The Bush administration has lived by a strategy of tension, and will go out of office bequeathing the wars it has started and the ill will it has created to its successors, to compromise those who come after. The Bush people have set a lot of precedents for America: Guantanamo and the “black sites” abroad will be left, and the probably more than 1,000 U.S. military bases abroad, presumably including the 50 bases (currently) that Washington still wants to keep in Iraq after the troops go home, if they go home. And of course the administration’s outsourcing arrangements for torture and kidnapping abroad will be left to a new administration. Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain who enters the Oval Office in January, he will confront an inheritance of eight years of foreign policy abuses, failures and unresolved dilemmas, and a climate of international crisis in the Caucasus, expected by Richard Cheney and others in the Bush administration to promote McCain’s election. If this does elect McCain, it should pose no great problems for him because he is a man of simple commitment to the policy line of his predecessors: of military interventions in the Muslim world to win victory over the terrorists, and political interventions to control troubled European and Caspian-Crimean regions, and deter the new Stalin (or is it Hitler? Stalin was not at Munich). This conservative interventionism, in a Manichean politico-intellectual framework of Virtue and Freedom confronting Evil, leaves the Bush administration’s successor with continuing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and, indirectly, Somalia, plus probable domestic crisis in Pakistan before the presidential inauguration arrives. The progress of Islamic integrist and tribal forces linked to the Taliban continues in Pakistan without an apparent solution that would satisfy Washington. In all of these cases, the American intervention is itself the principal continuing cause of conflict—which in the American policy community is generally inadmissible. In none of these conflicts is America capable of providing a solution. Even in Iraq, which Bush and the neoconservatives now tout as a success, all that has happened is that the U.S. has pitilessly wrecked the country, and now the Iraqis have grown weary of fighting. The war in Somalia that sets Somalian warlords and an “Islamic Courts” rebel coalition against an unsuccessful Ethiopian military occupation, engineered by the CIA, will be waiting for the new American administration, since any solution involving the Islamists is verboten to Washington. The Georgian-Ossetian-Abkhazian-Russian drama will have worsened by January, and U.S.-Russian bilateral relations been envenomed (if not worse), as well as trilateral relations among the U.S., Russia and the hapless and doubly intimidated NATO Europeans, incapable of taking an initiative in their own interest.. The neoconservative determination that America must dominate at any cost a Hobbesian world driven by greed and self-interest has won the day. The television-rattled public fails to grasp just what this means, and for eight years the Democrats have been frightened into silence by the threat of being outed as unpatriotic. Sen. Joseph Biden, according to the analysts, was made the Democratic vice presidential nominee because he knows everything about foreign policy. But everything that he knows about foreign policy is just what everybody else in Washington knows and thinks, and would never dream of questioning. There’s the problem. An Obama-Biden administration would lower the rhetoric of the war on terror and enter global negotiations with Iran. It would emphasize the common interest of the U.S. and Iran in the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. It would acknowledge the political and social importance of Hamas and Hezbollah in the real world. It would start over again with Israel-Palestine negotiations. Those backing the Obama candidacy talk about a “New Marshall Plan” for the Middle East (resembling Condoleezza Rice’s proposals last month in Foreign Affairs), offering a “generational” program to lift the Middle East “from misery” and make it democratic, pro-American, and friendly to Israel. Alas, we have heard all that before; the United States is incapable of doing it; and the problem of the Middle East isn’t money. The leaders of such a new administration would negotiate with American allies rather than blackmail and bully them. They would resume good relations with international organizations and make good-faith use of them. They would protect the sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine. They would be firm with Russia. They would protect Western energy sources. They will fight injustice wherever they find it, even if that means more war. They will make a better world. Good luck to them. Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at http://www.williampfaff.com /a>. ===================================================================================================== Bush presidency has failed, says Obama Barack Obama will warn that eight years of "broken" politics and "failed" Republican leadership is enough, and issue a call for sweeping change at a "defining" moment of US history. "America, we are better than these eight years," Obama said, in speech excerpts released before he formally accepts the Democratic Party's charge to become the first black major party White House nominee in history. "We are a better country than this," he said, launching a withering attack on the Bush administration, and Republican White House candidate John McCain. "We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more," Obama will tell a 75,000 strong crowd at an open-air football stadium in a dazzling finale to the convention. "We are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight," Obama said. "On November 4, we must stand up and say "Eight is Enough.'" The Illinois senator, who just four years ago electrified the convention as a mere state lawmaker, also savaged Republican claims that he is not ready to be US commander-in-chief. "Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe," Obama said. "The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans - Democrats and Republicans, have built, and we are to restore that legacy. "I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home," Obama vowed. Speaking in historic echoes on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech," Obama also sought to forge a bond with working class Americans, hammered by foreclosures, high gasoline prices, and soaring food costs. "Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less," Obama said. "More of you have lost your homes and more are watching your home values plummet. "More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay and tuition that is beyond your reach. "The failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W Bush."
----- Original Message ---- From: Sam Rainsy Party-USA/Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; News Camnews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; News Camdisc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 10:46:32 AM Subject: FW: [SAMRAINSYPARTY-For] Failure in the election complaint resolution process August 28, 2008 FAILURE IN THE ELECTION COMPLAINT RESOLUTION PROCESS SAYS A LOTABOUT THE WHOLE ELECTION PROCESS The way electoral complaints are handled or mishandled is an integral part of the election process that international observers are supposed to monitor. There was only one international observer left today in Cambodia. He was from the European Union Election Observation Mission. Today was the final day of the complaint resolution process following Voting Day of July 27. None of the opposition's numerous complaints has been properly dealt with. Over the last four weeks following Voting Day, both the National Election Committee (NEC) and the Constitutional Council (CC) have dismissed all the opposition's requests for re-vote or vote recount in spite of irrefutable evidence of massive fraud. http://tinyurl.com/4eegak This failure in the election complaint resolution process says a lot about the whole election process… The following is an excerpt from letters that the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party have just written to signatories of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements on Cambodia. The letter to France's President of the Republic is in French http://tinyurl.com/56b3xl The letter to Indonesia's President of the Republic is in English http://tinyurl.com/6ka6x4 France and Indonesia were co-chairs of the Paris International Conference on Cambodia which led to the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements on October 23, 1991. "An acceptable resolution of a number of our electoral complaints should be through the holding of a re-vote or, at least, a vote recount in a limited number of constituencies (provinces or municipalities) where the opposition has come very close to winning one additional parliamentary seat according to figures provided by the NEC. However, the NEC, which is both judge and judged, has rejected practically all our complaints. Even the most important ones were only "examined" behind closed doors and very quickly dismissed as "groundless". As of today, the NEC has not allowed a single vote recount, let alone a re-vote, even when first reports of ballot counting from a given polling station conflict with each other and some of these reports seem to have been doctored. When the opposition submits a complaint with some evidence raising some doubt, why doesn't the NEC accept to jointly with the plaintiffs recount the ballots from any given ballot box from any given polling station so as to dissipate any doubt?Are they afraid that a vote recount even for a single ballot box from a single polling station – there are 15, 254 polling stations nationwide – could reveal anomalies/irregularities that are indicative of broader fraud commune-wide, province-wide and nationwide? The Constitutional Council, which is another CPP-controlled institution acting as a kind of Supreme Court, has so far upheld all the NEC's decisions to dismiss the opposition's complaints and requests. There is apparently no other reasons for the two institutions for not allowing any vote recount than the fear to see the CPP's "landslide victory" evaporate following proper verifications." SAM RAINSY PARTY HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group. This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language. Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/camdisc Learn more - http://www.cambodia.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
