Barack Obama outlined today what he described as a “tough, smart and principled national security strategy.” In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., Obama said he would focus on “five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly, finishing the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban, securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states, achieving true energy security, and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
Monday, Obama had a commentary in the New York Times presenting his plan for Iraq. He said that the recent call by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of U.S. troops presented an enormous opportunity. “We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States,” Obama wrote.
Meanwhile, the public is evenly split on whether the United States should set a timetable for withdrawing troops. Fifty percent favor of a timetable and 49 percent don’t, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Americans also split on which presidential candidate they trust more to handle the war, with 47 percent favoring John McCain and 45 percent Obama.
“I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” John McCain told the New York Times. He said he identified with Roosevelt as a reformer and environmentalist who had an assertive foreign policy.
“I believe less governance is the best governance, and that government should not do what the free enterprise and private enterprise and individual entrepreneurship and the states can do, but I also believe there is a role for government,” McCain said. He added: “Government should take care of those in America who cannot take care of themselves.”
Some are mourning the sale of iconic American brewery Anheuser-Busch to a foreign buyer, InBev of Belgium.
It’s a shame that the company is no longer American-owned. But with so many U.S. corporate giants gobbling up foreign companies and being gobbled up by them, is this latest example of corporate rebranding really anything new or shocking?
Take InBev itself— the Belgian company’s top management team is Brazilian. And Miller Brewing of Milwaukee was sold in 2002 to South African Breweries and is now SABMiller.
The Clydesdales, the Super Bowl commercials, the Busch family’s ties to St. Louis — Anheuser-Busch has long traded on its all-American image.
But this latest megasale only reinforces the point that the corporate world operates strictly on what is best for shareholders, not a particular community or nation.
Anyway, in my view, most of the American beer worth drinking is made by smaller craft breweries like Avery and Rogue and Boulevard.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., pledged last year that he would campaign for the office and “not campaign against anybody.” But the Kansas Democratic Party is complaining that Roberts already has released two advertisements that campaign against his presumed Democratic challenger, former Kansas congressman Jim Slattery. The latest ad portrays as a bad thing the fact that Slattery has been a lobbyist, even though lobbyists work with all members of Congress, including Roberts.
Wichita Wingnuts manager Kash Beauchamp (in photo) clearly put the new franchise on the map last week with his armpit- and shoe-assisted tantrum, which has been all over the national media (including YouTube) and prompted a richly deserved four-game suspension by the American Association. It’s hard to say what is worse — Beauchamp’s show of disrespect for the umpire and his unapologetic milking of the subsequent media attention, or the crowd’s delighted reaction. Sad to see America’s pastime tainted by behavior straight out of professional wrestling.
The request Monday for an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, is an important and needed step in trying to hold him accountable for genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur. According to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, al-Bashir “masterminded and implemented” a plan to destroy three main ethnic groups in Darfur and, using government soldiers and Arab militias, “specifically and purposefully targeted civilians.”
But don’t expect al-Bashir to be arrested anytime soon, if ever. A three-judge panel likely won’t make a decision until this fall. If the warrant is issued, it would be up to the United Nations to try to enforce it, which may or may not happen. There already are arrest warrants for two other Sudanese leaders that are mostly being ignored. In fact, al-Bashir promoted one of those officials to be minister of humanitarian affairs.
Barack Obama outlined today what he described as a “tough, smart and principled national security strategy.” In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., Obama said he would focus on “five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly, finishing the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban, securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states, achieving true energy security, and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
