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Condoleezza Albright? The Twilight of the Bush Presidency Is Looking More and More like Clinton Guest Column | By Joel Himelfarb | March 31, 2008 As someone who voted to elect George W. Bush in both of his runs for president, I take no pleasure in saying that when it comes to foreign policy, his final year in the White House looks increasingly like Bill Clinton’s. Clinton spent his second term desperately trying to create a peacemaking “legacy” for himself: courting world leaders who had no real interest in making peace like Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and North Korean...

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state are urging the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. Each says closing the facility in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. Regarding Iran, they say it's important to maintain contact with adversaries and allies alike.

5 Ex-Chief Diplomats: Close Guantanamo Mar 27 08:46 PM US/Eastern By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice. Each of them said shuttering the prison camp in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. "It says to...

Albright: Bush is the worst President in American history Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 01:30 PM LONDON, ( SANA) _ Former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has described the American President George Bush as " one of the worst presidents in the American history." That came in her book published at the beginning of this week. Albright, in her book, which the London-based al-Hayat newspaper issued excerpts from it yesterday, put some advices in front of the next American President who enters the White House in Jan, 21 2009. She said: " The most important priorities for the next...

In trying to figure out how the various potential US presidents might steer foreign policy, much effort has been expended on reading tea leaves based on figures at the fringes of the campaign. But more attention should be paid to what a mainstream Democratic figure, close to Hillary Clinton, is saying. A recent op-ed by Clinton administration secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright in the International Herald Tribune, based on a speech to the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, bears examination. Part of Albright's op-ed was refreshing and bears repeating by all candidates. "America is criticized for not doing...

I believe the most precious gift the next president could bestow upon America is an end to the politics of fear. Fear, of course, has its place. Seven decades ago, the world did not fear Hitler enough. Today, Iraq remains a powder keg, Afghanistan a struggle, Iran a potential danger and North Korea a puzzle not yet solved. Pakistan combines all the elements that give us an international migraine. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots deserve our most urgent attention, because when people say they want to kill us, we would be fools not to take them at their word. Still, we...

Nearly seven years out office, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright pulls no punches bashing the Bush administration’s handling of certain issues – calling it one of America’s “worst presidencies.” Albright gave President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney very poor marks and listed goals for the next president to do better that include embracing a global view of climate change. “This is a purely practical point here, and I think there’s a lot of work to be done” Albright said. “And I think the judgment is that this is one of the worst presidencies we’ve had and...

Nearly seven years out office, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright pulls no punches bashing the Bush administration’s handling of certain issues – calling it one of America’s “worst presidencies.” Albright gave President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney very poor marks and listed goals for the next president to do better that include embracing a global view of climate change. “This is a purely practical point here, and I think there’s a lot of work to be done” Albright said. “And I think the judgment is that this is one of the worst presidencies we’ve had and...

In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible. By Peter J. Thuesen. Oxford University Press, 238 pp., $2 7. 50. THE VERSIONS of the Bible we choose to carry, display and read are good indices of who we are. Peter Thuesen presents a history of the creation of a translation that became a kind of badge for many, the Revised Standard Version. He explores the controversy that attended its publication and the aftermath of that controversy. He analyzes the attempts of the men who produced the RSV to respond to the criticisms it engendered, and the...

Blackwill stays India's key lobbyist17 Dec 2007, 0247 hrs IST, Indrani Bagchi, TNN NEW DELHI: With a firm eye on the nuclear deal and its future passage through the international and US system, the government has renewed the multi-million dollar contract of its favourite lobbyist in Washington. Robert Blackwill's firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers will be India's sole lobbyist in the US for 2008 for the second consecutive year. In 2006, India had added Venable, another law firm engaged in Washington advocacy, to work the US Senate when the Hyde Act was doing the rounds of Capitol Hill. India is...

U.S. Diplomat Is Residing in North Korean Capital, Chosun Says By Heejin Koo Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. diplomat has been residing in North Korea since mid-November, acting as a liaison between the governments of Washington and Pyongyang, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unidentified official in Washington.The presence of the unidentified U.S. envoy, who is staying at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang, is an indication of improved relations between the two nations since North Korea pledged to disable its Yongbyon nuclear plant by the end of this year, the Seoul-based daily said. The U.S. plans...

It seems former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is more skilled at international relations than we thought. She was spotted at one of Buenos Aires’ most exclusive tango spots canoodling with a handsome, and age-appropriate, Argentine, reports Politico’s Aoife McCarthy. Sources confirm this is not the first time the 70-year-old former secretary — who has been divorced since 1982 — has been spotted with this handsome man of mystery. And, apparently, the rendezvousing — with the man who has been described as her very own “Mr. Big” — has been going on for quite some time. Flashback: Bill Clinton did...

When Alexander Sibert told President Vladimir Putin that former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had said Siberia held too many resources for Russia alone, Putin dismissed the statement as "political erotica." Albright might have found "political fantasy" more appropriate. Putin said he was not aware of the comment, Albright denies ever making it, and no one else seems able to provide any evidence that she did. But this hasn't stopped Putin and others from attributing these thoughts to foreign figures who they say wish Russia harm. Sibert, 70, a mechanic who works at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in...

Dear "Past Your Eyes", We are at a moment of truth for America's foreign policy -- our decisions today will dramatically shape the role of America in the world for generations to come. We must repair our nation's tarnished reputation and once again become a source of inspiration and hope across the globe. Right now, Congress is debating the best way to address our foreign policy challenges -- most importantly, ending the war in Iraq. Our troops are being asked to risk their lives to solve problems that our civilian leaders created. President Bush has yet to explain how our...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Once the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government, Madeleine Albright spent Friday in central Iowa. The former Secretary of State is campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Albright dealt with serious issues all over the world in her position as secretary of state. She said the world is in serious trouble. "I don't think I have ever seen the world in such a mess," Albright said to a packed house at the West Des Moines Community Center. "I believe that Iraq is going to go down in...

VIENNA, Va. — A former commander of the main Signal Corps unit on Fort Huachuca and of the post in the 1970s died Saturday at Walter Reed Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. For nearly five years Maj. Gen. Jack A. Albright commanded the Army Strategic Communications Command beginning on Oct. 29, 1971. STRATCOM was renamed the Army Communications Command in October 1973, which he headed until his retirement on April 29, 1976. Maj. Gen. Albright Albright, who was 86 when he died last week, was assigned to the fort as brigadier general and the deputy commander of STRATCOM in December...

April 23, 2007 Iraq’s WMD myth: why Clinton is culpable A new UN testimony, revealed to andrew cockburn, shows the WMD fiasco goes back to 1997 A former senior UN diplomat has revealed to me details of how, just over 10 years ago, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN weapons inspections in Iraq. American officials were fearful that Iraq would be officially certified as weapons-free, a development that was seen as a political liability for Bill Clinton. Thus the stage was set for the manufacture of the Iraqi WMD myth as the excuse for George Bush's catastrophic invasion of Iraq....

Eight words. A declaration of the obvious, by the speaker's own admission. But the frustrated soldier who uttered those words hits on the deadly dilemma facing American troops in Iraq: Who do you shoot when the enemy looks so much like the people you're trying to protect? Perhaps that's why the quote -- said by Army Spc. Terry Wilson, of Chicago's Beverly community, after a "horrific" patrol in Baghdad -- has been repeated by anti-war politicians around the country. By chance, the hometown hero's words were included in a speech given by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright earlier this...

The country is "hungry for answers" so former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dished some out Tuesday at Saint Xavier University in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community. "I refuse to become silent," Albright said. "We need every available voice speaking up for democracy, tolerance and peace." Albright, who attended Wellesley, a women’s college, and now teaches at Georgetown, a Catholic university, was embraced by the largely female crowd of about 1,000 at Saint Xavier, a 150-year-old Catholic institution that started accepting men since 1969. She relishes being able to speak candidly about politics and foreign affairs now that she’s no...

AN AUSTRALIAN former UN war crimes investigator has revealed documents exposing a UN cover-up of its inquiry into the events that triggered the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Adelaide lawyer Michael Hourigan says the UN shut down his investigation in 1997 into the shooting down of a plane carrying the extremist Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and the president of Burundi. The investigation implicated ethnic Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame, who is now the President of Rwanda. The 100-day genocide, in which Hutu extremists murdered Tutsis and moderate Hutus, began hours after the plane was shot down. Late last year, President Kagame was...