, Air Force and Marines virtually everything they need in the immediate future for a more stealth, more significant lift capacity military to deal with the real threats we face and still spend less on all of that than we will spend on the national missile defense system.
We're facing a difficult budget fight with a consequence of the turndown in the economy, the business cycle, the $1.3 trillion tax cut, or all of the above, and we can't have our cake and eat it too. The administration would like us to think it's all possible, but it's not all possible.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, we may have already dipped into the Social Security trust fund, which we used to do regularly in years past, but which we all promised we wouldn't do anymore, we would have a lock box. And that $21 billion or more will be consumed from that lock box in the next three years. This is a very different economic picture than projections of just a few months ago.
Missile defense has to be weighed carefully against all other spending and all other military priorities, which we're not debating or doing right now. And in truth, our real security needs are much more earthbound and far less costly than national missile defense.
If you combine the $1.3 trillion tax cut with what we've spent on a full-blown missile defense shield, we could start to modernize our conventional forces, build a stealthier, more mobile, more
self-sufficient military that I believe is needed in the 21st century, and make significant impact on rectifying what is going to be a gigantic problem in 10 years in Social Security.
Let's be clear: When it comes to defense, it's not the president's missile defense or nothing, as the way it's being posed. We should improve military personnel retention and overall readiness; bring on the next generation of fighter aircraft, the next generation of helicopters, the next generation of destroyers; and be fully prepared for the next generation of engagement.
And while we're at it, we may fix the plumbing in the barracks at Taipei, which I just visited, which the night before I came, because they are so aged and we don't have the money to fix them, they had to bring in water hoses from outside to allow the women and men in their to be able to shave, to be able to use the bathrooms, let alone drink any water. Visit the conditions in which our active military are living now--two and three in a room. You think when you drop your kid off at a college dormitory and you're paying 30 grand to send him to a prestigious school is hard to take, take a look at the conditions they live in. And why are we not responding to it? We don't have the money, we are told.
My dad used to say, and still says, "Son, if everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to you." Our priorities, I think, are a little out of whack. I've said, and I'll say it again, we should be fully funding the military and defending ourselves at home and abroad against the more likely threats of short-range cruise missiles or biological terrorism.
Last week, the Foreign Relations Committee began hearings on how to build a so-called "homeland" defense and to protect our military from bioterrorism pathogens and chemical attacks; on how we can deploy a missile defense system that doesn't trade off conventional modernization of our military for a fantasy of some system that remains more flawed than feasible; on how we can jump-start the destruction of Russia's massive chemical weapons stockpile and secure all our nuclear materials.
The very day they send up a budget that tells they are going to increase by 8-point-some billion our missile defense initiative, they cut the program that exists between us and Russia to help them destroy their chemical weapons, keep their scientists from being for sale and destroy their nuclear weapons.
I've said, and I'll say it again, we should work with Russia and China and all of our allies to stem proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; we should try to rely on some mutual deterrence, rather than thinking we can replace it, because, in fact, deterrence works.
We should support research and development in boost phase interceptors that would avoid the countermeasures and would be more acceptable to Russia and China, limiting the possibility of ending Russia's adherence to START II and lessening the prospects of a new arms race in Asia than what we are now proposing.
We should strive through hard-nosed diplomacy to delay and eliminate the long-range ballistic threat by ending North Korea's program and its sale of long-range missile technology. We should build a combined offensive and defensive system that we know works before we deploy it. And we should amend the ABM Treaty and not walk away from it.
Having said that, let's put the cost and the effectiveness of this missile defense system being discussed today in some context so that everyone understands exactly what we're talking about. The cheapest realistic system suggested, national missile defense system, limited national missile defense system suggested by this administration, which relies on the same midcourse interceptors the Clinton administration proposed, would cost at a minimum $60 billion over 20 years and most suggest it would be closer to $100 billion.
And remember, this is only for a system that's incapable of shooting down a missile carrying biological weapons, incapable of shooting down a missile carrying chemical weapons, at least for now incapable of shooting down a missile with an unsophisticated tumbling warhead that will look just like a tumbling trajectory.
In order to combat what are known as countermeasures, such as those decoys or the submunitions that carry biological weapons, the administration proposes a layered defense. That means, a missile defense that begins with a boost phase interceptor, that is, catching the rocket as it takes off from behind, at its slowest point and nearest point; continues with a midcourse interceptor, that is, getting it out there in the atmosphere and a bullet hitting a bullet; and finishes with a terminal defense as it's coming down.
Now, you think the midcourse system we're working on is expensive. Help me calculate the cost of a layered missile defense, where we haven't even begun some of the research.
One recent estimate for that system is a quarter trillion dollars, and I think that, too, is a conservative figure, because the truth is that the administration has yet to comprehend the full complexities and the technological challenges of a layered defense. If you doubt me, ask folks like General Welch and others who used to run the show.
In my view, that full-blown layered missile defense system, which doesn't address a single real issue on the ground, is more likely to cost a half a trillion dollars. And what will it get us? For half a trillion dollars we may get a layered defense system that's not been defined yet. If it includes space-based lasers, you've now weaponized outer space, which invites other countermeasures to attack the satellites on which we depend for information and communications.
But it still won't be 100 percent effective. Secretary Rumsfeld, speaking about our national missile defense system on the Lehrer NewsHour earlier this year, said that a system would not have to be 90 or even 80 percent effective, but only 70 percent effective. Secretary Rumsfeld, in referring to a, quote, "O.7 success rate," said, and I quote, "That's plenty."
Folks, 30 percent failure for any national defense system could be called plenty of things, but plenty successful is not one of them. Think about it.
(APPLAUSE)
Let's say President Richard Ryan becomes president of the United States. And the head of a rogue state tells him, which is how the scenario goes, "I'm invading my neighborhood today. And if you try to stop me, I'll fire my ICBMs at you." Never mind that he won't do that because he knows he'd be annihilated within a matter of 30 minutes. But President Ryan turns to his national security adviser, as I always do, Carl Wiser, and says, "Carl, what do I do?"
And Carl says, "Don't worry, we have a missile defense system. And unlike Rumsfeld's 0.7, ours is 0.9 effective."
President Ryan says, "Oh. There's a 10 percent chance then of losing Detroit?"
And Carl says, "Well that depends. If they fire seven missiles, the odds of losing at least one city will be 50-50. Because guess what: 0.9 means that not 90 percent fired will get through, 0.9 means that for every missile fired, that single missile has a nine out of 10 chance of getting through. You get to seven, it's about a 50-50 chance that one gets through. If you do the 0.7, you fire two missiles, there's an equal chance one is going to get through."
So now President Ryan says, "You know, these guys that designed this system are right. This enables me to not be blackmailed. I'm supposed to feel like I have freedom of action thanks to this defense."
And Carl says, "Hey look, Rumsfeld told Jim Lehrer that 70 percent effectiveness would be enough, at least initially. And with that system there's a 50-50 chance of losing at least one city if that rogue state fires two missiles. We're better off than we were."
And I assume that this scenario which they lay out means, where Ryan president, he's going to say, "You know, I really have some flexibility now. I'm only going to lose Detroit or San Francisco or Cleveland or Dallas, so I can really move here with dispatch. I've got flexibility. I don't have upon deterrence."
Now, I know you think I'm being a wise guy here, but sometimes it's useful to reduce this complex nuclear theological discussion to reality. If I'm president, does that give me more flexibility?
Does that allow me to say, "I'm only going to lose one or two population centers, therefore I have more flexibility to do anything other than say, 'If you do, we will annihilate you'?"
I also find it fascinating, this whole premise is based upon the notion that defense no longer works. Deterrence no longer works.
Now, I say this, and there's a television audience listening: Help educate me. Name me a time in the last 500 years when the leader of a nation-state has said, "I know I face virtual annihilation if I take the following action, but I'm go ahead, and I'm going to do it anyway."
Saddam Hussein, the certifiable maniac -- when George I said to him, "If you do we will take you out," what did he do with 500,000 forces marching on Baghdad? He had those Scud missiles everybody talks about as a justification for building the system. He had chemical weapons. He had biological weapons. Why did he not use them if deterrence does not work?
I just find the basic premise upon which this whole argument rests and the sense of urgency a little wanting. Think about it. We will have spent potentially up to a half a trillion dollars for a system that might work nine out of 10 times, assuming the administration knows how to build it, that, one, won't give the president the freedom of action.
One, that won't give the Pentagon what it really needs, won't modernize our conventional forces, and without being able to say, "Yes, we've saved Social Security for even one more day." That's the system we're going to build.
Remember now, folks, they don't know what it looks like, they don't even have it on paper, they have tested a system in one mode that, God bless our incredible technology, it worked, and I vote to pay for them to continue to do that research. But they're willing to pull out of an ABM Treaty that sends the signal to the rest of the world the end of arms control has arrived. And what protection do we have in the near term, let alone down the road?
Sure, we'll do all we can to defend ourselves against any threat, nobody denies that, but even the Joint Chiefs says that a strategic nuclear attack is less likely than a regional conflict, a major theater war, terrorist attacks at home or abroad, or any number of other real issues. We'll have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat, while the real threat comes to this country in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane, or smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack.
And I ask you, you want to do us damage, are you more likely to send a missile you're not sure can reach us with a biological or chemical weapon because you don't have the throw weight to put a nuclear weapon on it and no one's anticipating that in the near term, with a return address saying, "It came from us, here's where we are?" Or are you more likely to put somebody with a backpack crossing the border from Vancouver down to Seattle, or coming up the New York Harbor with a rusty old ship with an atom bomb sitting in the hull? Which are you more likely to do? And what defense do we have against those other things?
Watch these hearings we're about to have. We don't have, as the testimony showed, a public health infrastructure to deal with the existing pathogens that are around now. We don't have the
investment, the capability to identify or deal with an anthrax attack. We do not have, as Ambassador to Japan now, Howard Baker, and his committee said, the ability to curtail the availability of chemical weapons lying around the Soviet Union, the former Soviet Union and Russia, because they don't know what to do with it.
They showed us a report where they showed us photographs of things that look like large outhouses, clapboard buildings, with no windows and padlocks on the door, that have as many chemical weapons in that building to destroy the bulk of the East Coast -- and we're not spending the money to help them corral and destroy that in the name of this search? The cost estimate was $30 billion over 10 years in this bipartisan commission, and it was listed as the most urgent threat to the United States of America.
The truth is, technology will keep outpacing our capacity to build an effective system, which may well be obsolete or penetrable by the time it's done. And that means we'll continually increase our capability, and in turn, so will those who are trying to penetrate it. And so the new arms race begins.
Forty-nine Nobel Prize-winning scientists sent a letter to President Clinton last year opposing the deployment of the limited antiballistic missile system the president was contemplating, and I'll quote from the letter. Quote: "The system would offer little protection, would do grave harm to this nation's core security interest," end of quote.
They went on to say, and I quote --t hese are now, we're talking about 49 Nobel laureates -- "We and other independent scientists have long argued that antiballistic missile systems, particularly those attempting to intercept reentry vehicles in space, will inevitably lose in an arms race of improvements in offensive capability."
That night in 1989 when the wall came down and we wondered where it would lead, another arms race was the furthest thing from any of our minds. The idea that our allies would question our commitment and our resolve, even our motives, was unthinkable.
Our place in the world seemed secure. The world was looking to us to demonstrate leadership, and it still is.
Let's think about how we felt that night. The feeling that something good was happening and something even better was on the horizon. It was as if the world had awoken from a long, bad dream into a new era in which old values and old prejudices would no longer prevail, and new values and new ideals, wherever they were to be found, would be found and make us all more secure.
Folks, let's not now raise the starting gun on a new arm's race that is sure, I promise you, to make my children and my grandchildren and these students assembled here feel less secure than we feel today.
Thank you very much for listening.
MODERATOR, RICHARD RYAN: Well, Senator, I'd really sort of like to keep Detroit.
(LAUGHTER)
MODERATOR: This questioner asks, how do you explain this obsession with developing national missile defense, is it paranoia or a desire for profits?
BIDEN: First of all, obviously, the question is like my speech, it reveals a point of view.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's assume, let's step back from this notion of obsession. Why is it, obsession or not, what makes people think that this is a good idea?
Well, first of all, there's basically, I think, three schools of thought out there. There's one shared by me, and I think the vast majority of Americans. We have an inordinate confidence, an inordinately high degree of confidence in our scientific community and in technology. And we believe, as in the Kennedy generation, we can send a man to the moon, we can do anything, and that is one of the positive rationales for why people believe in this.
And further, there is a genuine desire on my part and everyone else's, wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that eliminated the possibility that anyone would go out and use these God-awful weapons. And they are positive and I think explicable urges as to why we should move forward.
They couple, though, with the second group of folks who truly believe, as one of the leading columnists in this town and this country wrote after Bush's speech on national missile defense -- President Bush's speech -- he said that President Bush has enabled us to set our own defense agenda. Go it alone, do it our own way, and that's the best way. Because they truly don't trust multilateral organizations. They don't trust the reliance upon others. They think it's cumbersome and it gets in the way. That's the second part of the urging.
A third piece of this is, there is, in fact, in the movement right almost an ideological commitment to this notion of national missile defense. It is born out of the dream of Ronald Reagan, which I think was more a dream. I mean, I think it was motivated by him in good faith. I think he saw this as part of the shining city on the hill. He talked about sharing this technology, if we arrived
at it, with others, which made his right-wing conservative friends blanch when he said that. But there is a piece out there that this is a way for us to guarantee our continued superiority--military, nationally--if we come up with this answer to this Rubix Cube. We can do this.
And they argue, with some degree of credibility, that even if it's not 90 percent, only 90 percent or 80 percent foolproof, that other countries have even more faith in our technology than we do, and they will assume it's 100 percent. And by the way, I think that's true. That's why they're going to build a lot more missiles. That's why they're going to attempt to overcome it.
But I think they're the reasons for this. I don't think it's the military-industrial complex. I don't think my folks in the movement right, conservative right are out there saying, "This is a way to make more money for this company or that company." I don't believe that. I think some people will benefit. I think some companies may propose it and be for it because it's of great benefit to them. But I don't think that's the motive.
I think the motive is seeking unilateral independence, absolute security and this overwhelming faith we have in technology combined with the genuine desire to try to do away with even the remote thought of using nuclear weapons in the future.
But as another nun I used to have would say--you know, when you went to Catholic grade school and you had nuns, you had to stay after school when you misbehaved and you have to write on the board certain sayings--as you could probably tell from my demeanor I had to stay after school occasionally.
(LAUGHTER)
And I'll never forget Sister Michael Mary in seventh grade. I had to write 500 times, many times on the blackboard, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I think this is paving the road to hell, but I don't think the intentions are venal, and I don't think the intentions are motivated by self-interest, in terms of monetary self-interests.
MODERATOR: This questioner would like to know, you have just returned from visits to China and Taiwan, and wants to know do you think the United States should be prepared to defend Taiwan if they are attacked by China, as President Bush sort of led people to believe not long ago?
BIDEN: President Bush did say that, and then he got it right. I mean, he said it, exactly what seven other presidents have said. This is what you might call studied ambiguity, and that's exactly what it should be, and let me tell you why it should be, why it should be.
We signed, under Richard Nixon, a new agreement. We did away with the Taiwan Defense Act and replaced it with the Taiwan Relations Act. And that act said the following, it said that we support a one-China policy, but it rests upon a cross-strait dialogue where the countries, where the parties, mutually arrive at how unification will take place peacefully; that if the mainland attempts to do this by force and not dialogue, then the United States will provide the military means, in terms of materiel, to prevent that from happening.
Mainland China has no capacity, no capacity to occupy Taiwan today. They could not lift 50,000 troops across the straits, let alone 500,000 troops across the states.
But there's a second piece to this equation. The second piece to the equation is, we also said to Taiwan, You are no longer an independent country. You are no longer an independent nation-state. We've agreed that you are going to be part of China and that you will work it out under what conditions. So don't go declaring independence, because we are not willing to go to war over your unilateral declaration of independence.
Which leaves unanswered, as it should be, so we don't encourage reckless action on either side, that depending on how each of the parties behave, we reserve the right, as we do in every circumstance, to use American forces, it will depend upon the circumstances. That's how it's been for seven presidents, that's how it should remain.
MODERATOR: I have a number of questions here that deal with the Middle East. And this one asks whether or not President Bush should meet with Yasser Arafat while at the United Nations later this month. And do you think the United States should become more actively involved in negotiations in the Middle East?
BIDEN: The United States should become actively more involved not in negotiations for a final settlement, but actively involved in determining how to bring an end to this ratcheting up of violence against the interest of Israel and against the interest of everyone.
So we should be more actively involved. We should have someone of the caliber of Dennis Ross back there, on station, there, where every party knew they could through back channels and front channels speak to that person and know that got directly to the president of the United States. That is a useful thing for us to do, not to lay out a plan for a final settlement.
Should the president meet with Yasser Arafat? If the president concluded he wished to meet with Yasser Arafat -- and there is no such decision that I'm aware of -- and he was doing it to have a general discussion with him, I think that would be a mistake, because that would in fact send the message that we thought Arafat had been acting in a way consistent with trying to bring about what Oslo called for.
On the other hand, if the president decided he had a message to send to Arafat that provided an avenue, in his view, the president's view, that it would ameliorate the circumstances that exist now in Israel, I would not second guess that and I would support him. It depends upon the reason for such a meeting.
Since I know of no larger plan in the mind of the administration than what has been put forward, I would say it would probably be a mistake for him to meet with Arafat, in my view, in New York.
MODERATOR: We're nearing the end here, but this questioner would like to know if you think should or will the United States become actively involved in the India-Pakistan peace initiative.
BIDEN: The answer is, directly, no. Kashmir makes Northern Ireland look like it's an easy deal. And I'm being a little facetious, but I'm serious. As you know, it is a gigantic, gigantic, gigantic issue. I think we should provide our good offices when they are sought, but I don't think we're in a position to be able to mediate that.
What we should be doing, in my view, is we should be doing what the president is doing, and I applaud him for it, and that is, he is following on President Clinton's initiative to better relations with both India and Pakistan and is making it clear that the sanctions relative to Pakistan moving from a democracy to a military dictatorship are ones that we will not be able to do much with them until they take action to reverse that process.
But that with India we are--I've written the president suggesting he should consider lifting the sanctions, the economic sanctions against India, for reasons I won't bore you with right now. But I applaud the president on his proactive initiative with regard to bettering relations in the subcontinent, particularly with India.
MODERATOR: This question notes that Cambodia's agreed to work with the United Nations on a trial of the Khmer Rouge. Do you support Cambodia's efforts?
BIDEN: I don't know enough to tell you about how sincere or disingenuous those efforts are. I'm assuming they are sincere. I would support that.
I have a general proposition, I'm the guy that, as some of you press people know, was very outspoken on us getting involved in the Balkans. I'm the guy that insisted that there be a war crimes tribunal and that we not give aid to Serbia until they started to turn over Mr. Milosevic and others.
And the reason for that, it's not punitive, it's not punitive. I would respectfully suggest, had there been no Nuremberg trials, the German people, who are a wonderful people, would have never come to grapple with what they had enabled. They did not sit down and say, "We vote for death camps," but it was important that they understand that they enabled that action to take place. It is important that that take place in the Balkans and Serbia so this sense of being put upon and being victimized is laid to rest as well, so you can get about a healthier relationship. And I would say the same for Cambodia.
MODERATOR: Before I ask the last question, I have a little bit of business I'd like to take care of. One is to present you, Senator, with a certificate of appreciation for your appearance here today.
BIDEN: Thank you very, very much.
MODERATOR: And secondly, the famous National Press Club mug, which I hope will sit on your desk with something in it.
BIDEN: It will.
MODERATOR: I'm not sure what.
BIDEN: It will have coffee in it and we'll have it at the hearing.
MODERATOR: And the last question--if we can do this very quickly--the questioner would like to know, what is the real Jesse Helms like, whom you succeeded as chairman?
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: He's a wonderful guy. I'm going to end by telling you a story.
When I first got to the United States Senate, I ran for public office because of the burning -- how can I say it -- the almost bile that was in my throat about watching Bull Connor's dogs on television in the '50s in Birmingham -- my state being segregated by law; my state, to its great shame, being in the position where we didn't worry about busing as long as there were black kids we were busing for an hour, an hour and a half, to get to the one black school. That's what motivated my interest. That's what got me involved in public life.
And I'll never forget, I went to the floor as a young senator first year. Jesse Helms was on the floor going after, as only he can, a Republican named Marlowe Cook. And it was about a pay raise issue for employees and the like. And I made a very impolitic statement, which got me a black-bordered editorial in Mr. Loeb's newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader, which I'm very proud of.
(LAUGHTER)
And I walked in, and it was right after--because when I got to the Senate, my wife and daughter had been killed within three weeks after I was elected, I didn't want to become a senator. And I told Senator Mansfield I wasn't going to take my office, and I had spoken to our governor-elect as to who would replace me. And Senator Mansfield is a wonderful man. He became sort of my Dutch uncle and he gave me this lecture about how my wife had worked so hard and I owed it to the legacy of my family to be sworn in as the United States Senator, and, "Just give me six months, Joe."
And so he used to take my pulse about once a week. And it was after this encounter with Jesse Helms, I walked into his office--this is a true story--and he said to me, he said, "Joe," he said, ``I understand why you're angry, but let me tell you, everybody has something special about them that their state recognizes that's good and decent or they wouldn't send them here.''
Let me tell you what Jesse Helms did. Jesse and Mrs. Helms went out -- this man who supposedly cares nothing about anyone--and he went out, he adopted a child who was wheelchair-bound and paraplegic and raised that child with love and affection. And I felt like about that big. Jesse Helms is a good man. I disagree with almost everything Jesse stands for politically, but to deal with him personally, he's a decent man. He keeps his word. He's been a friend. And that part of him I will miss very much.
Thank you.
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"Non-Proliferation: A Battle We All Must Win"
Good afternoon. It's a real delight to address a conference chaired by Joe Cirincione, because usually he is the witness giving us the good word. I have always tried to treat him well when he testified before us, and I guess from his generous introduction that I haven't done badly in that regard.
I will not say that it's a delight to speak on non-proliferation. Frankly, the potential for destruction posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction does more to keep me up at night than any other threat to world security.
But I take heart from the presence here of such knowledgeable experts and officials. We must all work together to combat proliferation, and this annual Carnegie Endowment conference has become a major forum for sharing ideas and forging international cooperation.
My perspective comes from the experience of a quarter century on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Over those years, I think I have learned four lessons about non-proliferation:
1. Proliferation is almost inevitably an uncomfortable issue;
2. Success in non-proliferation depends upon persistence - often for several years or more;
3. Success nearly always requires positive incentives, not just sanctions; and
4. The United States must take the lead in non-proliferation efforts, but the rest of the world must also help.
Why is proliferation always an uncomfortable issue? Because it is an irritant in our relations with countries. It almost always pulls us away from closer relations, be they with Russia, China, India and Pakistan, or elsewhere.
Regional specialists bemoan our fixation on protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction. But, as the old bumper sticker used to say, "one nuclear bomb can really spoil your day." And so can a chemical or biological weapon.
Precisely because proliferation is an uncomfortable issue, we must institutionalize it. That is the only way to ensure this issue a seat at the table when foreign policy decisions are made.
That's why we have a Bureau for Non-Proliferation in the State Department. That's also why Senator Helms and I created a separate Bureau for Verification and Compliance, with authority to analyze compliance with non-proliferation regimes.
Why is proliferation such a hard issue? Why is my second lesson the need for persistence? Because demand breeds supply - just as with narcotics.
Countries that want weapons of mass destruction are pretty desperate. They pay good money for what they need. They buy from many suppliers, use front companies, and pursue multiple paths of development. We can slow down their efforts, raise the price of proliferation, and interdict some sales. Those are worthy pursuits, even essential ones.
But stemming the supply only buys us time. For lasting success in non-proliferation, we must also affect the demand side of the equation.
That brings me to my third lesson, the need for positive inducements. In East Asia, the inducement has been a close security relationship with the United States. In three former Soviet states, it was world acceptance and assistance. In South America, it was intensive and extended efforts to reduce regional rivalries. In South Africa, it was the world's blessing on a new regime.
Are there positive inducements that would make a difference for North Korea? for Iran? for India and Pakistan? There may be.
We who care about proliferation must care about - and treat - the causes of proliferation, not just the symptoms. We must take seriously the security dilemmas of "demand side" countries.
We must also take seriously the concerns of "supply side" countries. Just as we use crop substitution in the fight against international narcotics, so must we offer a decent life to those who forego proliferation.
There can be no doubt as to who must take the lead in these matters. No other country comes close to the United States in its ability to offer economic or security incentives in return for foreswearing or giving up weapons of mass destruction.
How must we lead? One way is by remaining engaged in the peaceful resolution of conflict. One reason - among many - that we cannot walk away from the Middle East conflict is that another war there could involve weapons of mass destruction.
The same is true in South Asia. We must encourage India, Pakistan, and the countries that support them to search for new approaches to security in the region. We must also find a way to promote non-proliferation in South Asia without relying upon ineffective sanctions.
It might help, of course, if we would show leadership in the field of arms control, which is so closely tied to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is no excuse for our failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. There are legitimate concerns regarding Stockpile Stewardship and verification capabilities. But we must address those concerns - as proposed by General John Shalikashvili - and then ratify the treaty.
Were we to do that, I have no doubt that we could then convince India and Pakistan to do the same.
To improve our verification capabilities, we must both maintain our National Technical Means and complete the International Monitoring System. That international network of nuclear test sensors offers us data that we simply cannot obtain by ourselves, data that have the special advantage of being usable in open diplomacy.
It would be utterly foolish to cast aside the International Monitoring System, out of some misguided notion that our participation in it constituted implementation of an unratified treaty.
There is also no excuse for choosing a missile defense that leads China to vastly increase its nuclear forces, with a ripple effect on India and Pakistan. Our desire for a national missile defense is understandable, but that does not make it prudent to deploy a mediocre defense or to needlessly abrogate the ABM Treaty.
I don't want to turn this into a speech on national missile defense. My concerns are well known. So is my belief that it may be possible to craft a defense - and an amended ABM Treaty - so as not to threaten Russia or China's nuclear deterrent capabilities.
My point today is that our actions on missile defense may well affect our non-proliferation efforts. To succeed in non-proliferation, we need the cooperation of both Russia and China. Any rational missile defense policy will take that need into account.
Another area in which positive incentives and U.S. leadership are crucial is in helping Russia to meet its arms control obligations, safeguard its sensitive materials, find new careers for tens of thousands of weapons experts, and protect against improper exports of weapons of mass destruction materials or technology. These programs are of tremendous benefit to our national security.
How strange it is, then, that the Administration cut these valuable non-proliferation programs in next year's budget. Yes, these programs cost money. But the benefits that they deliver - in weapons dismantled, in fissile material protected from diversion to terrorists or rogue states, and in scientists working on socially useful projects, rather than wandering off to Libya or Iraq - are incalculable.
Just think how much we will have to spend if Osama bin Laden gets nuclear weapons.
The Administration is reviewing our assistance to Russia. That's fine. We should be more efficient, getting more of the funds to the Russians (and others) who need it. We should improve our ability to ensure that our assistance is used properly.
We should also coordinate our many programs, which is why Senator Hagel and I introduced a bill mandating an interagency committee for that purpose.
When all that is done, however, we need a much greater effort, rather than budget cuts. As Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler made clear in testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee, the last thing we want is for Russia to become the world's shopping center for sensitive materials.
Is there good work that we could do, with more funding? You bet there is!
The Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program, in the Department of Energy, has a growing "waiting list" of good projects to fund, with U.S. firms willing to more than match our assistance. Unless we increase the budget for this program, it will stagnate.
Congress may restore the 8-percent budget cut that the Administration imposed on this program. But we should double the funding for these projects - and also for the International Science and Technology Centers program, in the State Department.
Another program that should be doubled is the Materials Protection, Control and Accounting program in the Energy Department. This program safeguards Russia's fissile material.
Russia has over a thousand metric tons of highly enriched uranium, plus 150 metric tons of plutonium. I'm told that' s enough to make 42 thousand nuclear weapons. That's a lot of material to protect.
Securing all this material won't be easy. Some old-school Russians see this as a plot to spy on them. But the truth is, we offer improved security at minimal risk to Russia's nuclear weapons secrets.
President Putin should tell his new Minister of Atomic Energy - who has worked with U.S. programs and knows they are workable - to let us help safeguard all of MINATOM's stocks of fissile material.
We must succeed in this. Howard Baker told the Foreign Relations Committee:
"I am a little short of terrified at some of the storage facilities for nuclear material and nuclear weapons [in Russia]; and relatively small investments can yield enormous improvements in storage and security."
And Sam Nunn warns: "No one knows how long the present window of opportunity will remain open."
It will be equally daunting to help Russia downsize its bloated nuclear weapons complexes without leaving its scientists desperate for jobs. But again, we have no choice. As Sam Nunn put it, "We dare not risk a world where a Russian scientist can take care of his children only by endangering ours."
How will we get the funds needed for non-proliferation from an Administration dedicated to missile defense and the tax cut? That's a big problem.
One idea is "debt for non-proliferation" swaps. Senator Lugar and I authored "debt for nature" legislation a while back, and maybe we could forgive some of Russia's debts if the debt payments were used for non-proliferation programs. This is not a panacea, but it might help.
By the way, other countries could do the same thing. Russia owes much more money to Europe than it does to the United States. Remember my fourth lesson: the United States must lead; but others must help, as well.
Other countries do contribute to existing programs in Russia. Too often, however, funds are tied to projects that will benefit the contributors economically. I understand the urge to profit from foreign assistance. But if we support only projects with an economic payback, we could fail to secure our security objective. We must keep non-proliferation as our major funding criterion.
Another area in which we must all work together is to stem the proliferation threat posed by North Korea. Not just the United States, but also Russia, China, Europe and Japan must persuade North Korea to reach a verifiable agreement to end its long-range missile production - and its sales of such missiles, materials or technology - in return for a reasonable international assistance package.
Russia has a particular responsibility in this regard, as its leaders say there is no need for a national missile defense to handle the threat of North Korean missiles. Russia has experience with verification, so President Putin should convince North Korean President Kim Jong-il to accept it.
Other countries also have a role to play in the imposition and enforcement of international sanctions. The history of unilateral sanctions is hardly encouraging. But when the world stands firm, sanctions can succeed.
The trouble, of course, is that it hurts a country to impose sanctions. We get back to that first lesson: proliferation is an uncomfortable issue. It is uncomfortable for other countries, just as it is for the United States.
But isn't that why we are here today? If this were an easy issue to treat, we wouldn't be gathering here, year after year.
Non-proliferation is like the labors of Sisyphus, and it gets harder as we get older. But remember how frightened we were a generation ago. Recall the predictions of a nuclear holocaust, and of 20 or 30 nuclear weapon states by the year 2000.
Non-proliferation works . It isn't fun; it isn't easy; it isn't quick - but it works. So we must increase our efforts, rather than giving up hope or fixating on the difficulties.
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin said: "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." This is especially true in the fight against proliferation.
Remember that we won the American Revolution. Halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction is a task no less difficult, but also no less noble. And if we all hang together again, we can win this war as well.
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"Injecting Reason into the National Missile Defense Debate"
Ladies and gentlemen, I am truly delighted to be here with you today. I speak to many groups about national missile defense, but the Council for a Livable World is special. You actually get things done.
You help keep the many issue groups singing from the same hymnal. That makes my job a lot easier.
Frankly, the Council is the most professional group in town that lobbies for a sensible and progressive foreign policy. We need that, and I, for one, am delighted to have worked with you ever since my first campaign in 1972.
I'm here today to talk about national missile defense. And if this were a public speech, I might go on for an hour about the problems with a policy that puts a dubious technical solution ahead of the hard work of policy and diplomacy that we really need to deal with weapons of mass destruction.
But you people know the arguments, so I'm not going to lay them out in detail. I do have a packet of my past statements on the issue, and you can take those home with you.
What I want to do today is to issue a call to action, and also to talk tactics with you. We in the Senate need your continued help, if we are to prevent the Administration from sacrificing arms control and strategic stability for the sake of national missile defense.
How can we best get our message across? How can we reach out not just to the converted, but to every family in this country, from the Smiths and the Joneses to the Bushes and the Cheneys?
Part of the answer, I think, lies in using arguments that open people's eyes. Let me give a few examples.
The Administration says that it does not plan a return to "Star Wars." But President Bush does want to deploy a world-wide ballistic missile defense to protect the United States, our allies, and our troops overseas, against both rogue-state missiles and accidental launches from any state.
When the President calls for that - as he has since May of last year - he puts demands on his missile defense that go far beyond a defense of our country against rogue-state missiles.
● If we are to protect our allies, we need a much larger system than one that merely protects ourselves;
● If we are to protect against an accidental launch, we need a system that can handle sophisticated countermeasures on Russian or Chinese missiles; and
● If we are to protect against an unauthorized launch, we need a system that can handle a large attack by a Russian submarine captain or the commander of an ICBM regiment.
I find people have second thoughts when they realize how massive a system the President is really proposing.
A second point that opens people's eyes relates to Mutual Assured Destruction. On May 1, the President said he wanted:
"...to complete the work of changing our relationship [with Russia] from one based on a nuclear balance of terror, to one based on common responsibilities and common interests."
That sounds very nice. But the President also committed himself "to achieving a credible deterrent" that would still be based on nuclear weapons.
The fact is that, so long as the President pursues a limited national missile defense, rather than Ronald Reagan's dream of a "Star Wars" shield against all missiles, the "nuclear balance of terror" will still be central to maintaining strategic stability between the United States, Russia and China.
I find that when Americans absorb that point, they quickly figure out that the Administration's missile defense policy is not based on a moral argument, after all. The question is not whether we can do away with MAD, because we can't.
Rather, the question is much more practical: whether a particular national missile defense will make us more secure or less secure. And it isn't easy to find a system that will do more good than harm.
A third problem that opens people's eyes is that unless you come up with a perfect missile defense - and let me assure you, no missile defense will be perfect - that defense will do little or nothing to guard against nuclear blackmail.
Think about it. Let's say Gene Pokorny becomes President and Kim Jong-il tells him, "I'm invading South Korea today, and if you try to stop me, I'll fire my ICBM's at you."
(Never mind that he won't do that, because he knows we would annihilate his country in response.)
President Gene turns to his national security adviser, John Isaacs, and says: "What do I do?" And John says: "Don't worry, we have a missile defense. And it's 90-percent effective."
President Gene says: "Oh? There's a 10 percent chance of losing Boston?" And John says: "That depends. If they fire seven missiles, the odds of losing at least one city will be 50-50."
President Gene says: "And I'm supposed to feel I have 'freedom of action' thanks to this defense?" And John says: "Hey look, Rumsfeld told Jim Lehrer that 70-percent effectiveness would be enough, at least initially. With that system, there's a 50-50 chance of losing at least one city even if North Korea fires only two missiles."
The American people get it. They know that a real-world missile defense could save lives if we were ever attacked, but that it would not free the President from nuclear blackmail.
So, as with all other partial fixes, a national missile defense should be deployed only if the benefits it brings outweigh the risks and costs that it entails.
The columnist Charles Krauthammer called the President's speech "the end of arms control as we know it." Once we give people the facts, they can evaluate whether the President is really offering anything better, in place of the strategic doctrine that has helped keep the peace for over 40 years.
They can also consider the world of difference between a real missile defense and the sham defense we would get by deploying a few prototype interceptors with a sub-standard radar, which The Washington Post says the Defense Department is considering. One is aimed at enemy missiles; the other is aimed only at the ABM Treaty.
Finally, a fourth argument that resonates with my audiences is whether our national security would be better served by investing in a national defense against ICBM's, or by using that money instead to combat other means to deliver weapons of mass destruction to U.S. targets, such as shorter-range missiles, cruise missiles, an anonymous boat entering New York harbor, or some aircraft or truck crossing our border.
Intelligence analysts and our Joint Chiefs of Staff tell us that those other means are all more likely ways for an enemy to attack us with a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon. Defending against those threats won't be cheap, either, and the President's tax cut leaves us precious little money to spend on meeting those threats.
I think the American people readily understand that we can't build defenses against every threat. We have to prioritize.
Where do the American people stand on missile defense today? They haven't said much.
In a recent New York Times poll, 64 percent said that "the United States currently has...a missile defense system to protect against nuclear attacks." Only 21 percent knew that we do not have such a system.
In the same poll, 60 percent said they have heard or read "not much" or "nothing at all" about the current missile defense debate. Only 7 percent claimed to have heard or read "a lot" about this.
On the other hand, the American public appears to be very pragmatic about missile defense.
In principle, Americans support the idea of a national missile defense. But they are less supportive when told that it will cost $100 billion.
Americans are evenly divided when told that many prominent scientists doubt that the system will work.
They worry about proceeding with a national missile defense if it requires breaking an existing treaty. When asked whether they would still support missile defense under that circumstance, only a third say yes.
This pragmatic assessment strikes me as both profoundly sensible and an excellent guide for missile defense policy.
And the American people do not put missile defense - or any other foreign policy concern - high on their list of priorities for our country.
Indeed, in the most recent poll that John Isaacs sent to my staff, only 22 percent of Americans rated missile defense as "very important." But fully a dozen other issues were "very important" to at least 32 percent of those polled. So don't let anybody tell you that "the people are demanding" a national missile defense. They are not.
What we must do now is to reach out to the American people, as well as to my colleagues in both houses of Congress and to other decision-makers downtown.
I am hard at work on this, as is Carl Levin, with whom you're meeting later today.
● Last summer, I sent my Democratic colleagues six letters laying out the case against premature deployment. I later sent those letters to the newly-elected Democratic senators, as well.
● This year, I have sent my colleagues a shorter summary of the issue, as well as my take on the public opinion polls and on what the Administration should do to avoid harming our national security.
● I have been meeting one-on-one with our new Members, and I must say that those meetings have left me encouraged.
● I have also met with some House members, led by John Tierney and including Rush Holt.
● I understand that Minority Leader Gephardt is working to build consensus on what we should be doing to deal with the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, and we are doing the same thing on the Senate side.
● I will give that question more exposure in our hearings on missile defense, which will begin in the near future.
● And I expect to hold a range of hearings on missile defense, so that the risks and costs will be as well known as the supposed benefits.
● I am also putting together some teams of advisors - technical experts, regional experts, treaty lawyers, and policy people. Some of these people will help answer the tough questions - such as how much testing of alternative missile defenses we could do without violating the ABM Treaty. Others may help brief my colleagues, so people don't have to say they took Joe Biden's word alone on this issue.
● Carl Levin will be holding hearings, as well. And his people are trying to learn how much the Administration's more expansive missile defense ideas would really cost.
But we need your continued help. We do a good job of reaching each other, but we need help reaching outside the Beltway.
The Council has done a fine job of reaching editorial boards around the country. That has had a real impact on the way this issue has been handled so far. The Administration doesn't want a repeat of the heat it took for ditching the Kyoto treaty. Your work ensures that the media won't let the Administration off the hook if it tries to ditch the ABM Treaty - so, please, keep that work up.
But we need to reach out further - to local opinion leaders, to Chambers of Commerce, to unions.
The American public must become engaged on this issue. Within a few months, the Administration may select a missile defense architecture. By the end of this year, it could announce its intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. By this time next year, the major budget votes may be taken.
The American people want stability in the world, not roiling the waters. They want American leadership and consensus-building, not continual bickering with our allies.
They want us to lower the risk of nuclear war, not to lead others to field more missiles and warheads, or to put more missiles on hair-trigger alert.
So I call on you to continue your fine work in Washington, but also to get your message out into the countryside. I think the land is fertile. Plant seeds of understanding, and the American people will tell the Administration to maintain our national security, not to mess with it. Together, we can do this.
Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Asia Pacific Council of the American Chambers of Commerce
Good morning, ladies and gentleman. I am delighted to be here today to talk with you about America's interests in the Pacific, especially our relationship with China.
I don't have to convince you how important it is for America to get its relationships right with the nations of East Asia. You represent more than 40,000 business leaders and 6,000 companies operating in the world's most dynamic marketplace. You understand better than I do the difficulties, and the promise, of doing business in a region that has undergone profound changes over the past decade.
The end of the Cold War saw the emergence of new democracies in Europe. We all noticed the Berlin Wall coming down. It was a big deal.
Less celebrated, but no less significant, has been the consolidation of democratic trends in East Asia over the past decade. Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Asia has undergone a decisive political and economic transformation. Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia all have dispensed with military rule in favor of constitutional democracy.
Together with stalwart U.S. allies Japan and Australia, these nations have a combined population of 583 million people producing a gross domestic product worth $5.3 trillion (more than Western Europe).
Rocked by the 1997-98 financial crisis, the nations of East Asia, with varying degrees of success, have undertaken reforms designed to enhance transparency and competitiveness in order to prevent a recurrence of that downturn. And although recent events in Indonesia and the Philippines remind us that it takes time for democracy to send down deep roots, and that one free election does not guarantee a second, the overall trend is still very encouraging.
All of this comes before we consider China. With its 1.3 billion people, and a continental market estimated to be worth $5 trillion by the Central Intelligence Agency, China embodies the challenge and promise mirrored by its smaller neighbors.
Has China committed human rights abuses? Yes. Has it used military exercises to try to intimidate Taiwan? Certainly. Do the people of China enjoy that measure of freedom which we in America believe is due every child at birth? They do not.
But in the 12 years since the Tiananmen crisis, China has accelerated its shift from a closed, protectionist, command economy to a much more open, market based economic system. Private enterprise and private ownership of property are the driving forces in China's present, and they undoubtedly will shape China's future as well.
Private newspapers are vying for readership - 11 dailies in the city of Nanjing alone. Citizens are suing their local governments - and winning - for a variety of complaints.
Village level elections are teaching the basics of democracy to a people who have known little political freedom. Churches of every description are growing in number and in membership. And in an extraordinary move last week, the Chinese government itself issued a 308 page attack on the failings of the Chinese Communist Party, citing rampant corruption, bureaucratic ineptitude and inefficiency. As General Motors might put it, "This is not your father's China."
The Chinese people, increasingly responsible for managing their own lives, are questioning the monopoly of power enjoyed by the Chinese Communist Party.
It is very much in our interest to foster an environment in which China, like the rest of East Asia, can continue recent progress towards developing a more open society, respectful of the rule of law and mindful of international norms in the areas of human rights, security and trade.
Accomplishing this objective will not be easy. I predict the Bush Administration and the Republican Party will face a particularly tough dilemma.
On the one hand, "movement conservatives" seem eager to see China as an adversary. These ultra-conservatives see conflict with China as inevitable, so we might as well get on with it while we hold the upper hand.
They point to the China threat to justify building national missile defenses. This is a cause to which they have an almost "theological" devotion, divorced from the key question of whether, at the end of the day, building national missile defenses will make us more secure or less secure.
On the other hand, aligned against these neo-Cold Warriors, are the "free enterprise" Republicans, who see China primarily as a vast untapped market, as the world's largest developing nation poised to become the perfect trading partner for the world's richest developed nation.
These free marketeers oversell both the market potential and the notion that democracy inevitably follows on the heels of McDonald's.
The tension between those who would isolate and contain China, and those who seek to broaden economic engagement with the Mainland has been around for a while now, and it will likely get worse before it is resolved.
So far, the voices of engagement hold the stronger hand. The President has announced his intention to extend China's Most Favored Nation Status for another year while we await China's much anticipated accession to the World Trade Organization. And despite the counsel of hard-liners who sought to punish China for the way it handed the downing of an American reconnaissance aircraft, the President -- wisely, in my view -- has tried to minimize the fallout of that episode and press ahead with the important tasks at hand.
What should be our approach to China?
Our top priority should remain integrating China into the community of nations, articulating the rules of the road, and then holding the Chinese government accountable for its actions. The fate of the world is linked to the ability of the United States and China to resolve differences and work in concert to tackle tough global challenges. We must not allow the notion of China as an adversary to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The United States has deep concerns about China's human rights record, its trade practices, and its sales of sensitive technology to countries such as Pakistan and Iran. It is unrealistic to assume that we will resolve all our differences next month, next year, or even over the next several years.
I believe, however, that it is possible to build a mutually beneficial relationship with China.
A rising China need not threaten U.S. interests. In fact, China cannot achieve the economic growth, international respect, and regional stability it seeks without a good relationship with the United States.
We live on a small planet. We must work together to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and missiles, prevent global warming, preserve the planet's biodiversity and fight poverty and disease.
I know this. You know it. I think China's leaders know it too.
I would be pleased to take your questions.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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National Network to End Domestic Violence's Annual Meeting
Carol, after that wonderful introduction, I think I may say thank you and sit right back down!
I really do want to say "thank you." I want to start with a special "thank you" to Lynn Rosenthal for inviting me and organizing this annual meeting of the Network. I applaud her tireless efforts, year in and year out, in the fight against domestic violence.
You are lucky to have her here in Washington representing all of you.
I also say "thank you" to all of you representing state domestic violence coalitions who are here from all around the country. A special "thank you" to the "Brothers Against Domestic Violence," in from Milwaukee -- their volunteer security services in helping battered women go to court and performing security checks on women's homes are a welcome addition to the movement.
And a warm welcome to the survivors - you are why we are here.
As you know, we just celebrated Mother's Day this past Sunday. Here in the U.S., Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." She wanted to create Mother's Day as a day dedicated to peace.
Let's think about that - a day dedicated to peace. Peace . . .
How many mothers try every day to find peace and safety? How many mothers can only wish that even on Mother's Day - one day a year - she and her children can find that peace?
So today - as on every day, actually - women are calling for help. And this is where you come in.
I can push and cajole and push some more in Congress, but without all of you in the field, putting the Violence Against Women Act into action - it would all be just words on paper.
Every time I get the least bit frustrated at having to fight uphill to get my colleagues to enact the Violence Against Women Act or reauthorize it as we did last year. . . or continue every year to fight for funding . . .
Any time I get the least bit frustrated, I meet one of you or a woman comes up to me on the street or in the train station and tells me a story of how we've impacted - even saved - her life.
So, my first message is one of guarded optimism.
We have made progress over the last ten years.
We have more shelters for battered women and their children than ever before.
We have better trained police officers, prosecutors, and judges than ever before.
But we cannot rest now.
Last week, a man in a very rural part of my State - in a town called Laurel, Delaware - was arrested for making a bomb that he intended to use to blow up his house with his wife and children. He had abused her for years. She finally made up her mind to leave. He said you won't get out alive. Fortunately, she did. On a tip from a neighbor, police got to the house in time. She got to a shelter with her children.
Where do we go from here?
We keep the pressure on this Administration to fully fund the Violence Against Women Act of 2000.
The Administration may say it wants to fund the Act - but we don't want any "smoke and mirrors."
It is easy to ask for what Congress has already authorized.
Yet, even here, the Administration should not seek to fully fund the law enforcement side of combating violence against women without also seeking full funding for the services - like shelters and housing - that help women escape to safety. One does not go without the other.
Moreover, the key to protecting the funding we should have is to restore the Violence Crime Reduction Trust Fund, which has funded the Act's grants and programs until this fiscal year. I believe that extending the Trust Fund is critical.
Remember, none of this costs a single dime in taxes. It's all paid for by reducing the number of federal government employees. The paycheck that was going to a bureaucrat is now going into the Trust Fund. So I will continue to work to extend the Trust Fund to ensure that programs combating domestic violence actually receive the funding we have authorized.
And if the funding dries up - make no mistake - the number of domestic violence cases and the number of women killed by their husbands or boyfriends who profess to "love" them - will increase.
Where else do we go from here?
We have some serious provisions in this new law to strengthen full faith and credit of protection from abuse orders across state lines, to open new shelters and to provide transitional housing afterwards, to extend legal assistance to victims, and to protect immigrant women.
But again, words on paper unless we are dogged in our determination to make sure Attorney General Ashcroft keeps this as a priority - as Attorney General Reno and Bonnie Campbell did when they led the effort over these past years.
That brings up the need for a permanent Violence Against Women Office within the Department of Justice. If the responsibilities of this Office get swept into another office, we will lose the focus of this issue - mark my words.
That's why I have a bill in Congress which would make the Office a permanent and separate component of the Justice Department. With the news that the White House's Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach has been closed, it is imperative not only that the current functions of the Office be preserved but that its status be raised as well.
My bill says that the Director of the Office shall be presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed and report directly to the Associate Attorney General. All of this gives the Office the solid foundation it needs.
But even protecting the Violence Against Women Office will mean nothing if President Bush packs the federal courts with ultra-conservatives. We have to keep our eye on the ball as to whom he nominates. We can win the battle on educating the police and the prosecutors and funding the shelters but lose the war if you do not have judges who "get it" - who understand what stalking is, who understand what violence against a woman does to her and to her family and to everyone in this society.
How many of you have counseled a woman to take all the right steps in protecting herself - call the police, get to a shelter, speak with the prosecutor and then go to court to try to obtain a restraining order only to come before a judge who thinks she's being too emotional, that she must be over-reacting, that she should keep her family together despite the violence, that these are his kids too, that the presence of firearms does not matter and worse of all, that this mother herself can be charged with a "failure to protect" or with neglect because somehow it is she - and not he - who has exposed the children to violence. Basically, the state is asking her to manage the violence of her abuser.
You know, these backward attitudes start far too young. There's a study by the Rhode Island Rape Crisis Center, which surveyed 1,700 sixth through ninth graders and here's what it found:
● 25% of the schoolboys and 17% of the girls said it was okay to force sex on a woman after "spending a lot of money on her" - which 12 year-olds define as $10 to $15.
● Over half of the students thought that "if a woman dresses seductively and walks alone at night, she is asking to be raped."
This is why we have the Violence Against Women Act. We need education, education, education. We need to get the good word out. We need to continue to get the word out to governors, state attorneys general, doctors, nurses, business leaders, judges and police - about what's in the new law and how it will help them.
Just as I did when the first Act passed in 1994, I have issued more than 800 of these manuals nationwide. All the other 99 U.S. Senators, all 50 governors, state attorneys general, domestic violence advocates, state domestic violence coalitions, non-profit agencies have got one. If you don't have one, I have brought copies with me, so please take one.
So, keep up the fight. We are making progress in our efforts to help women and children escape the cycle of domestic violence and abuse.
I promise you, as long as Delawareans keep electing me to serve in the United States Senate, I will continue to work for women and children who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Thank you for your continuing support. I could not do it without you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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Staying Engaged in the World: Pursuing America's Real Interests on the Korean Peninsula
Honoring Peter Jennings and Robin Wright
Recipients of the Edward Wiental Journalism Prize
Good evening.
It is an honor to participate in tonight's recognition of the work of two extraordinary journalists, Peter Jennings and Robin Wright. It is rare today to find journalists who have both the interest and the rigor not only to explain complex foreign affairs to the American public, but also to convince us why we should care.
I'm told that Bob Gallucci [Dean of the School of Foreign Service] has a saying about the media that goes something like this:
"For the news media, good news, is bad news. Bad news, is good news. And complicated news, is no news at all."
Using Dean Gallucci's formulation, it seems to me that for too many of us, foreign news is by definition complicated news.
And that is a shame.
As Secretary of State Powell put it so eloquently at his confirmation hearing:
"There is no country in the world that does not touch us. We are a country of countries...we are attached by a thousand cords to the world at large - to its teeming cities, to its remotest regions, to its oldest civilizations, to its newest cries for freedom."
So I applaud journalists like Peter and Robin. They are not intimidated by complicated stories. Their persistent efforts to keep foreign news on the front pages and on our evening broadcasts deserves reward, for it helps educate the public that, as Secretary Albright often said, U.S. leadership remains "indispensable" to global peace, security, and prosperity.
What does it mean for the United States to exercise leadership? It does not mean that we do everything ourselves or that we try to dictate solutions to every international problem. Our resources are not infinite.
Leadership also does not mean being "on call" to respond to every 911. We are not in the bi-polar world that dominated the decades of the Cold War when other countries were content to sit on the sidelines and wait for the United States or the Soviet Union to call the shots.
In the era of globalization, the Internet, and telecommunications, when we abrogate our leadership role, someone else will step in quickly to fill the void.
No less than here at home, global politics abhors a vacuum. If Secretary Albright is correct in her view that the U.S. is the one "indispensable" nation, we cannot afford to shirk our unique responsibilities as an international leader:
Leadership that provides a clear strategic vision of our basic national security interests;
Leadership that is reliable, and flows less from reaction to unpredictable events and more by our inner, moral compass that reflects enduring values;
Leadership that makes clear to friend and foe alike what our priorities are in a complex world;
With that in mind, I want to address a critical question about the nature of our foreign policy at this juncture in our history, the core issue of continuity versus change.
More than two months into the new administration, President Bush hasn't told us much about his strategic vision. A steady stream of foreign leaders have been to town trying to get a read on the new administration.
Eventually, we're going to figure out whether President Bush's foreign policy will be marked by continuity or change, engagement or disinterest, coordination with allies or a tendency toward unilateralism, or, as seems likely, some combination of all of the above.
President Bush came to office without any significant foreign policy experience and understandably needs time to get his team in place and become more comfortable with the complex challenges facing our nation.
But no American President in the 21st Century can long ignore, or ever hope to escape, the web of interests which binds our future to that of the global community.
Nowhere is this truth more self-evident, and nowhere are the stakes higher, than on the Korean Peninsula. Secretary of State Powell said at his confirmation hearing that we would find, "much that is traditional and consistent," about President Bush's foreign policy. But already there are troubling indications that this Administration may abandon the path of engagement on the peninsula followed by President Clinton.
Any objective observer of the recent summit meeting between President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea and President Bush would have to conclude that we got off to a rough start.
It is dumbfounding to me how we could send our strategic ally - a Nobel Peace Prize winner - home to South Korea more confused about our intentions than when he arrived.
A day before the summit, Secretary of State Powell, sensibly, indicated that the Bush Administration would take up where Clinton left off in pursuing engagement with North Korea. The Clinton policy, the product of a year-long review by former Secretary of Defense William Perry, was making real progress in the months before Clinton left office. It enjoyed strong support from our allies South Korea and Japan, and had won bipartisan support in Congress.
Without warning, the very next day President Bush reversed Secretary Powell's positive prediction, announcing that he had no intention of continuing negotiations with the North Koreans, claiming that they could not be trusted. The President cast doubts on North Korea's adherence to the Agreed Framework, and said he would engage with North Korea "at a time and a place of our choosing."
As I stated before, we do not have the luxury of engaging when and if we choose to engage. If we don't, someone else will, and they may not share our interests. Indeed, in the absence of U.S. leadership, the Europeans have decided that perhaps they had better send a negotiating team to North Korea.
With all due respect to our European Allies, I don't want them negotiating our security interests on the Korean Peninsula.
The Bush Administration cloaked its reluctance to engage North Korea now in tough language about the difficulties of verifying an agreement with North Korea. It is hardly a secret, however, that verification is one of the most difficult aspects of an agreement to nail down. But the difficulty of the challenge is not an excuse not to seek an agreement in the first place.
Had such fear paralyzed President Clinton, he would never have engaged North Korea and the Agreed Framework would never have been negotiated.
North Korea, in all likelihood, would now have enough fissile material to make dozens of nuclear bombs.
It is worth remembering just what the Agreed Framework has, and has not, accomplished.
In exchange for 500,000 tons per year of heavy fuel oil deliveries paid for by the United States and two light water reactors paid for by South Korea and Japan, North Korea agreed in 1994 to freeze its graphite moderated reactors and related facilities and eventually dismantle those reactors and facilities. The North further agreed that throughout the freeze, the International Atomic Energy Agency would be permitted to monitor its facilities.
Moreover, the spent fuel from the reactors - enough to produce dozens of bombs if reprocessed - has been safely canned and put under round-the-clock IAEA supervision in preparation for its eventual removal from North Korea.
The cost of implementing the Agreed Framework probably will exceed $6 billion by the time the reactors are completed - perhaps even more. For us, it is a relative bargain: South Korea and Japan are paying for the reactors, which will account for roughly 90 percent of the total costs.
The Europeans, the Australians, and other friends are helping us meet the cost of the heavy fuel oil deliveries.
It's a great example of how U.S. leadership and burden-sharing can go hand in hand.
So, with all the above in mind, permit me to be blunt: There is no evidence that North Korea has violated any of the essential elements of the Agreed Framework.
Without the Agreed Framework, North Korea would almost certainly have withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and begun to reprocess spent fuel from its reactors for use in nuclear bombs.
Without the Agreed Framework, there would be no IAEA inspectors on the ground in North Korea today.
Without the Agreed Framework, we would have faced the stark choice of bombing North Korea's nuclear facilities or watching helplessly as they steadily built a nuclear arsenal.
Critics of the Agreed Framework point out that North Korea is not currently in full compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Specifically, they say North Korea has not permitted the IAEA to conduct the special inspections necessary to establish the past operating history of North Korea's graphite-moderated reactors.
That's true. The critical compromise of the Agreed Framework can be found in Annex 3, paragraph 7, in which North Korea agrees to come into "full compliance" with its IAEA safeguards agreement, including allowing special inspections, when "a significant portion of the light water reactor project is completed, but before delivery of key nuclear components" of the reactors.
In other words, before they can turn on the reactors, they have to take all steps deemed necessary by the IAEA.
So North Korea is in compliance with the Agreed Framework, but not yet fully in compliance with its nuclear safeguards agreement.
Why is this detail important? Because it goes to the heart of the question about why this administration is reluctant to engage North Korea.
The President says it's because North Korea can't be trusted. And yet, six years into the Agreed Framework, North Korea has remained faithful to all the essential elements of the deal.
It's no secret that many Europeans, and even some Americans, fear that the real impetus for President Bush's decision to discard engagement with North Korea is a quasi-theological belief in the need for a U.S. national missile defense system.
If North Korea were to agree to curb its missile program, so this theory goes, it would profoundly undermine the rationale for NMD, or at least eliminate the urgency to deploy a system in the near term.
I hope these skeptics are wrong, and that the administration realizes it would be foolish not to explore whether North Korea is prepared to end its development and export of long range missiles in exchange for a more normal relationship with the United States.
The broad elements of a missile deal are pretty clear.
North Korea has reportedly offered to end its export and development of long range missiles in exchange for third country satellite launch services, financial compensation (which might include food aid or agricultural assistance), sanctions relief, and normal diplomatic relations with the United States.
As Dean Gallucci knows, the devil will be in the details. Verification procedures, limits on what kinds of satellites we might assist North Korea to launch, the form of any compensation - none of this will be easy.
But these difficulties argue for action, not inaction.
I think President Bush made a mistake when he told President Kim that he would not engage North Korea any time soon.
The reason he cited to justify his inaction - that he did not want to be "naive" about North Korea - risked, I thought, being interpreted as disrespectful to President Kim.
The President implicitly accused Kim - this 70 year old survivor of two assassination attempts and a long imprisonment...this statesman who has been living under North Korean artillery threat for 50 years - of being naive.
South Korea's Sunshine Policy is many things. Naive it is not. It has nothing to do with trusting North Korea.
It is about pursuing security with hard-headed negotiations - and exposing the North to the changing world. As Justice Brandeis once wrote, "sunlight is the best disinfectant." The Sunshine Policy is designed to push open the doors of the cloistered Korean state -- and to test its commitment to peace while reducing tension on the peninsula. Neither we nor South Korea have given away anything in terms of our considerable deterrent posture.
I am beginning to worry that the Korea summit is just one example of a lack of strategic vision and an inclination toward unilateralism on the part of this administration.
Let me be clear. I'm not a fan of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He runs a dictatorial communist state. But there is every indication that Kim Jong-il knows he has no alternative but to try to integrate North Korea with the world.
Many believe a verifiable missile deal with North Korea is impossible, choosing to place their faith in an unproven, strategically destabilizing, and hugely expensive national missile defense scheme.
And plenty of people in this town are opposed to any effort to engage North Korea. Before you accept the arguments of the nay-sayers, however, study the record.
● The nay-sayers argued that North Korea would never sign the Agreed Framework;
● The nay-sayers told us North Korea never would permit continuous International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring of its nuclear facilities;
● The nay-sayers were sure North Korea never would shut its reprocessing plant;
● The nay-sayers said North Korea never would let U.S. military personnel search for the remains of servicemen missing from the Korean War;
● The nay-sayers said North Korea never would permit inspections of a suspicious underground tunnel complex;
● The nay-sayers said North Korea never would adopt economic reforms, never permit monitoring of food aid deliveries, and never permit travel across the DMZ.
They were wrong on all counts.
Now, those opposed to testing North Korea's commitment to peace are telling us that North Korea will never curtail its missile program. Well...guess what?
The only way they can be certain they won't be wrong again is by never engaging North Korea in the first place.
Let's not forget how much progress the Clinton Administration had made on the missile front. Indeed, if not for the uncertainty surrounding the outcome in Florida and the competing demands of the Middle East peace process, it is possible that Secretary Albright, or even President Clinton, might have been able to complete an agreement before leaving office.
Certainly President Kim of South Korea thought that an agreement was within reach. He repeatedly urged the President to travel to North Korea and close the deal.
It is unfortunate that President Bush so badly bungled the visit of President Kim to Washington.
As Tom Friedman noted in a recent column, for a President who pledged to repair alliance relationships, President Bush is not off to an auspicious start with key allies in Asia and Europe.
But it's not too late. There is no need to arrive prematurely at any conclusion - especially given the poor track record of the prognosticators - before making an honest effort to determine if the carrot may work as well as the stick.
Perhaps we can make the world a little bit safer for future generations through the exercise of patient diplomacy, backed by deterrence.
But that will not happen until the President makes clear his strategic vision of our role and priorities in the world and enunciates clearly his view of our basic national security interests.
When he does that, I know we can count on journalists like Peter Jennings and Robin Wright to help us understand the implications: for ourselves, for our allies, and for generations of Americans and others to come.
Thank you, and good night.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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The Fourth Annual Tribute to Peace Gala Dinner
Thank you for including me in tonight's event; it is a great privilege just to be here, and of course, a pleasure to share an evening with my old friend, Monsignor Kerr; if you weren't doing such good and crucial work in Pittsburgh, Monsignor, I would be trying - with whatever political muscle I have, and whatever Irish charm I could muster - to get you back to Washington, to work with us here. You have made, and are making, a remarkable contribution to the future we all share, the future of our children and grandchildren, and there is simply no way to thank you enough for that.
I also want to join in thanking Queen Rania for her interest in, and support of, the work of the Pacem in Terris Institute. Your Majesty -- you are too young for me to say this, but of course, we've witnessed tonight the unique gifts and powers of youth - in a remarkably short time, you have established yourself as a leader in the universal sense of the word, a leader of practical compassion - from the work of your Jordan River Foundation, to your Child Abuse Prevention Project, and many other efforts, and, of course, as we recognize tonight, your support of the hopes and promise of young people and of education as a force for progress.
We are honored by your presence, and again, we thank you. I am also honored to be in the presence of the other award winners, Dina and Carl, and I join in paying tribute to them, and again, in thanking them for what they have done by their efforts and by their example, an example not only for other business leaders but for all of us.
And I am especially privileged to be on the program with the two speakers who will follow me; I am proud to be in your company. In fact, when Monsignor Kerr's office sent a copy of tonight's program, I read it with the feeling of a dream - like a kid suddenly put in the line-up for the Bronx Bombers in a World Series game at Yankee Stadium - or maybe, under the circumstances, Brian, I should say, a kid suddenly put in at quarterback for the Fighting Irish in a game under the golden dome in South Bend.
This award is presented, quote, "for leadership in the service of peace." If I had to choose a description that I would aspire to, those words would come second only to, "a good father and grandfather."
"The service of peace," and fighting the abuse of power, is exactly what inspired me to a career in public service - it is what called to my generation, when we were young, and our minds and hearts were turned to war-torn Southeast Asia.
There is no cause greater than peace; it's like what Winston Churchill said about courage, which he described as, quote, "the first of all human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others."
Peace makes all things possible; peace guarantees a future, guarantees our capacity to dream. And it has always been so, that true and lasting peace begins in the hearts -- and dreams -- of young people. My older son is working in Kosovo right now, helping to rebuild a judicial system, in a place where - as one of our next speakers can attest better than I - justice is needed so urgently.
I mention my son not just because I am extraordinarily proud of what he is doing, which I am, but also because I think his work is a good example of why we are here tonight. Beau could not do what he's doing without what Robert Kennedy so famously described as "the qualities of youth" - "a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease."
Those are the qualities that change the world. But my son also could not do what he is doing if he had not gone to college and law school, if he had not had a chance to discover and develop his talents.
Education, and the chance it gives you to know yourself, enlivens the qualities of mind and spirit that give young people their unique role in shaping history; education and opportunity make it possible for the "qualities of youth" to express themselves in the world; they ignite the spark of imagination, steel the will, sustain the courage, and guide the great adventure.
For me, from experience, the political and social power of young people is far from abstract. I told you about my older son; my younger son is also engaged in a pursuit of justice as a lawyer and building a better future for his three daughters.
My daughter is in college, learning her own way to make a difference. It was young people in Delaware - and I mean high-school and college students - who got me elected when I first ran for the Senate at the age of 29; those who could voted for me, and the many more who were too young to vote delivered campaign literature and made phone calls and brow-beat their parents and neighbors into voting for me.
The leaders of my youth were young themselves, and together, young people led the movement to stop a war abroad and to end injustice at home.
Today, as I meet with world leaders and their staffs, I can tell you that even though the elder statesmen have the greatest sense of triumph, the young people have the greatest sense of possibility; and frankly, it's the young people who do most of the real work. So it's not just an ideal we honor tonight, not just a cause; it's a proven and practical process - a process by which the unique powers and promise of the world's youth are given a chance to express themselves, and to exercise an influence -- one act, one career, one community, one person at a time.
That's how we change the world - a process; peace is a process. So I thank you all for this award tonight, in full recognition that I have not earned it yet - but I will try to, with all of you, as part of the process in which we are all engaged, "the service of peace."
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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St. Patrick's Day Breakfast
One of my favorite descriptions of us Irish - and we have been "described" a lot - one my favorites was in a cartoon; Pat and Mike are sitting in a pub in Galway, and Pat says to Mike, "Don't you wish we were in a pub in New York, wishing we were in a pub in Galway?"
That's the way the Irish heart yearns, with a hope that can reach across the seas, yet always bound by history and tradition to look back toward home.
It may be unique to the Irish, that we can be nostalgic even about the future.
And it is not only personal, family history that binds us to Ireland, and to each other, it's the history of the island itself, which has endured waves of feudal wars and foreign conquests, centuries of economic oppression, famine and mass emigration.
Indeed, the recent economic boom, with boat-loads of workers and immigrants heading into -- in many cases, heading home to -- Ireland has us all celebrating, to be sure, but not without a measure of confusion; we're not quite used to it, and in true Irish fashion, we don't know if we can trust it.
And unfortunately, there is still enough heart-break to remind us of a history that has been so sad and unrelenting, marked by vile discrimination and violent uprisings.
We note one of those uprisings at Easter every year, and in his tribute to its leaders - people he had not previously admired, I might add - William Butler Yeats wrote:
"We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead....
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."
"A terrible beauty is born" - I have long marveled at that phrase; there is an essential truth to it.
The beauty, it seems to me, is imagination, the Irish imagination; what other nation can claim poets and patriots, saints and scholars, writers and orators - callings all, which depend upon the capacity to dream - what nation can claim such accomplished dreamers in proportion to tiny Ireland?
Yet dreams pursued to the ultimate can also wreak havoc along the way.
And sometimes the dream, as I believe has been the case in our Ireland, the dream gets distorted; once glorious ideals become ignominious pursuits, with all the dignity of the cause consumed by the fires that were intended to nurture it.
Since the troubles began, 3,600 people have been killed, tens of thousands badly wounded, all in six counties of just one-and-a-half million people. In the United States, that would translate into 300,000 dead, two million wounded.
The victims have been Irish, they have been British; they have been Catholic, they have been Protestant; they have been young, they have been old; they have been civilians, they have been soldiers; they have been famous, they have been obscure - and some achieving fame only in their dying.
It's hard to keep from turning back to Yeats, who seems to have foretold it all, in another haunting phrase from Easter 1916,
"Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?"
If there is a lesson in this long tragedy, it must surely be that the cycle of violence has guaranteed the dreams of no one who cares about Ireland. It has bloodied the beauty for many who love her, and it has moved the place further from, instead of nearer to, resolution, peace and a united nation once again.
There can be, there must be, another way to guarantee Ireland's future.
Wolfe Tone, a man of great courage, strong convictions and a healthy
wit - a rare combination in any time, any place, in any age - Tone implored the Irish not to, quote, "waste time dwelling on grievances, and abuses that we all feel."
To take refuge in righteousness may feel good - it may even impart a sense of acting rightly - but it hardly ever accomplishes anything.
Neither does silence; and America, at least official America, was silent too long about the troubles in Ireland; deny him what you will -- deny him what you should -- but let's not forget that Bill Clinton changed that. Down to his last foreign trip as President, Bill Clinton made Ireland a priority as it had never been before.
And, along with George Mitchell, perhaps his greatest contribution was the recognition that in our time, as President Kennedy said of arms control in the early 1960s, peace is a process. The process must go on, here and in Ireland, in the design of solutions and methods of implementing them that we all can live with.
Beyond what divides us, there is a world for which we should strive, and dangers we will have to overcome in the course of our striving. We should take an unambiguous view of both.
We Irish-Americans come from a dual legacy of dreamers; dreamers care about other people, dreamers care about the future, and the best expression of that heritage of the heart is our ability to see possibility, to imagine a better way, to ask in the Bobby Kennedy tradition, "why not?"
That's the American vision, and the American generosity, that through active foreign policy has fueled the restoration of so many nations; that's the vision and generosity that pushed the peace process of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and all that has been invested since; and that's the vision and generosity that must continue to be engaged and offered from this country, as the best hope for our dream of a peaceful and ultimately united Ireland.
We Irish have made mistakes, and yes, we have known tragedy, tragedy that has made it a necessity for us to do the work of maintaining the human spirit.
My recently retired colleague, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "I don't think there's any point in being Irish, if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually."
But who among us would trade for an easier heart, if it also meant giving up who we are, if it meant giving up the capacity to dream.
Above all else, as we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, let us resolve to continue to do the work of maintaining the human spirit - with honest recognition of the dangers, and with steadfast faith in the beauty.
Thank you all for having me.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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On The President's National Missile Defense Decision: "A Win for All Americans"
"President Clinton's decision to defer deployment of a national missile defense is a win for all Americans. I applaud him for his political courage, as well as his eminent good sense.
"The President's decision gives us time to perfect our political approach to the ballistic missile threat, as well as our technology. The President said: "We should use this time to ensure that NMD, if deployed, would actually enhance our overall national security." That hits the nail on the head; we should heed his call and work together on this.
"President Clinton has not given up on missile defense. Rather, he has steered clear of the pitfalls we would have faced if we had moved to deploy a system that doesn't yet work, has yet to gain allied support or Russian agreement to amend the ABM Treaty, and could not be deployed by 2005 in any case.
"We need not reject for all time the idea of a national missile defense. We must not let it lead, however, to new arms races and nuclear proliferation. The President should continue pressing Russia - not only to consider amending the ABM Treaty, but also to work with us on a boost-phase intercept system that would pose less of a threat to Russia or China's nuclear deterrence capabilities and on getting North Korea to stop developing and selling long-range ballistic missiles."
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"National Missile Defense and Strategic Security in the Post-Cold War World"
SPEAKER: Please welcome an expert on national security issues, a graduate of the University of Delaware as well as of Syracuse Law School . He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 as a callow youth of 29; he did turn 30, the constitutional age limit, by the time he joined the Senate. He is now the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, where he gets to butt heads with Chairman Helms on a daily basis. He has a long history of involvement with missile defense issues; he was in the center of the debate in the 1980's during the Reagan presidency over national missile defense, as well as the interpretation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Our next speaker, Senator Joseph Biden, our third point of view.
SENATOR BIDEN: Thank you very much. I am flattered and honored to be invited to speak here, and that was a very nice introduction. I am not sure what the third way is; I want you to know this is not triangulation. I don't know that I have a third way; I do know, by the way, that I don't have any trouble dealing with Senator Helms. He and I are good friends, and I have had twenty years of practice. I was the former Chairman of the Judiciary and ranking member with Strom Thurmond, so this is a piece of cake. I actually do respect my colleague, and we get on very, very well.
You know I'm reluctant in front of a prestigious group with such varied views of a critically important and complicated issue to begin with an attempt at humor, but I think the best way to describe to you all the way I think things are moving on the debate or lack thereof in the United States Senate on this issue is to remind you of the old joke, that story about Wilbur Mills when he found himself in the circumstance in the tidal basin with a stripper and under the influence.
He was arrested by the police, who, as they do in this town, immediately called the administrative assistant of Wilbur Mills, who asked what the chairman's reasoning was. The chairman said that Mrs. Mills had asked him to pick up Fannie Fox because Mrs. Mills had broken her leg. She was hurting and in bad shape, and she was a friend of Fannie Fox and wanted him to bring Fannie Fox home. This accident happened, and the administrative assistant said that was absolutely true and that he would be on the way to get him shortly. He hung up the phone and immediately called Mrs. Mills.
He said, "Mrs. Mills, I've got good news, and I've got bad news." She said, "Well, give me the good news first, John." He said, "The good news is that your husband was found drunk in the tidal basin with a famous Washington stripper and is now in jail under arrest." She said, "Oh, my God, that is the good news. What is the bad news?" He said, "Well, Mrs. Mills, I have got to come over and break your leg."
That is what this debate reminds me of occasionally. We've got folks on all sides of this issue- for, against, and not sure. Some of it is like, I'm going to have to come out and break your leg to make this work, to make this system work, to make this rationale work. As I said, it's a special honor to be invited to speak to this symposium. Your physical constitution sitting in those chairs as long as you have and me being between you and lunch makes me question your judgment, but I will give it a shot anyway to give you, as is characterized, a third point of view, not a third way, but a third point of view. It may be consistent in part with what both of my colleagues have said but differing in parts.
This is, I might add, a significant step forward in the national debate, which has not taken place yet. Don't anybody kid anybody; don't fool yourselves. There is no national debate. Nobody knows what we're talking about. I am not being facetious. No one knows what we're talking about, including the majority of my colleagues in the United States Congress. They have not focused on this yet.
So those of you who are against this system or any system and citing polls that claim the American people are against it, it's of no consequence because the American people don't know what we're talking about. Those of you who suggest that the American people want this, just try at the next cocktail party you go to pick the most learned, informed person in the group and ask them about their view on this issue.
I will be dumbfounded if they can give you an informed answer as to why they hold the position they hold. And it reflects our national realization that national security issues are much too important to be left to partisan debate that all of you three sponsoring organizations with different views have gotten together. So I begin by complimenting you, and I mean this seriously, for beginning the national debate on the notion of national missile defense.
As you surely know by now, I am a skeptic regarding national missile defense. I mean that literally: I am a skeptic, not opposed. I can understand why such a capability might be desired. I am not at all sure, however, that it is yet feasible. Neither am I convinced that the system proposed by the Pentagon would work satisfactorily, or even that deterrence is so bad.
I will be happy to elaborate on those points when I take your questions, assuming you have time for questions. But I suspect that you have been debating them all morning. So let me give you instead some thoughts on the strategic context within which the issue of national missile defense I think has to be considered and is not being discussed, in my view, thus far, in this context.
Let's begin with the objective of statecraft. It is not simply to achieve this deployment or to preserve that treaty. Rather, it is to maximize our overall national security. That is the objective of statecraft. Many issues are so narrow that we can ignore the broader context; we ignore relativity theory when analyzing whether a bridge needs repair. National missile defense is not one of those narrow issues; we must consider its place in the strategic context and in this time.
I submit that we are at a pivotal point in our strategic relationships with major countries in the world. A decade ago, we began the transition to a post-Cold War international system. That transition continues today. Our strategic weapons policy decisions over the next year or so could determine that transition, for good or for ill.
We have moved from a largely bi-polar world to one in which our military might is effectively unchallenged, although Russia retains the capacity to inflict immense damage upon us. Many aspects of strategic arms relationships, however, still remain unsettled. Let me just name a few.
● What nuclear force levels will the United States and Russia maintain in the coming years? ● What formal arms control treaties, with their associated benefits of predictability and verification, will we retain, or have they become a thing of the past? ● Will China continue its strategic doctrine of "minimal deterrence?" Or will it significantly increase the number and accuracy of its missiles or warheads, perhaps deploying MIRVed ICBM's? What about Japan? ● Will Chinese actions lead India and Russia to increase their forces, perhaps igniting an Asian arms race? Will other countries in East Asia decide to go nuclear? What about Japan? I don't know about all of you, but I find some solace in the fact that Japan is not a nuclear power. I am not anxious to see that change; I'm not sure it will. I am sure that none of you know. We have not discussed it yet. ● Will non-proliferation be reinforced as a principal objective of the nuclear weapons states, or will they help other countries to develop those weapons and the missiles (or cruise missiles) with which to deliver them? ● Will our allies remain confident of our commitment to their security and accepting of our leadership? Or, for one reason or another, will they seek to counterbalance us, keep their distance from us, or rely more upon their own military forces? ● Will the countries seen today as potential developers of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles live up to our fears? Or will changes on the Korean peninsula, in Iran, or in the Middle East reduce the current threats and give us more time and more options?
I find it after 28 years in the Senate kind of interesting that from a military perspective, we have to assume the world will remain static or get worse. From a political perspective, it hardly has. From a political perspective, the notion that North Korea, for example, will be this isolated dictatorship immune to threats of retaliation seven years from now is as likely as it is fundamentally changed. Yet we posit our entire rationale on the notion that it will remain static, as we assumed in 1987 that the Soviet Union would remain static.
What sort of world will we face in the coming decades, and what role will we play in it? When the Cold War ended, many predicted a "New World Order" in which the great powers would realize their common interests and work together to maintain international stability.
Well, if that new world has occurred, I haven't seen it yet.
A whole series of issues has divided Russia from the United States. Russia's military, economic and political weakness has given us greater freedom of action, but has also made Russia more distrusting of the West. Meanwhile, international and ethnic disputes that had been sublimated in the Cold War have surfaced and bred wars, terrorism, and proliferation.
These new instabilities have led supporters of a national missile defense to view the current era as a window of opportunity in which to build a shield against ballistic attack, before Russia or China becomes strong enough to block us. Some see missile defense as a hedge against an unstable leader who might not be deterred even by our overwhelming ability to retaliate. Others see it as a means of maintaining our freedom from blackmail if another country were to threaten nuclear retaliation in an effort to keep us from intervening to save an ally from invasion. Still others see it as a shield against a small attack by any country, and eventually as a shield against all attacks, even from Russia.
You've probably gotten that from the debate among those of us who have come to speak to you and what you hear on the floor. Every time someone stands up and says the purpose of missile defense is to deal with rogue states, one of my colleagues will stand up and say, "But we have to stop China." There is no consistency in the view that has been put forward by the Democrats and Republicans who speak to this issue on the floor of the Senate.
What I find interesting - and a little frightening - is the unrelieved pessimism that underlies that approach to the world. A decade ago, even conservatives saw hope for "a world transformed." Now that vision has been discarded, and their hope is put instead in better weapons - both offensive and defensive - to maintain U.S. predominance.
I think the conservatives are missing a bet here. The world has yet to be transformed into a really benign place, but there have still been some real advances. I think we still have an opportunity to build a more stable world. On the other hand, I fear that acting upon our worst fears will only make those fears come true.
U.S.-Russian relations are often frustrating, but they are far better than they were in the Cold War. Russia has a NATO relationship. It participates in peace-keeping operations. It has allowed international action on Iraq. It has lowered its strategic nuclear forces and is more than willing to continue that process. It no longer targets its missiles at the United States - which is no safeguard against a future decision to fire them at us, but is a very good safeguard against an accidental attack. And, however much we may question Russia's motives or its sincerity, it has offered to help wean North Korea away from the long-range ballistic missile kick it's on.
U.S.-Chinese relations are similarly a glass that is either half-full or half-empty. China's impatience regarding Taiwan is a matter of great concern; rash actions there could lead to terrible consequences. China has also contributed significantly and foolishly to the proliferation of long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
At the same time, China - which once argued that every country should develop nuclear weapons - now recognizes the need for nuclear non-proliferation. It has given North Korea good counsel on that point. It ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. It reduced its cooperation with Iran. It did not block international action on Iraq. It is reducing the stranglehold that the People's Liberation Army had on its economy. And it is opening up its economy to the world, which will further erode the grip of the Communist Party upon people's daily lives and their political expectations.
In recent weeks we have seen possible steps toward a transformed world on the Korean peninsula. I am not predicting it will happen, but I'm predicting none of you predicted it four years ago, one year ago, six months ago, two months ago, or one month ago. Will continued rapprochement with South Korea and with the United States open North Korea to economic reform and lead it to end its long-range missile programs? I don't know, but it's different. It's different from the way it was a year ago. A safe bet is that it won't happen overnight. But the odds of these good outcomes are better than they have been in more than half a century.
The same is true in the Middle East, where Israel, the Palestinians, and Syria are enmeshed in difficult - but serious - efforts to settle their disputes. Similarly, in Iran, while conservative clerics still view America as the Great Satan, other clerics - with overwhelming popular support - are slowly moving Iran toward a more rational view of the world. What will the outcome be? I don't know, but it's different than it was two years ago.
These trends may change. A safer world to come is far from certain. But we would be foolish to ignore these forces, just as we would be foolish to ignore the risks posed by weapons proliferation. We would also be foolish if we were to sacrifice these possibilities through a short-sighted obsession with deploying a national missile defense that, one, most people don't think can do the job even as they paint it, and those who think it can do the job, think it can only do part of the job. It should not be held at what we are advertising it to be.
I think that a single-minded push for national missile defense would indeed sacrifice some real opportunities to make the world a safer place:
● If we were to abrogate the ABM Treaty, I believe we would sacrifice both the START process and, perhaps, the INF Treaty. ● Russia might then see the world's trouble-makers as its only friends, and undercut the world's non-proliferation regimes further than they already have. ● If we were to deploy the national missile defense proposed by the Pentagon, China would surely increase its nuclear forces. I know some of you say they are going to do it anyway. It's interesting, I asked the Intelligence Committee for an analysis when I raised this a year ago with them. I went to the Pentagon and met with the brass sitting around that big old table with Secretary Cohen. Nobody had an analysis. Everybody could tell me what North Korea was going to do. Nobody could tell me what they thought China was likely to do. I find that absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating, but No one disagrees, maybe you do, that China would increase its nuclear forces. China is already modernizing its nuclear forces, at least to improve their survivability. Our deployment - even if Russia acceded to it - may very well lead China to reconsider what they're going to do. Maybe not, but at least we should be talking about it. ● If we were to abrogate the ABM Treaty, China, too, might well engage in increased arms proliferation. ● Our allies, as well, would be deeply shaken. Whatever our reasons, they would see our actions as reckless, rather than prudent. This would undermine our influence in the world, even if it were to increase our military freedom of action. ● Finally, the world's trouble-makers would still be tempted to cause us grief, but with renewed support from an aggravated Russia and China.
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"Non-Proliferation and U.S. Diplomacy in a High-Tech World"
Thank you, Professor Weiss. It is an honor to be introduced by you. Your career clearly makes you the Johnny Appleseed of science and technology programs. It is also an honor to be here with Dean Gallucci, who is one of the great public servants of our day.
The issue that most concerns me today is the spread of weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But as this is the very first Loewy Lecture, let me begin by sketching the outlines of the Lectureship's broad topic of "Science, Technology and International Affairs."
America has thrived on technology. Revolutions in transportation and communications - steamboats, railroads, the telegraph - were essential to expanding our territory coast to coast. The industrial revolution was the basis for our rise to world power, first acknowledged in Teddy Roosevelt's mediation of the Russo-Japanese War and demonstrated to the world in World War I.
In the 20th century, America excelled - when we cared to - in the conversion of industrial power into military might. We also brought the fruits of the industrialization to nearly all of our people and demonstrated the power that can be derived from a healthy, highly-educated citizenry. Revolutions in medicine and agriculture were as crucial to the development of our power internationally as those on the assembly lines.
The 21st century will be an era of new technological revolutions. Indeed, they are already upon us. We are only now beginning to realize what has happened, let alone to see where these revolutions will lead us.
New revolutions in communications will have profound implications for U.S. foreign policy. It is a truism that e-mail, cellular phones and satellite dishes have brought people into unprecedented contact with each other.
From China to Russia to East Timor, political activists have maintained real-time contact with the outside world during their times of crisis. During the Asian currency crisis two years ago, when countries tried to control information, you could literally walk down the street and have a little kid offer to sell you a copy of information he had downloaded from the World-Wide Web.
CNN has given the whole world a common window on the events of our day. And non-governmental groups now produce their own analyses of North Korea's missile test sites and Pakistan's nuclear complexes, using commercial satellite imagery with 1-meter resolution.
Equally important, cultural trends now cross the oceans electronically, long before the artists - be they real or animated - arrive "in person." Downloaded games or music can be as subversive as a political tract.
The ability of governments to control access to all but the most sensitive information is literally crumbling. Rulers like Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein may still be able to stage-manage the flow of information to their people, but I question whether their counterparts will be able to do that 30 years from now - or maybe as little as 10 years from now.
The revolution in communications is having an equally dramatic impact upon the world economy. One reason for recent international mergers and "globalization" is surely that digital communications and computers enable workers in far-flung enterprises to maintain intensive contact with each other, where before they were unable to have any contact with one another.
Not only messages, but pictures, graphics, and even instruction codes to guide automated manufacturing equipment now are routinely passed from engineers in one country to colleagues - or machines - half a world away. Computer experts in Russia and India are building high-tech careers and businesses on their work for American or other foreign companies, which they transmit instantly to their international clients.
Capital is more international than ever, and less constrained by government policy. In the 1970's, when I spoke with West German economic officials including the head of the Bundesbank, we were able to discuss over the period of a few days (with the approval of President Carter) possible moves to stabilize currencies. Today, more money flows into and out of countries between a minute before 12:00 and a minute after 12:00 than is held by all the central banks.
Money now flows into countries - and out of them - within minutes or hours. The Asian crisis showed how quickly private decisions can undo national or international efforts to insulate countries from the collective judgments (or panics) of international lenders.
The revolution in transportation will also affect foreign policy in the years to come. I don't mean commercial space travel or the supersonic transport. There are limits to how fast or far we need to travel, especially when teleconferencing lets us be "face to face" without being "in person."
The real revolution is in the cost of transportation, for both goods and people. Fresh fish and vegetables now travel around the world, providing new economic opportunities in seemingly out-of-the-way lands and better diets everywhere. People seeking more opportunity now travel with equal ease. New population flows are vastly eroding ethnic "purity" in European countries and making our own country richer both culturally and economically.
The impacts, though, are not all positive. Easier flows of people and products bring a speedier diffusion of infectious diseases. An outbreak in Hong Kong or Nigeria today can have consequences in Florida, or California or Illinois, the next day. An outbreak of smallpox tomorrow, in any center of world commerce, could set loose a world-wide pandemic of death and disfigurement.
Fortunately, the revolution in communications gives us tools to learn about such outbreaks, as well, and the revolution in transportation gives us tools to combat them. Disaster relief has undergone a revolution as great as any other in world affairs. The horror of earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes is no less than it was in earlier generations, but the speed and depth of international response gives new hope to the survivors in a way that was unimaginable even 20 years ago.
Similarly, the horror of Serbian actions in Kosovo was real, but the speed with which 850,000 international refugees were assisted - first in foreign lands, and then in returning to Kosovo - was nothing short of astounding, no matter what you think of our Kosovo program.
The revolution in transportation that helped to feed, clothe and shelter those refugees was based upon a revolution in logistics based as much on digital communications as on the C-17's and the C-5's that flew out of Dover AFB, which is part of the new revolution in military affairs.
World War II brought us jet planes, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. That was an industrial revolution, as exemplified in the Manhattan Project and in the work of the Loewy family.
The new revolution in warfare is information-based. GPS devices can tell an arms control inspector whether he was taken to the right building. Terrain mapping guides cruise missiles around obstacles and into the right ventilation shaft. The integrated use of remote sensing, signals intelligence, and satellite communications can warn a pilot of an enemy action and feed into targeting the enemy.
Meanwhile, countries large and small are developing information warfare or "cyberwar" capabilities. In a world where even high school students can pose a threat to complex systems, the great "force multipliers" of information and communications could also become the "Achilles' heel" of modern military machines.
I have neither the time nor the expertise to discuss at length the scientific and technological revolutions that I have only begun to sketch for you, and that you will surely encounter in your foreign affairs careers. You will just have to attend future Loewy Lectures to learn about all this.
Let me turn to the area of particular concern to me. The 20th-century revolutions in military affairs largely benefitted the United States, and our military power has increased relative to that of other countries. There are downsides, however, and one is of potentially catastrophic proportions. That is the increasing lure - and the availability to countries other than great powers - of weapons of mass destruction.
The history of weapons of mass destruction in the 20th century has a Dantean quality. There are events of such utter horror that the human psyche can hardly comprehend them: the poison gas at Ypres, the "showers" at Auschwitz, the slaughtered civilians of Halabja, Iraq, the Japanese testing of biological weapons on World War II prisoners of war, and the awesome devastation visited by just two small nuclear weapons - small by modern standards - upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But the history of non-proliferation offers hope. While chemical weapons have been used in a few wars since World War I, they have been largely shunned, both in legal terms and in practice. Biological weapons have not been used on a mass scale in a hundred years or more. Nuclear weapons have not been used since the end of World War II.
Since 1968, new international agreements have been signed in each of these areas - barring the production or stockpiling of chemical or biological weapons, as well as the spread of nuclear weapons. If formal commitments translated perfectly into moral acts, and if technology were static, then the world could bury its martyrs joyfully. While non-proliferation has been generally successful, however, it has also failed, and it has failed at significant times.
India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. China helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. North Korea illegally reprocessed spent nuclear fuel for its nuclear weapons program and sold missiles to Pakistan and Iran. Iraq developed chemical and biological weapons, as well as a crude long-range missile, and made progress toward developing nuclear weapons. These and other setbacks remind us that non-proliferation is a constant pursuit, rather than a destination at which we will someday arrive.
Modern technology opens dangerous new avenues for proliferation. New processes have been developed to synthesize chemical weapons. New binary weapons have been created that are easier to store, as well as to use. Some are based upon chemicals that also have benign industrial or agricultural uses, making weapons production harder to detect. Each new chemical weapon carries the risk, moreover, that there will be no known antidote to the weapon.
The impact of modern technology on biological weapons has just begun, and we frankly do not know where, how far or how fast it will go. Will genetic engineering enable countries or terrorist groups to covertly develop new, drug-resistant strains of known diseases, or even create new ones? Will new manufacturing processes enable these programs to weaponize pathogens or toxins that have previously been too unstable or too fragile to use? Will biological weapon "cocktails" - mixing pathogens to increase their lethality - move from concept to reality? The evolution and application of science and technology in these areas will pose a continuing challenge to civilized society for a long time to come.
The impact of modern technology on nuclear weapons proliferation is more subtle. The complexity of thermonuclear weapons, especially those small enough to be used in multiple-warhead missiles, makes the "bomb in the basement" scenario much more unlikely than other scenarios that we are likely to face.
One reason the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was precisely to impede the development of sophisticated nuclear weapons by new entrants to the nuclear "club." I believe that the Senate rejection of this treaty was a tragic mistake. I still believe that, with full debate and a chance to adopt amendments to the resolution of ratification to address members' concerns, the Senate will give its advice and consent to ratification of CTBT before too many years pass.
The real impact of high technology is on the ability to maintain nuclear weapons without nuclear testing. While the ultimate success of our stockpile stewardship program cannot be guaranteed, we are far ahead of other countries in this regard. So we wrestle with the military and non-proliferation implications of requests, from Russia to India, for our supercomputers to increase their ability to do without nuclear testing. Today's students in the School of Foreign Service will have to address issues of this sort when they become advisers to future Secretaries of State and Secretaries of Defense, as you will.
The diffusion of technology poses as many proliferation challenges as does the technology itself. A country seeking weapons of mass destruction can now buy precursor chemicals, specialty steels, reactor vessels, or even dangerous pathogens from entities in a dozen or more countries, not all of them Western. Deals can be struck with funds wired through global chains of shell companies. Electronic transactions can be massively encrypted using algorithms available on the Internet.
Your Professor Dorothy Denning knows all about that. She has battled ably with Silicon Valley industrialists who see any law enforcement or national security encryption "key" as a threat to their survival in the global marketplace. So has the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law allows the Bureau to wiretap a person with a judicial warrant, after showing probable cause that the wiretap will produce information regarding the commission of certain serious crimes. With modern digital communications and encryption techniques, however, the Bureau may get a warrant, only to discover that it simply cannot read the communication. The FBI went to U.S. companies and proposed not that it be given the key to their digital communications and encryption, but that they agree to provide that information when a proper judicial warrant has been granted. But not one of the U.S. companies would accept that.
Alas, they may be right. Few companies today are shielded from vicious competition. Few products remain exclusive for long. In a world where free software makes economic sense, few barriers remain to the rapid spread of new ideas. If U.S. companies agree to cooperate when the Government obtains a judicial warrant, some foreign company may announce that it will not provide such access to law enforcement - and it may therefore get increased market share at the expense of U.S. firms.
Few people comprehend, moreover, to what extent the common good may be at stake. They have yet to internalize the fact that we could be talking about protecting ourselves from things like acts of biological terrorism.
Yet those same companies must now be our salvation. As former Assistant Secretary of Defense Ash Carter recently wrote in the journal Survival:
"In the Cold War, new technologies of importance to defence usually arose from research conducted under DoD sponsorship within defence companies, think-tanks and universities located in the US. Today, new defence systems tend to arise when defence companies embed commercially developed technology into weapons. This transplantation of the roots of the nation's defence from one soil under its direction and control to another governed by profit-making in the civil marketplace has profound policy implications."
Government laboratories may still dominate the nuclear weapons field, although only with the crucial help of foreign scientists (and of outside contractors to develop the next generation of supercomputers). But to satisfy other national security needs - from intelligence systems to new materials, better rocket engines and information warfare techniques or defenses - we now must "adopt and adapt" innovations created by and for the civilian economy, not the Defense Department.
Stemming proliferation was always a Herculean task. In tomorrow's world, the intellectual challenges will be as great as the challenges to our vigor and determination.
Our non-proliferation efforts have been wonderful in their doggedness and their breadth. (Isaiah Berlin wrote of hedgehogs and foxes. We have been very successful hedgehogs.) We have negotiated treaties. We have created great lists of exports to control. We have monitored countless communications and taken pictures of untold industrial plants.
In the 21st century, however, we must be more daring and we must live with more risk. In a world overwhelmed by volumes of information, we must learn to select. Rather than trying (like old Stalinists) to control everything, we must focus on keeping critical goods and technologies away from the criminal states and groups in the world.
Rather than swinging our swords at the waves of invention, like Ireland's King Cuchulain trying to turn the tide, we must learn to surf and ride those waves, dangerous as they may be.
What does that mean in practice? Frankly, I'm not yet sure myself. In case you students hadn't guessed, my generation doesn't have all the answers. (I know that comes as a shock to you.)
But think of the power of modern supercomputers. The routes to weapons of mass destruction are many, but they are finite. The potential suppliers are also many, but they are finite, also. Controlling all transfers to countries of concern may be beyond our means. But shouldn't we be able to track those transfers using supercomputers, speedily detecting suspicious sales that warrant intervention?
Business firms object to the delays that export controls build into their contracting, and they have a point. But they could help design electronic filing and analysis systems to speed up the process. Companies could also contribute their scientific and daily business knowledge to the task of tracking and analysis. Nobody wants their sales to lead to Saddam Hussein having nuclear weapons or to some terrorist starting a plague.
Government must enlist the active help of business - perhaps in return for an easing of export licensing requirements. It must explain to firms precisely why their help is needed; business can be as narrow-minded as government, and we cannot assume that every executive knows how countries go about covertly developing weapons of mass destruction. The United States and its allies must also enlist foreign companies in this effort. The Australia Group does a good job of guarding against sales that could help countries of concern build chemical or biological weapons, but the active help of companies around the world would open new options for controlling or disrupting a covert weapons program.
We in the Congress are just beginning to cope with the modern face of proliferation, but we have at least supported efforts to build non-proliferation data bases for the Defense Department and other agencies. Last year, as proposed by the Deutch Commission on combating proliferation, we also enacted legislation to eventually require electronic filing of Shippers' Export Declarations. This will enable federal agencies to search for suspicious procurement patterns before the goods have been delivered.
Congress and the executive branch need to take a further step, however, and that is to act more like venture capitalists. We get good ideas, but are afraid to risk our money on them. Venture capitalists know that undercapitalization is a sure route to failure. You need to study before you invest, and you need to be willing to pull out when an investment goes sour. But to get real gains, you also must be willing to take risks.
Look at our programs to help Russia destroy its excess weapons, protect its nuclear material and chemical weapons, and find civilian jobs for up to 100,000 or more weapons experts who have been, or will soon be, let go by its bloated weapons complex. The Nunn-Lugar portion to destroy weapons pursuant to the START treaties is reasonably well funded. But scores of useful projects in our other non-proliferation assistance programs are unfunded today.
Despite the tensions in recent U.S.-Russian relations, the window of opportunity to help them prevent proliferation remains open. But none of us knows how long it will stay that way. This is no time for excessive caution, while criminal countries and groups offer enticing contracts to Russian scientists.
Can we become successful risk-takers? Let us not give up hope. The Marshall Plan was truly daring, it was properly funded, and it certainly was a great success. Of course, it was also first fleshed out, and then run, by a business executive and the son of a robber baron. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned there.
The executive branch has proposed increases in those Russian programs - although they still do not meet the need, and Congress has been slow to give even the modest amounts that have been requested.
Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, has taken a look at one underfunded program, the Nuclear Cities Initiative. Last month, he said:
"The current program scope, progress, and funding are not consistent with the scale of the threats to us....
"I'm now drafting legislation...to address these concerns with the Russian complex. My goal will be to substantially increase the funding and scope of the [Nuclear Cities Initiative] to assist the Russian Federation in downsizing its military nuclear complex, to authorize a variety of mechanisms in addition to commercialization, and to measure its progress against realistic and transparent milestones."
Now, there is some daring and creativity. Senator Domenici is also working with U.S. and Russian officials to bring them on board and to make sure his plan is workable. His plan isn't off the ground yet, but it's on the runway!
If we are to meet the challenges of weapons proliferation, and to manage high technology in the 21st century, we need more cross-cutting cooperation and more Senator Pete Domenicis on the other side of the aisle who are willing to engage in that sort of daring.
In the coming decades, your generation will bring to U.S. decision-making much more experience and comfort with modern technology. Until then, you and your Silicon Valley peers must do all you can to help us to be daring and successful. For, at least in the area of non-proliferation, we have no time to waste.
It will really fall to you. Those of you who go on to pursue careers in foreign affairs and the Foreign Service will, I predict, be more engaged in these sorts of technological issues than any generation that has preceded you.
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"U.S. - Russia Relations and the Future of Arms Control"
It is a pleasure once again to speak to members of the Council, which since its founding nearly eighty years ago has been the crucible for some of this country's most creative thinking on foreign policy.
We meet at a time in American foreign policy when we will need a great deal of creativity in our thinking and in our decision making. Whether it is in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or Europe, key elements of our foreign policy are in play.
You know the hot spots as well as I. Decisions have to be made - and carried out - even in the dwindling days of this Administration. We do not have the luxury of deciding which crises to respond to, and when.
Tonight I would like to focus on one key aspect of our foreign policy: our relations with Russia, and in particular, the choices we face right now on arms control.
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin was overwhelmingly elected President of the Russian Federation. I will not try to predict exactly where Putin will take his country. I am not smart enough. And it's my guess that no one in the West has a firm grasp of the policies of a man who has made an art form of concealing his intentions.
Putin is an enigma. He is ex-KGB, with ties to Yeltsin and the oligarchs; but he also worked for a reformist mayor of St. Petersburg. He calls for law and order, but also for reform. He is a technocrat, but also a nationalist. He is no Communist, but he appears not to be a democrat either. He had no real election platform; so we, like the Russians, project our hopes and fears on him.
I have not had the chance to take the full measure of the man, but I suspect Putin will be willing to deal with the United States on issues vital to us, while asserting Russian interests in other areas, and stifling political freedoms at home.
Mr. Putin appears more reformist than Boris Yeltsin in economic policy.
But I believe we will also see more support for Russia's military-industrial complex; more centralized control over Russia's regions; more restrictions on civil and political liberties, and a renewed insistence that Moscow be treated as a great power, particularly when it comes to relations with the countries on its borders. But the truth is: we don't know.
What we do know is: No other country will "win" or "lose" Russia. Russia alone will determine its ultimate destiny; Russia under Putin will continue to be a major influence on the world and a major focus of U.S. foreign policy; and The United States, to pursue its national interest, must continue to engage Russia, no matter who its leader is.
What are our national interests? I see three: making the world a safer place, through non-proliferation and arms control; making Eurasia a safer place, by defining Russia's rightful role in world and regional affairs; and making Russia a safer and more prosperous place, by encouraging and assisting its transition to fuller democracy and a true market economy.
All of those interests are important, and inter-connected. But this evening I would like to concentrate on the one I think I know best: our national interest in non-proliferation and arms control.
Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. He replied, "because that's where the money is." It's the same with arms control and nonproliferation.
Are you concerned about the risk - smaller than it used to be - of total annihilation in a nuclear war? Russia is the only country that can do that to us.
Are you concerned that a terrorist or rogue state will seek to buy its own nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or the technology or equipment for long-range missiles with which to deliver those weapons? Russia is one big supermarket for all those things.
Of course we are already doing something to combat proliferation from the former Soviet Union. We help Russia to destroy weapons pursuant to the START treaty. We help it to protect sensitive nuclear materials, as well as its horrendous store of chemical weapons - an admitted 40,000 metric tons.
We help find new employment for experts from Russia's bloated weapons complex, to minimize their temptation to accept contracts or job offers from Iran, Iraq, or Libya. We help train and equip Russian export control personnel, to stop proliferation in their factories and at the border.
But these programs are just a drop in the bucket. The Administration knows that. Last year it called for a 40 percent increase through its Expanded Threat Reduction Program. The experts know that. There are studies in the works that will soon call for tripling the size of our effort.
But the current majority in Congress doesn't get it. When the Administration tried to double the Nuclear Cities Initiative last year, Congress cut it in half.
Russia has started to downsize its nuclear weapons complex: They plan to end nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly at 2 of their 4 warhead production facilities; to stop work at 1 of their 2 fissile component production facilities; and to convert or shut down 3 fissile material production reactors.
In the next five years, they will cut 35,000 nuclear weapons personnel. They are defining the means for us to help them speed up their downsizing, working with such people as former Los Alamos director Sig Hecker and former ACDA director Ron Lehman.
But the window for that assistance may not stay open. Their willingness to let us help close down their weapons plants could dissipate. Some Russians even see Iran as an ally, to be assisted in its nuclear and missile programs.
Before that window closes, and before the window for cooperation with Iran opens wider, we - the Administration, the Congress, and you who influence us - need to decide to devote truly significant funds to programs that help Russia to avoid or crack down on proliferation.
In return for an offer of significant, long-term funding, we should get Russia to provide transparency into its activities and to cease activities that contribute to proliferation - especially in Iran.
There is one more piece, of course. In addition to reducing Russia's weapons of mass destruction complex, we need to further reduce Russia's strategic nuclear weapons.
Economics will force Russia to go below START One levels. But only arms control will give us verification. Only arms control will give us transparency regarding the warheads for all those missiles. Only arms control will implement the START Two ban on MIRVed ICBM's, the most destabilizing weapons in modern nuclear forces.
So we need a new push for a START Three agreement - real negotiations, not just the "discussions" of the last several months. But there is one big roadblock in the way: our proposed, limited national missile defense. We may decide we need such a defense against the threat of North Korean, Iranian, and/or Iraqi missiles.
But surely we don't need a new arms race with Russia. Surely we don't need an end to the START process, or Russian retention of MIRVed ICBM's.
Surely we don't need a missile defense that results in an unholy alliance of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, to spread nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
At present, I am agnostic on this issue. I am not yet convinced that missile defense makes sense, given the ease with which a country could use other means of delivering weapons of mass destruction - and given the costs and limitations of the missile defense currently proposed.
If we do need such a system, I would rather we developed ascent-phase interceptors that could be located near the countries that pose the threat. These would pose less of a threat to Russia or China's deterrent capabilities, and thus be less likely to spark a new arms race.
Such a system would also be more effective against countermeasures that could defeat the current proposed system. In any case, it is crystal clear that any missile defense system we deploy should be in compliance with a modified ABM Treaty. We should not walk away from that Treaty.
Getting an agreement with Russia to modify the ABM Treaty won't be easy.
Russia may be waiting for us to show we are serious - by making a deployment decision, and perhaps by announcing our intention to withdraw from the Treaty.
We, in turn, are postponing those decisions for technical reasons. There is no point in deploying a system that won't work, and the test schedule for this system is already absurdly tight - as retired General Larry Welch and the head of operational testing and evaluation at the Pentagon have made clear.
But there are other problems if President Clinton waits until fall to make a deployment decision and "show Russia he's serious." We could find ourselves in a dangerous game of "chicken." By that time, the American people could elect a successor - Governor Bush - who is committed to a missile defense whether Russia likes it or not.
At that point, it may be too late to agree on a limited missile defense. Instead, America may be pursuing the old "star wars" dream, while Russia tries to resurrect its strategic forces in all their MIRVed glory.
So where does that leave us for the next several months? I am tempted to say, between a rock and a hard place, but let me be more diplomatic. We are between two bookends: yesterday's election in Russia, and our own.
The bookends need not be a barrier to creative diplomacy. The Administration still has time to reach agreement with Russia on ABM Treaty modifications and a START Three treaty.
We can achieve this. Russia knows that Third World ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons threaten it, as well as us. Rather than stick to an unrealistic schedule, we should delay any decision on national missile defense for a year.
That will give us time to convince Russia that its interests lie in a modified ABM Treaty, not one tossed on the scrapheap.
It will also ease the unrealistic test and development schedule for a missile defense. It will give us more time to investigate other options. It will give us more time to remove the immediate threat through our ongoing negotiations with North Korea. It will give us time to consult more fully with our European allies, who are clearly nervous about our policy, and It will give us more time to consult China, which might react foolishly to even a limited defense deployed under a modified treaty, thus kicking off new arms races with India and Russia.
I am not naive enough to predict that we will succeed in this approach. But we have to try, and try harder than we have so far: our decisions in the coming few months will set our strategic posture for years to come.
We should view those decisions in the context of our overall foreign policy. At this point in our history, Russia is the key relationship for our national security and foreign policy. What is the best way to encourage Russia to remain peaceful, and become a democracy?
I don't think the answer is to start a new arms race. I believe the best way is to engage Russia: in arms control negotiations, in mutually beneficial foreign policy efforts, and by increasing the scope of educational and cultural exchanges.
Even as we engage Russia, we stay true to our values, and criticize any repressive behavior of the Putin regime, and we should increase American assistance to democratic and free-market forces working for a more open Russia.
But let's keep our eye on the ball: managing our strategic relationship with Russia remains America's most urgent task. Thank you.
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"Strategic Policy and the Future of Arms Control"
We are two weeks away from the new millennium. More significantly, we are a couple of weeks from an election year -- when the great issues that define the direction of our country should take center stage.
Of those great issues, the most significant involves the shape and direction of American foreign and strategic policy. Should the United States remain actively engaged in the world, promoting multilateral arrangements in the military, economic and political spheres? Or should it rely on our overwhelming military and economic power to assure our future, and reduce our reliance on military alliances and trade partnerships?
I believe the choice is clear, but the outcome uncertain. The world is simply too complex for America to withdraw. We may be the world's sole superpower, but we lack the power to impose our will on all others.
In the military sphere, our power is clearly unmatched. Notwithstanding our predominance, however, Russia could still destroy our society in a nuclear war; China could inflict awful damage; and lesser powers like North Korea or Iraq could embroil our forces in full-scale war. For two generations, the United States has successfully used nuclear deterrence, formal alliances like NATO, and coalitions of willing states to keep the peace and, when necessary, to restore world order.
In the economic sphere, we are by far the world's strongest economy. As we found with the "Asian flu," however, our economic well-being is tied to the fortunes of smaller economies from Mexico to the Far East. We have successfully used both regional and world-wide trade agreements, as well as international financial institutions, to maintain a stable world economy and to advance our interests.
These "entangling alliances" have been the subject of American debate since George Washington warned of them over two centuries ago. Today, that debate is still with us -- in the streets of Seattle and in the halls of Congress.
I want to focus today on one important aspect of that debate: whether the United States should turn away from the strategic doctrine that has formed the basis for our arms control and non-proliferation policies over the last generation. I submit that, although the Cold War has ended, both the doctrine of deterrence and the pursuit of international agreements to maintain strategic stability are vital to continued American security.
MY STRATEGIC DOCTRINE
Let me sketch for you my own strategic doctrine, which is rooted in the events I have observed in my 25 years as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This doctrine proceeds from our basic national interest in preserving world stability.
We also stand for democracy, human rights and open markets. We take the lead in countering terrorism and narcotics trafficking. And we work to reduce environmental degradation. But regional and world stability furthers those goals, and is often a prerequisite to achieving them.
I believe that the lynchpin of our strategic policy must continue to be deterrence, as it has been for decades. Our enemies must be confident that we will destroy them if attacked. Our allies must be confident that we will defend them as well, and also that we will not drag them into unnecessary wars.
Although the Cold War is over, the U.S.-Russian relationship remains our central strategic interest. This is based on Russia's strategic military strength, its ability to affect its neighbors on two continents, and its potential to recover much of its former economic and conventional military might. The challenge is to help a weakened Russia find its legitimate place in the world, reduce its stock of nuclear weapons, decrease its need to keep those weapons on hair-trigger alert, and lessen the risk of its spreading weapons of mass destruction.
The strategic arms agenda that we must pursue with Russia is clear: lower strategic force levels, greater transparency, and the safe removal and neutralization of excess nuclear weapons. We should consider repackaging START Two with START Three. We should also propose lower force levels than the 2,000-2,500 warheads agreed to at the Helsinki summit two years ago.
A similar strategy can be applied to our relationship with China. As China's power increases, the world must accord it both respect and a constructive role on security issues. China, in turn, must accept its own stake in, and responsibility for, regional and world stability -- even on the sensitive issue of the future of Taiwan.
Our strategic agenda with China must promote their further acceptance and enforcement of non-proliferation norms, across the board: nuclear, missile, chemical and biological. China has come a long way from the days in which it favored nuclear weapons for all. If we show persistence, firmness and sensitivity in our dealings with China, we can keep it on a responsible path, in Asia and in the world.
That leaves the threat from so-called "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Thoughtful conservatives like Henry Kissinger admit that they accepted the need to base U.S. strategic doctrine on deterrence during the Cold War. They say that they no longer trust deterrence to ensure our security, however, because the countries to be deterred are irrational Third World states, rather than the Soviet Union or China. Conservatives propose that we rely instead upon our own defensive might and build ballistic missile defenses, at least to guard against Third-World missiles.
In my view, those conservatives are misreading history. We must not demonize our enemies. For all the talk of "irrational" leaders in Iran, Iraq and North Korea, those regimes have responded rationally when pressure was backed up by the determination and the capacity to use world-wide economic sanctions or military force.
THE STAKES FOR ARMS CONTROL
The debate between those who understand the continuing relevance of deterrence and those who would cast it aside has had a debilitating impact upon strategic policy and arms control.
The Clinton Administration came into office in 1993 and won several significant achievements in the area of strategic arms control and non-proliferation in the four years that followed: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely; the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed; and the Senate approved U.S. ratification of both START Two and the Chemical Weapons Convention. But that's about as far as we got. The Russian Duma has not ratified Start Two -- which would reduce strategic warheads by half and eliminate MIRVed ICBMs -- and I will be truly surprised if it does so this week, although that's the latest Moscow rumor.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to abrogate the ABM Treaty, even if that causes a collapse of the START process. Congress also cut back the Nuclear Cities Initiative, which combats proliferation by helping Russian nuclear weapons experts to find new careers. And of course, you know the fate of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. That, in turn, casts a shadow on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1995, we used the promise of that test-ban to convince non-nuclear weapons states to agree to an indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now we are failing to keep our end of that bargain.
That vote two months ago today -- rejecting the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty on a nearly party-line vote, after a straight party-line vote on procedure -- was a watershed event. It has become, for the moment, the defining political reality for U.S. foreign policy.
Many arguments were made against the Test-Ban Treaty, and I can respond to those arguments in whatever detail you might wish. My point today, however, is that the Treaty's defeat signals the collapse of the bipartisan consensus that once existed on our basic strategic doctrine.
We must rebuild that consensus.
One of the most telling moments in the Test-Ban debate was when Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona responded to the concerns raised by three of our closest allies: Great Britain, France and Germany. Senator Kyl said: "I, frankly, don't care much if people around the world who don't want the United States to defend itself against ballistic missile attack are going to criticize the Senate for rejecting... CTBT." Senator Kyl was not merely tying the Test-Ban issue to that of a national missile defense, as did other treaty opponents. He was also expressing their impatience at having to maintain what Thomas Jefferson so eloquently termed "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind."
That conservative impatience is part of a disturbing pattern. Call it isolationism, call it unilateralism, call it whatever you want. But it must be recognized for what it is: a turning away from the doctrine of deterrence and arms control that has maintained our security and guided our relations with friend and foe alike since the 1960s.
Continued reliance upon deterrence does not require a rejection of all defenses. Indeed, we must develop effective theater missile defenses to protect American and allied troops overseas.
But it is folly to base our strategic posture on the idea that we can develop effective defenses against all the diverse threats we face today. We must analyze proposed defenses in light of their impact not only upon our ability to deter "rogue states," but also on our mutual deterrence relationships with Russia and, to some degree, China, as well as the concerns of our allies who rely upon our nuclear umbrella. We must also consider the impact that missile defense would have on nuclear proliferation.
It is in this regard that the Republican crusade for national missile defense ignores critical realities: the reality that every step we take to construct a missile shield will affect the strategic posture of our adversaries and allies; the reality that no affordable missile shield will protect us from short-range missiles, a bomb in a boat, or chemicals in a truck; the reality that a missile shield may only prompt Russia, China, and even rogue states to respond with countermeasures and more warheads.
I see no sign that the theologians of the right who demand immediate deployment of a national missile defense have thought through the implications of these realities.
What would a realistic defense against Third-World missiles look like? I favor a multi-pronged approach:
maintaining our deterrent posture;
● working to remove the missile threat by pressing negotiations like those now ongoing with North Korea;
● continuing to strengthen existing non-proliferation regimes;
● maintaining the international consensus necessary to impose multilateral sanctions upon rogue states; and
● improving our ability to take out the missiles, if necessary.
If we must add a national missile defense to that mix, I recommend the proposal of your senior fellow, Dr. Richard Garwin, for a land-based (or sea-based) boost-phase missile defense, built in cooperation with Russia to stop only rogue-state missiles.
REBUILDING A CONSENSUS
As you well know, the challenges of strategic policy are complex. The political reality is equally problematic - the views that I just outlined may have been the mainstream view 10 years ago, but they are not the views of those Republicans who control the Senate today, or of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
One lesson I draw from the Test-Ban Treaty debate is the need to reach out to Republicans early. But of course, it's a two way street. Both sides must engage in a dialogue on strategic arms policy.
In the months to come, Democrats will rebuild the public record in support of Test-Ban ratification. We will also reach out to Republican senators who will consider eventually supporting ratification after adding sensible conditions to a resolution of ratification. Senators Levin, Lieberman, Moynihan and I, among others, are already trying to promote such a serious dialogue.
Finding consensus will not be easy. Both common sense and the national interest require, however, that we find areas of common ground, rather than forging a U.S. policy in the executive branch that Congress simply rejects.
A related task will be to articulate clearly and directly to the American people, who are largely supportive on these issues, how arms control and continued world engagement serve our national interest and their own interests. The case for arms control is there to be made, and you don't have to be a nuclear weapons scientist to understand it.
In summary, a strategic doctrine of deterrence, arms control, and multilateral engagement remains both valid and vital in the post-Cold War world. By contrast, a doctrine based upon the illusory goal of unilateral defense would put American leadership and security at risk.
The challenges of strategic arms policy and arms control are a fitting topic for political debate. We in Washington need your help, however -- to keep that debate rational, and to keep our national security from becoming one more political football in Campaign 2000.
Your sponsorship of this lecture series may focus America's attention on the real foreign policy issues, rather than the artificial ones that are sometimes created in Washington. I wish you every success in this important effort.
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"The Legacy of the Velvet Revolution: Democracy, Independence and Peace in Central Europe"
I want to thank the National Endowment for Democracy -- especially its Chairman, my old friend John Brademas, and its president Carl Gershman -- for sponsoring this timely, important, and unique event, of which I am proud to be one of the Congressional Co-Sponsors.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret that the press of my Senate duties made it impossible for me to hear the distinguished members of this panel earlier this afternoon.
I apologize if some of the themes I will briefly touch on have already been discussed.
Here in the Senate we meet on a fairly regular basis to commemorate anniversaries. Unfortunately, these meetings usually remember highly unpleasant -- often even horrific events.
Today, however, we are here to commemorate the tenth anniversary of a truly great and uplifting event -- the "Velvet Revolution" in which the citizens of the old Czechoslovakia threw off the shackles of four decades of totalitarian communist rule.
And what a difference a decade makes! Today -- as all of us know -- both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are well on the way to full re-integration with the West.
The Czech Republic, of course, is now a member of NATO and is attempting to meet the criteria for EU membership.
Slovakia, after losing several valuable years under the previous regime, voted in 1998 for genuine democracy. Last week the EU essentially removed the distinction between first-wave and other candidates, and Slovakia now seems poised for serious consideration for membership in both NATO and the EU.
On January 1, 1993 the two countries went their own separate ways. This separation -- like the 1989 revolution -- also had a "velvet" character.
Unlike the terrible wars that accompanied the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and the violence that still racks several of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, the Czech-Slovak divorce was an amicable one. Human nature being what it is, that was no small achievement.
All this is the good news. You're both free; you're both democracies.
Now, my Czech and Slovak friends, your real challenges begin! You have to grapple with the usual, day-to-day democratic problems of coping as we enter a new millennium: raising the standard of living of the citizenry; ensuring law and order with equal justice for all; assuring adequate health care; maintaining high quality education; and hundreds of other basic requirements.
These are the issues I deal with for a living, so I know how complicated and difficult they are.
Nonetheless, as a friend of the Czech Republic and of Slovakia, I would like to take the liberty of expressing to you my concern about a few particularly troublesome issues, which, if allowed to remain unsolved, could seriously disrupt civic life and also jeopardize the excellent relations with the United States.
One is guaranteeing full civil and cultural rights to all of your citizens as delineated in several documents of the Helsinki process, to which your governments are signatories.
This is an issue that is especially vexing with regard to the Roma in both countries, and in a completely different way is a challenge with regard to ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia.
I do not underestimate the complexity of this issue. The United States itself is an ongoing experiment in multi-culturalism. It has taken us more than a century to legally empower our minorities, and large economic disparities still persist. Our significant progress has shown that a strong governmental commitment is absolutely essential for creating a climate hospitable to racial, ethnic, and religious diversity.
But, ladies and gentlemen, for any country to move forward in the European mainstream, it must completely eradicate anti-democratic remnants -- from skinhead attacks to walls separating communities.
This fundamental point was underscored in last week's EU progress report on candidates for membership.
Moreover, there are examples in Europe itself -- like Finland, Spain, and Bulgaria -- where ancient ethnic and linguistic feuds have been overcome as a result of enlightened government policy. It can be done.
Organized crime is a second cancer eating away at the democratic fabric in both of your countries. We in the United States unfortunately know a bit about this problem too.
A third challenge concerns one of the worst legacies of communist misrule: widespread environmental pollution and safety threats for the future.
You all know of the apprehension that several of your neighbors have about your nuclear power plants near their borders. I have no magical instant solution, but one thing is certain: cooperation in these matters beats confrontation.
A fourth set of challenges also flows directly from the forty years of communist tyranny. How can the new Czech Republic and the new Slovakia come to terms with their pasts and at the same time not fall into the old repression of individual rights through willful misuse of personnel files?
And then there is the question of expropriated property, some of it formerly owned by citizens of this country.
The legal tangle, which in some cases goes back to the World War Two Nazi occupation with its protectorate in the Czech lands and fascist puppet government in Slovakia, is formidable. But, again, in order to move forward, the slate must be wiped clean.
Now a final word on broader issues. I believe it is still premature to forecast what the shape of Europe in the twenty-first century will be.
The successful introduction of the euro by the European Union, the growing body of European Community law, the accretion of competencies by the EU Parliament, the ambitious plans for a common foreign and security policy -- even for a European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) within NATO -- all indicate that the European Union is on the way toward assuming increased political and economic power from its member-states.
On the other hand, the EU has been careful to support the flowering of the languages and cultures of individual countries -- even of regions and localities.
Moreover, economic development has to a great extent assumed a cross-border, regional character in several areas of Western Europe.
In fact, a similar process has begun in Central Europe. The triangle made up of southwestern Poland, the northern part of the Czech Republic, and the German federal state of Saxony already comprises just such an informal economic unit.
It may be that southwestern Slovakia, northeastern Austria, and northwestern Hungary will soon coalesce economically in the same fashion.
In any event, in spite of the ambitious European Union, blossoming regional economies, and vibrant local cultures, I do not foresee the demise of the nation-state in Europe in the near future, if ever. Old loyalties simple run too deep.
Whatever the geographical framework, one thing gives me hope that Europe in the twenty-first century will be a much better continent than it was for much of the blood-stained twentieth-century. That is democracy.
Democracy is the glue that can bind together diverse elements in society.
Democracy is the catalyst than can make the whole of society greater than the sum of its parts.
Democracy is the best secular vehicle for every citizen to realize his or her God-given potential.
And the spread of democracy is the best guarantee that Europe will not relapse into self-destructive violence and war.
The Czech and Slovak peoples have demonstrated that they appreciate the potential of democracy.
I am particularly proud that the United States of America is aiding the Czech Republic and Slovakia in fulfilling democracy's promise.
Thank you for including me in this happy event.
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Address to New Hampshire Supreme Court
Today marks the anniversary of an extraordinary event, the 212th anniversary of the birth of the Constitution of the United States. On September 17, 1787, the Constitutional Convention, its work complete, rose and submitted the Constitution to the thirteen states for ratification. Bringing together thirteen different states with diverse cultures and established governments -- some of these harking back a hundred years -- did not come easy. In 1775, at the time of the Continental Congress, John Adams, writing to his wife, Abigail, described: "'[f]ifty gentlemen meeting together all strangers . . . not acquainted with each other's language, ideas, views, designs. They are therefore jealous of each other -- fearful, timid, skittish."
The men who attended that Constitutional Convention knew, even then, that they had begun the greatest political experiment in human history, producing a document that would become an engine of change throughout the world. According to James Madison's account, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania stated that:
He came here as a Representative of America; he flattered himself he came here in some degree as a Representative of the whole human race; for the whole human race will be affected by the proceedings of this Convention.
"This Country," Governor Morris continued,
must be united. If persuasion does not unite it, the sword will. . . . The scenes of horror attending civil commotion can not be described . . . . The stronger party will then make [traitors] of the weaker; and the Gallows & Halter will finish the work of the sword.
The Framers, in their vision and wisdom, did unite the country, fashioning a government that was both federal -- that is, comprised of sovereign states -- and, at the same time, truly national in power. The Framers respected and sustained the essential role of the states. But, at the same time, the Framers made national law supreme, a principle enshrined in the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, and created a government empowered to bind both the states and individuals, powers denied the government under the Articles of Confederation.
The Constitution also established a vigorous and independent presidency -- what Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers called "energy in the executive" -- by freeing the Chief Executive from selection by the legislature and granting the President real and meaningful powers. As early as McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall in 1819 recognized the "great powers" the national government possessed:
to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to declare and conduct a war; and to raise and support armies and navies. The sword and the purse, all the external relations, and no inconsiderable portion of the industry of the nation, are entrusted to its government.
And, on this 212th anniversary of the crafting of the Constitution -- a day and age now marked by national malaise about and distrust of our government and its institutions -- it is only fitting to reflect on how right Governor Morris was about how the Framers' creation has transformed -- and transfixed -- the human race. Under this Constitution, we settled a vast continent -- from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts; we mobilized millions of men to unite the nation and end slavery, fulfilling the promise of the Constitution; we ascended, like the mythical phoenix, from the ashes of the Great Depression; we turned back despotism and preserved a free Europe in two World Wars; we won the Cold War; and we now enjoy economic and military power unrivaled across the globe and unmatched in the history of the world. No small achievements, these.
These achievements make us the envy of the world. Just last week, I returned from a trip to six European countries, including Kosovo, and I met with six Presidents. The President of Bulgaria said to me:
I know of no other country that has risked the lives of its young men and women and would spend $15 billion dollars on behalf of a place in which it has no economic interest, no strategic interest, and no territorial interest -- only an interest in defending human rights.
Could we have achieved these successes without vigorous presidential leadership? We owe our position in the world to the choices made by the Framers at the Constitutional Convention. Imagine accomplishing what we have in the two centuries of our brief history without a strong federal government and a strong president.
More than our achievements, though, it is our public institutions that other nations seek to imitate. In every place I traveled around the world last month, every one of those six foreign Presidents talked about how they wanted to mimic American governmental institutions -- our Congress, our President, our courts. They do not talk about our resources; they do not talk about the American people themselves; they talk about our institutions. It is these public institutions -- not a common ethnicity or religion, which, of course, we do not share -- that acts as the glue that binds this country together.
But although other nations clamor to model their institutions after ours, our own public discourse reflects a deep and abiding angst about and suspicion of our government. Last November, only 38 percent of Americans voted, a 50-year low that ranks the United States at or near the bottom of the world's democracies in voter participation. As of 1995, voter turnout in 14 European countries, by contrast, was above 70 percent.
And take Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's recent book, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate, which New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently nicknamed "All the Presidents Stink." Woodward's book puts between two covers a cynicism about government that you can purchase for fifty cents by picking up a daily newspaper, and for less than that by turning on your television. A style of attack and scandal journalism toward public officials dominates the news media -- and studies by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dean of the Annenburg School of Communication and her colleague Joseph Cappella, have shown that cynical coverage breeds cynical voter reactions.
It produces the kinds of expectations what were well captured by Marvin Lucas, a 59-year-old custodial supervisor at a college in Milledgeville, Georgia. Responding to a Washington Post-Kaiser Foundation interviewer, Mr. Lucas said "I compare politicians with used car salesmen: say one thing, do another."
And the "other thing" that politicians do, of course, is to feather their own nests and the nests of special interest groups that support their reelection campaigns. That is the dominant opinion people have of American elected officials. If that is your starting point, it is no wonder that in 1994, 56 percent of Americans thought that government did more to hinder their family's achieving the American dream than to help them achieve it, while only 31 percent thought that government helped them. (The numbers had improved by 1997, but were still negative -- 47 percent to 38 percent).
Heaven knows that politicians are far from perfect, and our own missteps and, yes, deceptions, contribute to the country's cynical attitude. Some historians trace the contemporary decline in faith in government to Lyndon Johnson's 1964 Presidential campaign, where he pledged that "no American boy will fight a foreign war on a foreign soil if I'm elected President." Within a year of that statement, Johnson had ordered massive increases in draft calls and the military build-up for the Vietnam War. Then Watergate cut right to the heart of our faith in elected officials.
And today, highly negative campaigning has become an art form, as each candidate tries to tag his opponent with being an insider, or else being a corrupt person who just hasn't had the chance to be corrupt on the inside yet. When Majority Leader George Mitchell was retiring from the Senate, he remarked to Jim Lehrer on the News Hour that so long as campaigns consist of one candidate calling his opponent a crook and the other calling his opponent a scoundrel, is it any wonder that Americans believe that Congress is filled with crooks and scoundrels?
So I don't want to understate the complexity of the sources of contemporary cynicism and distrust toward elected officials. What worries me, though, is that this cynicism and distrust is way out of proportion to the actual accomplishments of the federal government, and way out of proportion to the sincerity and honesty with which my colleagues conduct themselves every day in doing the country's business.
This public cynicism is not the only current raging in American politics today, however. There is a movement among intellectuals, historians, and political scientists to shift the locus of political power, or to "devolve power," from the national government to the states. George Will, one of the champions of this "devolution of power" movement, explained its premise as follows:
[I]t is unwholesome that Washington, like Caesar, has grown so great. Power should flow back to where it came from and belongs, back to the people and their state governments, back to state capitals . . . .
This is nothing less than a fight for the heart and soul of America. This is a fight about power. And it is a fight about who will be left in charge.
In my view, the value of devolution of power from the national government to the states can be overstated. Certainly the abuse of power, whenever it occurs, must be checked. The federal government admittedly does tend to grab power for itself without due regard for whether its goals can better be achieved at the local level. But the state and local governments, in contrast, tend toward parochialism without due regard for the national interest. Thus, devolution of power is not per se a good thing. At whatever level of government, it all depends how that power is used.
It cannot be that the Framers intended to hamstring the federal government in favor of the states. If that was their intent, why abandon the Articles of Confederation? And just try to imagine the United States attaining its successes to date without a strong national government and a vigorous President. To go one step further -- imagine how difficult it will be to fortify our position in the world in the 21st century without a powerful central government.
The current cynicism about our public institutions, it seems to me, is also beginning to gain a foothold in the constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court, and that is also of concern to me, and is something I would like to spend the next few minutes discussing with you. Now first I want to say that today's Supreme Court is the best-informed, hardest working Court we have ever had. In particular, I want to commend Justice Souter, a native son of this great state of New Hampshire, for writing several of the most scholarly and persuasive dissents this Court has seen in recent years -- dissents that I am confident will prove prophetic.
Yet the Supreme Court of today embodies both strands of the phenomenon now plaguing our American culture -- both the public cynicism about, and the intellectual disdain for, our national government. The Court is sharply critical of the political branches of our federal government, accusing them in case after case this decade of arrogating power to themselves at the expense of state governments. But in assuming the role of "Chief Protector" of the allocation of power between the federal government and the states, the Supreme Court of late has regrettably adopted a court-centered view of the scope of federal power. In doing so, it has arrogated to itself a responsibility that more properly befits the political branches.
In my opinion, we have in the past eight years or so begun to see a series of opinions in which the Supreme Court has become bolder and bolder in stripping the federal government of the ability to make decisions on behalf of the American people. So far, the immediate effects of these decisions are real, but relatively modest. They may represent marginal readjustments in the allocation of power under the Constitution. On the other hand, if I am right and the jurisprudence is being driven by an oversized sense of distrust and cynicism toward democratically elected government -- and especially toward the federal government -- the decisions could constitute the beginnings of a sea change that could take us quite literally back to a style of judicial imperialism unseen in this country since the early 1930s.
The trio of cases decided by the Supreme Court at the very end of the last Term are a prime example of this court-centered view of federal power. For example, in its 5-4 decision in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, the Court held that Congress had no power to subject the states to private patent infringement suits in federal court because in the Court's view, the statute was not "appropriate" legislation to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said no to patent infringement cases against state entities because the Court -- not Congress -- decided that legislation remedying patent infringement by state entities was not really necessary. In so deciding, the Court made a quintessentially legislative judgment.
To the same effect was the companion case, College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, in which the Court dismissed out of hand Congress' effort to hold state entities accountable to private parties for misrepresenting the states' commercial products in violation of federal trademark law, because the Court decided that the statute did not protect "property rights" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The two Florida Prepaid decisions unfortunately flow directly from City of Boerne v. Flores, in which the Court in 1997 struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as also exceeding Congress' authority under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In ruling that Congress had gone too far in protecting religious liberty, the Court in essence held that Congress had not done its homework to the Court's satisfaction. The Court attacked the legislative record as lacking what it considered to be sufficient modern instances of religious bigotry and found that the statute was "out of proportion" to its supposed remedial or preventive objects. Again, the Court in effect decided that a law simply was not really necessary.
Implicit in the Court's obvious willingness in Boerne to second-guess Congress' legislative judgment in the name of protecting state governments is the notion that it is for the Supreme Court, and not Congress, to specify the meaning of the provisions of the Constitution, even when Congress claims to enforce the individual liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is as if the Court has forgotten that the only institution mentioned in section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment is Congress. The text of section 5 is clear and simple: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." It was for Congress, not the courts, to be the primary guarantor of individual rights as against oppression by state authorities, and for Congress, not the courts, to assess whether and what legislation is needed for that purpose. Remember that the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in the long shadow of the Dred Scott decision. The court-centered view the Court has since taken of that amendment is directly at odds with the universal sentiment at the time of its adoption that it was our federal legislature, not the courts, that could best be trusted to police the states.
What seems to lie at the heart of the headline-grabbing cases of the past few terms is the Court's willingness to disregard the views of Congress in favor of its own. It is as if the Court believes that it has a better sense of the economic and other real-world implications of the laws Congress passes than do those elected by the people to serve in that branch.
The Court's recent decisions contain troubling echoes from the New Deal era, when the Supreme Court was swift to substitute its own judgment of what was desirable economic legislation for that of Congress and the President. Here is just one illustration from that bygone era: In Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co., the Court in 1935 struck down the Railroad Retirement Act as unconstitutional, in part because the Court concluded that it was not a valid regulation of interstate commerce. Congress enacted the statute, which established a compulsory retirement and pension system for all railroad carriers, to promote "efficiency and safety in interstate transportation" both by reducing the aging population of employees and by improving the employees' sense of security and morale. In its opinion, the Court stated, however: "We cannot agree that these ends . . . encourage loyalty and continuity of service." We cannot agree. That is a breathtaking statement by a court which had abandoned its proper role. WE CANNOT AGREE?
And in denying Congress what Justice Breyer in dissent has called "necessary legislative flexibility," such as to create, for example, "a decentralized system of individual private remedies," the Court has returned to the kind of court-centered conception of federal power that typified not only the New Deal era, but the Lochner era as well. As Justice Souter predicted in his Alden v. Maine dissent lamenting the Court's sovereign immunity decisions:
The resemblance of today's state sovereign immunity to the Lochner era's industrial due process is striking. The Court began this century by imputing immutable constitutional status to a conception of economic self-reliance that was never true to industrial life and grew insistently fictional with the years, and the Court has chosen to close the century by conferring like status on a conception of state sovereign immunity that is true neither to history nor to the structure of the Constitution. I expect the Court's latest essay into immunity doctrine will prove the equal of its earlier experiment in laissez-faire, the one being as unrealistic as the other, as indefensible, and probably as fleeting.
(Justice Souter, I sincerely hope that you are correct when you said "probably as fleeting" because if you are wrong, and the Court's pronouncements endure, then I am afraid that the country is in bigger trouble than I thought.)
Don't misunderstand me. I do not mean for a second to disparage the role of the states. The states play a critical part in warding off tyranny by the national government and in performing all the fundamental functions with which the governments closest to the people are charged. Certainly those of you who live in this great state of New Hampshire -- whose motto is "Live Free or Die" -- understand that better than anyone else. As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers:
The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
But we should think long and hard before allowing one branch of our government -- the federal judiciary -- to cripple its co-equal branches, the political branches, of government. To do so is to put in jeopardy all that we have accomplished in our brief history and all that we may do in the future.
I must tell you that I am gravely concerned about the direction the Court is headed. I have a particular stake in this which I will confess now and that is the fate of the civil rights remedy created by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which I wrote. Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit invalidated the civil rights remedy in Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and the case may come before the Supreme Court in the coming Term if the Court grants review.
The civil rights remedy creates a new federal cause of action allowing a victim of gender-motivated violence to sue her attacker in court. I believe -- indeed, I know -- that violence against women restricts the participation of women in the national economy, inhibits their production and consumption of goods and services in interstate commerce, and obstructs their ability to work and travel freely. In short, violence against women was, and is, a national problem of epic proportions that substantially and adversely affects interstate commerce. A massive legislative record compiled after four years of fact-finding hearings in Congress irrefutably confirms the impact of violence against women on the national economy and interstate commerce.
When we enacted the Violence Against Women Act civil rights remedy in 1994, the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly found that the provision satisfied the "modest threshold" required by the Commerce Clause, and we in Congress were confident of the statute's constitutionality. The civil rights remedy quite appropriately attempted to remove an obstruction to interstate commerce, much as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred race discrimination in hotels and restaurants because such discrimination, as the Court put it in upholding the statute, "imposed 'an artificial restriction on the market.'"
But less than a year after we enacted the Violence Against Women Act and its civil rights remedy, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Lopez and invalidated, as beyond Congress' Commerce Clause authority, the Gun-Free School Zones Act, which prohibited the possession of a firearm within 1000 feet of a school. In the wake of Lopez, I find myself asking: Will this Court accept the congressional judgment that violence against women adversely affects the national economy? Or will this Court second-guess the remedy we chose to address that effect?
Ironically, the Court may find itself the champion of states' rights that the states do not even want. Just as with the Patent Remedy Act, where no state testified in favor of immunity from private patent infringement actions, the vast majority of states strongly favor the Violence Against Women Act civil rights remedy. Forty-one state attorneys general wrote to Congress in favor of the statute, including the civil rights remedy, before its enactment. Only a few weeks ago, 33 Attorneys General submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court asking the Court to grant the petition for certiorari and uphold the statute because the states "agree with Congress that gender-based violence substantially affects interstate commerce and the States cannot address this problem adequately by themselves."
I also fear that the Supreme Court's readiness to disregard the people's judgment has served as a clarion call to the federal courts to usher in what Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has called the "Constitution in Exile." According to Judge Ginsburg, the doctrine of enumerated powers, the nondelegation doctrine, the Necessary and Proper, Contracts, Takings, and Commerce clauses, had become "ancient exiles, banished for standing in opposition to unlimited government."
In service of this "Constitution-in-Exile," the lower courts have begun to read the Constitution in a revolutionary way. Thus, a district court in Alabama decided, remarkably, that the Superfund amendments were unconstitutional because they did not regulate interstate commerce, a decision later reversed on appeal. Similarly, the Fourth Circuit's ruling striking down the civil rights remedy of the Violence Against Women Act transforms Lopez v. United States from an important reminder that Congress' commerce power is not without limits, into what is arguably the most momentous decision of the last fifty years regarding the scope of federal power.
That same court of appeals has tightened the noose in yet another way. The Fourth Circuit ruled last year in Condon v. Reno, a case now under review by the Supreme Court, that Congress may not pass a law when that law applies only to the states, and not also to private individuals. In other words, Congress may not require the states to comply with federal law if the law does not also affect private individuals.
The jury is still out on whether the Supreme Court will let the other shoe drop and sustain these additional restrictions on federal power, but the Court seems primed and poised to do so. Much hangs in the balance. If your eyes glaze over when I speak about Congress authorizing private actions for patent infringement or trademark violations by state entities, then think about the Fair Labor Standards Act, which the Court held last June in Alden v. Maine could not be enforced against noncompliant states by state employees seeking backpay. How far we have come from the Framers' vision of a federal government strong enough and flexible enough to do the people's business. As Justice Souter observed in his dissent in Alden v. Maine:
Had the question been posed, state sovereign immunity could not have been thought to shield a State from suit under federal law on a subject committed to national jurisdiction by Article I of the Constitution.
Other cases could potentially serve as a resounding wake-up call as to the extent to which the federal government's hands have been tied in addressing problems of national import. In the coming Term, the Court will take up the question whether the Congress had the power in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to authorize private law suits against state violators. A case raising a similar issue with respect to the Americans with Disabilities Act is sure to follow. And if the Court says no, private individuals who suffer age, disability, and other forms of discrimination at the hands of state actors will have few means at their disposal to enforce their rights under federal law, and the federal government will rarely be able to help them.
The Court left open the possibility that the federal government could sue noncompliant states, but if you think that it is realistic for the federal government to come to the rescue by going into court on a regular basis to vindicate the federal rights of private individuals, think again. I do not see a massive expansion of the federal litigating corps happening any time soon. Nor do I see how that could be anything but self-defeating if the goal is to minimize the federal intrusion into state government affairs. By elevating the states' sovereign immunity to an immutable principle of constitutional law, the Court, as Justice Breyer recognized in his College Savings Bank dissent:
makes it more difficult for Congress to decentralize governmental decisionmaking and to provide individual citizens, or local communities, with a variety of enforcement powers. By diminishing congressional flexibility to do so, the Court makes it somewhat more difficult to satisfy modern federalism's more important liberty-protecting needs. In this sense, it is counterproductive.
Now don't get me wrong. Sometimes the federal and state governments do not get their relationship quite right. We do not have infallible institutions. But when the Supreme Court restricts the flexibility of Congress to decide how best to address national problems within the scope of its enumerated powers, the Court truncates the learning process otherwise underway in our political institutions -- a result a conservative court -- conservative with a small "c" -- should hesitate to effect.
The Court has imposed by fiat limitations on the exercise of federal power that might very well have come about without the Court's interference. In other words, the Court in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority got it right when, in 1985, it overruled National League of Cities v. Usery, a case decided a decade earlier, that had restricted the federal government's power to regulate the states "in areas of traditional governmental functions." Instead, the Court announced in Garcia that the political process, not the Court, should serve as the principal check on federal overreaching. I must disagree with the notion that leaving it to Congress and the President is like leaving the fox to guard the chicken coop, or as Justice O'Connor put it in her dissent in Garcia, like leaving the "essentials of state sovereignty" to Congress' "underdeveloped capacity for self-restraint."
The Violence Against Women Act civil rights remedy is a good example of Congress' developing capacity for self-restraint. At the outset, those most concerned about domestic violence and rape wanted a statute with a broad sweep, and so we started out by introducing a provision in 1990 that arguably would have federalized a significant portion of state laws against domestic violence and rape. But the Conference of Chief Justices of State Supreme Courts, the Judicial Conference of the United States -- and Chief Justice Rehnquist, in particular -- pointed out to Congress, while the bill was under consideration, that the civil rights provision might significantly interfere with the states' handling of domestic relations and rape cases, while at the same time, overburdening the federal courts. The federal and state judiciaries raised the concern, we examined it, and we decided that they were right. Congress then carefully redrafted the civil rights remedy so that it would not have that effect.
There are other recent examples -- such as the Unfunded Mandates Act -- that came about because the states complained to Congress that we were forcing them to use their tax dollars to do whatever we mandated in Washington. The states staged a mini-rebellion. So Congress wrote a new law requiring federal restraint. And for that, I must give my Republican colleagues their due.
But when the Supreme Court plays traffic cop on the streets of federalism, the Court does our country a disservice by cutting this national political dialogue short. We are already reaching many of the conclusions the Court has now cemented into the Constitution. James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that the new federal government would be sufficiently national and local in spirit as "to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments." Our political institutions can be trusted. The Framers understood this.
In short, the disconnect between our public and cultural perceptions of our institutions and reality is stunning. Keep in mind that the rest of the world is struggling to emulate our institutions because they believe it is our institutions that separate us from other nations -- indeed, from other democracies -- and are the bedrock upon which our successes are founded.
Yet our public discourse, our legal opinions, our very culture, are compelling us to overlook or scorn our own accomplishments. We are losing, as a nation, the communal notion that our strength lies in our institutions. Relentlessly accentuating the negative when it comes to our political institutions, however, eclipses our considerable successes. And this predilection to distrust the political branches now seems to be shared equally by the judicial branch, not only when it comes time to decide how to distribute power between the federal government and the states, but also when it comes to making a judgment of what is in the best interests of Americans.
I talked to you tonight about cynicism, devolution of power, and how we got here. In my view, all of that can be overcome by the right leadership, the right people in power, who will recharge the public's imagination and confidence. The public mood can be transformed in an election, a single cycle. Maybe it will take a generation. But it can be changed. Elected officials who cater too much or too little to state interests can be voted out of office. But if the Supreme Court chisels into stone new constitutional restrictions on federal power, new hoops through which Congress must leap, where will we be then? You cannot go to the polls to undo a constitutional ruling of the Supreme Court. There is no further appeal -- no appeal to a higher court, no appeal to the voters. Nothing short of a new constitutional convention or an amendment to the Constitution -- and you know how easy that is -- or will do. James Madison was right: trust the political process. "WE CANNOT AGREE"? Please.
Let me conclude by making the following simple point: if, at the federal level, we are such a failure institutionally, why does the rest of the world look to us to copy our supposed frailties? If we are such a failure -- with our last six Presidents supposedly flops -- how is that our incomes are actually growing, crime is going down, drug use is down, and our economy is in better shape than that of any nation in the history of the world? How did we produce a nation willing and able, as the President of Bulgaria pointed out, to spend billions of dollars and risk the lives of its men and women to advance the cause of human rights? Did it happen by chance? Did it happen by accident? It happened as a direct result of our unique political institutions.
The Framers set out to create a centralized government robust enough to deal with national problems, but with built-in guarantees that it be respectful of, and sensitive to, local concerns. There is an inherent tension in the document. But look at the sweep of history: as the balance of power has shifted back and forth between the national government and the states, our resilient political branches have adjusted and responded. The rest of the world gets it.
We must remember that politics -- and politicians -- are not the enemy. The Constitutional Convention was composed of men who were regarded as gifted even in their own day. As the French chargé d'affaires wrote to his government as the Convention convened:
If all the delegates named for this Convention at Philadelphia are present, we will never have seen, even in Europe, an assembly more respectable for the talents, knowledge, disinterestedness, and patriotism of those who compose it.
Above all else, these men were politicians. And I am not suggesting by this that our government today boasts the likes of a Jefferson or a Madison, but I am suggesting that we have fine and decent men and women with significant capabilities who choose public service. And some of you are among them.
The hostility we see from the Supreme Court toward the elected branches of government is the same suspicion we see in the eyes of the ordinary person on the street. "Politics" has become a dirty word. But as those of you here who live in this state of strong local community governments and town hall meetings, know better than anyone, "politics" is fundamental to how we govern ourselves in a democracy. At the end of the day, politics is the only way a community can govern itself and realize its goals without the sword.
So I stand before you today, on this 212th anniversary of the completion of the work of the Constitutional Convention, ready and willing to defend politics -- even national politics. It was what those 50 gentlemen, all strangers, who met 212 years ago defended and vindicated. And it is what, in the end, has made and will continue to make us secure and strong.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"Bosnia and Kosovo: The Lessons of U.S. Policy"
Reflecting on the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, William Butler Yeats wrote that "a terrible beauty" had been born. To Yeats a bloody victory had been achieved, creating a new world that offered the Irish people the chance to change their lives.
I believe that Central and Eastern Europe in 1999 exhibits the same kind of fundamental break with the past and similarly offers the people of the region new opportunities.
What a change in the last ten years! Communism has collapsed in most of Europe. NATO now numbers nineteen members, including three Central European states. The Federal Yugoslavia of Slobodan Milosevic lies in shambles, and his rule is increasingly in jeopardy. Bosnia and Kosovo have been freed from Belgrade, but, as was the case in Yeats' Ireland, the people are often using their freedom to kill each other.
Today, in four parts, I would like to suggest some lessons we can learn from our decade of involvement with the former Yugoslavia:
First, I will discuss tactical lessons learned from the conduct of the recent air campaign against Yugoslavia. Second, despite obvious differences in the two cases, I will attempt to use our experience in Bosnia with the implementation of the Dayton Accords as a guide for what to do --and what not to do --in restoring civilian government in Kosovo.
Third, I will look at larger strategic lessons learned, including how the United States Government might deal with future crises in a more systematic way.
Fourth, and finally, I will outline my vision of long-term regional economic and security development for Southeastern Europe.
The air campaign against Yugoslavia was the first war waged by democracies in Europe in the information age. But it probably won't be the last --and it certainly won't be the last case in which we contemplate using force. I would submit that the U.S. must adjust to this changed world by developing new policies, often with new modes of operation.
We Did the Right Thing, and We Won
Let us look at what happened. To spare you any suspense, I think we did the right thing in our seventy-eight day air campaign, and we succeeded. The war against Milosevic was of great consequence. If NATO had not acted, the results, I believe, would have been grave.
The war might well have spread, with NATO allies Turkey and Greece being drawn in on opposite sides.
Milosevic would have been able totally to destabilize neighboring countries, as he attempted through his mass expulsion of Kosovars to Albania and Macedonia. Moreover, refugee flows would have severely strained Western Europe.
There would also have been a demonstration effect: other potential demagogic, racist strongmen in Europe would have taken the lesson that their ilk could massacre and "ethnically cleanse" with impunity.
There were, to be sure, real risks in countering Milosevic militarily, but none of the big worries of March 1999 occurred.
First of all, NATO kept together.
Second, the war did not spread.
Third, contrary to expectations, the Republika Srpska in Bosnia did not blow up; in fact, its government has become more cooperative in Dayton implementation.
Fourth, Montenegro's democratic government, under severe threat from Milosevic, has not been overthrown, although it surely is in need of increased Western support.
Finally, U.S. prestige and influence in the Balkans has not suffered as a result of the air campaign; it has been enhanced.
I recall the immediate effects of the air campaign not in order to rest on our laurels. These achievements come at the end of a decade of involvement in Yugoslavia in which the record is decidedly mixed. It is well worth our while to examine the period, focusing on Bosnia and Kosovo, in order to draw policy lessons for the future.
The U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia in the 1990's was a qualitatively new experience. Hence, it is not surprising that we made a lot of mistakes; many of them were predictable. Underlying our Yugoslav policy, with regard both to Bosnia and Kosovo, was a commitment to maintain unity within NATO. This underpinning was, I believe, in most cases an absolutely correct ordering of U.S. national priorities. Striking a balance between alliance membership and doing the right thing was, and remains, extremely difficult.
At the risk of opening myself up to the charge of Yankee boastfulness, I believe that both the air war against Yugoslavia could have been handled, and the looming civilian reconstruction in Kosovo could be handled, more efficiently by the United States alone, rather than by an international coalition.
Realistically, though, "going it alone" would be totally impossible to sell politically, either to the American people or to Congress. Moreover, European involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo is an important part of the continent's political maturation.
The European Union's lead-role in the Southeast Europe Stability Pact, which I will discuss later, is the most obvious signal that this process, at long last, is moving ahead.
To "come clean," however, I freely admit that there have been times when I personally have given precedence to the need for American unilateralism over NATO solidarity, such as when I called for a policy of "lift and strike" in a Senate speech way back in September 1992. I was pretty lonely then, and it took three years and nearly a quarter-million dead in Bosnia before we finally adopted that policy.
But this is not the time either to gloat or to rationalize. Rather, we should, as responsibly as possible, review our mistakes in order to formulate policies to bring stability to the Balkans.
Tactical Lessons of the Air Campaign
As promised, let me begin by looking at tactical lessons we should learn from the recent air war.
First, we should maintain unity of command in crisis management. In the twelve months prior to the beginning of the air campaign, NATO was temporarily replaced on several occasions by the Contact Group, which includes Russia.
This switch in the command of crisis management in effect shifted policy because Russia did not have the same goals as NATO. Milosevic, of course, was well aware of this fact and, therefore, was encouraged to believe that he could stonewall on a possible settlement.
Second, we should not have ruled out the use of ground forces even before the outset of the campaign. Preserving uncertainty is a key element of crisis management and is important enough to maintain, even at the risk of dividing the alliance. In fact, once the war had begun I privately urged the President to begin a visible deployment of troops to keep Milosevic guessing.
That is why Senator McCain and I introduced a resolution in April 1999 authorizing the President to "use all necessary force and other means in concert with U.S. allies" to achieve goals in Yugoslavia. White House lobbied against it, allegedly out of fear it would lose an up-or-down vote. It was tabled by a vote of seventy-eight to twenty-two.
Nonetheless, when we finally began to move toward deployment of ground forces late in the campaign, it contributed to changing Milosevic's mind about the wisdom of trying to hold out.
Third, NATO needs to alter its war-time decision making apparatus. There should be no more North Atlantic Council "town meetings" of the early weeks of the war when unanimity was required for targeting. The structure proved to be unwieldy and was altered in the middle of the war. This was one of the predictable examples of "learning by doing" in a new situation. The new process had only the major NATO allies able to veto targets. The result was hitting television towers, police headquarters, and dual-use facilities like the electrical power grid -- whose destruction contributed decisively to the Serbian capitulation.
In the future NATO should decide upon a political-military course, set the strategic parameters, and then leave daily implementation to the alliance's generals and admirals.
Fourth, in future conflicts NATO must improve its internal communication channels so that the media are not given premature denials of errant bombing or missile attacks. Above all, the alliance must repeatedly underscore the fundamental difference between premeditated aggression, massacres, and war crimes on one side, and occasional, regrettable mistakes committed in morally justified resistance to crimes, on the other.
Fifth, NATO should also never announce positive military moves too early. The textbook case for this was the Apache helicopters, initially touted by many as a "silver bullet" but then never employed in combat, to the embarrassment of the United States Army.
And sixth, the United Nations must have absolutely no command involvement in any NATO-led military operation, beginning with KFOR. We must never repeat the impossible dual-key structure of UNPROFOR in Bosnia.
In spite of all these ways that we could have improved upon our prosecution of the air war, our forces did a great job. As a result, through the use of military force we have arrived in Kosovo in mid-1999 at roughly the same point we were at, through military action followed by high-profile multilateral diplomacy, in Bosnia at the end of 1995.
Restoring Civilian Government in Kosovo
Despite crucial differences between Bosnia and Kosovo, with which this audience is intimately familiar, I think we can profit from three-and-a-half years' experience in the former in several ways.
Here I think my nearly three decades as a politician help me to cut through some of the haze. We all know that Kosovars, Serbs, Roma, Slavic Muslims, Turks, Frenchmen, Britons, Germans, Americans, and other nationalities have their unique traits and peculiarities. But fundamentally they all want the basics for their families and themselves: security under the rule of law, a job with a living wage, and the absence of discrimination against them because of their race, ethnic background, or religion.
What this means for Kosovo is quite simple. Even while the geopoliticians and development experts are, quite properly, discussing the eventual shape of the Southeast Europe Stability Pact, we have to move as rapidly as possible on the ground in Kosovo to secure the basics I have just described.
Preventing returning Kosovars from killing remaining Serbs, disarming lawless individuals, stopping domestic disputes, getting traffic lights back up and running --all these are essential tasks, for which our marvelous military has not been trained. This is the job for police --in some cases your normal cops, in others European-style, more heavily armed gendarmes.
So, first, we must accelerate the recruitment and deployment by the U.N. of an international police force. The U.N. has had experience in this field, and there is no reason for the lagging that is going on. I pushed early and hard in Bosnia for European gendarmes to take over crowd control, resettlement of minority refugees, and hunting for indicted war criminals. The so-called "MSU's" or "Multinational Specialized Units" from Europe and Argentina that have been deployed in Bosnia have done the first task, but not the refugee returns or war criminal hunting. In Kosovo, the international police should be equipped and tasked to do all three.
Second, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, must immediately speed up its program to train local police officers from all the ethnic communities in Kosovo. Again, the OSCE has done this before, and must pick up the pace in Kosovo. The rebuilding of ethnically integrated police forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina has not been a smashing success, but promising strides have been made. If Croats and Muslims who shot at each other in Mostar can now go on joint patrols, as they do, then, I submit, Kosovars and Serbs can do the same in Pristina.
Third, the U.N. must get its act together with regard to creating an interim government in Kosovo. The international community must immediately make funds available to build emergency housing, restore vital services, and fund the salaries of the new, indigenous civil servants. World Bank President Jim Wolfensohn estimated yesterday that this would require $50 million, surely a sum well within our means.
Fourth, a clear division of labor must be worked out among the U.N., OSCE, and the EU (European Union) and close liaison channels immediately established with KFOR. Until now this has not occurred. The not surprising result is that the local population is turning for all advice and permission to the guys with the guns --KFOR.
An important corollary of the division of labor is that bureaucracy and red-tape, especially in the U.N. and EU, must be minimized from the outset, and rigorous oversight mechanisms established. If the U.S. comes across as being overly zealous --in an earlier age one might have said "too Prussian" --then so be it.
Fifth, although self-determination and political freedom are central to Western involvement in the Balkans, a too hasty carrying out of elections can undermine the achievement of those goals.
In Bosnia more than eighty parties, coalitions, alliances, and independent candidates have run for office --certainly a very democratic picture. But the nationalist parties of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia --Muslims, Serbs, and Croats --were the first to organize, dominated the campaigns through legal and illegal media tactics, and as a result have captured most of the races.
After the carnage, Kosovo needs a breathing space for civil society to re-emerge. Following this necessary pause, but before elections are scheduled, the international community should take an ironclad hold on the mass media and financial institutions in Kosovo to ensure that campaigns are not only "free" but also "fair."
The sixth and final lesson in civil reconstruction that I would draw also holds true for our military contribution to KFOR. We should not fall into the politically-induced trap the Clinton Administration fell into with IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia of giving a timetable for withdrawal, which from the outset was totally unrealistic. Our only "exit strategy" should be to leave Kosovo when we have fully achieved our goals. The American people must know that we are there for the long haul because it is in our national interest to do so.
Strategic Lessons Learned
Now to the third part of my presentation. Our decade of involvement in Yugoslavia also has yielded longer-term, broader strategic lessons for the future. Above all, it has illustrated that too much of American foreign policy has been reactive. A conceptual framework is sorely needed.
Others have made this same point. The question of priorities in U.S. foreign policy has periodically been examined by private groups. In 1996 a "Commission on America's National Interests" dealt in detail with the subject.
More recently, former Secretary of Defense William Perry has discussed it. And writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Kennedy School Dean Joseph Nye grapples with redefining the national interest. Nye, who also served in the Defense Department in the first Clinton Administration, modestly concludes: "The national interest is too important to leave solely to the geopoliticians. Elected officials must play the key role."
Dean Nye is right on target. I recommend that the President, working with a bipartisan Congressional group, create an inter-agency planning process on U.S. national interests abroad --both geographic and thematic. The result of the task force's study would be to classify American interests in categories like "vital," "very important," "important," and "peripheral."
By my own initial calculus, non-NATO Central and Eastern Europe, including the Balkans, would fall into "very important" geographical interest category, and furthering democracy and preventing genocide would fall into "very important" thematic interest category. Combining these two with the capability, via NATO, to effect the desired outcome created, I believe, a convincing case for military action against Milosevic's genocidal actions, both in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Apparently the Bush Administration, and the Clinton Administration until late 1995, didn't see it that way. After the Clinton Administration came over to this policy, it never adequately described the logic of its decision to the American people.
For most of the 1990's, particularly in the first half of the decade, Congress was left to fill the vacuum. That is a complex, detailed story, which requires more time to relate than we have today. Some of you may wish to pursue this topic in the question-and-answer period.
Suffice it to say that I believe there are two lessons to be learned from this Congressional involvement. First, the internationalists in Congress simply must carry the day against the neo-isolationists. Second, there is a crying need for a Vandenberg-type consensus that "partisanship ends at the water's edge."
My Vision of the Balkans in 2010
To what end in the Balkans should we utilize these tactical and strategic recommendations? What is my vision of Southeastern Europe in, say, the year 2010?
For the benefit of its inhabitants, and of its neighbors, the Balkans must end the tribal warfare, which flared sporadically for centuries and became the dominant theme as new nation-states won their freedom from the slowly crumbling Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century.
Now I will turn somewhat messianic. Despite all the well-known defects of modern, economically developed, democratic Western society, I firmly believe that it still offers the individual human the best opportunity for a peaceful, self-fulfilling life.
Translated into today's world this means that Southeastern Europe should be helped to integrate with Western Europe.
In other words, the Balkans should choose to emulate the good side of twentieth-century European history --the European Union and NATO --not the horrific side of two world wars and the Holocaust.
How do we get from here to there?
First, as the military would say, we must control the environment. This means stabilizing the situation on the ground by disarming the rival armies, militias, and individual civilians. Even while this is occurring, shelter must be provided for more than one million returning displaced persons and refugees.
The international community must then set up a rational system of civilian governance. In Bosnia only now --three-and-a-half years after Dayton--are the governmental institutions finally beginning to work, and there is still much room for improvement.
In Kosovo, as I mentioned, the international community should assume the initial governing burden to give the province breathing space before provincial institutions are created and elections held. This de facto international trusteeship makes imperative the immediate clarification of the division of labor among KFOR, the U.N., the EU, and OSCE, and non-governmental organizations.
During the trusteeship period, every effort must be made to involve all parties within the ethnic Albanian community --from Rugova to the KLA, the remaining Kosovo Serbs, and other minority groups in the beginnings of local governance. The first results of such efforts have not been promising.
Then, we must chart a strategic roadmap for the civil and economic reconstruction of the entire region, not individual countries. I believe that a sine qua non for any regional effort to succeed is a democratic government in Serbia on good relations with its neighbors. Translated into policy that means that we should make every effort to assist the contentious Serbian opposition to topple Slobodan Milosevic. I cannot tell you when and how Milosevic will fall, but I am confident that he will not be in power a year from now.
It goes without saying that while Milosevic struggles to hold onto power, and fails, reconstruction planning must go forward. The infrastructure must be developed on a regional basis with integrated telecommunications systems, trans-Balkan superhighways, new high-speed rail links, and, as economic development progresses, non-stop air links between Balkan countries. Today, for example, in order to fly from Bucharest to Zagreb one must go through Vienna, and the same is true for most other intra-Balkan air routes.
The Stability Pact to be led by the European Union offers the best opportunity for creating this strategic roadmap. The July 30th Stability Pact Summit meeting in Sarajevo, an idea of President Clinton, is exactly what we should be doing.
An important side-benefit of this process is that the Stability Pact can give us the leverage to force antagonists within individual countries, and in neighboring countries, to cooperate. In doing this we would be following the example of the Marshall Plan, which made cooperation among West European states as a precondition for assistance.
Two days ago the EU foreign ministers agreed "in principle" to choose Thessaloniki, Greece as the reconstruction center for the Balkans. I would like to make a counter-proposal for immediate action.
The Balkans comprise a large, diverse geographical area. Therefore, after its July 30th summit, I urge the Stability Pact --of which, I would remind our EU friends, the United States will be an important member --to locate a significant regional headquarters in Sarajevo, a move which would greatly enhance the prestige of the Bosnian national government, help the Bosnian economy, and exert pressure for more rapid implementation of the Dayton Accords.
Within a few years I hope, and expect, to see a Southeastern European free trade area, including a democratic Serbia, with preferential access for its exports to the European Union and the United States.
Thereafter, with EU assistance the countries of this regional common market would move into the euro zone for their common currency.
The Southeastern European free trade area would, sooner rather than later, become part of the EU's free trade zone, with agricultural products phased in over several years.
Meanwhile, the process of accelerated membership in the EU for individual Southeastern European countries would continue. Slovenia and Hungary are already well on the way toward full membership in the first half of the next decade. Bulgaria and Romania could follow relatively soon thereafter.
The only logical way to cement the security structure of the region is through NATO membership for countries that meet the detailed requirements.
Slovenia already is fully qualified and should be invited as soon as possible as a sign that South Slavs are not congenitally incapable of "joining the club."
President Clinton in his recent speech in Ljubljana said as much by praising Slovenia as a model for the region.
Romania may also be ready to join NATO in the very near future if it gets its troubled economy back on track.
Bulgaria, with a democratic and free-market government, must clamp down on serious corruption. If it succeeds in doing this, and continues fulfilling its membership action plan, it too could qualify for NATO.
Croatia, after Slovenia the most western of the former Yugoslav republics, has been hampered by Franjo Tudjman's authoritarian style of rule and his often mischievous policies in Bosnia. Upcoming parliamentary elections offer the promise of a fundamental change in Croatian domestic and foreign policy, which could enable it to join the Partnership for Peace and dramatically enhance its chances for NATO and EU membership.
Am I certain that my vision is possible? No, I'm not. But I am reasonably confident that there is a decent chance it can be implemented. I stress that there must be a domestic U.S. consensus in order for us to devote the necessary human and material resources to the task.
Many Senators and Representatives shrink back from such a commitment, either because of neo-isolationist ideology, or because they see more important issues demanding priority such as preventing nuclear proliferation, dealing with a crumbling Russia, handling relations with a resurgent, yet brittle China, and coping with rogue states and international terrorism.
How to calibrate the resource allocation among all these valid issues is essentially "where it's at" in twenty-first century American foreign policy.
I don't pretend to have a simple answer.
But I do think that the inter-agency study I recommended is a necessary first step toward finding an answer.
The Woodrow Wilson Center and this distinguished audience are accustomed to thinking ahead in big terms, and I would welcome your suggestions as we enter the new millennium.
Thank you for your attention.
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"NATO, Kosovo, and the U.S. Role in the World"
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been asked to reflect on the role of the United States in the world as we enter the twenty-first century. It is generally recognized that because of this country's size, wealth, technological expertise, and societal flexibility, it is in a unique position to exert influence on the world stage.
Nonetheless, the cliché describing the United States as "the sole remaining superpower," while literally true, strikes me as somewhat beside the point. We may be unchallenged in the depth and breadth of our might, but in some ways we had more effective power relative to many other countries in the days when we were challenged by the other superpower, the Soviet Union. The world has become a much more complex place, and no single player can dominate it.
Even if it wanted to, the United States certainly could not solve every global problem alone. But it is difficult to imagine a major world problem that could be solved without the involvement of the United States, and in most cases without American leadership.
This means that in order to lead effectively, the United States must also cooperate - cooperate with its allies, its friends, and with the rest of the world community in many international organizations.
It is, NATO more than any other organization, that engages the United States internationally, for our relations with Europe are fundamental to our position in the world. Europe, together with Japan and the United States, is one of the three great global centers of wealth and power. And more than any two other areas, North America and Western Europe are on a daily basis inter-related politically, economically, and culturally.
It wasn't always that way. After World War II large parts of Western Europe were desolate wastelands. Thanks to the wisdom of George Marshall, who announced his far-sighted relief plan here at Harvard nearly fifty-two years ago, the United States primed the pump of European recovery.
But it took NATO, founded in Washington, D.C. fifty years ago this month, to guarantee that these promising beginnings continued. The nations of Western Europe could not have flourished without the security umbrella that the Alliance has provided. Without NATO there would have been no European Coal and Steel Community, no Common Market, no European Community, and no European Union. It's as simple as that.
Recognizing the changed post-communist world, NATO met in 1991 and revised its so-called Strategic Concept, its mission statement. In it the Alliance enumerated new threats to its members including ethnic and religious conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and international crime and terrorism.
It is true that many of these new threats originate outside of Europe, and that all alliance members share vital interests such as guaranteeing energy supplies from the Middle East and keeping the sea lanes open around the world.
Nonetheless, I reject the idea that NATO partners should be obliged to undertake missions outside of Europe. For the foreseeable future "coalitions of the willing" such as in the Gulf War, which involve the United States and NATO allies who so wish, remain appropriate.
Within Europe, considering the continent as an integral whole is inherent in any attempt to create a stable, just, and peaceful order. But while the formal division of Europe has ended, it has proven difficult truly to integrate its former communist half with the wealthy democratic and capitalist West.
It is clear that, once again, a security structure must provide the umbrella under which democratic politics, free-market economics, and institutions of civil society can painstakingly effect a transformation.
As it did for Western Europe, NATO has a pivotal role to play for the rest of the continent. I believe that the Alliance's strategy to extend the zone of stability into Central and Eastern Europe should contain three elements:
First, NATO must continue the measured, criteria-based enlargement of its membership. The accession last month of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic was a giant first step in this process, and the "Open Door" must stay open. Second, NATO must deepen its partnerships with non-member states of Europe. The Partnership for Peace, a creative and hugely successful American initiative, already involves forty-four countries in a variety of consultations and operational exercises. Similarly, NATO has concluded two special partnership relationships with Russia and Ukraine. Because of the war in Yugoslavia, Russia has suspended its relations with NATO, but I believe that the Kremlin understands the benefits its gains from continued and sustained involvement with NATO and that at the opportune moment it will resume cooperation. The third element of NATO's strategy to extend the zone of stability in Europe must be to counter murderous anti-democratic regimes like that of Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic, which whip up the ethnic and religious tensions described seven years ago in the Strategic Concept to further their own authoritarian political agenda. Not only is regional stability at risk in Kosovo, but also our core values. If the West does not stand for putting an end to genocide and vile ethnic cleansing, then what do we stand for? I will be glad to join Minister Robertson in discussing the Kosovo situation at length during our question period. For now, let me summarize my position in three words: NATO must prevail.
The catastrophe in Kosovo illustrates that European-American cooperation is more important than ever. Whenever I am asked why we have contributed six thousand to twenty thousand troops to IFOR and SFOR to protect the people of Bosnia from further massacres, I respond by saying that for most of the last fifty-four years we kept more than three hundred thousand troops in Western Europe to guarantee its freedom. We now have 100,000 soldiers currently deployed in that theater.
I ask the opponents of American involvement in the Balkans the following question: why is the idea of keeping, say eighty-five thousand troops in Western Europe and fifteen thousand in the Balkans, such a radical intellectual breakthrough?
As we in the United States carry the responsibilities of leadership within the NATO alliance we must remember that a constant theme in West European-American relations ever since the founding of NATO has been an equitable sharing of burdens within the Alliance.
It was understandable in the early days of NATO, when Western Europe was in the first stages of its economic recovery, that Washington should shoulder the lion's share of defense costs. Now, however, with eleven Alliance members also part of the vibrant European Union, and other European NATO members in good economic shape, those days are long gone. The United States has a right to expect that its allies will assume more of the burden.
If there is one positive aspect of the Kosovo nightmare it is that our European NATO partners have been stepping up to the plate, as exemplified by the British role. Nonetheless, the national defense budgets of most European NATO countries are sinking, and with the exception of the United Kingdom, our European partners are allowing an alarming technological gap to widen between their militaries and those of the United States.
Steps must be taken to address this imbalance and close the technological gap in our respective military capabilities. But, I must emphasize, upgrading European military capabilities in a European Security and Defense Identity, known by its acronym ESDI, must not be at the expense of NATO cohesion.
As Minister Robertson has described, the Anglo-French cooperation announced last December in St. Malo (sah-mah-LOW) by Prime Minister Blair and President Chirac represents a potentially important step in creating a real ESDI.
Implicitly responding to the burden-sharing issue, the Blair-Chirac communique declared that the EU is to acquire the "capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises." It went on in somewhat ambiguous terms to speak of the need to maintain the collective defense commitments of the Atlantic Alliance.
As the United States has made clear, in any ESDI there are "three no's" that must be observed:
no decoupling of Europe from North America within NATO; no discrimination against non-EU European NATO members; and no duplication of scarce defense resources. I am encouraged by Minister Robertson's assurances on these issues, but the devil is in the details.
I could not conclude without a personal appeal to the students in the audience not to heed the siren song of the neo-isolationists. Self-imposed detachment didn't work for the United States after World War I, and it would be incomprehensible in today's interconnected world.
I urge you, who are receiving the finest education this country can offer, to see it as a duty to be active not only in domestic politics, but also to steep yourselves in the complexities of international affairs and in foreign cultures and languages. Wherever your careers take you, it is a rare profession that does not have an international dimension, so your engagement will further personal as well as national goals.
The United States can, and must, continue to play a positive, leading role on the world stage, but it can only do so with the support of an informed citizenry. I am confident that you will help create this consensus. Thank you.
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Speech to Dover Air Force Base Personnel
Hillary, thank you for being here today. Your presence here is a big deal. Not merely, because I'm sure everyone here at the base physically appreciates your physical presence, the fact that you'd take your time to be here. You have been for the last six years known around the world for your concern about the plight of people, particularly women and children who are in desperate circumstances.
And you know better than any of us here just how desperate the circumstances are for tens of thousands of innocent civilians. These are not military casualties, these are innocent civilians who are a product of the butchery of a man that I think should be tried as a war criminal.
I know some of you Delawarians are not happy with me because I have been so outspoken in my request for the US being involved and using air power and I believe if need be, ground forces, to deal with this cancer in the middle of Europe. This is a humanitarian crisis but first and foremost, the crisis that created the humanitarian crisis is an international crisis that threatens our long term security, and that is the idea that one man in the heart of Europe could recreate for Europe what we committed as a people we would never again allow to happen.
The human crisis you see today will pale by comparison to what will happen if we allow Slobodan Milosevic to continue in power unabated. Some of you thought we were exaggerating when we said what he was about, what he was doing.
None of you should be surprised, past is prologue, this is a man who helped set up rape camps in Bosnia, this is a man who because of his inflamatory, nationalist rhetoric caused those things we observed, those mass graves, people executed in Bosnia and now in Kosovo.
I'd like to take this opportunity to commend all of you here at the base for the tremendous job you have done and doing in alleviating the plight of so many refugees. I said to some of the folks out on the line, if any of you ever wonder whether or not what you do for a living matters, I guarantee you, I guarantee you do not have to think about it after today because what you are doing matters. It literally is going to be the decision between whether or not someone lives or dies. That's not hyperbole. That's literally what you're doing.
The opstempo at this base has been incredibly high for a long time. A lot of you have been under a whole lot of strain and sometimes you may wonder whether or not what we're doing really is worth all the effort. But I guarantee having been there, this is worth the effort.
Since the Serbian atrocities began and they stepped up their terror campaign against the Ethnic Albanians, 41,000 people a day have flooded across the borders of neighboring countries seeking respite from the brutality of the police. You hear them refer to as 'the mop.' The police and the military of Slobodan Milosevic's storm troopers. In the past two and a half weeks, innocent civilians, women and children, young and old, have been forced to flee their homes, mostly at gunpoint, after having yielded their worldly possessions in terms of cash to the people who are escorting them out of their homes, stuck in box cars.
Like you saw in Sophie's Choice, like you saw in Schindler's List, it's happening again. Now, 1999. They're being sent and shipped away, and mark my words, when this is over we're going to be able to determine and find that tens of thousands of people are missing. And thousands, I predict you will learn, have been summarily executed.
So some say, "why are we doing this?" My response is: If not us, who? If not now, when? And if we allow it to continue, what will we leave for our children? This is not a U.S. effort alone. Every major European nation, 18 NATO countries, are in unison. This is not some idea we thought up. This is about the very stability of Europe.
The Kosovar refugees are tired and they're hungry. And because of what you've been doing, there are mothers who will go to bed tonight in tents and tomorrow and the next day and the next day, teaching their children the same thing that their grandmothers taught them: "Thank God for the Americans. Thank God for what they did."
So I say to you, if you wonder whether it's worth it, I promise you, I promise you. I guarantee you, you could not be doing anything more worthwhile today with your life than loading that food on those planes for the people that you're trying to save. Our Vice Wing Commander Gary Coy is over there right now on the ground helping coordinate this effort.
And the man who runs the entire effort to the United States of America, pulling together all these agencies, is a man who has a heart and brain as big as his body. His name is Brian Atwood and I'm about to introduce him to you. He's the head of AID, he's the guy that's been given the task to put it all together. He's been a public servant his whole life.
We go back a long time together. I got to the Senate in 1972, and he was there too working for a guy named Tom Eagleton. But like you, he believes he has a responsibility bigger than the one which is just providing for the needs of his family. He's a patriotic American like all of you. And like all of you, what he's doing today is among one of the most important things he'll ever be able to do with his entire life. He's going to help you to help us save tens of thousands of lives of non-combatants, women and children, loaded into box cars, left on the side of mountains. You're doing a good thing. I'm proud of you. I am truly, truly proud of you. And I'm proud of Brian Atwood. Brian, welcome to Delaware.
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"Impeaching a President: Lessons Learned"
*** AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY ***
When it comes to reviewing the impeachment process with you, quite frankly, I could just as soon have done without the honor. Not the honor of being with you today, where I am truly honored to be, but the more dubious honor, of being one of only 154 men or women who have participated as United States Senator in an impeachment trial of the United States President.
I entered the Senate during the year that the House came close to passing articles of impeachment against President Nixon. I vividly recall how traumatic a national experience we were going through then.
And I have read the historical accounts of the turbulent post-Civil War, post-Lincoln assassination period when Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House and tried by the Senate. And I can tell you, that was a traumatic time for the country as well. I do not yet know how traumatic the experiences of the past year are going to be for us. However, I can tell you that whenever the United States Senate is sitting as a court of impeachment, under its exclusive constitutional authority to try an impeachment of a sitting president, something is wrong.
Either something is wrong with the person holding the office of the President, or something is wrong with the House of Representatives, who must bring the charges to the Senate. Impeachment is an incredibly serious and severe remedy, since it can ask the Senate to cancel the effects of the last national election. Under our system of separated powers, that is something we never should do except in the most extreme circumstances.
The Framers understood the dangers of abusing the impeachment power. In fact, Charles Pinckney warned that a willful Congress might abuse the impeachment power as a "rod" to beat a President into submission to its will.
Our system of government requires that we have a strong and independent president. A President strong enough to protect our individual liberties, as Harry Truman was when he integrated the Armed Services by executive order. Or a President strong enough to lead in foreign affairs, as George Bush was when he rallied support to contain Saddam Hussein's aggression in the Gulf War. The impeachment power must be used very sparingly if that independence is to be maintained.
So something needs to be terribly wrong with the person in the White House for impeachment to be warranted - or else something needs to have gone awry in the House for them to have passed articles of impeachment when they were not warranted.
In this case, it was a combination of the two that best explains how we got to a point on February 12, 1999, just after noon, where I, along with my colleagues, were casting votes on two articles of impeachment against William Jefferson Clinton.
We can take away a lot from this experience. And I am sure that scholars will be analyzing what happened for years to come. When you have an event like this only twice in the nation's history, it is natural to try to learn what you can from each occurrence. Hopefully, to prevent it from happening again.
I want to share with you six lessons I take away from the impeachment process. There is a great more to say on this subject and I will be glad answers questions on other aspects of it after my remarks.
1. Lesson Number One: Americans Have a Moral Code
Throughout the process, many were saying that as soon as Americans focused on the immoral nature of the President's conduct, they would be outraged by it and a ground swell would grow behind the impeachment effort. My good friend, Bill Bennett, even wrote a book entitled "The Death of Outrage" where he articulated this sentiment.
Yet, as that ground swell never materialized, the same voices came to accuse Americans of simply lacking a moral code.
To me, this is exactly the wrong diagnosis. From the very first disclosures of wrongdoing - first the affair with Monica Lewinsky and then the lies about it to the American people - Americans decried what the President did. Never in the entire impeachment process did I hear anyone rise to defend the President's conduct. Americans concluded that he was an adulterer and a liar, and they condemned him for it.
Americans in fact concluded that there were very few good guys in the entire affair. They thought that Ken Starr abused his authority by unfair tactics born out of vindictiveness. They thought that the House Managers acted in a narrowly partisan way and advanced the impeachment process in a desperate attempt to justify their actions for the sake of their own political reputations. They came to see Monica Lewinsky as both used and a user, while Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg, Paula Jones and her official and unofficial legal team came to be seen as part of a larger political plot to "get the president," at any cost.
This, in fact, is one of the contributing causes of the entire episode - there were no good guys looking out for the best interests of the country - from the President on down.
How the public judged everyone else involved in the process, however, did not influence the judgment they made on the moral quality of the President's conduct. They abhorred it.
2. Lesson Number Two: The Founding Fathers Would Have Been Proud of Americans' Understanding of the Impeachment Process
Presidents can only be impeached for "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors." We in the Senate spent a great deal of time debating just what high crimes and misdemeanors were. We looked at all the writings from the Founding Era that bore on that question.
Among the most quoted of these passages came from Federalist No. 65, which Alexander Hamilton wrote to explain the impeachment power and why the Senate had been selected to be the body that would try impeachments. In that passage, Hamilton says:
[t]he subjects of [the Senate's impeachment] jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which with peculiar propriety may be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done to the society itself.
Justice Story, a Supreme Court Justice in the 1800s and the author of the leading constitutional law treatise of the time, said something similar when he wrote that impeachable offenses are "offenses which are committed by public men in violation of their public trust and duties."
I could quote additional statements for you - or I can refer you to speeches that I made before the impeachment process began or to several memoranda I wrote during the process that contain most of them.
Suffice it to say that I, as well as hundreds of law professors and historians who have studied the issue, concluded that the constitution meant to limit those acts for which a President could be impeached to serious breaches of official duty or other gross abuses of the public trust that place the country's government at risk.
I think that is what the Founding Fathers meant. I also think the Founding Fathers would have been proud of the American people because I think their steady position - and it really was amazing how steady it was in the opinion polls - was that what President Clinton did was wrong, but that it did not warrant removing him from office through the impeachment power.
The American people separated in their minds the job that the President had been doing for them, on the one hand, and his conduct, on the other. They did not approve of the conduct, some may even thought it was criminal, but they simply did not see this conduct as placing the country's government in jeopardy or as constituting a serious breach of his official duties.
You can call this what you will - a sense of proportionality, a sense that the punishment should fit the crime. Whatever you call it, the attitude is highly congruent with the impeachment clause of the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant it to be.
This is somewhat ironic, though, because what the Founding Fathers feared most were the passions of the populace who might inflame the impeachment process without regard to the Constitutional limitations imposed by the Framers. Yet, it turned out that it was the American people who had a sensible, and in my judgment, correct attitude toward the process of impeachment. Yes, in the end, the good sense of the American people played a major role in preventing the process from being abused.
3. Lesson Number Three: Haste Makes Waste
As I said a moment ago, the Founding Fathers did fear the abuse of the impeachment power. The independence of the Presidency is undermined if Congress can pull the impeachment trigger for partisan reasons.
I am afraid that this is what happened in the House of Representatives. If you remember, there was a brief period after the November elections last fall when most people thought the loss of six seats by the Republicans in the House signaled that the American people wanted the impeachment process to die in the House.
The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pressed on, however, just as the Founding Fathers thought they might. But in order to try to accommodate the popular desire to have the process ended, they committed to doing it quickly.
That was a mistake. They should have taken their time to reflect upon the gravity of what they were doing. They should have permitted a vote on censure. And, quite frankly, they should have taken their time so they could better evaluate the strength of the case contained in the Starr referral.
Now I have been a supporter of the independent counsel statute, but the way that statute worked in this impeachment process shows that this part of it certainly needs fixing. When the Independent Counsel submitted his report, he dropped a time bomb on Members of Congress which had a very short fuse. Once the Starr referral had been received, the Committee began careening down a path to impeachment. While they could have stopped their own momentum, Starr's time bomb placed them in an awkward position.
4. Lesson Number Four: Two Chambers Are Better Than One
The Framers intentionally and carefully set up the impeachment process as a two step process: the House impeaches and the Senate tries. In their judgment, only the Senate would have the stature to discharge this responsibility. As Hamilton put it in Federalist Number 65:
"Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced the necessary impartiality between an individual accused and ... his accusers?"
The process inevitably slowed down when it got to the Senate. The entire procedural context was completely different than in the House.
Impeachment Articles are incredibly special pieces of legislative business. But, procedurally they are handled as recommendations from the House Judiciary Committee and they come to the floor of the House under fairly standard procedures.
In contrast, an impeachment trial in the Senate is a proceeding unto itself. The Senate does nothing remotely like it at any other time.
As a result, rules of proceeding had to be dusted off and examined. Because our historical rules left many questions unresolved, we had to fill in some of the procedural gaps at the beginning just so that we could proceed.
In retrospect, I think wrestling with the procedures, realizing that the Chief Justice would be presiding, understanding the oath to do impartial justice that every Senator must take, appreciating how unusual it was to have all Senators on the floor of the Senate for extended periods of time with almost no staff, all these things helped invest the Senate procedures with the proper sense of solemnity and seriousness so that we all ended up appreciating the awesome magnitude of the task before us and taking it with utmost seriousness.
5. Lesson Number Five: If You Talk the Talk, You Must Walk the Walk
As the impeachment process unfolded, first in the House and then in the Senate, advocates of impeachment made very strong accusations against the President. The sheer length of the Starr Report seemed to verify that the charges against him were very serious and very well substantiated. But the process in the House did not require the House Managers actually to be very specific about the charges, and the articles of impeachment eventually passed by the House were quite general and broad in their scope. In general terms, they asserted that the President of the United States had committed perjury before a federal grand jury and obstructed justice through various acts that impeded the ability of the Starr grand jury to investigate the facts.
But the articles failed to specify in detail what those perjurious statements were and why the various actions of the President amounted to obstruction.
Generalities do not work in a trial. Charges have to be made specific, concrete proof of the facts necessary to prove the charges has to be presented by the prosecutors, and the accused has to be given opportunity to respond to specific allegations and factual assertions.
In the context of the Clinton impeachment, the House Managers had committed themselves to getting over a very high hurdle. You see, the case they said they would prove to the Senate was that President Clinton violated specific federal statutes pertaining to perjury and to obstruction of justice.
What this meant, quite simply, was that they needed to be able to convince me that a prosecutor could convict President Clinton of these crimes by proof beyond a reasonable doubt - the same standard that a criminal court would use. After all, the entire reason that the House Managers were so insistent that President Clinton ought to be impeached was that, in their view, failure to do so would undermine the rule of law and would create a double standard, whereby ordinary citizens who commit perjury sometimes go to jail but the President does not. "No person is above the law," we were told.
But their concern is real only if the President would be convicted in a court of law - otherwise there is no double standard. So quite apart from whether you think lying about an illicit affair rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor, the whole theory of the House Manager's argument required proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
At the end of the day, I concluded that the House Managers had not made their case with that level of convincing evidence. Further evidence might be developed that would change my mind, but on the basis of the case they made, I had doubts on both accusations.
The point is this: the requirement that the President be tried by a separate body - the United States Senate - acting as a trier of fact - demanded that the House Managers articulate the specific charges clearly and that they then be put to the task of proving them. An impeachment cannot be decided on the basis of sound bites or talking points. Appearances on Larry King Live, Geraldo, Rosey O'Donnell, or The Jerry Springer Show will not resuscitate a dying or dead case. It is one thing to talk a good case, but the Constitutions requires you to actually present that case and prove to someone else that it is a good one.
And, for the sake of the stability of the nation and its government, that is a good thing.
6. Lesson Number Six: Bipartisanship Works
Charles Black, the distinguished constitutional law professor, wrote a marvelous little book on impeachment back in 1974, which remains highly instructive today. In that book, he proposed a method that Senators ought to use in approaching the question of impeachment. He advocated what he termed, "principled neutrality." And he even suggested a little thought experiment as a way of adopting this method. Before you answer any question having to do with impeaching the President, he suggested that you ask yourself:
Would you have answered the same question the same way if it came up with respect to a president towards whom you felt oppositely from the way you feel toward the President threatened with removal.
What this question does effectively is force you to take a bipartisan stance toward the process.
Bipartisanship is absolutely essential within our system of government. Impeachment is not a vote of confidence on the policies of the President - we have a national election to take that vote. Impeachment, in other words, is not supposed to be partisan politics fought out by other means.
In my opinion, my colleagues and I in the Senate were able to put themselves in this frame of mind just often enough to discharge our responsibilities. A bipartisan stance is no guarantee of unanimity - and some of my colleagues genuinely believed that the actions of the President justified his removal.
In the end, though, five Republicans joined Democrats on voting to acquit on both articles, and another five Republicans voted to acquit on the perjury allegations. To me, this was more than enough bipartisanship. It was, furthermore, bipartisanship that could only have come about because of the combined leadership of Senators Lott and Daschle, as well as the sincere efforts of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. These individuals understood the solemnity of the situation and the magnitude of their decision. Other than deciding whether to send American men and women to war, this vote was the most important vote a Senator could ever be asked to cast.
We have just been forced through a constitutional process designed by people who lived over 200 years ago, and used only once before in our nation's history. If I had to evaluate the process I would say, first, that the Framers concerns about abuse of the process were legitimate and, second, that their institutional design, combined with the good faith of the individuals in those institutions, worked well to protect us against the abuse that they feared. It should come as no surprise to you, also, that in this regard I would grade the Senate much higher than the House.
Ultimately, though, our constitution works and our government functions as a reflection of the common sense of the American people, which they proudly displayed throughout this past year in their instinctive understanding that impeachment is an essentially anti-democratic mechanism that must be reserved for use only as an extreme measure.
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"Kosovo: A Test for NATO"
I. Introduction
It is an honor to be with you today. This has been a momentous week for American foreign policy. I don't know how else to say it. To the surprise of many, NATO for the first time has taken offensive action to deter ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
When the Council asked me to speak about two months ago, I looked at the calendar, and saw that the NATO summit was coming, and that we would just have welcomed three new members into the alliance.
This would be an opportune time to talk about the future of NATO -- the challenges, the adjustments, the costs. In particular, I planned to talk about the importance and the difficulty of keeping NATO united on Kosovo. Kosovo was a big test.
After this week, I think NATO has passed that test, at least the first phase. But there are more hurdles ahead for NATO in Kosovo. NATO has to see this crisis through. By that I mean - either get a verifiable agreement that the "cleansing" will stop or render Milosevic incapable of of continuing the repression.
There's something of an irony here. Most Americans will not consider NATO a 21st century alliance if it cannot deal effectively with a crisis in Kosovo, its own backyard. But it's also true that most Americans probably don't understand what happened in Kosovo or what's at stake. NATO has to make the case.
II. History of the conflict
Why are we bombing Kosovo? There is a two-word answer: Slobodan Milosevic. He has massed more than 40,000 troops on the border of kosovo and has launched scorched-earth attacks on the Kosovo Liberation Army and ethnic Albanian civilians within the province.
His goal was once and for all to drive thousands of Kosovars from the province of Kosovo before NATO could intervene.
He may be trying to create an Albanian-free zone in northern Kosovo in preparation for a partition of the province. We just don't know his exact intentions, other than he'll do anything to stay in power.
But to really understand the crisis, we have to go back further -- six hundred years in fact - to 1389, on a place called Blackbirds' Field, near present-day Pristina. There, medieval Serbian knights were defeated by the Ottoman Turks. This led to five centuries of Turkish domination of most of the Balkans -- and the Serbs have been trying to undo that humiliation ever since.
But there's a problem: ethnic Albanians also claim Kosovo as their own. They trace their roots there even farther back than can the south Slavs.
And, in 1974, when all of all of Yugoslavia was united under Marshal Tito, the communist dictator, the Kosovar Albanians were granted autonomy within the republic of Serbia. The Albanians were allowed local control, while border security and foreign relations remained in the control of Belgrade.
Over the next fifteen years the Serb population in Kosovo dropped from one quarter to less than one-tenth. Why? There was a higher birth rate among the Kosovar Albanians; "buy-outs" of many Serbian homesteads by Kosovars; the desire of many Serbs to move to the more prosperous Serbia proper; there was some harassment of Serbs by Kosovars -- although nothing approaching the "ethnic cleansing" that is now being carried out by the Serbs.
With Tito's death, Yugoslavia began to fall apart. In Serbia an ambitious young politician named Milosevic engineered a coup against the communist leadership. He had ambitions beyond Serbia proper: he sought to extend his power to Serb-inhabited regions of Yugoslavia outside of Serbia.
In 1989, on the six hundredth anniversary of the Serbs' historic defeat, Milosovic traveled to Blackbirds' Field and delivered a nationalist speech.
He promised that no Serb would ever again be pushed around. With communism gone as a cause, Milosevic had found a new route to power: rabid nationalism and ethnic hatred.
That same year, Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy. The following year the parliament and government of Kosovo were abolished.
A purge of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo followed. Thousands were fired from their civil service jobs, and the Serbian government cut off funding to the basic institutions of society.
How did the Kosovars react to these violations of their human and civil rights? Peacefully at first: the Kosovars set up a parallel, unofficial system of governance -- schools, hospitals, and the other basic institutions. Under Dr. Ibrahim Rugova's leadership, they held to a policy of non-violence for nearly seven years.
I do not know of any other example anywhere of such self-restraint in recent years. Only later did they become radicalized.
It's amazing what happens to people when their homes are burned, their children are executed before their eyes, and they are forced to flee into the mountains.
III. Recent events
The United States was not totally ignoring Milosevic. In December, 1992, President George Bush sent a warning -- the so-called "Christmas Warning". In a letter delivered Milosevic and the commander of the Yugoslav army, Bush said that the United States was prepared to intervene militarily if Serbia attacked the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Perhaps because of this "Christmas Warning," Milosevic refrained for four years from an all-out military assault on the Kosovars, content to use repression instead.
The Kosovars waited in vain for the west to help. They hoped their cause would be on the agenda at the Dayton peace negotiations in November 1995, but at the insistence of Milosevic, the talks were restricted to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
By 1996, armed Kosovar resistance began under the loosely organized Kosovo Liberation Army.
Milosevic saw an opportunity. To divert the Serbian people's attention from the massive failure of his authoritarian communist regime, he undertook the systematic campaign against the KLA, in the process seeking to drive the ethnic Albanian population out of large areas of Kosovo.
Until this week, the west took note of these atrocities but could not deter them. The United Nations Security Council has passed two important resolutions -- numbers 1160 and 1199 (1998), decrying the repression and calling for an end to them. Milosevic publicly agreed to the U.N. demands, and then continued his terrorism.
Last October, under threats of NATO military action, Holbrooke and Milosevic reached agreement on a plan to end the massacres and move toward an interim agreement on the future status of Kosovo.
A ceasefire was to take effect, monitored by unarmed NATO aircraft, and international compliance verifiers were to be allowed into Kosovo.
But Milosevic treated this agreement as a "scrap of paper." The Yugoslav government flagrantly violated it.
Rather than the twelve thousand five hundred regular army troops, and the six thousand five hundred special police called for -- a total of nineteen thousand -- they stationed forty thousand Yugoslav soldiers and Serbian special police in the province.
As for the ceasefire -- it very quickly became a total joke. But Milosevic allowed the international observers in. So we have a documented, ongoing pattern of warfare, both against units of the Kosovo liberation army, but especially against innocent Kosovar civilians.
The most widely publicized massacre was perpetrated by the Serbs on January 15, 1999 in the village of Racak. There, forty-five Kosovar Albanian civilians were slaughtered. The Serbs, of course, asserted that they were KLA fighters who had either been killed in combat or had been shot while fleeing.
But a Finnish-led team of forensic experts examined the bodies and concluded that most of the victims had been forced to kneel and had then been executed by small-arms fire.
Another massacre occurred this week in the village of Srbica.
And during the past ten days the Yugoslav army and the Serbian special police have gone on the offensive, seizing the high ground above roads and railroads, moving in their most modern weaponry including M-72 and M-84 tanks, and conducting search and destroy missions against Kosovar villages suspected of harboring KLA sympathizers.
The net result is a new flood of refugees now approaching the four hundred fifty thousand reached last fall. To date approximately two thousand Kosovar Albanian and Serbian civilians have been killed so far in the conflict.
IV. What have been the results?
More than four hundred thousand Kosovar Albanians have been driven from their homes, including tens of thousands during the past ten days. Thousands of homes in hundreds of villages in Kosovo have been razed to the ground.
One-quarter of Kosovo's livestock has been slaughtered, and ten percent of its arable land burned. A food blockade has been imposed upon large segments of its population.
Back in October, immediately after the agreement between Ambassador Holbrooke and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was made public, I said: "We must never again allow racist thugs like Milosevic to carry out their outrages while the alliance dawdles." It took several months, with more massacres and more refugees, but NATO is no longer dawdling.
V. What's at stake
Yet there is still a great unease in Washington, and around the United States, about NATO's action. Why should we care if Kosovo burns? Explaining this operation is itself an important test for NATO, and for U.S. foreign policy.
We are a European power. Since the end of World War II, our strategy has been to promote stability in Europe through the spread of democracy. For fifty years NATO has been the umbrella under which our European allies have survived and prospered.
Since the end of the cold war, we have extended this zone of stability eastward. We enlarged NATO. NATO entered into partnerships with many countries in the region. Over time, these countries may even join NATO. But in the short-run we have formed productive relationships with Russia and others in the region.
This policy has helped move several countries toward real democracy and toward healing their own domestic ethnic tensions.
Finally, we have determined to oppose the aggressive policies of demagogues who are trying to stir up ethnic and religious hatred. Milosevic is such a demagogue, and if his scorched-earth "ethnic cleansing" is allowed to continue, the result will be greater instability in this part of Europe. I believe the national interests of the United States and other NATO members are directly threatened by actions of the Yugoslav government in Kosovo.
Let me be more specific about the dangers we face. This is the Balkans, an area that already has spawned one world war in this century. There is little doubt that continued ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians by the Serb interior ministry special police and the Yugoslav army will create thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of refugees.
We saw that last fall when about four hundred fifty thousand Kosovars were displaced from their homes and forced to flee. These people are called "displaced persons," not "refugees," because they have stayed within the boundaries of their own country, even if they are hiding in the mountains.
No one believes they would stay in Kosovo indefinitely if the Serbs are allowed to continue their murderous rampage. They would logically conclude that the west has given Milosevic carte blanche to do what he wants with "his Albanians."
So they'll head for the borders, and the Serbs will be only too happy to let them leave. After all, the whole point of this vile "ethnic cleansing" is to get the Serbs into a majority position in Kosovo's population.
Thousands of Kosovars will cross into Albania and Macedonia, and some will undoubtedly cross into Montenegro. To an extent, these refugee movements have already occurred.
But what happens if it becomes a flood across the borders?
Macedonia, the only former Yugoslav republic that seceded peacefully, has a highly unstable ethnic mix: two-thirds Macedonian slavs, nearly one-third ethnic Albanians, plus a smattering of other groups. The ethnic Albanians do not feel like fully-empowered citizens. Their language is not officially recognized. Few ethnic Albanians serve in the Macedonian civil service or military.
Last fall, however, a young, conservative Macedonian political leader named Georgievski was elected prime minister, and he has reached out to the ethnic Albanians, including some of their most assertive leaders in his coalition government.
But if thousands of desperate, radicalized Kosovars stream over the border into Macedonia, the delicate ethnic balanced will probably be tipped.
Despite the good intentions of the new Macedonian government, violence would likely result.
The picture gets worse. Many observers believe that Turkey would not stand idly by if fellow Muslims are being persecuted in Macedonia.
If the Turks intervened, the Greeks, who border on Macedonia and have a long involvement there, would surely counter the Turks and attempt to protect the slavic Christians. We would have the nightmare -- averted only narrowly several times in the last few decades -- of two NATO allies fighting each other.
If this sounds far-fetched, one need only read the history of the bloody ethnic violence in Macedonia over the past hundred years.
Then there is Albania. It is the poorest country in Europe. It has a per capita gross domestic product about one-twentieth that of the wealthiest western European countries.
During riots that erupted two years ago, armories were plundered, and hundreds of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles wound up on the street. As a result, Albanian society is lawless. The central government has only nominal control in many parts of the country, especially in northern Albania, which borders on Kosovo.
If the KLA is expelled from Kosovo, northern Albania would become their prime staging area. This would increase the risk of raids on the KLA by Serbs crossing into Albania. That's a much more dangerous situation than we have today.
Moreover, a wave of Kosovar refugees into Albania would probably induce many Albanians to flee to Italy across the Adriatic. This has happened before, and it destabilized Italian domestic politics much the way the Haitian refugees in Florida affected our own.
Once in Italy, refugees could travel freely, and undoubtedly they would head north in search of jobs -- but unemployment is already a problem in Europe.
If the countries of the European Union -- the bastion of democracy and our most important investment and trading partners -- suffer economically, it will hit Americans where it hurts: in their wallets.
About one-third of our economy now depends on exports. So if wealthy west Europeans bear the costs of sheltering refugees from the Kosovo conflict -- or the cost of sending them back -- and must pay more unemployment compensation to their own workers who have lost jobs to refugees willing to work for next-to-nothing, these Europeans will be less able to buy our products. It's that simple.
If Albania is destabilized, its Greek minority could suffer discrimination. The Albanian Greeks have demanded more cultural autonomy in the past, and very modest progress has been made.
If that progress were reversed -- or if there were attacks on the ethnic Greeks who are slightly better off than the ethnic Albanians -- there could be a response from the government of Greece. Then Turkey might intervene, precipitating a conflict between two NATO allies.
Then there is Montenegro, the junior partner with Serbia in what is left of Yugoslavia. It's a mountainous place of six hundred thousand hardy souls. Not a likely place to accomplish a democratic and economic turn-around, but that's exactly what has been going on there. Their young president, Milo Djukanovic, whom I met a few years ago, is a former communist youth leader who now runs a democratic government with representation from all ethnic groups -- the slavic Orthodox Christians, the Albanians, and the Slavic Muslims. Moreover, he has privatized the economy. Djukanovic is now seen by Milosevic as a serious potential threat within Yugoslavia.
If the Serbs are allowed to continue their rampage in Kosovo, Milosevic would could easily be tempted to attack Montenegro in an effort to unseat Djukanovic. This is not far-fetched. This is a very real danger.
There is also the "demonstration effect" of allowing Milosevic to conduct his ethnic cleansing with impunity. Let me note just a few of the quarrels that could quickly heat up if tyrants elsewhere thought they could get away with persecuting their own minorities.
About nine percent of Romania's population is ethnic Hungarian. Largely thanks to its desire to join NATO, the Romanian government has reached an accommodation with the Hungarians, but a right-wing party still is spouting ethnic hatred. If the social and economic situation in the area deteriorates, these radicals could gain influence. Slovakia has a large Hungarian minority in the south. Past antagonisms persist and tensions could escalate in Slovakia if the Serbs get away with their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Ukraine has an ethnic Russian population approaching one-fifth of the total. The situation has not polarized along ethnic lines except in the Crimea, but unbridled ultra-nationalism in Serbia could stir people up, especially with Ukraine's economic troubles.
Neighboring Bulgaria is also trying valiantly to reform. Its government reversed the 1980s communist persecution of the ethnic Turkish minority. But organized crime is a cancer in the body-politic. Refugees, ethnic cleansing, and a destabilization of Macedonia -- which many Bulgarians consider to be a part of Bulgaria anyway -- could wreck the reforms in Bulgaria.
Let me be very clear: none of these potential crises, taken alone, would directly threaten the United States. But the history of this century has shown that in a relatively short time the kinds of instability I have described could carry a higher cost than the current air strikes. "Pay now, or pay more later."
But let me ask you--what will we have left our children and grandchildren if we allow one man to begin to reverse the process of unification and stability that has been underway for the past 54 years? At the cost of billions of U.S. dollars and the stationing of thousands of American troops?
Finally, there is the question of NATO's credibility, and American credibility as NATO's leader. NATO has already identified ethnic and religious quarrels as the greatest danger facing the alliance.
In addition, NATO has already warned Milosevic many, many times not to continue his bloody repression in Kosovo.
If NATO hadn't acted this week, its viability would have been questioned, and properly so.
And if NATO begins to lose its rationale for being, the entire European security architecture that the United States has painstakingly built over the last five decades will be at risk.
VI. Conclusion
The situation in the Balkans is complex and fraught with danger. I do not know how the NATO operation will turn out. No one knows. There are no guarantees in foreign policy, especially in the post-Cold War era.
But I believe the president and our NATO allies made the right decision. American interests are too intertwined with Europe to let instability spread. The risks of not acting outweigh the risks of action. But it will be weeks, perhaps months, before we know how this crisis will turn out.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"The President's Fiscal Year 2000 Drug Control Strategy"
Senator Biden: Mr. Vice President, members of the Cabinet, ladies and gentlemen, I've been doing this a long time. I look out here, and I see some very familiar faces. We've come a long way.
We've come a long way in terms of how to approach dealing with the drug problem. We used to argue -- back fifteen, twenty years ago - about whether the answer was more treatment or more police or more incarceration or more testing or more interdiction. And we finally learned to walk and chew gum at the same time. We finally figured out we've got to do all of them, all of them all of the time.
But we still suffer in this town -- and, I think, in this nation -- from celebrating our successes a little too soon. We have had periods where, when the Indian drug problem dropped off the map, we decided we didn't have a problem and we didn't follow up. So the Indian drug strategy was never followed up in Congress or by Presidents. Then all of the sudden it became a gigantic problem again.
Now we're in a position where drug production is down; and hopefully, we're not going to make the same mistake again.
Another good thing that's happened: we have each year taken a little bit of the partisan poison out of this fight. It used to be, 'Who does it better? Who's doing it worse?' One of the reasons why, when I wrote the act that created the Drug Czar's -- he's now the Drug Director, but in Congress we call him the Drug Czar -- office, is that no President wanted it. Two Democratic Presidents didn't want any part of having it; Republican Presidents didn't want any part of there being a Drug Czar. There's a simple reason for it -- and Vice President Gore was in the Senate then and supported it at that time so he'll remember why -- nobody wants to take the responsibility if the responsibility requires you to set goals and then measure whether or not you've met the goals.
Because if it's a Republican President/Democratic Congresses -- and there may be one again, Congressmen, and there may be a Republican President again; I doubt it but maybe -- what would happen is Democratic Senators would say, 'That Republican President didn't meet the goal he set.' And Republican Congresses would say the same about Democratic Presidents.
And then along came the most decorated member of the United States military, who decided to take on the job of being the Drug Czar. He's a guy that everybody has learned to love and hate, and the reason why is that he got in everybody's face. And that was the intended purpose of the Drug Czar.
There are fifty different agencies, fifty different people trying to do the right thing, thousands and thousands of people, and nobody wanting one person to be in charge of everything relating to drugs.
And he's made some enemies, even some of his friends from the old Defense Department days; but he's finally arrived at something here.
The first drug strategy written -- and Robbie and others remember I happened to write the first drug strategy in the Congress -- was one of these little volumes. Now we're finally getting there.
You know why we're getting there? We're getting there because this guy used to be a General, and he's used to facts. And he kept saying to me when he took on the job, 'How do we know what the problem is? And how do we know and how are we going to measure whether or not we made any success?' Because like crime and unlike international finance or complicated aspects of health care, everyone thinks they're an expert on drugs.
No one has to know anything, but they all have an answer -- 'Everybody knows if you just did it my way, you'd be done' - when in fact, we had very little data from which to make judgments about the kind of progress we're making, whether it was on interdiction or on treatment or on any aspect of the fight. And what he has done is what every other President has feared someone would do, and that is begin to establish hard core numbers and goals.
Now (U.S. Representative John) Mica and Biden are going to be watching this President, and finding out whether or not he is going to meet the goals, whether he's going to fund the goals, whether he's going to fight for the goals. The next President, President Gore, you're going to have the real problem. The reason why is because all these things will have kicked in by then. I really mean this. He knows I'm not kidding. The next President is going to have a real problem because the database will be firmly, firmly established.
The reason I bother to bore you with this kind of thing is the drug problem is not static. It's not static, yet we tend to approach it as if it's static. Now it's heroin for kids my daughter's age. Now it's heroin that we have to worry about. We have to worry about marijuana, but heroin's on the horizon. It's a big deal. I wrote a report three years ago saying that and people said, 'No, no, kids are not going to use heroin.' Watch, watch. Tomorrow, the next day it will be something else. And so the reason to approach this thing in the businesslike manner the Drug Director has taken on is so that we can be flexible.
Now let me conclude by suggesting that the Administration has put forward what I believe to be a first-rate strategy. They don't claim that they have reinvented the wheel. They're not claiming we're going to end drugs in our time. It took us twenty-five years to get to this spot, folks, and we are not going to be able to turn it back in two, five, or ten years. And we're never going to be able to turn it back if we conclude we've finally won.
I'll remind you all that we had a drug epidemic in the teens, in the 1900's where more people in America were consuming what we now consider to be controlled substances, as a percent of the population, than consume them today. The drug epidemic was larger. It grew out of the soldier's disease of the Civil War and germinated for thirty-five years.
We used to have another 'Drug Director.' The first one was a guy named Anslinger. It was in the twenties, and guess what? They whipped the problem. They whipped the problem; and they did it through education, they did it through treatment, and they did it through enforcement as well.
And then they decided it was over. They decided all through the thirties and forties, 'Don't tell our kids about the problem, they may use 'em.' We ended up in the sixties, with a doctor in the White House -- whom both Vice President Gore and I know -- who went and, when we said to him early on that cocaine was a problem, came up to me in my office as Chairman of Judiciary and said, 'Why are we picking on cocaine?' The A.M.A. did not even list it as an addictive drug. We had gone into a cocoon again. We 'won' and the problem was 'finished.'
This problem's not going to ever be finished. Our vigilance is never going to be anything other than needed.
What the General didn't tell you is that this guy came along and said, 'Look there's a particular problem in the Black community, in the Hispanic community.' We don't like to talk about that. If we get drugs out of white middle class communities, we all feel much better about it, even if they're still extremely bad in black communities.
With this program that you just saw, we're getting saturation among all children. We're getting twice as much saturation in Black communities and in Hispanic communities because the problem is bigger and there's greater focus on it. This is a guy who keeps his commitments.
But in addition, this program lets kids know and parents know that this ain't your - you know that ad that used to be out there, used to be called, 'It ain't your father's Oldsmobile.' Well those of you who are out of the sixties, this ain't your father's marijuana. It's a different deal. It's a hell of a lot more potent. It's a hell of a lot different than it was in the sixties. So we've got to educate parents as well.
In addition to doing that, what they've decided to do is two things that I think are incredibly important. I'll conclude with this and the General spoke to it: drugs are crime. These kids using marijuana are incubators for crime. And those hard core criminals, those hard core addicts that are mentioned, the ones we least like to try to focus on, have to commit somewhere in the order of 162 felonies a year to keep their habits going. It doesn't take a lot of math to figure out that if you significantly impact the drug problem, you significantly impact crime.
One of the things we did at the federal level years ago is we decided we were going to treat people in federal prisons. One of the Republican initiatives, with Democratic support, was to do that for the states. This has been adopted. There's going to be a significant effort to get states to deal with zero tolerance. We let more people out of prisons, in state prisons, addicted to drugs as they walk out the door than there are young people using drugs, hard drugs. And so they've decided to deal with prisons as a $75 million increase requested.
Drug courts: they work. We fought over that and fought over that for years. It was Janet Reno's idea, and she told me about it, and we put in a law a long time ago that now has bipartisan support.
And treatment. You can't get from here to there. Ultimately, when a person consumes drugs and gets addicted to them, it becomes a disease of the brain, as Pat Moynihan says, and it needs treatment.
And so, I think this is a balanced approach. I'm hoping we have a balanced, bipartisan approach to dealing with it. We will look at it; we'll look at it closely, and when there's disagreement, I'm sure we'll say it. But I am confident that the partisanship is finally moving out of this thing. This isn't a Democratic or a Republican problem, nor a Democratic or Republican solution. It's a solution being led by a General who knows what the hell he's talking about, who has taken no prisoners, who has laid out in detail a hard, cold statistical analysis of where we're going, what we have to do, and what goals we have to meet.
It's a long way to go; but I'm confident that the combination of a bipartisan approach in the United States House of Representatives and in the Senate, led by the guy who's been the spearhead of all of this, the Vice President of the United States, we're going to be able to get it done.
I have the great honor of being able to introduce a young woman who knows first hand about the toll that drug abuse can take on a family, especially children who grow up in homes where parents are drug abusers. She grew up in a home in California where both her parents were heroin addicts. Her mother is in recovery, but her father is still fighting against the tremendous lure of drugs. Nevertheless, this young woman, Jessica Hulsey, whom I'll introduce in just a second, has become a national spokesperson on the dangers of drug abuse.
She received a scholarship from Princeton University, from which she graduated last year. Subsequently, Jessica was named last fall to be a member of the President's Drug Free Communities Advisory Commission, which I am proud to have supported in the last Congress along with many others. Jessica is an example of someone who has made and continues to make a difference in the fight against drug abuse. She knows of what she speaks. I now would like you all to meet Jessica.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"The Need for Bipartisanship on Impeachment"
*** AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY ***
For close to a year, Washington has been traumatized by the non-stop debate about President Clinton's shameful behavior. The President's indiscretions have been the focus of intense scrutiny here in America -- and intense puzzlement overseas. We have heard from the politicians, the pundits and the people. Everyone has had their say and now Congress is on the verge of impeachment hearings, where the members will be heard.
I have engaged in hundreds of discussions with citizens, elected officials, Constitutional scholars and even members of the press.
I have studied the Constitutional commentaries and carefully considered what my responsibilities would be as a juror and judge in the trial of the century. I believe that I have done everything possible to ensure that I am ready to address one of the most difficult decisions that may confront me as a United States Senator.
While the debate about the President's conduct rages on, it seems we will never reach consensus on the challenging legal and constitutional issues that surround impeachment. Yet there is one area where almost everyone agrees. That is the need to conclude this episode as quickly as possible.
I do not mean that people want Congress to rush to judgment. After a year spent obsessed with this subject, we are beyond rushing. The consensus I am referring to is the need for all involved to act with sober deliberation but also with a sense of urgency as we approach the final stages of this difficult controversy.
If the recent election results told us anything, if elected officials learned anything, it was that the American people want the House to end the political posturing, get on with the process, and resolve the issue so we can get on with the Nation's business. The American people have made up their minds on this matter.
Now it is time for members of the House make up their mind. And if they reach a different conclusion from the American people, they must convince the American people that they reached that conclusion through a fair and deliberate means.
I am here today to call for bipartisanship in the impeachment process. It is a concept many will say they agree with. But actions speak louder than words.
The framers of the Constitution knew that the greatest danger associated with impeachment was the presence of partisan factions that could dictate the outcome.
It is clear from the debates and from the commentaries on the Constitutional Convention that the framers were concerned that anything less than bipartisanship could, and would, do great damage to our form of government. They knew that to contemplate an action as profound as undoing a popular election requires at a minimum that members of both parties find that the alleged wrong is grave enough to overturn the will of the majority of the American people.
The framers also understood the sentiment expressed nearly 200 years later by Congresswoman Barbara Jordan during the impeachment proceedings of Richard Nixon.
She said, "it is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision."
But the current debate is guided by faction, not reason. One example: The House Judiciary Committee this month heard a battery of witnesses address the question of what is an impeachable offense. Democrats called legal experts who testified that the President's acts are not impeachable offenses, and Republicans called witnesses who were just as certain they were. By the end of the hearing, anyone listening would have the overwhelming impression that there was no consensus in the legal community on the issue, that it was an open question.
Yet the vast majority of historians and legal scholars have concluded -- and stated publicly -- that nothing that President Clinton has been accused of rises to the level of an impeachable offense. The hearing was a political charade.
We are told that ultimately, this is a political process. Ultimately, it is. The question is whether it is going to be a fair process. I argue that it can, and must be fair.
In his marvelous book on the impeachment process, published while the country was in the throes of President Nixon's Watergate troubles, Professor Charles Black alerted us to the danger of partisanship.
Because the constitution and its history provide us with more questions about impeachment than answers, he said, "it is always tempting to resolve such questions in favor of the immediate political result that is palatable to us, for one can never definitely be proved wrong, and so one is free to allow one's prejudices to assume the guise of reason."
Black was echoing Alexander Hamilton, who warned in Federalist 65 that impeachments:
"will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical, to the accused. In many cases, it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence and interest on the one side, or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of guilt or innocence."
I don't think I am being partisan myself in warning about the risks of partisan excess. As a 32 year-old Senator, I expressed this same concern about the fate of a Republican President. On April 10, 1974, I rose on the floor of the United States Senate and said:
"In the case of an impeachment trial, the emotions of the American people would be strummed, as a guitar, with every newscast and each edition of the daily paper in communities throughout the country.
The incessant demand for news or rumors of news -- whatever its basis of legitimacy - - would be overwhelming. The consequential impact on the federal institutions of government would be intense - and not necessarily beneficial. This is why my plea today is for restraint on the part of all parties involved in the affair."
I make the same plea for restraint today. And while the circumstances surrounding these two events are starkly different, the consequences for our Nation are the same. The gravity of removing a sitting president from office is the same today as it was twenty-four years ago.
The American people understand that the consequences of impeaching a sitting President are grave and, thus far, they have shown a remarkable restraint - more than some of the pundits and experts. But I believe they have reached two clear conclusions: Congress should resolve the matter expeditiously and resolve the matter in a fair and non-partisan manner.
These conclusions have great significance to the impeachment process. I believe the American people will ultimately make their judgment about the proceedings and the outcome based in part, on whether the House Judiciary Committee votes along strict party lines and whether the House of Representatives acts in a similar manner.
That may not be fair, but I believe that is how they will judge it. Therefore, it seems clear to me that for history's sake, and with the Committee's legacy in mind, Chairman Hyde and the Republican majority in the House must bend over backwards to demonstrate that they have conducted this proceeding based on principle, not politics.
There is yet another issue where public opinion comes into play. That is the question of whether the President's transgressions warrant impeachment. We know from survey after survey that the American people believe the President's actions do not justify impeaching him.
Should that have any bearing on the outcome? Many of my colleagues say they will ignore public opinion. In most cases, this is a sound position for a member of Congress to take. When we are elected to the House and the Senate, we are sent here to exercise judgment, not simply to be weathervanes that shift with the political winds. The fact that this is an impeachment proceeding doesn't change that - it makes it even more important that we exercise our best judgment.
But I believe it is a serious mistake to take the position that public opinion should have no bearing on how we act and what we do. Let me explain. Many people -- and many legal scholars -- have said that impeachment should be reserved for grave breaches of the public trust. Surely, if we are trying to decide whether an offense is a breach of the public trust, it is important to know what the public thinks. If the American people think the President's actions do not warrant impeachment, we should listen to their views, and take them seriously.
It would be a serious mistake to ignore public opinion for another, more fundamental reason. This is their President we are talking about. The President of the United States doesn't serve at the pleasure of the legislature, as a prime minister does in a parliamentary system. He is elected directly by the people of the United States.
The election of a President is the only nationwide vote that the American people ever cast. That is a big deal. If the American people don't think they have made a mistake in electing Bill Clinton, we in the Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision.
This was brought home to me several weeks before the elections at a filling station in Wilmington. The woman working the cash register looked up at me with something of a scowl on her face. I assumed -- incorrectly, it turned out -- that she had voted against me the last time I ran. She said, "You're Joe Biden, aren't you?" I nodded. She said, "What are you going to do to President Clinton on this Lewinsky thing?" I started to give her a noncommital answer about the process needing to go forward, but she brought me up short. "Don't you or anyone else take my vote away, Joe. He's my President! If you remove him, I will never vote again."
This woman -- and the American people -- understand the genius of the American system in their bones. They know that the Congress and the President are separate branches of government. They understand that each branch is responsible to them, not to the other branch of government. Just as they know that the Senators from their state are theirs, and the Representative from their district is theirs, they know that the President is theirs, too.
Anyone who wants to impeach Bill Clinton needs to keep in mind what the American people think about it, because he is their president.
Let me be absolutely clear. This does not mean just doing what the opinion polls say. It means proceeding in a manner that the American people understand to be fair. In the case of an impeachment, fair means bipartisan. It means putting aside the disagreements that stem from partisan factions. The time for partisan factions to play a role is in the process of elections, where candidates advance competing policies and platforms and the people vote. Once the election is held, our leaders hold office until the next election. It is simply antithetical to our constitutional democracy to use impeachment to overturn an election on partisan grounds. It violates the independence of the Presidency and it usurps the people's voice.
The Framers saw this danger when they wrote the impeachment power into the Constitution. Hamilton warned that an impeachment would "connect itself with pre-existing factions," just as Black much later saw that impeachment was an occasion for "prejudices to assume the guise of reason."
So those who wish to proceed with impeachment in the face of the public's contrary opinion bear a special obligation and confront a special risk. The obligation they face is that they must proceed in a bipartisan manner, so that we can defend the Congress's actions as fair and consistent with the constitutional framework - so that if impeachment goes forward, those who support it can look my constituent, or their constituent, straight in the eyes and defend the process as fair and just.
Should they fail to do this, the risk they face is the chance that they will inflicting more damage on our system of government and induce more cynicism and disgust with politics than anything the President has done so far.
So we must be prudent. Otherwise we will succumb to the danger the Framers warned against. We will subject the President to what amounts to a vote of no confidence. If you disapprove of his presidency and its policies, or if you do not like the man, vote to impeach. If, on the other hand, you support his presidency and his policies, or if you do like the man, vote to acquit. But that is not our system of government.
When Benjamin Netanyahu returned home after signing the Wye accords, he faced a vote of no confidence. If he had lost, he would have been out of office and another government would have to be formed.
That is simply not our system of government. Ours is not a parliamentary system. That is not how impeachment is supposed to operate.
Reflect for just a moment on how different our government is. Here, the president and the congress are separate branches of government. Each is elected directly by the people. The president and vice president are the only officials elected by ALL the people. Through the electoral process, they answer to all the people. In such a system, a vote of no confidence, as a means of removing the head of government when the Congress disapproves of his leadership, contradicts the theory of separated powers. It would trample on the choice made by the people through the electoral process.
This is no small matter. It goes to the heart of the constitutional design. As Jack Rakove, the Stanford historian, noted during the recently held House hearings on the standard for impeachment, the prevailing principle that guided the Framers in shaping the institution of the Presidency during the Philadelphia Convention, the one major goal and idea that best explains how that office took shape over the summer of 1787, was their intention on "making the presidency as politically independent of the Congress as they could."
The Framers saw the system of separated powers and checks and balances as a bulwark in support of individual liberty and against government tyranny. The separation of powers prevents government power from being concentrated in any single branch of government. Permit one branch of government to subjugate another to its partisan wishes, and you permit the kind of concentration of power that can lead to tyranny.
So the system the Framers established is utterly incompatible with the idea that sharp partisan divisions could be sufficient to impeach. Preserving our system, with its checks and balances and separation of powers, ought to be part of our consideration as we attempt to resolve the current controversy.
How do we ensure that impeachments do not become the partisan showdowns that the Framer's warned about? The answer is both simple and elusive. The only thing that prevents the impeachment power from being abused is the good faith of Members of Congress.
Professor Black proposed a simple test. He said that for the purposes of impeachment, members take off their party's hat -- shed their partisan identity -- and then try to take on the identity of a member of the other party. In other words, Republicans who favor Clinton's impeachment should try to pretend they are Democrats, and see if they still hold that same conclusion. Democrats who scoff at impeachment in the present instance should try to see it from the Republican's point of view.
It is very difficult to perform this test, especially in the highly charged partisan atmosphere in which we live, but you get the point. Before we undertake such a solemn act as impeachment, we should examine our reasoning very carefully to be sure we are not simply following partisan instincts.
Impeachment can be legitimate if and only if it emanates from a bipartisan conviction that the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors - when people of opposing viewpoints can come together in agreement over the seriousness of the offense and the appropriateness of the sanction.
Partisanship need not disappear entirely -- that would be impossible. It simply must be held in check for a time - a few weeks, perhaps a month - and by a relatively small number of people, so that a bipartisan consensus can take shape.
Look back at the Nixon impeachment. It took on legitimacy when a core of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were moved by the nature of President Nixon's offenses to break party ranks and vote for articles of impeachment. In the Senate, it was the stark reality of eroding Republican support that prompted President Nixon to resign. There was bipartisan consensus that what Nixon did was impeachable.
Partisanship did not evaporate entirely during the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. In fact, the entire episode was riddled with partisanship, and overall it stands as an excellent example of how not to conduct an impeachment.
Still, seven Republican Senators did vote with the Democrats for acquittal, shedding their partisan preferences, to prevent that impeachment from succeeding. It took only that amount of bipartisanship to save the country from an impeachment that most people - in retrospect - have concluded would have been a terrible mistake. The fact that a conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority guarantees a measure of necessary bipartisanship except in all but the most lopsided Senates.
But bipartisanship should not wait until the matter reaches the Senate chamber. In previous impeachments the votes in both the House and the Senate have been by overwhelming majorities. In the past, except for the Johnson impeachment, the only times articles of impeachment reached the floor were in cases of tremendous bipartisan consensus that the offenses satisfy the constitutional standard and that the officer ought to be removed.
As for the Johnson impeachment itself, according to James Blaine, one of the Republican House members who voted for impeachment, he and others came in time to regret the effort. In private correspondence, Blaine wrote that, "the sober reflection of after years has persuaded many who favored impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made, and that its success would have resulted in greater injury to free institutions than Andrew Johnson in his utmost endeavor was able to inflict."
The conclusion I reach is this. The burden is, as it always has been, on those who seek to impeach and convict a President. To overturn a popular election, they must convince the American people and at least some in the President's party that the President's actions meet the high standard for impeachment settled upon by our founders in the Constitution.
This is what I mean by bipartisanship.
The standard is "principled political neutrality."
And one measure of whether a member has met that principle is to ask in Professor Black's words:
"Would they have answered the same question the same way if it came up with respect to a president towards whom [they] felt oppositely from the way [they] feel toward the President threatened with removal."
The American people will know whether each member met that test. They will not demand unanimity, but they will demand consensus.
Thus far, the House Judiciary Committee has proceeded without dignity, causing the American people to loose respect for the Committee.
As a result, the burden of demonstrating that they are proceeding with a standard of "principled political neutrality" will be politically difficult to meet.
Ken Starr will make his case, the President should be allowed to make his. Then let them decide if the President's conduct meets the test of what the framers had in mind by "high crimes and misdemeanors."
The choice is not whether the President's self-evidently shameful and possibly criminal conduct must be punished by impeachment or be condoned. The choice is whether the process for dealing with his conduct is removal from office or some other means -- censure, or perhaps even a criminal trial after he has left office.
To those who say that failure to bring articles of impeachment against the President would amount to condoning his immoral behavior or overlooking a criminal act, not withstanding the fact it does not meet the test of an impeachable offense, I say they do not understand our system of government. For the Constitution contemplates and the law provides for such a circumstance - it is called a criminal trial after his term is served. It is a way to punish the President without doing damage to the system of separated powers or overruling the judgment of the American people.
Failure to impeach, even failure to proceed with a criminal action, does not mean that the President has not paid for his immoral behavior -- he has already been sentenced to a hundred years of shame in the history books, which is not an insignificant penalty.
So I say to my colleagues in the House, do your duty. Proceed with principled political neutrality.
For if you do, history will judge you kindly. And if you do not, it will judge you harshly.
And for those of us who hold high public office and the public trust, history is a judge.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"Trade and Foreign Policy"
It's a real honor to be here, you know we say that in my business, it's an honor to be here, and it's a polite euphemism, but I mean it sincerely.
Because the truth of the matter is, you are this particular club, and I'll say it with the press here, you're not suppose to say these things and make choices, this is the most influential, influential group of people that gets assembles on a daily, on a weekly basis on a regular basis on anything that occurs in the State of Delaware. You all represent everything from the fortune 10 companies in the world to the public service and public organizations that exist in this State. And I want to be very blunt with you, what I would like to do today is try to convince you of something.
Because if I can't convince you of what I'm about to speak to, quite frankly, I don't have a chance and people who share my view on both parties will not have a chance to convince the American people. I want to talk to you from my vantage point on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And I thought I would spend some time with you today trying to focus on America's role in the world economically, militarily and politically.
The President has said something that every once in a while Presidents say during their terms, use a phrase that captures and essential truth. One of the phrases that is attributed to him is that he referred to America as the essential nation, the essential nation.
The good news is that America is the essential nation. The bad news is that we are the essential nation. It's going to require us as a consequence of that position not sought, but arrived at to make some very, very, very difficult decisions over the next decade. Some as early as the next six months. Clearly between now and the year 2005-2010 we will write the script for the future of our country more than any generation has since the end of WWII. It is that fundamental.
Never before has America been position, including at the end of WWII with as much economic, political, and military dominance as they are today relative to any single nation. But never before have we been in the position, and nation been in the position in the modern, since the nation state has been formed, in the last three hundred and fifty years; never before has such a dominant nation in a relative to other single nations been lacking in as much power relative to the world.
In the past when there have been powerful nations that have guided the fate of the world. They have not only been powerful relative to the other power structures but the remainder of the world has been basically powerless. The centers of power are not as diffused. In today's world, in today's world that is not the case. So the good news is we are the essential nation. We are by far and away relative to any other single nation or block of nations, the dominant nation in the world.
But the ability of us to be in the jargon of the street, the policemen of the world, is less likely to be able to be done with efficacy than it was even twenty five years ago when there were two super powers.
So, what I want to speak to you today is about a debate that is not found itself into the daily news papers of America, that is not found itself today in the discussion that takes place, even with organizations like yours with well educated women and men who have a world view.
But a debate that is raging among those who will be the architects of public policy for the next decade. And that is, are we going to engage the world or are we going to trying to disengage. Is the neo-isolationist instinct that resides in my party on the left and the republican party on the right -- will it become the dominant force in determining American foreign policy? Or will internationalism, internationalist view prevail?
We have a three hundred year history in America. Before we were United States, a three hundred year history of wanting to look inward; concluding that, we can be Fortress America. It has been a constant struggle as to what our role in the world should be. Today, the debate is under way. The heart and soul of both political parties are being debated around that subject. Although, it's not articulated that way.
In my party, labor unions are against free trade. Labor unions fear loss of American jobs. Labor unions see their security in having protectionist barriers placed. In American business, among the Burgermeisters of the world who employ over sixty percent of all the public. There is the same strong tendency, the same strong tendency. The inability to understand the relevance of whether or not we provide an 18.5 billion dollar commitment to the IMF to bail out a place called Malaysia.
"What in the hell relevance does that have to do, Joe, with whether or not my drug store thrives? What does that have to do with whether or not the GM plant stays open?" As a matter of fact it lends itself to demagogic rhetoric that takes you the other way. It is easy to stand up and say, "Why bail out Malaysia, why bail out state-wide official in the last twenty five years -- to the chagrin of many of you -- that has had unvarnished, total complete loyalty from American labor. No other Democrat in the state carries that burden or that privilege.
So when I show up they are absolutely perplexed. "Joe, how can you be for fast track? You're abandoning us!" When I speak to outfits like the New Castle Chamber of Commerce, when I'm not on the ninth floor of this building, there is this overwhelming tendency to say, "What are you doing? Why are you making easy for people to go abroad, why are you for knocking down all these trade barriers?"
Well, more to the point, these days men and women in business have a special stake in foreign policy. Whether your business is large or small, global or located in Delaware, you're affected in some way by the events that occur around the world more than any time in our history. And today foreign policy is more complicated than ever, it's effected by technology, economics and even the weather. Consider the Global Warming Treaty that's being debated around the world now.
So I'd like to spend a few minutes giving you my sense of a few of the key foreign policy challenges we face in this complex environment and the end make the plea to you that we should engage. Because it's easier not to engage. Engaging as you will soon find out, I can make no guarantees for you, I can not guarantee you that it will work. But I can guarantee you as a student of history, if we do not engage we will be engaged on someone else's terms.
What are these threats to our security, our economic well being, our commitments around the world -- what are they?
Well I believe the biggest threat we face is from weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This is a huge problem that shows up in almost every foreign policy crisis we face. We see it in Iraq, we see it in Russia where there are thousands of nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War. And the question is, who controls them? People say to me, "What difference does it make, Joe, if our ...economy crumbles?" Well it makes a hell of a lot of difference.
Nicaragua crumbles the warring factions don't have nuclear weapons. The instability generated by the collapse of the Ukraine means that the third largest nuclear power in the world, a country none of you know anything about, has to settle their differences, nuclear weapons.
The good news in the Soviet Empire collapsed; the bad news is it collapsed. Because the one thing we knew about the old Soviets is that they were incredibly cautious, they did not have any regard for human rights, but they never took any real chances. I always used to point out that when the Soviets put a nuclear battery in East Germany they surrounded it with two Soviet divisions and did not give a key to their allies the East Germans.
When we put nuclear weapons we gave a dual key to whoever the country to which we were dealing. And we did not surround it with other than NATO forces. But now, nobody, nobody, nobody, is in charge.
We also see it in North Korea, whose nuclear weapons program may be back on track. Iraq is the most immediate threat. But getting rid of Iraq's weapons has not been easy, not will it be. An despite UN inspections and all the other efforts since the end of the Gulf War there is no fool proof way no matter what anybody tells you of eliminating the threat of Saddam Hussein posses and some say, and I'm one of those who say it, the elimination of Saddam Hussein is part of the answer.
But nobody who knows as much about foreign policy as I hope I do, can look at you and tell you we know what, who comes after Sadam Hussein. George Bush is [inaudible] criticized and Larry Eagleburger, the former Secretary of State for not finishing the job. The reason they did not finish the job is that through out the modern history of Iraq, unless there has been a dictator or a foreign power holding the center of Iraq together there has been war in the Middle East.
Iran is no box of chocolates. Iran and Iraq killed one million people between them, fighting over a border that controls a significant portion of the world's oil reserves. So the answer's not easy. Make no mistake about it.
If we want to take out Saddam Hussein in fact directly it will take American ground forces. A lot of you are military men. Name me a major campaign that has been sustained with out putting a soldier on the ground with a riffle in his hands. It cannot be done. And I'm the one you read in the paper constantly calling for use of force and use of air power against Saddam, but not because I think it will bring him down ...I'll go in to that later.
I'm not sure how this will be resolved. It's possible there will be another confrontation over inspections an I predict it will occur within the next month. It's possible such a confrontation may result in military action. But any military strike we undertake is not going to be enough in and of itself to remove Saddam Hussein. The threat of weapons of mass destruction also plays a key role in the relations with Russia. Russia is in the midst of an economic crisis with Yeltsin's illness, and at the edge of political crisis and a beginning of a political melt down.
I have been there a number of times, and met with every single major faction leader in Russia and they are a sweet bunch. Keep in mind folks, for eight hundred years there has never once, never once in the territory now called Russia, never once been even the nascent experiment in democracy, never once.
It's a long road. In the worst case scenario in terms of U.S. national security is that after Yeltsin passes from the scene, which is inevitable in near term, and extremist regime will gain power, and gains control of those weapons. That's the worst case. It's not something that I think is likely to happen if the foreseeable future, but it illustrates the dangers we face.
A more immediate danger we face in Russia is a political melt down that results in the need for us to make significant military expenditures relative to what actions they may take form the Crimean to engagements with Ukraine. It's also the reason why we're pursing an arms control regime and initiatives with Russia. We made good progress in reducing the stock pikes of left over weapons.
My conservative friends went crazy when I joined Sam Nunn and Dick Luger in putting up six hundred million dollars to pay the Russians to destroy their weapons and why are we giving those old commies that money. If in the midst of the Cold War I said to all you gentlemen and ladies we can buy all their nuclear weapons for six hundred millions dollars so you want to buy them. What the hell would you have done? It's mindless, mindless this right wing opposition to dealing with nuclear weapons, mindless. But it is prevalent.
We made good progress but there's a thing called a START II treaty has not been ratified by the Duma. And the reason they haven't ratified it is because it says that we reduce the number of multiple war head weapons that we have, and only have single war head weapons, we have a lot more single war head weapons then they have. So, even though it's good we get rid of these Merv ICBM's it means that in order for them to maintain parity they've got to make a major build up in single nuclear war head weapons, they don't have the money to do that.
That's why they haven't ratified START II, that's why we should immediately leap to START III, in steaded in [inaudible] in the number of nuclear weapons in the thousand. Big deal whether you agree with me or not, it is a big deal how we resolve this and it must be resolved in a matter of months, months, not years. Right now we don't know what the Duma's going to do. Next year congress should expand the programs we already have in place to employ Russian scientists.
Joe and I were talking to earlier, you realize they have a nuclear cities program in Russian. Over the past fifty years they have built twelve cities the size of Wilmington. The sole purpose the, the sole environment, the sole thing they undertake is the nuclear war industry. They're out of the business, there are eighty thousand people employed in those cities. They are laterally starving they have no pay. Thirty thousand of them have left, the non-essential workers who do not have enough where with all to be a danger. But of the remaining fifty thousand, ten thousand of them are the Verner Browns of Russia, and there are people wishing to employee them.
Offering them staggering amounts of money, just come to Baghdad. I'm not joking about this. You know what I'm taking about in Iran. The Iranians have a missile program right now. They are doing everything but kid napping these Russian scientists. There's at least one more important step to take in controlling nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and that would be to ratify this thing called a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
We of all nations have the best position to do that because we have the ability to know test through computer models whether our existing stock piles are of value. No other nation has that ability. Yet we're one of the few nations that hasn't ratified it. It says that there can be no testing. Now you will be able to cheat and do some testing, but what it guarantees is the reason why we want no testing gentlemen and ladies, is because no nation can reliably count on their nuclear arsenal unless they can test it.
No military planner can plan for it's engagement unless they can test it. And if you can not test it, practically speaking, you can not use it. [inaudible] break out of new weapons systems, of new capacity and capability. Of my good friend and he is a friend, Jesse Helms, says no. He constantly quotes somebody I don't think ever said it, but I'm very big on quotes myself, says "America's never lost a war and never won a treaty", and he could never be more wrong.
Because this treaty is an American interest, but our friends on the right concluded that this is not a good thing to do. Can you imagine us, the people who initiated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we're the nation that put it in play, and we're one of only four nations who has not ratified it. In the countries that signed the treaty, the pledge not to test nuclear weapons, it wont eliminate them but it will vastly cut down on their ability to move to the next generation. And almost every country has signed it, we're one of the few hold outs.
Skipping ahead because I'm taking more of your time than I should, let me turn to another significant area, and that is the stability of the world economy. There's something that effects your business even more than nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. We escaped the worst effects of the so-called "Asian flu." But the larger reality still exits. Our economy, our economic well-being, is tied to the global economy.
Interesting statistic I read, during the economic growth spirt of the last six years, one third of our growth was directly attributable to international trade to exports, one third. Just talked to the folks upstairs here and a few other companies. And they'll tell you, so what's happened the economic flu, although seemed to be contained slightly now, means the loss of American jobs, means the loss of American security, means the loss of American opportunity.
Because the good news is, one third of our growth came from exports, the bad news is when there are no exports, our job market will shrink , profits will diminish. Totally as a consequence of the international environment, the projections for the next years GDP, are instead of being 3.5 percent, just over 2 percent. All of you understand what that means to your bottom line.
Whether you own a drug store or the Dupont Company. So what do we so about it? Do we disengage, do we not do as we did and quote bail out Mexico, which I might add we made two billion dollars on? Do we not underpin Brazil's economy, do we try to build fire walls, do we not spend dollars to avoid that?
Well, that's a debate we have going on in the United States Congress. Exports this year are down twenty percent here in the state of Delaware. Down twenty percent. Projected deficit for this last quarter, just the last quarter in the United States of America alone is going to accumulatively result in a two hundred and forty billion dollar trade deficit. When it hits three hundred billion, how many years can we sustain that with out it turning out the pilot light on our economy?
Some of you are understandably are sceptics but last time I spoke to you, I remember I told you why we balanced the budget and why the deficit reduction package would do it and why these things would happen and why Bob Dole was all wrong about saying when we did it we would have an economic recession and high inflation. And why Volker is right, the predecessor to Greenspan. It was the single most significant thing we did to balance the budget.
We balanced the budget, we made the hard choices. Like you in businesses have made. We have cut discretionary spending, in fact, in real terms twenty two percent. There's not much more we can do to get our economy right. But we can do it all right and if the international economy collapses, it wont make a whole hell of a lot of difference. It will make a difference, it will just keep it from being as bad as it could have been.
But what do we do? Remember what we did when we went through the S & L crisis? The tough decisions, and how it caused businesses to slow down. What Japan is going through with their banking industry makes what we went through look like a walk in the park. And I'm not exaggerating that, that is not hyperbole, that is a fact.
So we're tied, we're tied in ways we've never been before. The Japanese are essentially engaged in denial and deferral, but it's a great consequence to us whether or not they begin to engage. But remember how slow as I said it took us to turn things around. As I said the trade deficit, the mercantile trade deficit, is twenty two billion dollars for this month alone. The deficit is twenty two billion dollars -- and that translates into third shifts in general motors if it keeps up being shut down. That translates into Dupont's profits, and ICI and Zeneca and the rest. It translates into the stock market.
I predict we'll continue to hear more voices and louder voices in support of trade restrictions and even retaliation, as the economy restrict and that as seen will be the very appealing, very appealing message. I turned on the television the other day and I saw Barbara Mikulski, an ally of mine, and Paul Sarbanes and Arlen Specter -- all my friends - talking about trade restrictions because the steel industry in each of their states is in trouble, and they are, it's real, it's not a joke, but the answer is not trade barriers, but it's going to be very appealing to talk about trade barriers.
There are other countries out there that remain economic basket cases, like Russian who are still sitting on those nuclear weapons, Latin American and so one. So the point I want to make to you is this because I've taken too much of your time, and I want to at least leave a little time for questions.
My conclusion is very basic and my plea to you is very basic, and that is; look at this closely. The answer for America as it goes into the twenty first century is to engage, engage. In arms control it means passing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, START II and START III, the Nuclear Cities program -- where we go in and hire those nuclear scientists, we hire them, with American tax dollars. We provide exchange programs for them, where we allow American corporations to go into those cities and subsidies American corporations if they find it in their economic interest.
To find alternative uses of that talent, for it will not just sit there. It will no just sit there. Any more than you in an economic collapse in the North East would not go to the South West to find the ability to take your talent and put it to use.
Economically, we must continue to support the IMF, the World Bank; we must pay our dues to the United Nations for our own naked self-interest. And we must continue a domestic policy of educating our work force.
Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"Bipartisan Foreign Policy at a Time of Crisis"
Thank you for asking me to speak to you at this time of serious political turmoil in the United States.
The President has admitted to serious moral indiscretions. The House of Representatives is considering impeachment proceedings. The Senate waits to see whether it will have to sit in judgment of the President's actions. The public is divided about what punishment should be meted out to a President who has engaged in such despicable and indefensible actions.
Clearly this is a difficult time for the nation domestically. It is also a perilous time for the nation internationally.
Throughout our history, Americans have understood that no matter what is happening in this country's internal political life, it is in our national interest to present a strong, united front to the world.
That's true now more than ever. The good news is we are the world's only remaining superpower. The bad news is, we are the world's only remaining superpower.
Unless we lead, no one will. The dangers we face are many:
C Financial crises in Russia and Asia;
C Humanitarian disaster in Kosovo;
C Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq;
C Nuclear weapons in North Korea, India, and Pakistan;
C Missile programs in North Korea and Iran;
C Fragile peace in the Middle East;
C And continuing threats from international terrorism.
The risks of not acting are obvious. There is real potential for foreign policy paralysis.
In my view American foreign policy, which has already fallen victim to the antics of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, has been further harmed by this growing domestic crisis.
In the face of major world problems, we cannot be distracted from our task of maintaining America's security, leadership, and credibility abroad.
As I see it, the problem breaks down into two areas. In some key instances Congress is not doing its job. The need for IMF funding, payment of our UN arrearages, and sanctions flexibility regarding India and Pakistan are just three examples. I will mention others later in my remarks.
In other areas, the President is limited in doing his job by the uncertainty of Congressional support. As President he has the power to act, but he has to ask himself in this political climate whether he will be cut adrift by a Congress that will not back him up.
And foreign leaders, knowing of the President's difficulties, wonder whether the President can deliver on his commitments.
The two most immediate cases in point are Iraq and Kosovo.
In Kosovo, the Serbian special police and Yugoslav Army continue a terrorist policy that has destroyed more than two hundred villages, driven more than 300,000 ethnic Albanians from their homes, with an estimated 50,000 forced into the forests and mountains. With the onset of winter only weeks away, a humanitarian catastrophe looms. The stability of the entire southern Balkans hangs in the balance.
I believe the United States and its NATO allies should give President Milosevic a date certain to cease military operations. If he fails to do so, then NATO should undertake an air campaign, whose preparations were agreed upon by the Alliance in Portugal last week.
But for the President to be able to act he needs to have the support of the Congress. If that support is not asked for - or given - because of the growing chasm created by the impeachment debate, United States leadership will be forfeited, and the Balkan tragedy will continue.
A similar potential for paralysis exists in the face of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Iraq's decision in August to block further UN inspections, and the resignation of UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, have forced both the Administration and Congress to focus on the need for a clear Iraq policy.
Do we rely on the immediate, unilateral use of force to back UN inspections? Or do we rely instead on sanctions and deterrence to contain Iraq?
These are tough choices, but, again, I worry that our ability to make the decisions required to exercise U.S. leadership is being diminished because of the uncertainty of Congressional support for Presidential action.
It is vital that the Administration work with Congress in making that decision, and that Congress deliver bipartisan support once a difficult decision is made.
No matter how we feel about the actions of President Clinton, and the debate over impeachment proceedings in the House, Bill Clinton is still President of the United States.
As President he has constitutional responsibilities to conduct our foreign policy and protect our national security.
Congress shares that constitutional responsibility. It is critical that we rise above our partisan differences, and work with the President to address these problems together.
There are also areas where Congress alone must act, and has not. We have two weeks left in this Congress. To date we have failed to address several critical issues.
In almost every case the Senate has acted in a strong bipartisan manner.
In the House a small group of highly partisan Members have been holding hostage important foreign policy initiatives - taking actions I am confident the large majority of the American people do not support.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the ability of our country to lead requires that we face up to the issues I am about to mention and act before we adjourn.
Embassy funding
First among these issues is consideration of the $1.8 billion emergency embassy security funding legislation to rebuild the destroyed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and meet urgent security needs of other diplomatic facilities around the world.
The embassy bombings in East Africa were tragic reminders of the long-term war against terrorism.
An example of rank partisanship surfaced when President Clinton acted decisively and retaliated against Bin Laden and the other terrorists who killed so many innocent people. Rather than get the facts, the specter was immediately raised as to whether the President's action was like that in the Wag the Dog movie .
We need to pass this emergency legislation before we adjourn. I am confident we will, but with this group I am never certain. The House may try to tie it to other unrelated domestic legislation to give them partisan advantage on some unrelated issue.
IMF Funding
A second critical issue is funding for the International Monetary Fund.
America's own economic security depends on the ability to provide strong international leadership at this critical time for the international economy.
Other nations understand our system and understand that our leadership can only come from the President acting with the full support of Congress.
The Asian financial crisis has sent shock waves as far as Russia and Latin America. It is the only serious storm cloud on the horizon for the American economy. It requires decisive action.
The President requested $3.5 billion for IMF emergency reserves in February of 1997 and the additional $14.5 billion to replenish the United States share of our quota in February of 1998.
It is shameful that the House of Representatives has prevented Congress as a whole from acting in support of the President's request to replenish the IMF.
To protect our economy and to keep the crisis from spreading, Congress must act now in the next few days on these emergency reserves and to replenish our share of the IMF's resources, which have reached dangerously low levels.
It is clear there has been plenty of time to act.
Why didn't the House act? Now the response is the IMF needs to be reformed. We all agree to that and the Senate bill has significant reforms. That is not the issue.
The House is using the IMF as a domestic bargaining chip.
Time may have run out on the IMF's ability to help in the current Russian crises, but an immediate funding of the IMF is critical to addressing this economic crisis as it spreads to Latin America and our own economy.
Now is not the time for the United States to walk away from its commitment to the IMF and our country's leadership in addressing this international economic crises.
CWC
Chemical weapons, among the world's oldest weapons of mass destruction, are truly horrific - as we learned when Iraq's Saddam Hussein gassed whole villages of his own people. Partly in response to Saddam Hussein, the world moved to adopt the Chemical Weapons Convention which outlaws chemical weapons and allows unprecedented on-site inspections to verify compliance with that treaty.
After a vigorous debate in the Senate, which I was proud to lead, there was a strong bipartisan vote of 74 to 26 to ratify the treaty. On May 23, 1997, the Senate unanimously passed bi-partisan legislation necessary to implement the treaty.
But the Chemical Weapons Convention is in limbo, and the United States, a leader in its creation, stands today in violation. Why?
Because House Republicans failed to act on the Senate's implementation legislation for six months, finally choosing to attach it to unrelated legislation to sanction Russia for allowing missile technology to be transferred to Iran.
This was done knowing the President would veto the Russian sanctions legislation. The President did veto the bill, and was correct in doing so, to preserve his flexibility in negotiating a wide range of issues with the Russians at a time of economic and political upheaval in Russia.
That was an unwise and unnecessary political confrontation with the President, which also put implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention at great risk.
The House could pass the CWC implementation bill whenever the Speaker wants. If it does not do so in the next two weeks, we will continue to be in violation of the treaty and be unable to demand compliance by others.
It is time people like yourselves called on the House of Representatives to step forward and put the national interest above petty partisan political considerations.
Let me reiterate, for the first time in my 25 years in the Senate an extreme action by a minority of the majority Republican party in the House is dealing with serious foreign policy issues as if they were fighting over Congressional reapportionment.
Foreign policy in the past has never been used as a bargaining chip for highly charged domestic social issues. This is an outrageous way to behave and must come to an end. Our security depends on it.
India/Pakistan
In the wake of the India and Pakistan nuclear tests, the President was forced by existing sanctions law to impose sweeping economic penalties against these countries, even though this made resolution of the crisis more difficult.
The Senate quickly moved to repeal part of the sanctions law to make exceptions for food and other humanitarian supplies. The Senate Sanctions Task Force, which I co-chair with Senator McConnell, also recommended changes in the existing sanctions regime to give the President flexibility in negotiating a deescalation of the nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan.
The Senate adopted these changes as an amendment to the Agricultural Appropriations bill. We need to complete action on this legislation before we adjourn.
We were all encouraged by the positive statements of the prime ministers of India and Pakistan indicating their willingness to negotiate eventual accession to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
We also want them to pull back from the nuclear brink and agree not to deploy nuclear weapons on missiles or aircraft.
In order for the United States to be able to influence that outcome, this President and future Presidents need flexibility on sanctions.
This is not a game, and right wing Republicans should understand that. They should debate and act upon these changes in the sanctions laws and not let this legislation get caught up in the search for the favorite hostage of the day.
I am truly fearful we may have reduced our ability to impact others' behavior on the Sub-Continent because of our failure to act quickly and decisively.
UN Arrears/State Department Reorganization
At the very moment when Republicans in the House are criticizing the President for failure to keep together coalitions in support of actions in Iraq or Kosovo, they deny him the ability to meet our fair share of United States commitments at the United Nations.
Chairman Helms and I worked hard to craft a bipartisan plan to pay $926 million in our arrears if the United Nations agreed to make reforms. Those plans are contained in the State Department Conference Report that has yet to be sent to the President.
Unfortunately, our payment to the UN has been held hostage to an unrelated, controversial provision that would prohibit giving population planning funds to foreign organizations that use their own funds to lobby their governments on abortion.
Holding the payment of UN arrearages, reform of the UN, restructuring and funding of our foreign policy agencies all hostage to this "Mexico City" provision has been highly irresponsible in my view.
The House is also holding any funding for the IMF hostage to this same Mexico City legislation.
The President has made it clear he will veto any bill with the Mexico City language.
However, the House Republicans insisted on keeping this totally unrelated language in the Conference Report.
This has resulted in an end game of chicken, with a terrible legislative collision ahead of us.
In my view the Mexico City language should be stripped from both the State Conference Report and the IMF bill, with a commitment to debate and vote on it up or down early next year.
The UN legislation had reflected bipartisan support for U.S. leadership and credibility abroad and is essential to strengthening diplomatic readiness.
We need to restore our bipartisan commitment before we adjourn.
Our failure to act will clearly diminish our country's leadership abroad.
CTBT
Finally, two years after the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I regret that the Senate has not been able to act on this important treaty this year.
Chairman Helms and I disagree on the importance of this treaty and he has indicated a need to address other treaties first.
Nevertheless, I felt we had an obligation to hold hearings and act on a treaty of such importance. Had I been Chairman of the Committee we would have acted. We need to next year.
How ironic it is, just a week after India and Pakistan have pledged to negotiate ratification of this treaty by next September, that the United States Senate has not moved to take similar action.
I hope my message has been clear: If we don't act on these foreign policy matters, the potential for paralysis is real, and the consequences disastrous.
It is time for strong bipartisan action.
Our time is running out.
You will have questions for me, but I have several questions for you.
Why, given the importance of the issues I have just discussed is there such a deafening silence?
Where are the editorials demanding action?
Where are members of the foreign policy community, many of whom are represented in this room, demanding action?
Where are members of the business community and others, who will be adversely affected by a failure of the United States to exercise leadership either at the IMF, the UN, or elsewhere in the world?
The issue we must be thinking about in the days before we adjourn is leadership: leadership at a time of crisis at home and difficulties abroad. If the United States doesn't lead no one will. But can we lead?
You know where I stand. If you agree, my colleagues in the Congress need to know where you and the American people stand.
John F. Kennedy once remarked that 'our domestic policy can defeat us, but our foreign policy can kill us'.
He was right, of course. And in the coming days, Congress and the President have the responsibility to step up to the plate and address our unfinished foreign policy business -- or risk allowing these neglected issues to jeopardize our national security interests. Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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"A New Approach for South Asia"
Two months ago, in the Rajasthan desert, the Government of India claimed to have exploded five nuclear devices. Just 15 days later, the Government of Pakistan followed suit.
These events, in a few short weeks, expanded the acknowledged nuclear club by forty percent. They confront the United States, as well as the rest of the international community, with a monumental challenge, calling into question decades of U.S. non-proliferation policy.
Addressing this challenge -- devising a new approach toward South Asia -- is the subject of my remarks today. I thank you for the kind invitation.
We can expect the policy community to dramatically increase the time and attention it devotes to South Asia in the coming months, but you at the Carnegie Endowment can credibly claim that you were focusing on nuclear tensions long before it was even remotely fashionable. If only more had listened.
Clearly the tests by India and Pakistan require us to reexamine many aspects of our foreign and national security policy. We need to jettison some long-held beliefs that have acted as self-imposed constraints on U.S. policy.
Traditional approaches have not worked in the past in South Asia and will not work in the present situation. We need to think "outside the box." Most of all, our national interests throughout Asia dictate that we end our benign neglect of South Asia. Let me outline the shortcomings of our policy:
First, we have not acknowledged or addressed the fundamental sense of insecurity felt by both India and Pakistan since the end of the Cold War.
It is both facile and misleading to blame India's decision to test solely on the election of the BJP government. While the BJP certainly had a domestic political imperative to test, there was already a consensus across the political spectrum in India (except for the Communists) that India needed to conduct tests.
Why? Because of India's underlying perception in the aftermath of the Cold War that it was isolated, vulnerable, and not taken seriously.
For much of the Cold War, but especially after the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, a measure of stability prevailed with China and the United States as key supporters of Pakistan, and the Soviet Union as the chief ally of India. This set of power relationships, combined with the threat of U.S. sanctions, restrained India and Pakistan from either testing or deploying nuclear weapons.
With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, India could no longer rely on Moscow to balance China. In addition, India perceives us -- falsely, I believe -- as cultivating China as the regional hegemon that will preserve Asian stability.
The perceived U.S. preoccupation with China generates deep concern in New Delhi. Remember: China defeated India in the 1962 war and occupied several thousand square kilometers of disputed territory, a humiliation from which India has yet to recover. And a decade ago India and China massed several hundred thousand troops along their disputed border.
India's sense of strategic encirclement was heightened by reports of Chinese missile and nuclear transfers to Pakistan and budding Chinese military and security ties to Burma throughout the 1990s. Pakistan's test of a missile with a 1,000 kilometer range last April appeared to fit this pattern even though U.S. officials pointed to North Korea as the real source of the missile.
To put this in context, how would China feel if the tables were turned? What if India transferred its missiles to Vietnam, fighter planes to Mongolia, or a nuclear bomb design to Taiwan?
In such an environment, India felt that it was on its own and needed to demonstrate its capabilities, change the strategic landscape, in order to be taken more seriously by China, the United States, and other powers.
Pakistan's motives for testing are far less complicated than India's, but no less serious. Its strategic aim has been to resist Indian hegemony and guarantee its survival. Just as India's drive for a nuclear device can be traced to the defeat it suffered at the hands of China in 1962 and China's subsequent nuclear test in 1964, Pakistan's nuclear program can be traced to the role India played in splitting Pakistan into two with the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Many in Pakistan believe that India has never accepted the partition of the Indian subcontinent back in 1947. In Pakistan, therefore, nuclear capability is seen as the ultimate guarantor of its statehood.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Pakistan felt it needed to test to reestablish the deterrence that was disrupted by India's tests.
The end of the Cold War also made Pakistan feel abandoned and isolated. The United States no longer needed Pakistan to contain Soviet power. The Pressler amendment, invoked in 1990, banned aid to Pakistan and led directly to the erosion of Pakistan's conventional arsenal. This was seen as a betrayal, and has limited our influence with Pakistan ever since.
Unfortunately, we failed to acknowledge or act upon these fundamental shifts affecting Pakistan, just as we ignored the changes in India's security perceptions.
The second shortcoming of our South Asia policy is that its two chief elements -- commerce and sanctions -- are contradictory. We use sanctions to punish proliferation at the same time we are promoting commercial ties to take advantage of long-overdue market openings in both countries.
This policy is half right. The expansion of trade and investment ties with India and Pakistan will help these countries realize their full potential as well as benefit our own economic interests.
But the application of a one-size-fits-all non-proliferation policy is not appropriate to the special circumstances in South Asia. It lumps India and Pakistan with the far more dangerous outlaw states such as Libya and Iraq. It ignores the great lengths both countries have been prepared to go in order to achieve a basic sense of security. It presumes our influence is much greater than it actually is. Finally, it has prevented us from developing creative approaches to stabilize nuclear and missile development in the region.
Legislation initiated by the Congress, and signed by successive Presidents, is the basis for this rigid approach. I voted for that legislation. But when viewed in the context of Pakistan's and India's decision to test, I have to conclude that while our approach worked for many years, it is no longer working. It didn't stop them from testing, and it provides no incentive for India and Pakistan to take positive steps now.
To be sure, sanctions, when carefully calibrated, are a valuable policy tool. But I think it is clear that multilateral sanctions are more effective than unilateral sanctions. For example, the recent decision by the Group of Eight to delay indefinitely World Bank loans for India and Pakistan is more likely to produce results than unilateral U.S. action.
Given these defects in our policy, I believe we have no choice but to construct a new conceptual framework. Here are our options.
First, we could maintain the status quo. That is, we retain sanctions on India and Pakistan indefinitely, not recognize their nuclear status, and keep the fundamentals of our Asia policy unchanged. That would "keep the faith" on non-proliferation, but leave the underlying tensions in place and set the stage for the next, perhaps more dangerous, crisis.
A second approach that has been suggested is bolder: why not enlist India as a potential strategic ally against a "China threat?" But this runs the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. China does not show signs of becoming hostile, nor are China's interests necessarily in conflict with our own. China prizes peace, stability, and economic development above all else.
I suggest a third approach. First, we should abandon our one-size-fits-all non-proliferation policy that we have applied to South Asia. We need to make distinctions between India, Israel, and Pakistan on the one hand, and nations that flout international norms such as Iraq and Libya on the other. The former should not concern us as much as the latter.
We are better served by bringing India and Pakistan into non-proliferation arrangements than by simply expecting them to foreswear their nuclear programs. In practical terms, this means that Congress should provide the President with the flexibility to negotiate a package that would lift sanctions in exchange for restraint by India and Pakistan in the areas that matter most to us.
We should seek agreement on five items:
Formal commitments, preferably through adherence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to refrain from further nuclear testing.
Pledges to enter negotiations for a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.
Assurances that both countries will continue to refrain from spreading nuclear and missile technology.
Verifiable commitments not to deploy nuclear weapons on missiles, submarines, or aircraft.
A resumption of comprehensive bilateral discussions between India and Pakistan aimed at reducing tensions.
Such a package would serve our twin objectives of repairing the damage to the global non-proliferation regime, while not indefinitely isolating one-fifth of humanity.
Second, we need to distinguish between the relative importance of India and Pakistan to our interests over the long-term. Pakistan has been a good friend in the past, and we should not forget that. Moreover, a policy that dismisses Pakistan's legitimate security needs is bound to fail.
In fact, I believe that when we eventually ease the recently-imposed sanctions on India and Pakistan, we should simultaneously waive the Pressler and Symington amendments, which restrict military and economic aid to Pakistan. The time has come to clear the decks in our relationship with Pakistan and end a policy which is perceived as discriminatory by Islamabad.
Nor should we overlook the important strategic role Pakistan could play as a secure transit route for the vast oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Basin, if, and this is a big if, peace can be secured in Afghanistan.
But American national interests in the new multipolar world dictate a different level of relations with India. Because of its growing economic and political weight, India will become a significant player in Asia and at the global level.
Already India has a middle class approaching 200 million people. If Indian governments make policy decisions that continue to unleash the latent potential of a talented population, then India will in time achieve the great power status to which it has long aspired.
Furthermore, if current trends hold, I believe that it is only natural for some form of rivalry to persist, if not intensify, between a growing India and China. Obviously, this would diminish security and threaten U.S. interests across Asia.
To prevent it, two things must be done. First, the Sino-Indian rivalry must be channeled into a healthy and constructive competition. Second, as both India and China achieve great power status, they will need to ease the anxieties of lesser powers.
To deal with this emerging regional picture we must move away from a focus on discrete bilateral relationships in Asia, and broaden our vision with a more integrated region-wide approach that regards South Asia as an integral part of Asia.
I propose a new framework that would give a "seat at the table" to all of the major players in Asia -- India, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States. The emphasis should not be so much on formal structures, but on substance. The goal of this new framework would be to promote greater consultation and transparency among the countries.
The two emerging powers in this group -- India and China -- should be encouraged to set an example of cooperation for the rest of Asia. Such a system would also help them to realize that along with great power status comes responsibility. They must convince smaller nations of their peaceful intentions; they must act to strengthen, not weaken, international norms; and they must be seen as supporting an international environment that promotes peace and prosperity for all.
The "Gujral doctrine" demonstrates that India has the potential to mature into a responsible great power. As espoused by the previous Indian Prime Minister, this doctrine called for India, as the dominant power in South Asia, to go more than halfway in easing the fears of its smaller neighbors. I hope that the new Indian government will not stray from this far-sighted policy adopted by its predecessor.
The United States will need to take the lead in setting this regional security mechanism into motion. It could begin today with the President picking up the phone and speaking to the leaders of India, Russia, and Japan about the insights he gained from his trip to China and make arrangements to go to India.
Regular consultation among the key Asian countries could go a long way toward dispelling anxieties and suspicions. It would give everyone a stake in maintaining stability. It would provide an incentive for regional powers to work toward the settlement of long-standing disputes such as those over the Sino-Indian border, the Kurile islands, the Korean peninsula, and the South China Sea.
Key countries could be encouraged to share information about their armaments and defense budgets. If the other side does not have information, it will assume the worst. This inevitably leads to decisions and potentially dangerous cycles of action and reaction that are predicated upon assumptions that may be false.
Let me conclude. Devising a new approach to South Asia will not be easy, especially considering that it is being done in response to actions we don't approve of -- namely, the Pakistan and Indian nuclear tests. But we have no choice, because the status quo is not an option.
We must show India and Pakistan that while we condemn their tests, we understand their security concerns and are willing to deal with them. If we don't devise a new approach, tensions will grow and South Asia's endemic security problems will undermine our long-term interests. And one thing is clear: South Asian security is becoming inseparable from Asian security.
And, of course, Asia matters to the United States. Despite recent economic setbacks, Asia will continue to be the most dynamic region into the next century. Our economic links will continue to grow. The regional balance of power and security perceptions will also undergo dramatic changes. I believe that we will need to find new mechanisms to preserve our security interests.
An effort that begins today in enlisting the key Asian powers in advancing our common objectives of peace, stability, and prosperity is one that could pay dividends far into the next century. Now is the time to begin.
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"Youth Violence and Violence Against Women"
Thank you for inviting me. Thank you to the President of the National Association of Attorneys General, Wisconsin's Jim Doyle. I would also like to recognize Delaware's Attorney General, and a friend of mine -- Jane Brady.
I would like to share with you this morning my views about two issues I hope Congress will address this year -- pending youth violence legislation and new violence against women legislation I will soon be introducing.
First, the Youth Violence Bill, S.10. To put where we are on the Hill in some context, I know that many of you are closely involved in the negotiations over tobacco legislation. Well, compared to the many disputes and political "fault-lines" over the Youth Violence Bill, I am starting to think that working out the details on the very complex issue of tobacco may not be so tough after all!
Let me outline just some of these "fault-lines" holding up the Youth Violence Bill --
First, governors -- as I'm sure many of you -- do not like all the new federal strings attached to S. 10's $500 million block grant. Even though most every state has enacted juvenile justice reform legislation over the past five years, the bill contains mandates instructing the states how to maintain their juvenile records, how to determine whether juveniles are tried as adults, and which juveniles should be drug tested. The greatest point of contention is the record-keeping mandate which many states have figured out is too prescriptive and too expensive.
Second, everyone from the Chief Justice of the United States to state and local prosecutors are complaining that S. 10 goes way too far toward federalizing juvenile crime. And they are right. The "anti-gang" title of the bill contains sweeping new federal crimes that turn many traditional state law juvenile offenses into federal cases.
S. 10 also repeals the law that gives state officials a "right of first refusal" to prosecute juveniles when there is concurrent state/federal jurisdiction. Under S. 10, federal prosecutors would have first crack at juvenile cases and state officials get whatever is left over.
Remarkably, both sides of the gun debate oppose S. 10. The far-right gunners -- we're talking about groups like the Gun Owners of America -- are aggressively opposing provisions which make violations of serious federal gun laws RICO predicates. Since selling bootleg music videos is a RICO predicate, you would think that it should also be a RICO predicate to sell guns kids in furtherance of a violent crime.
But, there is so much opposition to these provisions that three Republican senators -- all "gunners" -- dropped their sponsorship of S.10.
But, even though many believe the bill is "too tough" on guns -- in reality, the bill falls well short of meaningful youth gun enforcement. For example, the bill does not contain the so-called "Juvenile Brady" Proposal, which would impose a life-time gun ban on juveniles convicted of "three-strikes" crimes.
The bottom line on guns -- S.10 has major problems with the gunners, the anti-gunners and everyone in between.
Next, a coalition of police, prosecutors, and crime victims are highly critical of the legislation because none of the new federal money is dedicated to after-school juvenile crime prevention.
Two of your members -- Grant Woods and Jim Ryan -- are on the board of directors of this coalition, which is calling on the Senate to earmark specific funds for after-school prevention. You all know the evidence -- if you want to reduce juvenile crime, you have to increase both enforcement and prevention efforts.
Finally, there is a great deal of controversy over the current laws requiring separation of juvenile and adult offenders. The bill guts these requirements by permitting even the most minor juvenile offenders to be housed in adult jails for unlimited duration and placed in cells next to adult criminals. It even goes as far as permitting "intermittent" physical contact between adults and juveniles.
Again, a broad array of prosecutors, police, and corrections officials know that this is bad crime policy -- the more we expose kids to grizzled adult criminals, the worse they will be once they are back on the streets.
These are just some of the key reasons why I believe that S.10 is on life-support in the Senate.
We can -- and should -- fix S.10 but, that the bottom line for me is the same as it is for the vast number of attorneys general. I am convinced that youth violence is a tremendously serious problem facing our nation and our nation's prosecutors, so I think it is real simple -- let's get it done. Let's get together, and reach compromise.
I am convinced this is possible, and let me just outline how we could resolve the outstanding issues: separation of juveniles and adult prisoners -- on this issue, it seems to me that the House got it right. By a vote of 413-14 in July, 1997, the House passed H.R. 1818 -- which eliminated the current prohibition on shared staff, eliminated the prohibition on inadvertent "sight & sound" contact, and I -- along with Senator Grassley -- got an amendment adopted in the Senate which eliminated the blanket prohibition against putting juvenile status offenders in secure detention facilities.
These are the concerns you all have raised in your June, 1996 resolution. So, it seems to me that with the overwhelming, bi-partisan vote in favor of H.R. 1818 -- it is not "rocket science" to figure out that H.R. 1818's separation standards are a fair compromise.
On the "new strings" requiring changes in state laws and practices related to trying kids as adults, record keeping and drug testing -- I believe that compromise is possible if we stay away from overly prescriptive, very specific federal standards.
In other words, I believe that my friends on the other side, are convinced that they have to give the states at least some general policy direction. But, they need to listen to you, the governors and local officials and give you all some flexibility as to how you all meet the general policy directions of trying the most violent kids as adults; drug testing more kids; and getting the records of violent kids into the system.
But, let me borrow President Reagan's adage -- "trust, but verify." Last November, at the last minute, in the dark of night, the majority put a $250 million Youth Violence Block Grant into an appropriations bill. And, despite the fact that we had made some progress in the Senate to give you all some flexibility in these "new strings" -- none of that flexibility was included in the appropriations bill.
There was a general loophole -- states only had to "consider" making these very specific changes. But, mark my words, unless you all remain vigilant, that general loophole will be eliminated in a heartbeat and you will have no flexibility. Again -- "trust but verify."
On taking the decision on whether to proceed in state or federal court from you all and giving it federal prosecutors -- well, that is just plain silly. The federal government tries fewer than 325 juveniles each year. You all and local prosecutors try hundreds of thousands.
So, I admit, my version of compromise on this one is pretty simple -- drop the provision. But, mark my words, unless you all continue to speak up, this provision will be one of those that will stay in the bill.
On prevention, in the Senate, we are down to a difference over whether prevention will be an eligible use for 40% of the block grant or a required use for some specific percentage of the block grant.
I believe that the policy argument made by cops and prosecutors from all over the nation is correct -- that if prevention is not required, it simply does not happen, because an investment in prevention pays benefits which are both hard to see and usually happen sometime down the road.
But, to be candid, I believe it will be the political argument that will prevent S.10 from moving without a a specific earmark for prevention. First, because cops and prosecutors are demanding a specific earmark. And, second, because putting kids in supervised programs in the after-school hours when they are most likely to turn to drugs and crime makes so much sense to the public.
In fact, in a February poll, 73% agreed with spending money on prevention -- even when asked if they favored "setting-aside money for prevention" out of a block grant for "punishment, new detention facilities, and drug testing." It doesn't get much clearer!
When it comes to funding for state and local prosecutors, to be candid, while I am confident that we will be able to boost the annual authorization from $50 million to $100 million -- getting an actual appropriation will be very difficult because you will be in direct competition for dollars with the new youth violence block grant.
As I am sure many of you know, I think that block grants are generally bad policy -- it always seems that the dollars just get lost or divided so many ways that nothing noticeable is gained.
Instead, I think we get more results if we target dollars to specific purposes -- such as, support for prosecutors. But, the team that is in charge now favors block grants. So, that will be their funding priority.
And, even though the 1994 crime law has quadrupled federal support for state and local law enforcement from $900 million to $4.8 billion -- it is now a zero-sum game. A game which will put your funding in direct competition with the new Youth Violence Block Grant.
The bottom line, I will support you. But, we are going to have work the appropriations process to ensure that any authorization "promise" is actually delivered upon.
Finally, guns. Frankly, this is the one area where I have great difficulty in figuring out how we forge a compromise. But, I have been through these "crime bill" fights enough to know -- that if we reach compromise on the other issues, we can figure out a way to get legislation through the Senate.
At the same time, I have done this enough to know, if we do not reach significant compromises, this bill is dead.
Will we reach compromise? On that basic question, I submit that your voices will be absolutely central to the debate. I am not sure if a push from you all for compromise will definitely produce compromise. But, I am certain that if the attorneys general do not push compromise, there will be no compromise.
And, we will have lost a major opportunity to do something positive against youth violence, crime and drug abuse.
Violence Against Women Act -- II
Now, let me turn briefly to the Violence Against Women Act. Frankly, because the efforts of all of you -- and that of many others -- the act is working. One simple fact illustrates our success -- the murder rate for wives, ex-wives and girlfriends at the hands of their "intimates" has fallen to a 20-year low.
Still, there is plainly much to do -- and that is why I have been working to put together new legislation: the Violence Against Women Act Two. In general terms, the act will focus on three main targets:
* First, let's continue the successes of the original act by continuing funding for the "stop" grants to prosecutors, police and victim services; for shelter grants and other proven efforts;
* Second, there are areas where we have to improve on the original act -- for example, inter-state enforcement of "stay-away" orders has proven difficult. I suggest that we provide resources, technical assistance, and most important -- do what the feds do best -- help disseminate the "best practices" you all are developing.
* Third, I believe there are some new areas where we must target our attention -- for example, making sure that victims of abuse don't lose their jobs when they have to testify or seek protection orders.
I am working with several other Senators, of both parties, to put together this bill. I expect we will be introducing it later this month.
But, let me stress to all of you, after introduction, there will be time for your feedback. In fact, I welcome and encourage your feedback on this legislation -- and, I assure you, that I am not wedded to any particular language. If you think you have a better idea, please, let me know.
Conclusion
In closing, let me just take a step back from the specific issues of youth violence and violence against women -- and talk more generally about criminal justice policy.
Over the past year, as I have taken over as the lead Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, I have noticed a fundamental difference between "foreign policy" and "criminal justice policy." When I talk to folks about foreign policy, people listen, and usually don't say anything unless they actually know something.
That's a little different than on crime -- because on crime, everyone's an expert.
I think that is a great disservice to criminal justice policy -- and policy makers such as you all. But, it seems to me that we are beginning to change that. In the face of absolutely astounding reductions in violent crime -- after a serious effort to do everything smarter: prosecution, policing, punishment and prevention.
In both the mind of the public and the press, this is starting to translate into -- "hey, if we are smart, I guess we can actually do something about crime" -- in other words, maybe we ought to listen to those who know something about crime.
Due to the opportunity made available by the success you all at the state and local level have had in reducing crime -- I believe we have a chance to make a most important and fundamental change: to look at crime as a serious policy issue, not a political football.
If we can make that change, you all will have changed three decades of political history, and opened the door to even more profound reductions in the level of crime and violence americans must tolerate.
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"The Outlook for NATO Enlargement: The Debate in the U.S. Senate"
It is a pleasure and an honor once again to address the council. Last year in Washington, I spoke about our Bosnia policy. Tonight you have asked me to address a not-unrelated topic -- the outlook for ratification by the United States Senate of an amendment to the Washington Treaty of 1949 to admit Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Before I examine this issue, however, I should note that earlier this fall the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held extremely detailed hearings on five key aspects of the enlargement question: the strategic rationale; costs, benefits, burdensharing, and military implications; the qualifications of the three candidate countries; the NATO-Russia relationship; and public views on enlargement. Among the witnesses were several council members who testified in favor of enlargement, and several who testified against it.
As a result of these hearings, I am more convinced than ever that if the three countries meet the rigid admission criteria, NATO enlargement will strengthen the alliance, further the cause of European security, and, therefore, will be squarely in the national interest of the United States.
Time does not permit me to go into detail about the reasons for this conclusion. I know that Mr. Danner is an opponent of enlargement. Perhaps he, or some of you during the discussion period, may wish to address individual issues.
Now, though, I'd like to turn to the main topic of this evening. The debate in the Senate has already been joined. In fact, I cannot think of another important foreign policy question in my twenty-five years in the Senate that has been publicly examined in such detail.
To spare you any suspense, I believe that the chances are very good that the Senate will ratify NATO enlargement early next march. I have heard about several head-counts that purport to put the definite votes for enlargement somewhere in the low-fifties-- or roughly fifteen short of the necessary two-thirds super majority mandated fro treaty ratification by our Constitution.
Such exercises may have more to do with advocacy tactics than with science, and I take them with a grain of salt. Predicting the likely vote in the Foreign Relations Committee -- to which the resolution of ratification will be referred -- may be somewhat more reliable. There I fully expect an overwhelming vote for ratification on the order of somewhere between 16-2 and even 18-0.
With regard to the full Senate, I believe that momentum is on the side of the proponents of enlargement, but that I nonetheless expect a lively floor debate and a spirited fight.
In the coming weeks, of course, however, several things could go wrong to make ratification problematic. I will touch on those issues, although I doubt that they are insurmountable.
However, even if the Senate does ratify enlargement -- as I believe it is highly like to do -- I worry seriously about the continued American commitment to NATO in the coming years.
My reason for this conclusion revolves around several sides of the same issue: burden-sharing.
The first side relates less to sharing the costs of NATO enlargement than to continued NATO upgrading in the coming years, including the all-important issue of force-projection.
The second side, closely related to the first, concerns possible NATO missions outside of Europe and, in a broader sense, allied support for American out-of-area actions that clearly serve European security interests.
The third side involves sharing the military duties in Bosnia after June of next year.
And the fourth and final side of burden-sharing relates to the European Union's ponderous pace on its own enlargement into central and Eastern Europe.
First the costs. In the coming days, NATO will make public its official cost estimate for enlargement. For weeks it has been clear that it will be substantially lower than the twenty-seven to thirty-five billion dollar estimate given by the Pentagon last february, of which nine to twelve billion involved the direct costs of enlargement.
First of all, we now know that the first round of enlargement will involve three countries, not the four envisioned in the Pentagon study. (Incidentally, I was the strongest proponent in the Senate of Slovenia's candidacy, and I still believe that it is completely qualified for membership right now).
Second, NATO investigators have found the military infrastructure in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to be in better shape than anticipated.
Third, the official NATO study will probably factor out the ten billion dollars-worth of force-projection enhancements connected with the 1991 "strategic concept" that were included as enlargement costs by the Pentagon. More about that later.
The lowered total estimate will make an equitable sharing of enlargement costs more palatable to our West European allies. But many of my colleagues in the Senate have good memories, and not just the elephants-- some donkeys too. President Chirac's comment at the NATO Madrid Summit last July, which I was privileged to attend, that France would not pay an additional franc for enlargement did not exactly sit well on Capitol Hill. After all, no matter how individual American politicians felt about NATO enlargement, not a single one of my congressional colleagues or anyone in the executive branch threatened not to pay our fair share if enlargement were ratified.
I understand that the Europeans face a set of competing priorities. The eleven European NATO members who are also members of the European Union are currently engaged in painful budget cutting in order to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (E.M.U.) on January 1, 1999. But Americans must not be led to believe that Europeans will cut corners on NATO in order to fulfill European Union requirements.
While the likely reduced cost estimate, as I said, will ameliorate the immediate problem of financial burden-sharing, longer-term burden-sharing problems remain.
In order for NATO to remain a vibrant organization with the United States continuing to play a lead role, the non-U.S. members must also agree to pay for the power-projection capabilities mandated in the 1991 "strategic concept." The flexibility afforded by these enhancements is central to NATO's ability to carry out its expanded new mission -- to defend its common ideals beyond the borders of alliance members, while it continues to carry out the core function of collective defense.
The Clinton Administration has publicly recognized that the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands are making strides in improving the deployability and sustainability of their forces, but neither the forces of those four allies, nor those of the rest of our European partners, are as yet fully deployable.
Unless that situation is fully remedied, the United States, with the only fully deployable and sustainable land and air forces in the alliance, would be cast in the permanent role of "the good gendarme of Europe" -- a role that neither the American people, nor the Senate would accept.
It is true, as many of you know, that the alliance will begin a revision of the "strategic concept" next year. Here we may encounter another aspect of burden-sharing: the unwillingness of many of our European allies to consider using NATO for out-of-Europe operations, such as in the Middle East. This mind-set stems partly from differing perceptions of Arab-Israeli relations, but also from a fear of somehow enhancing the already preponderant American global power position.
It is true that in the immediate future, Middle East military actions are likely to be "coalitions of the willing" of the Desert Storm type, rather than formal NATO operations. But in the current confrontation with Iraq we see French behavior that hardly resembles that of an ally, to put it mildly.
It is difficult for me to see how Congress will continue indefinitely to appropriate more than one hundred billion dollars per year for NATO activities when many of our NATO partners manifestly do not share our view of security elsewhere -- and even actively oppose our positions.
Thus, in that context, if in the revised "strategic concept" our European allies would insist on scaling back the power-projection doctrine -- for budgetary or for ideological reasons -- I would fear a serious erosion of support for NATO in the Congress in the future.
Above and beyond enlargement and force-projection, unless our European allies significantly upgrade their militaries, a "strategic disconnect" between a technologically superior United States military and technologically outdated Western European militaries will make it impossible for NATO to function.
My sentiments have been voiced by several of my colleagues, including some who do not share my passionate commitment to continued American involvement in Europe. They have also been voiced by many leading uniformed European military.
The third aspect of burden-sharing is a dark cloud looming on the immediate horizon of European-American relations: post-Sfor Bosnia.
As it now stands, the U.S. will pull out its ground forces after June 1998, and our European Nato allies will follow suit, repeating an "in together, out together" mantra. This despite a U.S. offer to make air, naval, communications, and intelligence assets available to a European-led follow-on force, with an American rapid reaction force on standby alert "over the horizon" in Hungary or Italy. In short, a C.J.T.F. (Combined Joint Task Force) -- the solution officially proposed by the U.S. Senate in the fiscal year 1998 Defense Authorization Bill.
Many of my colleagues, mindful of the repeated calls by some European NATO members, led by France, for more European leadership in the alliance and a sturdier "European pillar" within NATO, see in the European refusal to maintain troops in Bosnia unless we stay on the ground, evidence of inequitable burden-sharing or -- worse still -- are having their doubts about the worth of NATO reinforced.
The French position on Bosnia is -- if you pardon the pun -- particularly galling, considering their insistence on European command of allied forces southern europe ("AFsouth") in Naples.
As you know, AFsouth is the home of the U.S. sixth fleet. No matter how Paris tries to dress it up, Senators perceive this demand as a gratuitous poke in the eye. Aside from the fact that it's a non-starter of an idea, it contributes to poisoning the atmosphere, particularly since some of the other European allies have at least formally supported the French.
The final matter concerns the enlargement of the European Union. From the early 1990's the E.U. firmly proclaimed that NATO enlargement had to precede E.U. expansion (the accession nearly three years ago of Austria, Finland, and Sweden excepted). I am well aware of the complexity of melding the political, economic, and to some extent social systems of divergent countries into -- in E.U. language -- "an ever closer union."
But many observers -- and not a few of my colleagues -- suspect that to some extent the E.U. has yielded to domestic pressure groups like farmers and has used NATO enlargement as a convenient way to postpone the admission of Central and Eastern European countries. To put it crudely, for now NATO should serve as a "poor man's E.U."
The situation was somewhat improved last july when the European commission recommended that the European Union begin accession negotiations with Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Estonia. Cyprus was already on the list.
I recognize that Poland's large agricultural sector makes its early admission to the E.U.'s famed "Common Agricultural Policy" (C.A.P.) difficult. The Czech Republic's and Hungary's low industrial wages also may cause lengthy adjustments before they are admitted.
But Estonia and Slovenia -- both very small countries with agricultural sectors that would not ruffle the C.A.P. -- pose no such problems. And the rapid admission of Estonia to the European Union -- a move against which Russia has no objections -- would go a long way toward stabilizing the security situation in Northeastern Europe.
Slovenia, which already has a higher per capita G.D.P. than a few current E.U. members, would similarly fit in quite easily, just as it will fit into NATO in the next round.
The Senate debate on ratification will be lively, occasionally raw, but necessary. As I have already indicated, I think that in the end it will be very difficult for most of my colleagues to vote against admitting the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians.
But, I repeat, I also believe that unless we quickly come to a satisfactory burden-sharing understanding in all its facets with our European and Canadian allies, the future of NATO in the next century will be very much in doubt.
I hope these thoughts will provoke some questions from this distinguished audience, and I thank you for your attention.
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Address to National Leadership Forum
Several years ago at a gathering such as this, I began my speech with the following quote from the Atlanta police chief:
"70% of all the crime in this city is due to cocaine."
I went on to say that:
"The eighties saw the highest rate of cocaine consumption in our history. Cocaine-related violence and crime spiraled out of control. As a result, during that decade, our cities became battlegrounds; our hospitals filled with cocaine addicts desperate for treatment."
Everyone nodded politely, but this was not exactly earth-shaking news.
But the fact is, that the Atlanta police chief's quote comes from 1914 and the decade I was describing was not the 1980s, but the 1880s.
I tell this story because it is too easy for all of us to be discouraged by the difficulties of fighting drugs. We should learn from our experience a century ago, when we confronted a drug epidemic, worse on a per-capita basis than today's -- and we beat it.
And we beat it with a pretty simple prescription -- enforcement was a part of it, but prevention and education were equal partners -- so much so, that by 1914, most states (many more than today) had mandatory drug education in the public schools.
And it worked so well that by the thirties, our first national "drug czar" -- Harry Anslinger -- concluded that because we had driven drugs from our national landscape, that to teach kids about the dangers of drugs would only "encourage" them to try drugs.
The chief lesson we can take from the first drug epidemic is that prevention and education work to keep kids off drugs.
The second lesson is that we can beat drug abuse once it starts.
Let me offer a more recent example -- it was only a very few years ago, when no one thought we could do anything about violent crime. But in 1994, we started getting smart -- we did it all -- more police, more prisons, more treatment and more prevention.
And, what was unthinkable just a few years ago has happened -- just look at the most recent FBI data: murder has fallen to the lowest rate since 1970.
Folks, I believe that we can do the same against the drug epidemic: if we are smart, if we are committed to solving the problem, if we stop the simplistic sloganeering.
But, you on the front-lines know better than anyone what barriers lie in our way:
Not only do too few believe we actually can reduce drug use. In addition, our "Puritan ethic" gets in the way of putting in place the drug prevention and treatment programs we know are in our self-interest.
Perhaps because of that, when push comes to shove, despite all the speeches I hear from all corners of the political debate about the need to do "something" about drugs -- we won't spend the money.
Another barrier -- one that too few recognize -- is that the fight against drugs actually has some very powerful enemies --
That was put in stark relief for me when I started fighting two years ago to slap the maximum federal controls against "row-hip-nol" -- the "date-rape" drug -- and the "club drug" "ket-a-meen," known as "special k."
I was stunned when my efforts against "row-hip-nol" were beaten back by the concentrated political muscle of a foreign drug manufacturer worried about losing drug profits overseas if we targeted this illegal drug here in the United States.
Just last week, even our own DEA was backing away from their unequivocal statements offered only 20 months ago that the "date-rape" drug should be subject to the toughest treatment possible under federal law.
You all had the same experience in 1995 -- when the liquor industry with the help of Congress went after the budget of Center for Substance Abuse Prevention -- your voice -- and bragged about it to the Wall Street Journal. Let me quote their lobbyist:
"This is our response: we want to cut their funding, stop their lobbying and basically end the use of that structure [he meant you folks] to bash the beer industry."
"Bash the beer industry?" -- all I have seen you do in my home state of Delaware is try to stop kids -- underage kids -- from drinking!
These are the key challenges we must surmount if we are to make more progress against the scourge of drugs --
Of course, the challenge facing every member of this Coalition America is, how can we change public attitudes? How can we increase society's "moral disapprobation" against drugs, without unleashing the unproductive "moral righteousness" of our Puritan ethic past?
This is the over-arching challenge you must meet every day, in literally every conversation you have with the people of your neighborhoods and communities.
But, I respectfully suggest, that in the next several months, our national drug policy will be advanced -- or diminished -- in four or five very important, very specific debates.
I further suggest, that the involvement of you and every member of the coalition will be key to what is decided here in Washington on each of these specific debates.
First, will our powerful enemies win -- or, will Congress adopt my proposal to crack down on the "date rape" drug "row-hip-nol" and the "club drug" ket-a-meen?
We reversed epidemics of quaaludes and steroids in the 1980s with the controls I now propose for "row-hip-nol" and "special k."
We should learn from our successes and pass this legislation as soon as Congress returns next year.
Second, what about the youth violence legislation pending in Congress? Will we focus solely on the roughly 100,000 kids who have already become violent criminals?
Or, will we expand our focus to include the more than 600,000 children who are just now becoming susceptible to crime and drugs ?
Will we give the millions of at-risk children the after school supervision they need if we are to prevent so many of them from turning to drugs and crime?
We must also face the implications of the fact that America now has 39 million children younger than 10 years old. The implications of this "baby-boomerang" -- the largest number of young children since the 1960s -- are potentially devastating.
Consider just one fact: even if the percentage of drug use among young people stays the same, we will have 250,000 more 8th graders using drugs in 2005 than we do today, simply because there will be so many more 8th graders.
The recently released pride survey on drug abuse pointed out that 88% of fathers -- and 63% of mothers -- have full-time jobs. In other words, even though it is clear that parents hold the key, our economy is now structured so that there will be nobody home when millions of children get out of school this afternoon.
If we really want to keep kids away from drugs and drugs away from kids, we should pass the youth violence bill now before Congress -- but not before we include in that bill $100 million to give 1 million kids after-school supervision.
Third -- will Congress re-authorize the drug director, or will this effort fall prey to partisanship -- which will leave but one result, a return to the days when no one was in charge of the fight against drugs.
Too many take it for granted today that we have General McCaffrey around to lead the fight against drugs -- no one should.
Perhaps because crime is no longer an issue that can be used to partisan advantage -- the bill to re-authorize the drug director may become mired in partisanship which could end up costing us the very existence of the drug office.
I fought from 1980 to 1988 -- nearly a decade -- for a drug director for one simple reason. You know that reason, because you all remember how many administrations made the drug issue a national priority before we had a drug director: not a single one.
But, mark my words, the day we no longer have a drug director in the cabinet, is the day we begin unraveling our national commitment against drugs.
And, this will be exactly the situation you all will face unless Congress gets its act together and passes legislation to keep the General's office in place.
I have been working with General McCaffrey and my colleagues in the Senate, and I believe we will ultimately agreeing on a bi-partisan bill.
But I am worried about the House of Representatives. Because of the partisan way this issue is being handled in the House the continued funding for the drug office is in doubt and the entire operation of our national drug effort is in danger.
To be absolutely frank, unless you all -- the folks who are listened to on the drug issue in every congressional district in the nation -- insist that the House of Representatives resist the temptation to let this issue descend into partisan politics, that is exactly where this debate will go.
And, fourth, will we take advantage of the $195 million Congress appropriated for General McCaffrey's anti-drug media campaign to reduce drug abuse among our children?
Jim Burke, as the Chairman of the Partnership for a Drug-free America, I suspect that it will be your efforts which answer this question -- perhaps more than anyone else here.
With all the folks here, and the thousands more watching us via the satellite hook-ups provided by the National Guard, it is clear that the national media campaign will be supported by the words and deeds of community leaders around the country.
Now is the time to turn to our work -- and let's get this job done.
The costs of delay are too great to bear because they are measured in nothing less profound than the lost futures of children who turn to drugs -- and that piece of our nation's future which is lost with each one of these children.
Thank you.
Joe Biden Democratic Candidate. Presidential Election 2008
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