Posted on 07/13/2008 7:45:00 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama discussed his vision for the world in a wide-ranging foreign policy discussion with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
The Democratic presidential hopeful answered some tough questions about how he would deal with the world's crises, what he would do if Osama bin Laden is caught and his plan for Iraq.
Here are some highlights from the interview, which aired Sunday on "Fareed Zakaria -- GPS."
ZAKARIA: Tell me, what is your first memory of a foreign policy event that shaped you, shaped your life?
OBAMA: A first memory. Well, you know, it wasn't so much an event.
I mean, my first memory was my mother coming to me and saying, "I've remarried this man from Indonesia, and we're moving to Jakarta on the other side of the world."
And that's, I think, my first memory of understanding how big the world was. And then, flying there and landing. This was only maybe a year, or even less than a year, after an enormous coup, the military coup in which we learned later that over half-a-million people had probably died.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Oh, not enough money.
He's telling us that he will agree to extortion.
Blame America first...no surprise there.
Wow, what an in depth interview that must have been! I hope that Zakaria was wearing his extra thick kneepads. After reading this Muslim puke in Newsweek for years, I'm sure he needed them.
There was jihad before there was an America.
All he needs is a white flag.
PINGING Expatguy!!!!
If BHO had been the President during the Barbary Pirate era, he would have apologized to the Sultans and drained the Treasury dry to pay tributes and ransoms to them.
Most interesting.
So Saddam Hussein’s human shredding machines were our fault?
The gassing of the Khurds was our fault?
Sudan, our fault?
Zimbabwe, our fault?
On several occasions Obama has expressed exactly the same ideas as Wright, Obama just knows how to sneak them in slower.
Balderdash! Mama ‘Bama never “re”married, because Lolo Soetoro was her first and only husband.
I thought the addition of an afro for Michelle was interesting...
I think her thesis at Princeton centered on her determination to “stay black”.
So I wonder why she straightens her hair?
"I don't think it's the only threat that we face."
So, who does Barak Hussein Obama mean when he says "we"?
Not Americans, apparently since his battle line is not between the free world and its enemies -- it is between the forces of "modernity" and those who refuse to accept his concept of what "modernity" means.
Obama’s mama was a bit of a slut?
Of course he thinks jihad is America’s fault. Isn’t that what Jeremiah Wright told him every week in “church?”
I think his foreign policy is to talk our enemies to death.
He is so clueless, it’s painful.
Or maybe it isn’t cluelessness, it’s blaming America first for everything that goes wrong in the world. And some people want to elect this anti-American as president of the US?!
The timeline doesn’t work.
His mother married, divorced, got pregnant and had BO then remarried by 18?
Or married, got pregnant and had BO then divorced and got remarried by 18?
Something is wrong with his timeline.
Even taking his statement at face value — it seems odd that a woman would remarry and the first ther child hears of him is right before the wedding.
Who would do that to their kid?
I’m sure Oprah will ask her that very question.
When pigs fly over Mecca.
Well, he’s just saying what most liberals in America believe. To the left, the 911 attack was a stroke of well-deserved justice, like a bully getting punched in the nose. That’s why they have no enthusiasm for the war on terror. To them, the terrorists have a legitimate gripe and our role should be to listen and accomodate, not to fight. It’s the “root causes” thing.
I mean, my first memory was my mother coming to me and saying, "I've remarried this man from Indonesia, and we're moving to Jakarta on the other side of the world."
Whoa! This send up the red flags. Think back. What is your first memory? Dollars to donuts it's a fleeting, disconnected snap shot that took place about the age two or three, i.e. "I remember my dad coming down the stairs...","I remember a Christmas tree...", "I remember walking through some leaves..."
If OB says first memory is his mother saying "I've remarried and we're moving to Jakarta..." either he's a bold face lying, or he's admitting he was pretty far behind when it came to early childhood development.
What a choice.
Another good point.
It just makes no sense.
Then you have to ask where was he born? Was he born during the first marriage or between marriages 1 and 2?
And the jihadi’s knew America would be so terrible when Islam was founded in what the seventh century and they’ve just been practicing ever since then?
“It isn’t to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there’s bottom-up economic growth.”
Isn’t this more or less the same thing that Bush has been saying, that we have to bring democracy and economic hope to the Middle East so that radical Islam will loose its grip? Sounds like, once again, he’s trying to co-opt a Republican idea.
Wow....I wonder if CNN's journalistic standards require any followup questions which will force candidates to get off rehearsed answers and actually justify their answers? It sure didn't happen in this interview.
How could someone major in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS and not learn to speak at least ONE foreign language semi-fluently?
And once again, his English is faulty: "was my mother coming to me and saying, "I've remarried this man from Indonesia..."
It should be either "I've married again..." or "She told me she had remarried..." - but she didn't, I presume, remarry the Indonesian man.
But then, what do I know. I didn't graduate from Harvard.
“If OB says first memory is his mother saying “I’ve remarried and we’re moving to Jakarta...” either he’s a bold face lying, or he’s admitting he was pretty far behind when it came to early childhood development.
What a choice.”
My first memory was getting tangled up in some pea vines. It was heck. To be fair, though, the interviewer asked him “...what is your first memory of a foreign policy event that shaped you..? Uh, let’s see.
Islamic Jihad has a lot more to do with Leftist domestic and social policies, particularly the pervasive, inescapable public hypersexualization of everything, along with rampant promiscuity, perversion and permissiveness. The main connection to foreign policy has to do with the extreme weakness projected by the Clinton Administration as well as by the present Democrat party and liberal media positions favoring avoidance of conflict at any cost.
This stuff is not complicated or difficult to understand, and we HAVE TO explain it to the people around us, in person. When they hear it explained, they generally understand.
Yep. it's an elitist, globalist, marxist tranfer of wealth of the "rich" to the "poor" nations. Both parties are at fault.
==================
"Americans found that instability and lawlessness in a distant country can bring danger to our own. In this new century, we are less threatened by fleets and armies than by small cells of men who operate in the shadows and exploit weakness and despair. The ultimate answer to those threats is to encourage prosperous, democratic and lawful societies that join us in overcoming the forces of terror -- allies that we're finding across the continent of Africa. We fight the war on terror with our power; we will win the war on terror with freedom and justice and hope. "
"In a developing world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to help other nations achieve historic victories over extreme poverty with policies and approaches that are tested and proven. These victories will require new resources. The United States has tripled overseas development aid to Africa during my presidency. And we're making a strong commitment for the future. Between 2004 and 2010, I proposed to double aid to Africa once again, with a primary focus on helping reforming countries."President Bush, Meyer Auditorium at Freer Gallery June 30, 2005
Oh those poor Saudi's. They're so pooor - maybe we should set up a Marshall Plan to rescue the Arabian peninsula countries from their grinding poverty - give them opportunities for economic growth.
What was that? The greatest transfer of wealth in history, to the oil-rich countries? Yes, yes that's what we need. How come no one thought of that?
And since when does moving to another country at age four or five classify as foreign policy experience?
Did he know what the foreign policy of America was at that time so he could compare or know what to look for?
All of the things that he complains the Bush administration did wrong with Afghanistan, that we didn't finish the job when we had the Taliban and al Qaeda on the ropes, is exactly what he will do in Iraq. Now that it is beginning to look like we have the terrorists beat he will pull the troops out.
In a few of the gems of Obama wisdom:
We need to show leadership through consensus and through pulling people together wherever we can.
My point is this, that we should always strive to create genuine coalitions -- not coalitions that are based on us twisting arms, withholding goodies, ignoring legitimate concerns of other countries, but coalitions that are based on a set of mutual self-interests.
In a situation like Darfur, I think that the world has a self-interest in ensuring that genocide is not taking place on our watch.
Just like they did with Rawanda, the UN will be content to issue statements condemning the actions but when it comes to actually doing something about it there just isn't enough self-interest to send in the troops.
It takes a lot of arm twisting and withholding goodies to get other countries to do what is needed. If it was anything like this idiot thinks, the UN would be a great tool for keeping the world a place where free people can thrive and prosper. In reality, the self-interests of governments that rule the UN is to let the tyrants and terrorists kill whomever they please as long as they can continue to extract their own fortunes from their subjects in their own little corner of the world unmolested.
The guy is a millionth of an inch thick and miles wide.
The simplest scratch and he disappears.
Considering that obamination Sr. already had a wife in Africa = were they ever married?
This may be some of the information he doesn't want seen - along with what his name was on the birth cert....
Did he acquire the two very Muslim/Arab names of Barrack and Hussein on his first visit to meet with his Kenya family - Muslims - who gave him the names? (He was, at the time, if we believe his writings, searching for his identity...and then, deciding he was black, he had to prove he was black enough...
What's the name on the BC, Barry?
Why do Democrats continue to believe militant Islam is driven by economic situations when Mohammad Atta and many of the other September 11th hijackers were middle-class college-educated Arabs.
Second, why is it the West's responsibility to "make sure that opportunities are" available in the Islamic world. It is an asinine statement.
Does he have an American BC?
Why does the question persist?
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
He’s like a kid in a candy store thinking there is an endless supply and that it is just always there no matter how much he takes and since he is a geek he thinks he can give away an endless supply to the other kids so they will like him.
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