Friday, July 25, 2008
Barack Obama in Paris
Before answering questions at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama made the following remarks.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
In Germany, Obama urges joint fight against terror
By DAVID ESPO and DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writers
BERLIN - Before an enormous crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.
"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.
"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand," he said.
Obama said he was speaking as a citizen, not as a president, but the evening was awash in politics. His remarks inevitably invited comparison to historic speeches in the same city by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and he borrowed rhetoric from his own appeals to campaign audiences in the likes of Berlin, N.H., when he addressed a crowd in one of the great cities of Europe.
"People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time," he said.
Police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said the speech drew more than 200,000 people.
Obama's speech was the centerpiece of a fast-paced tour through Europe designed to reassure skeptical voters back home about his ability to lead the country and take a frayed cross-Atlantic alliance in a new direction after eight years of the Bush administration.
Republicans, chafing at the media attention Obama's campaign-season trip has drawn, sought to stoke doubts abut his claims.
In Die Welt, the German publication, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., said: "No one knows which Obama will show. Will it be the ideological, left-wing Democratic primary candidate who vowed to 'end' the war rather than win it, or the Democratic nominee who dismisses the progressing coalition victory as a 'distraction'? Will it be the American populist who has told supporters in the United States that he will demand more from our allies in Europe and get it, or the liberal internationalist hell-bent on being liked in Europe's salons?"
Obama met earlier in the day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for a discussion that ranged across the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change, energy issues and more.
Knots of bystanders waited along Obama's motorcade route for him to pass. One man yelled out in English, "Yes, we can," the senator's campaign refrain, when he emerged from his car to enter his hotel.
Obama drew loud applause as he strode confidently across a large podium erected at the base of the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park in the heart of Berlin.
He drew loud applause when he talked of a world without nuclear weapons and again when he called for steps to counter climate change.
Obama mentioned Iraq, a war he has opposed from the start, only in passing. But in discussing Afghanistan, he said, "no one welcomes war. ... But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success."
He referred repeatedly to the Berlin airlift, launched by the Allies 60 years ago when the Russians sought to isolate the Western part of the city. If they had succeeded, he said, Communism would have marched across Europe.
"Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun," the presidential candidate said.
Now, he said, the enemy is different but the need for an alliance is the same as he cited terrorism and the extremism that supports it. "This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it," he said.
BERLIN - Before an enormous crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.
"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.
"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand," he said.
Obama said he was speaking as a citizen, not as a president, but the evening was awash in politics. His remarks inevitably invited comparison to historic speeches in the same city by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and he borrowed rhetoric from his own appeals to campaign audiences in the likes of Berlin, N.H., when he addressed a crowd in one of the great cities of Europe.
"People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time," he said.
Police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said the speech drew more than 200,000 people.
Obama's speech was the centerpiece of a fast-paced tour through Europe designed to reassure skeptical voters back home about his ability to lead the country and take a frayed cross-Atlantic alliance in a new direction after eight years of the Bush administration.
Republicans, chafing at the media attention Obama's campaign-season trip has drawn, sought to stoke doubts abut his claims.
In Die Welt, the German publication, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., said: "No one knows which Obama will show. Will it be the ideological, left-wing Democratic primary candidate who vowed to 'end' the war rather than win it, or the Democratic nominee who dismisses the progressing coalition victory as a 'distraction'? Will it be the American populist who has told supporters in the United States that he will demand more from our allies in Europe and get it, or the liberal internationalist hell-bent on being liked in Europe's salons?"
Obama met earlier in the day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for a discussion that ranged across the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change, energy issues and more.
Knots of bystanders waited along Obama's motorcade route for him to pass. One man yelled out in English, "Yes, we can," the senator's campaign refrain, when he emerged from his car to enter his hotel.
Obama drew loud applause as he strode confidently across a large podium erected at the base of the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park in the heart of Berlin.
He drew loud applause when he talked of a world without nuclear weapons and again when he called for steps to counter climate change.
Obama mentioned Iraq, a war he has opposed from the start, only in passing. But in discussing Afghanistan, he said, "no one welcomes war. ... But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success."
He referred repeatedly to the Berlin airlift, launched by the Allies 60 years ago when the Russians sought to isolate the Western part of the city. If they had succeeded, he said, Communism would have marched across Europe.
"Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun," the presidential candidate said.
Now, he said, the enemy is different but the need for an alliance is the same as he cited terrorism and the extremism that supports it. "This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it," he said.
Keith Olbermann discusses Obama's Iraq/Euro trip w/Hagel
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will visit Afghanistan and Iraq, accompanied by two potential running mates, according to a source familiar with details of the trip.
The overseas trip will give Obama an opportunity to talk at length with Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). The two men have been mentioned as potential running mates because they would bolster the Democratic ticket's foreign policy and military credentials.
Though Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, is a Republican, he has not endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president. Hagel is now a leading critic of the Iraq war after voting for it in 2002.
Obama aides have spoken glowingly of Hagel, and the retiring senator has said he would consider the Democratic vice-presidential nomination if it was offered.
Reed, who voted against the war, is a West Point graduate and former Army paratrooper. He is less well-known than Hagel, but is considered a respected voice on defense matters.
Reed is also an expert on housing issues, which have grown in importance as the economy has soured, and he played a key role in the passage of the Senate foreclosure rescue bill.
Obama has long called Afghanistan "the right battlefield," asserting that President Bush left the war there unfinished in order to invade Iraq. Putting it on his itinerary allows the Democratic contender to highlight that point.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/o...
With Obama's visit to Iraq expected any day now, the Right is about to move into full belittlement mode. They'll attempt to trivialize, satirize, and diminish whatever occurs on this trip. So this is a good time to remember John McCain's last visit to Iraq, a visit that he now claims helped form his war policy.
In case you missed it, this week the media reported heavily on the way McCain "mocked" Obama for laying out an Iraq and Afghanistan policy before visiting the region - without reporting that McCain had also "laid out a policy" before his visit.
And how did that visit go? That's the one where McCain claimed he was able to move freely around town, where one of his Republican colleagues claimed that the market was "just like Indiana," and Lindsay Graham bought a rug for $20 that street vendors said later was worth about a dollar. (That's your GOP military procurement system for you.)
Remember those claims? And how the truth came out eventually? If not, here's a walk down memory lane:
The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees -- the equivalent of an entire company -- and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.
The market was shot up by snipers the next day, as a matter of fact, so it's a shame McCain didn't leave that bulletproof vest behind for some innocent civilian to use.
Somebody should ask McCain how that highly scripted visit, which eventually brought ridicule upon his campaign - and which cost the U.S. military a great deal of money and effort - helped define his current war policy. And whether it was representative of the way he plans to run the military.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-esko...
Obama's Visit to Iraq - Countdown With Keith Olbermann
What will an overseas trip do for Obama's campaign? Rachel Maddow (Radio Talk Show Host) gives her analysis to Keith Olbermann July 21, 2008.
Countdown: Iraq Spin "Out Of Control" 7/21/08
Keith Olbermann and Chris Hayes of The Nation Magazine discuss the spin the Republicans are putting on the Obama trip and the statements by the Iraqi Gov. about troop withdrawals.
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