McCain counsels cooperation in the world, calls for closing Guantanamo prison
John McCain called today for a more cooperative foreign policy enshrined in a new League of Democracies and for closing the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay for terrorist suspects in a speech also tinged with personal history and a warning about the horrors of war.
"Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed," the presumptive Republican nominee told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. "We need to listen -- we need to listen -- to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies."
He said in a world "where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone."
"We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact -- a League of Democracies -- that can harness the vast influence of more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests," he declared.
McCain, who sees foreign policy and national security as a strength versus the Democrats, appears to be responding to criticism of President Bush for a go-it-alone approach to the world, culminating in the invasion of Iraq with only the British by America's side. Democrats have criticized McCain, the most notable champion of the so-called surge of troops in Iraq.
He directly addressed the proposals of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to withdraw US troops within 16 months or so of taking office.
"I believe a reckless and premature withdrawal would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values," he said. "Iran will also view our premature withdrawal as a victory, and the biggest state supporter of terrorists, a country with nuclear ambitions and a stated desire to destroy the State of Israel, will see its influence in the Middle East grow significantly. These consequences of our defeat would threaten us for years, and those who argue for it, as both Democratic candidates do, are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date.
"I do not argue against withdrawal, any more than I argued several years ago for the change in tactics and additional forces that are now succeeding in Iraq, because I am somehow indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families," he continued. "I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later."
UPDATE: Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded: "John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of George Bush's failed policies, including an open-ended war in Iraq that has cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars while making us less safe. Barack Obama will change our foreign policy and renew America's leadership by responsibly ending the war in Iraq, finishing the fight in Afghanistan, and focusing on the 21st century challenges that conventional Washington has ignored for too long -- al Qaeda's core leadership and nuclear proliferation, poverty and genocide, climate change and disease."
UPDATE: Clinton issued a statement that read: "While there is much to praise in Senator McCain’s speech, he and I continue to have a fundamental disagreement on Iraq. Like President Bush, Senator McCain continues to oppose a swift and responsible withdrawal from Iraq. Like President Bush, Senator McCain discounts the warnings of our senior military leadership of the consequences of the Iraq war on the readiness of our armed forces, and on the need to focus on the forgotten front line in Afghanistan. Like President Bush, Senator McCain wants to keep us tied to another country's civil war."
In the speech, McCain agreed with many Democrats on the need to ban torture and to take action on global warming.
To further the cause of freedom and democracy, McCain said, America must be a "model citizen." "We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are at the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured," he said, drawing applause. "I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control."
McCain also described himself as a "realistic idealist" about the threats the United States faces in the world.
"We cannot wish the world to be a better place than it is," he said. "We have enemies for whom no attack is too cruel, and no innocent life safe, and who would, if they could, strike us with the world’s most terrible weapons. There are states that support them, and which might help them acquire those weapons because they share with terrorists the same animating hatred for the West, and will not be placated by fresh appeals to the better angels of their nature. This is the central threat of our time, and we must understand the implications of our decisions on all manner of regional and global challenges that could have for our success in defeating it."
But he also said he hates war -- something his family knows all too well.
"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father, 'The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor,' " he said. "My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed.... I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well.
"I detest war," continued McCain, a Navy pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War and was a prisoner-of war. "It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought, nor the nobility of the cause it serves can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us."
The speech came a day after a major economic speech, also in California, in which McCain warned against any rush to government bailouts of banks or homeowners caught in the housing crisis and credit crunch.
UPDATE: The Democratic National Committee said McCain, in what his campaign had billed as a major policy speech, did not offer a way forward in Iraq and just repackaged old boilerplate.
"John McCain's empty rhetoric today can't change the fact that he has steadfastly stood with President Bush from day one and is now talking about keeping our troops in Iraq for 100 years," DNC Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement. "His new appreciation for diplomacy has no credibility after he mimicked President Bush's misleading case for a unilateral war of choice when it mattered most. Why should the American people now trust John McCain to offer anything more than four more years of President Bush's reckless economic policies and failed foreign policy?"
He has lost my vote. He needs to direct his attention to the problems of the American people including serious health care and housing issues. If not, leave this country and run for president of Iraq where his interest of late lies. Bail out Iraq and not the American people?....Anti American if you ask me. So basically this idiot is vealing his non support of the USA citizens with useless, stupid, power hungry, militaristic support of war. Here we go again with another brain dead president for 4 years.
this guy was born on a military base and has never left the govt. since.....hes the worst kind of parasite and needs to start walking in the woods......its the enviroment, stupid.....earth first.....all ways........
GLAD TO HEAR MCCAIN IS'NT GOING TO PULL A LONE RANGER ON US!
OBAMA CONTINUES TO BE A THREAT TO NATIONAL MATURITY! HIS PLAN OF BOMBING HOSTILE TRIBES IN NORTHERN PAKISTAN IS PATHETIC !FOR THOSE WHO DONT KNOW (PERHAPS OBAMA) PAKISTAN IS A NUCLEAR ARMED ALLIE!
John McCain has a warmongering history on his record that cannot be wiped
out with hypocritical statements like "I detest war." During the NATO bombing of
Serbia over Kosovo, Nato has some failures, and there was some consultation
among Europeans to stop the bombing and negotiate with Serbia. John McCain
objected strongly because stopping and negotiating looked like weakness of
NATO. "We cannot lose. We are a superpower," he said. Now he softens he stand, and talk about negotiating and ally input, etc., to re-make himself as a
conciliatory person.
But, conciliation was not, and will not be on his vocabulary -if elected. Last
year at a rally, a spectator asked him if the U.S. should attack Iran for refusing
to stop its nuclear program. Rather than saying yes, and confirming his warmongering personality, he instead danced on the platform while he sang:
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran," and kept dancing and repeating to the laughter of
his audience. I am sure his thinking about Iran is the same as the one about
Serbia -like: "We are a superpower. We cannot allow a country like Iran to
defy us because it will set a precedent to other countries to do so. We cannot
lose that dispute. Start bombing. We cannot lose." That is the real McCain,
and anybody that sees McCain in a different light may come to regret heir judgment some day -if he is elected.
George Bush's warmongering attitude, that has had the full support of McCain,
has made the U.S. the most hated nation on earth. And those who feel that it
is OK for the U.S. to be hated -as long as it can bomb countries that cannot protect themselves with impunity- should vote for McCain. Former Pakistani
Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, told U.S. emissaries who went to Pakistan to secure continuous U.S. attacks on Taliban: "If America wants to see itself clean of terrorism, we also want our villages and towns not to be bombed [by the U.S.]." We must learn something from the Pakistani elections because what
has happened to our puppet, Pervez Musharraf, in Pakistan can also happen to other puppets -like Egypt's Mubarak, the Saudis, etc.
With McCain as president, and with his "Bomb, Bomb" attitude in control of the U.S. military forces, the U.S. foreign policy cannot be anything but catastrophic. And the time for Americans to think about is now -not after he sits in the oval office. It will be too late then. Nikos Retsos, retired academic.
attention moon bats, please wake up. Do you know why the world hates us, and has for the last 40 years? It's because we have it too good here. Are you aware that the people who are on welfare in this country because they are too lazy to work, or whatever reason they have (never their fault, never accountability) have it better than 90% of this worlds population? Yet all we do is complain about how bad things are for us. PLEASE! If you work hard here, you will do just fine. Thats a fact.
McCain is talking about working WITH the rest of the world, to make it a better place. Where is the harm in that? Moonbats - please look at things for what they are! The world is not popsicles and bl$w J%bs. There are people that hate us and our way of life (see above... people dont work and have it MUCH better than someone who workd 80 hours a week) and want to do us harm. Thats just the way it is.
Finally! Sensible foreign policy!
Since leaving Massachusetts 30 years ago, I have held the opinion that it will always be infested with bent-knee Democrats that think the world is flat beyond the Mass Pike. John McCain will LEAD this country, whereas the other two Socialist candidates will promise every dead-beat "free ice cream in their beer"...just to get elected. Sorry kids, we can't appease everybody with congressional earmarks....and calls for withdrawal of troops that are based on arbitrary timetables. It's a New World out there that calls for Leadership, not cowardly rhetoric.
Did either of the first 2 posters even read the article?
It's excerpts from one single speech. His comments mostly focus on Foreign policy - and how McCain hates war. As a Vietnamese POW for 5 years, I think he's got some credibility on the subject!
Does that mean he's going to ignore every other issue we face? It also states McCain agreed with many Democrats on the need to to take action on global warming and that he gave another major speech yesterday regarding the housing crisis.
You two are a couple of boobs.
I'm very happy to hear a Republican in favor of closing Guantanamo Bay, of adopting a multilateral foreign policy, taking global warming seriously. I've never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, and I despise Bush, but McCain is getting my vote.
The more people like Howard Dean attack him, the more I like him.
McCain's looking better all the time.
Glad to hear that one of the presidential candidates is, you know, "acting presidential". It is far more refreshing than watching the other two candidates try to outdo each other with mudslinging and pandering.
And an unintended benefit of the speech is that it demonstrates Howard Dean's keen understanding of humanity, which helped win him the 2004 Democratic nomination...oh, wait...
Can people get their facts correct before heading off into a leftist diatribe? 57 different countries were represented with the US when we went into Iraq this time; not just America and Britian.
Given McCain has the Republican nomination tied up, strategy now dictates that he swing way to the left to pick up as much of the center as possible. What are those on the far right going to do if they don't like his message? Vote Democrat?
After elections, win or lose, he'll go back to serving the ones he has always served - the lobbyists.
I like what McCain is saying about "cooperative foreign policy" and a "League of Democracies". If you believe that Democracy (1 vote per citizen, if they choose to vote, as well as elected Congressional delegates who vote on state issues) is the Best Form Of Government Yet (BFoGY), then you will certainly see the value of McCain's statements.
Cooperation, not "CHANGE" is what this world needs. Countries that have just in the past 10 years achieved marked freedom and economic mobility of their people need to have a say in the workings of the international Free Market. Consequently, utmost respect must be given for the protection of the Free Market worldwide, and an outright BAN on protectionist economic policies (besides agriculture...).
We as Massachusetts citizens need to look at the first term of Governor elect Deval Patrick as our crystal ball for an Obama future. "Change change change", and then no changes get made. It frankly irritates me more than anything at all that Gov. Patrick -- as cool a guy as he may be -- has failed to pass numerous legislation that a less polarizing candidate would have certainly gotten through. THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH OBAMA...
John McCain is the right choice for this country, and I hate to say that. If not McCain, then Clinton. However, Obama is not ready, and probably never will be. Great public speaker, but better suited to the Senate than the highest office in the land.
This is too tenuous a time for sidestepping. The ship of the Free Market is leaving the dock, and it seems to me that McCain is the only candidate that can Bowlin-knot our sizeable cargo to this departing vessel. Not taking part in the new global economy is not an option, and I think that McCain's recent doctrine of Cooperation is right in line with current world politics. Sorry to my generations of Democrat ancestors, but this is a time for protecting DemoCRACY, not the DemoCRATS.
Thanks.
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