www.barackobama.com/issues/f...gnpolicy/

BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN TO SECURE AMERICA AND RESTORE OUR STANDING

“When I am this party's nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I supported Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don't like. And he will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture — because it is never ok… I will end the war in Iraq… I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, "You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.”

— Barack Obama, Des Moines, Iowa, November 10, 2007

At a Glance

* Ending the War in Iraq
* Iran
* Renewing American Diplomacy
* Nuclear Weapons
* Building a 21st Century Military
* Bipartisanship and Openness
* On Israel
* On Africa


Speak your mind and help set the policies that will guide this campaign and change the country.

* Present your ideas

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Barack Obama's Plan
Ending the War in Iraq

* Judgment You Can Trust: As a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002, Obama put his political career on the line to oppose going to war in Iraq, and warned of “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.” Obama has been a consistent, principled and vocal opponent of the war in Iraq:
1. In 2003 and 2004, he spoke out against the war on the campaign trail;
2. In 2005, he called for a phased withdrawal of our troops;
3. In 2006, he called for a timetable to remove our troops, a political solution within Iraq, and aggressive diplomacy with all of Iraq's neighbors;
4. In January 2007, he introduced legislation in the Senate to remove all of our combat troops from Iraq by March 2008.
5. In September 2007, he laid out a detailed plan for how he will end the war as president.
* Bring Our Troops Home: Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
* Press Iraq's leaders to reconcile: The best way to press Iraq's leaders to take responsibility for their future is to make it clear that we are leaving. As we remove our troops, Obama will engage representatives from all levels of Iraqi society – in and out of government – to seek a new accord on Iraq's Constitution and governance. The United Nations will play a central role in this convention, which should not adjourn until a new national accord is reached addressing tough questions like federalism and oil revenue-sharing.
* Regional Diplomacy: Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East. This effort will include all of Iraq's neighbors – including Iran and Syria. This compact will aim to secure Iraq's borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq's sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq's reconstruction.
* Humanitarian Initiative: Obama believes that America has a moral and security responsibility to confront Iraq's humanitarian crisis – two million Iraqis are refugees; two million more are displaced inside their own country. Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find a safe-haven.

Iran

* The Problem: Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That's why Obama stood up to the Bush administration's warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.
* Opposed Bush-Cheney Saber Rattling: Obama opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which says we should use our military presence in Iraq to counter the threat from Iran. Obama believes that it was reckless for Congress to give George Bush any justification to extend the Iraq War or to attack Iran. Obama also introduced a resolution in the Senate declaring that no act of Congress – including Kyl-Lieberman – gives the Bush administration authorization to attack Iran.
* Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

Renewing American Diplomacy

* The Problem: The United States is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don't like. Not talking doesn't make us look tough – it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership. On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support.
* Talk to our Foes and Friends: Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like terrorism, and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.
* Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Obama will make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key diplomatic priority. He will make a sustained push – working with Israelis and Palestinians – to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.
* Expand our Diplomatic Presence: To make diplomacy a priority, Obama will stop shuttering consulates and start opening them in the tough and hopeless corners of the world – particularly in Africa. He will expand our foreign service, and develop the capacity of our civilian aid workers to work alongside the military.
* Fight Global Poverty: Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. He will help the world's weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.
* Strengthen NATO: Obama will rally NATO members to contribute troops to collective security operations, urging them to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization operations, streamlining the decision-making processes, and giving NATO commanders in the field more flexibility.
* Seek New Partnerships in Asia: Obama will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. He will maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia; work to build an infrastructure with countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity; and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.

Nuclear Weapons

* A Record of Results: The gravest danger to the American people is the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes. Obama has taken bipartisan action to secure nuclear weapons and materials:
1. He joined Senator Dick Lugar in passing a law to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
2. He joined Senator Chuck Hagel to introduce a bill that seeks to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, and stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
3. And while other candidates have insisted that we should threaten to drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps, Obama believes that we must talk openly about nuclear weapons – because the best way to keep America safe is not to threaten terrorists with nuclear weapons, it's to keep nuclear weapons away from terrorists.
* Secure Loose Nuclear Materials from Terrorists: Obama will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While we work to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. This will deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.
* Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Obama will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.
* Toward a Nuclear Free World: Obama will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But he will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. He will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range missiles so that the agreement is global.

Building a 21st Century Military

* The Problem: The excellence of our military is unmatched. But as a result of a misguided war in Iraq, our forces are under pressure as never before. Obama will make the investments we need so that the finest military in the world is best-prepared to meet 21st-century threats.
* Rebuild Trust: Obama will rebuild trust with those who serve by ensuring that soldiers and Marines have sufficient training time before they are sent into battle.
* Expand the Military: We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
* New Capabilities: Obama will give our troops new equipment, armor, training, and skills like language training. He will also strengthen our civilian capacity, so that our civilian agencies have the critical skills and equipment they need to integrate their efforts with our military.
* Strengthen Guard and Reserve: Obama will restore the readiness of the National Guard and Reserves. He will permit them adequate time to train and rest between deployments, and provide the National Guard with the equipment they need for foreign and domestic emergencies. He will also give the Guard a seat at the table by making the Chief of the National Guard a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bipartisanship and Openness

* The Problem: Under the Bush administration, foreign policy has been used as a political wedge issue to divide us – not as a cause to bring America together. And it is no coincidence that one of the most secretive administrations in history has pursued policies that have been disastrous for the American people. Obama strongly believes that our foreign policy is stronger when Americans are united, and the government is open and candid with the American people.
* A Record of Bringing People Together: In the Senate, Obama has worked with Republicans and Democrats to advance important policy initiatives on securing weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons, increasing funding for nonproliferation, and countering instability in Congo.
* Consultative Group: Obama will convene a bipartisan Consultative Group of leading members of Congress to foster better executive-legislative relations and bipartisan unity on foreign policy. This group will be comprised of the congressional leadership of both political parties, and the chair and ranking members of the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees. This group will meet with the president once a month to review foreign policy priorities, and will be consulted in advance of military action.
* Getting Politics out of Intelligence: Obama would insulate the Director of National Intelligence from political pressure by giving the DNI a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obama will seek consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence community – not just a political ally.
* Change the Culture of Secrecy: Obama will reverse President Bush's policy of secrecy. He will institute a National Declassification Center to make declassification secure but routine, efficient, and cost-effective.
* Engaging the American People on Foreign Policy: Obama will bring foreign policy decisions directly to the people by requiring his national security officials to have periodic national broadband town hall meetings to discuss foreign policy. He will personally deliver occasional fireside chats via webcast.

On Israel

* Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership: Barack Obama strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship, believes that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East. Obama supports this closeness, stating that that the United States would never distance itself from Israel.
* Support Israel's Right to Self Defense: During the July 2006 Lebanon war, Barack Obama stood up strongly for Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks, cosponsoring a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles. He believes strongly in Israel's right to protect its citizens.
* Support Foreign Assistance to Israel: Barack Obama has consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. He defends and supports the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel and has advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met. He has called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems.
* (PDF)Read the full Israel Fact Sheet

On Africa

* Stop the Genocide in Darfur: Barack Obama has been a leading voice urging the Bush Administration to take stronger steps to end the genocide in Sudan. He worked with Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. Obama has traveled to the United Nations to meet with Sudanese officials and visited refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border to raise international awareness of the ongoing humanitarian disaster there. He also worked with Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to secure $20 million for the African Union peacekeeping mission. Obama believes the United States needs to lead the world in ending this genocide, including by imposing much tougher sanctions that target Sudan?s oil revenue, implementing and helping to enforce a no-fly zone, and engaging in more intense, effective diplomacy to develop a political roadmap to peace. The international community must, over the Sudanese regime?s protests, deploy a large, capable UN-led and UN-funded force with a robust enforcement mandate to stop the killings.
* End the Conflict in Congo: An estimated 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began. Barack Obama wrote and passed legislation to promote stability in the Congo. Obama revamped U.S. policy in the Congo to include a commitment to help rebuild the country, develop lasting political structures, hold accountable destabilizing foreign governments, crack down on corrupt politicians, and professionalize the military. The bill also authorizes $52 million in U.S. assistance for the Congo.
* Bring a Brutal Warlord to Justice: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been accused of committing war crimes by international prosecutors. After taking the presidency following a brutal civil war that decimated Liberia's population, Taylor created a rebel group that fought in neighboring Sierra Leone's civil war. These rebels committed a range of atrocities including rape, murder and the use of child soldiers. On July 19, 2005, Obama passed a bipartisan amendment, along with Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) to provide $13 million for the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Signed into law in November 2005, the Obama amendment provides critical funding to keep the Court up and running and dramatically enhances efforts to bring Charles Taylor to justice. Taylor was arrested in 2006. His trial began in June 2007 and was postponed until January 2008.

For More Information about Barack's Plan

Read the Speech and Learn More About Barack Obama's Plan on Iraq and Iran
Read the Speech on Nuclear Weapons and Diplomacy
Read the Speech on Counter-Terrorism Strategy
Read the Speech on Restoring American Leadership





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#1 31 May 2008 05:43

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usa.png prometheuspan Gender: Male
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Americans are ready for a leader who will restore America's reputation in the world, and Hillary is prepared to lead America back in the right direction.

The next president's most urgent task will be to restore America's standing in the world to promote our interests, ensure our security, and advance our values.

America is stronger when we lead the world through alliances and build our foreign policy on a strong foundation of bipartisan consensus. As president, Hillary will lead by the words of the Declaration of Independence, which pledged "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."

We know we need global coalitions to tackle global problems like climate change, poverty, AIDS, and terrorism. And to keep our country safe, we need to start engaging our enemies again. During the Cold War, with missiles pointed at us, we never stopped talking to the Soviet Union. That didn't mean we agreed with them or approved of them. But it did mean we came to understand them -- and that was crucial to confronting the threats they posed.

Hillary knows that America must remain a preeminent leader for peace and freedom, willing to work in concert with other nations and institutions to reach common goals. Hillary has put forth an aggressive plan to support public schools in developing countries in an effort to achieve universal primary education for the 77 million children around the world who aren't in school because they are too poor.

Ready to Lead

As First Lady and U.S. senator, Hillary visited more than 80 countries and met countless world leaders as America's representative. In the Senate, Hillary has continued to promote America's interests through her work on international affairs.

Senator Clinton takes very seriously the threats we face from terrorism. She believes President Bush's singular focus on Iraq has distracted him from waging the war on terror effectively and emboldened our enemies. As president, she will be tough and smart in combating terrorism.

Hillary has steadfastly fought for Israel's right to exist peacefully and to defend its people against terrorism. She has condemned Hamas's rise to power. She has spoken out against the problem of anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks and condemned Iran's conference on the Holocaust. She also successfully helped Magen David Adom join the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.

She has continued to advance peace in Northern Ireland by maintaining close ties with Irish leaders and promoting business partnerships between Northern Ireland and the United States.

Hillary has been a forceful and consistent advocate for a more robust response to the violence in Darfur since May 2004. She has raised the issue with the Bush administration and pushed for more resources for peacekeeping efforts.


www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/security/





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#2 31 May 2008 05:45

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usa.png prometheuspan Gender: Male
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www.johnedwards.com/issues/reengage/



"Our nation now stands at the pinnacle of its power, but it also faces serious challenges. Today, we need a national security policy for the twenty-first century that will not only respond to threats but apply all our resources to the critical goal of preventing such threats in the first place. We can be strong, secure, and good, and we can build a more hopeful future. Our national security policy should be designed to reach these goals. We must do everything in our power to reclaim the United States' historic role as a beacon for the world and become, once again, a shining example for other nations to follow." -- John Edwards

At the dawn of a new century and on the brink of a new presidency, John Edwards believes the United States today needs to reclaim the moral high ground that defined our foreign policy for much of the last century. We must move beyond the wreckage created by one of the greatest strategic failures in U.S. history: the war in Iraq. Rather than alienating the rest of the world through assertions of infallibility and demands of obedience, as the current administration has done, U.S. foreign policy must be driven by a strategy of reengagement.

This century's first test of our leadership arrived with terrible force on September 11, 2001. When the United States was attacked, the entire world stood with us. We could have pursued a broad policy of reengagement with the world, yet instead we squandered this broad support through a series of policies that drove away our friends and allies. A recent Pew survey showed the United States' approval ratings plummeting throughout the world between 2000 and 2006. This decline was especially worrisome in Muslim countries of strategic importance to the United States, such as Indonesia, where approval dropped from 75 percent to 30 percent, and Turkey, where it fell from 52 percent to 12 percent.

We need a new path, one that will lead to reengagement with the world and restoration of the United States' moral authority in the community of nations. As President Harry Truman once said, "No one nation alone can bring peace. Together, nations can build a strong defense against aggression and combine the energy of free men everywhere in building a better future for all."
Multilateral Strategies for Global Problems

New leadership is needed for a broader, more systematic approach to confronting the most dangerous threat of the new century: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In working toward the goal of a nuclear-free world, the United States must lead the effort to strengthen the international nonproliferation institutions, not cast them aside. The rules and institutions we rely on to stymie and isolate bad actors, while providing strong leverage and instruments for measuring progress, are increasingly riddled with loopholes and gaps. We should create a new Global Nuclear Compact to bolster the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would support peaceful nuclear programs, improve security for existing stocks of nuclear materials, and ensure more frequent verification that materials are not being diverted and nuclear facilities are not being misused. We must also halt the trade of the most dangerous technologies by the most dangerous states and increase the amount of money we spend on cooperative threat-reduction programs in the former Soviet republics. Finally, we should strengthen our nation's capacity to identify and respond to WMD threats by reforming the ways the U.S. government collects and analyzes intelligence and by giving the intelligence community the resources it needs.

We should take a multilateral approach to global warming, as well. Edwards would lead the world to a new climate treaty that commits other countries—including developing nations—to reduce their pollution. Edwards will insist that developing countries join us in this effort, offering to share new clean energy technology and, if necessary, using trade agreements to require binding greenhouse reductions.
Addressing Nuclear Challenges
Iran

We should chart a new course for diplomatic relations with Iran by expanding low-level talks between government officials on both sides in a neutral country. The goal of these talks should be to find a path out of the log-jam created by the Bush administration and, ultimately, to achieve full diplomatic relations. But Edwards believes we must always negotiate from a position of strength. Any higher-level meeting should only happen if we verify that the meetings will promote America's national security interests and will not be used for propaganda or other improper purposes.

Edwards believes we must use diplomatic "sticks" to force Iran's leaders to understand that they cannot continue to buck the will of the international community without destroying their ability to be the modern, advanced nation they so desperately want to become. First, we must fully enforce the Iran Sanctions Act, a law Congress passed to let the president punish companies that do business with Iran's extremist regime. Second, we must work multilaterally—most importantly, with our Western European allies—to strengthen economic sanctions on Iran. Third, we must completely shut down all Iranian access to the American financial system. We also should use "carrots"—diplomatic measures to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions and support of terrorism. Iran, which right now cannot even process its own oil and imports the majority of its fuel, needs greater energy resources. We should draw Iran into compliance through incentives including increased refinery capacity. We should also lead a multilateral effort to create a regional fuel bank that Iran could use for peaceful purposes. We should also use the possibility of bringing Iran into multilateral economic organizations, including the WTO, to draw Iran's elites into pressuring the regime to change course and abandon its nuclear ambitions. Finally, we must work with China and Russia on the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions and make Iran a top-level priority in our bilateral relationships with both countries.
North Korea

In North Korea, the recent agreement to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for the release of frozen assets is encouraging—though long overdue. It is a sign that the carrots-and-sticks approach can work. Pyongyang's words, however, are not enough. We must require a commitment to future action. We must engage the North Korean government directly, through the six-party framework, placing economic and political incentives on the table in exchange for the verified, complete elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities.
Stabilization and Humanitarian Missions

The tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, the troubled status of the government in Afghanistan, and the need for a functioning infrastructure in Iraq all have something in common: they present a new set of challenges for which the United States will need to prepare. In the coming years, we will most likely see an increasing need to stabilize weak and failing states and provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of disasters across the world.

These missions are demanding, dangerous, and expensive. They require a wide range of resources and sources of knowledge, from experts in water purification to medical technicians, judges to corrections officers, bankers to stock-market analysts. In most cases, the help of thousands of such specialists is required. Yet for years, the U.S. government has not been properly prepared for these kinds of missions. As a result, when these situations arise, the government turns repeatedly to the only existing institution with the required logistical capabilities and a sufficiently broad range of skills: the military. But the military lacks many of the resources that are required to conduct these missions successfully. To resolve these problems, Edwards will establish a Marshall Corps during his first year in office, named for our greatest secretary of state, General George Marshall. The Marshall Corps, patterned after the military reserves, will consist of at least 10,000 civilian experts who could be deployed abroad to serve in reconstruction, stabilization, and humanitarian missions. They will be on the frontline in the United States' reengagement with the world.
Working with our Traditional Partners

We must also strive to maintain our strong partnerships with longtime allies, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the transforming European Union, as well as work to rebuild the long-neglected relationships with our neighbors throughout Latin America. Finally, we must stand by our ally and partner Israel, ensuring its security while doing everything in our power to bring peace and stability to the region.
The World's Emerging Powers

In the new century, a number of emerging or already major powers will pose new challenges to the United States. We will have to continue integrating rising powers into a peaceful international system by convincing them that they can both benefit from and contribute to the system's strength. This means adapting our most important international leadership organizations, such as the G-8, to include these new major players.
China

China is developing a unique political system and economy with both authoritarian and free-market elements. The nation is economically important to the United States, heavily invested in our Treasury bonds, and a significant trading partner. But China is also a growing economic competitor, particularly in its dealings with nations possessing rich energy resources, which can lead to conflicting perspectives on security issues. China's approach to Iran and Sudan are prime examples. In sum, the U.S.-Chinese relationship is a delicate one, which has not been well managed by the current administration. In the coming years, China's influence and importance will only continue to grow. On issues such as trade, climate change, and human rights, our overarching goal must be to get China to commit to the rules that govern the conduct of nations.
Russia

Russia presents a very different challenge. The situation in Russia is deteriorating, and democracy is on the wane. President Vladimir Putin has also initiated a worrisome pattern of bellicose rhetoric against the United States and has threatened to withdraw from arms control treaties. The presidential transition scheduled for next year will be a critical test of Russia's commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Despite these concerns, Russia also offers substantial opportunities for the United States, both as an economic partner and as a stabilizing influence over other, more overtly hostile nations, such as Iran. Last year, in a Council on Foreign Relations task force Edwards co-led with former Republican Congressman Jack Kemp, we concluded that the United States ought to initiate a new era of selective cooperation with Russia on particular issues, such as Iran, energy, and nuclear nonproliferation, while preserving our ability to disagree and push for change on other issues, such as our concerns about increasing authoritarianism in Russia and potential Russian-Chinese cooperation. Our most important goal is to draw Russia into the Western political mainstream through continued engagement and, when necessary, diplomatic and economic pressure.
India

Edwards has seen for himself that India is one of the world's richest treasures. With its great history, tremendous people, and rich culture, India has truly overwhelming potential. The United States is fortunate to count India as a partner, and we must cultivate our friendship to advance our common values. India is a country that knows both the positive and the negative aspects of our globalized world. It has achieved remarkable economic growth, benefiting from access to technology and information. Yet the nation also grapples with threats that refuse to respect borders—the AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty, and terrorists, such as those who struck New Delhi late in 2005. The United States and India are natural allies, and the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership will help shape the twenty-first century. We must therefore strengthen our relationship using both national and international tools: reforming the UN so that there is a place for India on the Security Council and working with India to help it achieve a credible and transparent plan to permanently separate its civilian and military nuclear programs. The United States could then more easily work with India to address its energy needs—another step that would deepen the U.S.-Indian friendship.
The Developing World
Latin America

Latin America has always been a special region to the U.S. We share the same hemisphere and have many of the same economic and social interests. John Edwards believes we have a strong commitment to Latin America. In recent years, Latin America has made unprecedented progress in democracy and peace. The region has also seen countless economic, educational, and health care advances. But we are also witnessing worrisome patterns, from increased poverty to crime to authoritarian rule.

John Edwards believes we need to bring our approach to Latin America up to speed with a changing region with a diverse range of countries. Latin America reveals both the promise and peril of the new century for U.S. foreign policy. As president, Edwards will adopt a new framework for Latin America that will help the region move toward democracy, development, and human rights, and away from the authoritarianism, poverty, and instability that have done so much harm before.
Africa

Few areas deserve the United States' moral leadership more urgently than Sudan. The African Union peacekeeping troops stationed in Darfur have acted bravely in a difficult situation. But these 7,000 troops have been unable to protect civilians or enforce a 2004 cease-fire, and security has deteriorated dramatically. Edwards believes President Bush should convene an emergency meeting of NATO's leadership to provide assistance to a UN deployment of 3,000 troops, backed by logistical, operational, and financial support. NATO must establish a no-fly zone over the region to cut off supplies to the brutal Janjaweed militias and end the Sudanese government's bombing of civilians in Darfur. NATO member states should also impose a new round of multilateral sanctions on the Sudanese government and freeze the foreign assets of individuals complicit in the genocide. The United States must make a decisive new commitment to employ the extraordinary assets of the U.S. military—our airlift capabilities, logistical support, and intelligence systems—to assist UN and African Union peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. And we must continue to pressure other countries with influence in the region, such as China, to meet their own responsibilities to help end this conflict.

We also must reengage with Uganda and help end the suffering in the civil war there. Edwards believes the U.S. should make a clear public statement of support for the Juba Peace Talks and for the efforts of the U.N. Special Envoy and dispatch a high-level American presidential envoy to work with the U.N. He would also commit sufficient funds to support the U.N. Juba Initiative Fund.





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#3 31 May 2008 05:47

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usa.png prometheuspan Gender: Male
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www.johnmccain.com/Informin...a1e68.htm

National Security

A Strong Military in a Dangerous World

In a dangerous world, protecting America's national security requires a strong military. Today, America has the most capable, best-trained and best-led military force in the world. But much needs to be done to maintain our military leadership, retain our technological advantage, and ensure that America has a modern, agile military force able to meet the diverse security challenges of the 21st century.

John McCain is committed to ensuring that the men and women of our military remain the best, most capable fighting force on Earth - and that our nation honors its promises to them for their service.

The global war on terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, threats from rogue states like Iran and North Korea, and the rise of potential strategic competitors like China and Russia mean that America requires a larger and more capable military to protect our country's vital interests and deter challenges to our security. America confronts a range of serious security challenges: Protecting our homeland in an age of global terrorism and Islamist extremism; working with friends and partners overseas, from Africa to Southeast Asia, to help them combat terrorism and violent insurgencies in their own countries; defending against missile and nuclear attack; maintaining the credibility of our defense commitments to our allies; and waging difficult counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

John McCain understands national security and the threats facing our nation. He recognizes the dangers posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, violent Islamist extremists and their terrorist tactics, and the ever present threat of regional conflict that can spill into broader wars that endanger allies and destabilize areas of the world vital to American security. He knows that to protect our homeland, our interests, and our values - and to keep the peace - America must have the best-manned, best-equipped, and best-supported military in the world.

John McCain has been a tireless advocate of our military and ensuring that our forces are properly postured, funded, and ready to meet the nation's obligations both at home and abroad. He has fought to modernize our forces, to ensure that America maintains and expands its technological edge against any potential adversary, and to see that our forces are capable and ready to undertake the variety of missions necessary to meet national security objectives.

As President, John McCain will strengthen the military, shore up our alliances, and ensure that the nation is capable of protecting the homeland, deterring potential military challenges, responding to any crisis that endangers American security, and prevailing in any conflict we are forced to fight.

Fighting Against Violent Islamic Extremists and Terrorist Tactics

The attacks on September 11th represented more than a failure of intelligence. The tragedy highlighted a failure of national policy to respond to the development of a global terror network hostile to the American people and our values. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 bombing of the USS COLE indicated a growing global terrorist threat before the attacks on New York and Washington. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States hit home with unmistakable clarity.

America faces a dedicated, focused, and intelligent foe in the war on terrorism. This enemy will probe to find America's weaknesses and strike against them. The United States cannot afford to be complacent about the threat, naive about terrorist intentions, unrealistic about their capabilities, or ignorant to our national vulnerabilities.

In the aftermath of 9/11 John McCain fought for the creation of an independent 9/11 Commission to identify how to best address the terrorist threat and decrease our domestic vulnerability. He fought for the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the creation of the U.S. Northern Command with the specific responsibility of protecting the U.S. homeland.

As President, John McCain will ensure that America has the quality intelligence necessary to uncover plots before they take root, the resources to protect critical infrastructure and our borders against attack, and the capability to respond and recover from a terrorist incident swiftly.

He will ensure that the war against terrorists is fought intelligently, with patience and resolve, using all instruments of national power. Moreover, he will lead this fight with the understanding that to impinge on the rights of our own citizens or restrict the freedoms for which our nation stands would be to give terrorists the victory they seek.

John McCain believes that just as America must be prepared to meet and prevail against any adversary on the field of battle, we must engage and prevail against them on the battleground of ideas. In so doing, we can and must deprive terrorists of the converts they seek and counter their teaching of the doctrine of hatred and despair.

As President, John McCain will take it as his most sacred responsibility to keep America free, safe, and strong - an abiding beacon of freedom and hope to the world.

Effective Missile Defense

John McCain strongly supports the development and deployment of theater and national missile defenses. Effective missile defenses are critical to protect America from rogue regimes like North Korea that possess the capability to target America with intercontinental ballistic missiles, from outlaw states like Iran that threaten American forces and American allies with ballistic missiles, and to hedge against potential threats from possible strategic competitors like Russia and China. Effective missile defenses are also necessary to allow American military forces to operate overseas without being deterred by the threat of missile attack from a regional adversary.

John McCain is committed to deploying effective missile defenses to reduce the possibility of strategic blackmail by rogue regimes and to secure our homeland from the very real prospect of missile attack by present or future adversaries. America should never again have to live in the shadow of missile and nuclear attack. As President, John McCain will not trust in the "balance of terror" to protect America, but will work to deploy effective missile defenses to safeguard our people and our homeland.

Increasing the Size of the American Military

The most important weapons in the U.S. arsenal are the men and women of American armed forces. John McCain believes we must enlarge the size of our armed forces to meet new challenges to our security. For too long, we have asked too much of too few - with the result that many service personnel are on their second, third and even fourth tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. There can be no higher defense priority than the proper compensation, training, and equipping of our troops.

Our existing force is overstretched by the combination of military operations in the broader Middle East and the need to maintain our security commitments in Europe and Asia. Recruitment and retention suffer from extended overseas deployments that keep service personnel away from their homes and families for long periods of time.

John McCain believes that the answer to these challenges is not to roll back our overseas commitments. The size and composition of our armed forces must be matched to our nation's defense requirements. As requirements expand in the global war on terrorism so must our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard be reconfigured to meet these new challenges. John McCain thinks it is especially important to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to defend against the threats we face today.

John McCain knows that the most difficult and solemn decision a president must make is sending young Americans into harm's way. Having experienced firsthand the brutality of war, as president, John McCain would never make the decision to use force lightly, only when the cause is just, and our nation's values and interests absolutely demand it.

Modernizing the Armed Services

Modernizing American armed forces involves procuring advanced weapons systems that will help rapidly and decisively defeat any adversary and protect American lives. It also requires addressing force protection needs to make sure that America's combat personnel have the best safety and survivability equipment available.

Modernizing the armed forces also means adapting our doctrine, training, and tactics for the kind of conflicts we are most likely to face. Today, American forces are engaged in dangerous operations throughout the world. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Somalia and the Philippines, American forces are fighting the battles of the 21st century against terrorists and insurgents. These asymmetric conflicts require a very different force structure than the one we used to fight and win the Cold War.

The missions of the 21st century will not center on traditional territorial defense or mass armor engagements. Instead, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces will be engaged in, among other things, counter insurgency, counter terrorism, missile defense, counter proliferation and information warfare. This calls not just for a larger and more capable military, but for a new mix of military forces, including civil affairs, special operations, and highly mobile forces capable of fighting and prevailing in the conflicts America faces.

Smarter Defense Spending

John McCain has worked aggressively to reform the defense budgeting process to ensure that America enjoys the best military at the best cost. This includes reforming defense procurement to ensure the faithful and efficient expenditure of taxpayer dollars that are made available for defense acquisition. Too often, parochial interests - rather than the national interest - have guided our spending decisions. John McCain supports significant reform in our defense acquisition process to ensure that dollars spent actually contribute to U.S. security.

John McCain also feels strongly that our nation's military spending, except in time of genuine emergency, must be funded by the regular appropriations process, not by "emergency" supplementals that allow defense to be funded outside the normal budget cycle. This process gives Congressional committees less ability to closely scrutinize defense budget requests to ensure military funding is being budgeted wisely. It makes possible Congressional pork-barrel spending that diverts scarce defense resources to parochial home-state interests. And it allows the administration to add spending above that set by budget caps, bloating the federal deficit. Budgeting annually through emergency supplemental appropriation bills encourages pork barrel spending. The American taxpayer has a right to expect us to get the most out of each and every defense dollar, especially at a time when those dollars are so critical. Throughout his career, John McCain has fought pork-barrel defense spending that diverts scarce defense resources to parochial, home-state projects rather than addressing the needs of service personnel. He believes that unauthorized earmarks drain our precious defense resources and adversely affect our national security. John McCain will continue to fight pork-barrel spending to ensure that military funds are spent where they are needed most - in support of our military personnel and our national defense.

Taking Care of Our Military Personnel and their Families

Our military personnel and their families deserve the nation's unfailing gratitude, respect, and support. As a former naval officer with a distinguished record of military service, John McCain understands the profound sacrifices made by our men and women who serve in the uniform of our country and their families.

He believes one of America's most solemn obligations is to treat our military personnel with the same sense of devotion and duty as they demonstrate in rendering their service to the nation. John McCain has fought for improved military pay and benefits, and an improved quality of life for military families.

America's deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan rely heavily on Reserve and National Guard forces. John McCain has worked hard to ensure that benefits for deployed Reservists and National Guardsmen are brought in line with our active-duty military forces.

As president, he will make sure that just as we are always proud of our military personnel for what they do for the country, the country can be proud of what we do for them.

Honoring our Nation's Commitments to Veterans and Military Retirees

John McCain has worked tirelessly to protect increased benefits for America's veterans. He understands that our country has a duty to care for veterans who have honorably served. John McCain will continue to look out for the men and women who have answered our nation's call.

America must never leave its military retirees in any doubt that it will keep its commitments to them for their many years of faithful service. John McCain has been a champion of military retirees in the Senate and believes that it is especially important to ensure retired service personnel enjoy full health care and benefits comparable to that received by retired federal employees. John McCain understands that a key to recruiting and retaining a new generation of American military personnel is demonstrating that our government keeps its promises to retired service members. He will remain an unwavering champion for the rights of military retirees and their families.





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#4 31 May 2008 05:48

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Kucinich for President 2008 Toll free: 1-877-413-3664
Paid for by Kucinich for President 2008 dennis4president.com Department of Peace, pg 1 of 2
Department of Peace
H.R. 808, Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act
The United States was founded on hope, optimism, and a commitment to freedom. We
can once again become a beacon of hope for the world. To do that, we must reject the
current administration's policies of fear, suspicion, and preemptive war. It is time to
jettison our illusions and fears and to transform age-old challenges with new thinking.
This is the idea behind my proposal to establish a Department of Peace. This is the idea
to make nonviolence an organizing principle at home and abroad and dedicate
ourselves to peaceful coexistence, consensus building, disarmament, and respect for
international treaties. Violence and war are not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are
inevitable.
We can conceive of peace as not simply the absence of violence but the presence of
the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness, of respect, trust, and integrity.
We can conceive of peace as a tool to tap the infinite capabilities of humanity to
transform consciousness and conditions that impel or compel violence at a personal,
group, or national level toward creating understanding, compassion, and love. We can
bring forth new understandings where peace, not war, becomes inevitable. We can
move from wars to end all wars to peace to end all wars.
Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a
Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to
make nonviolence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a
paradigm shift in our culture for human development for economic and political justice
and for violence control. Its work in violence control will be to support disarmament,
treaties, peaceful coexistence and peaceful consensus building. Its focus on economic
and political justice will examine and enhance resource distribution, human and
economic rights and strengthen democratic values.
We must change the metaphor of our society from one of war to one of peace. The
Department of Defense now requires in excess of $400 billion for its activities. A
Department of Peace can be an effective counterbalance, redirecting our national
energies towards nonviolent intervention, mediation, and conflict resolution on all
matters of human security.
A Department of Peace can look at the domestic issues that our society faces and often
ignores as we focus on matters internationally. We have a problem with violence in our
own society, and we need to look at it and address it in a structured way. Domestically,
the Department of Peace would address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child
abuse, gangs, and police-community relations conflicts, and would work with individuals
and groups to achieve changes in attitudes that examine the mythologies of cherished
world views, such as "violence is inevitable" or "war is inevitable." Thus, it will help with
the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus.
Kucinich for President 2008 Toll free: 1-877-413-3664
Paid for by Kucinich for President 2008 dennis4president.com Department of Peace, pg 2 of 2
The Department of Peace will also address human development and the unique
concerns of women and children. It will envision and seek to implement plans for peace
education, not simply as a course of study, but as a template for all pursuits of
knowledge within formal educational settings.
Americans have proven over and over again we're a nation that can rise to the
challenges of our times, because our people have that capacity. And so, the concept of
a Department of Peace is the vehicle by which we express our belief that we have the
capacity to evolve as a people, that someday we could look back at this moment and
understand that we took the steps along the way to make war archaic.
Violence is not inevitable. War is not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable.
We can make of this world a gift of peace which will confirm the presence of universal
spirit in our lives. We can send into the future the gift which will protect our children from
fear, from harm, from destruction.
Congressman Kucinich is the 2003 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award. Former
recipients include Eleanor Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, A.J. Muste, Dr. Linus Pauling,
Dorothy Day, Sen. Wayne Morse and Marian Wright Edelman.





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#5 31 May 2008 05:49

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usa.png JP Morgan Gender: Female


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Post Re: PlatformZ

A different take on foreign policy - and, perhaps, an ethical challenge to those who have:

btw, there's another website I'm familiar with that has a similar goal: roomtoread.org


www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13...ristof.html

July 13, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
It Takes a School, Not Missiles
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan,
President Bush’s and Greg Mortenson’s.

Mr. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion — an
extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world — to the highly unpopular government
of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: the backlash has
radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways
that they never did before 9/11.

Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite
approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush
administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.

The only thing that Mr. Mortenson blows up are boulders that fall onto remote
roads and block access to his schools.

Mr. Mortenson has become a legend in the region, his picture sometimes dangling
like a talisman from rearview mirrors, and his work has struck a chord in
America as well. His superb book about his schools, “Three Cups of Tea,” came
out in 2006 and initially wasn’t reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet
propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: it has spent
the last 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1
spot.

Now Mr. Mortenson is fending off several dozen film offers. “My concern is that
a movie might endanger the well-being of our students,” he explains.

Mr. Mortenson found his calling in 1993 after he failed in an attempt to climb
K2, a Himalayan peak, and stumbled weakly into a poor Muslim village. The
peasants nursed him back to health, and he promised to repay them by building
the village a school.

Scrounging the money was a nightmare — his 580 fund-raising letters to prominent
people generated one check, from Tom Brokaw — and Mr. Mortenson ended up selling
his beloved climbing equipment and car. But when the school was built, he kept
going. Now his aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in
operation. His focus is educating girls.

To get a school, villagers must provide the land and the labor to assure a local
“buy-in,” and so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools. One
anti-American mob rampaged through Baharak, Afghanistan, attacking aid groups —
but stopped at the school that local people had just built with Mr. Mortenson.
“This is our school,” the mob leaders decided, and they left it intact.

Mr. Mortenson has had setbacks, including being kidnapped for eight days in
Pakistan’s wild Waziristan region. It would be naïve to think that a few dozen
schools will turn the tide in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Still, he notes that the Taliban recruits the poor and illiterate, and he also
argues that when women are educated they are more likely to restrain their sons.

Five of his teachers are former Taliban, and he says it was their mothers who
persuaded them to leave the Taliban; that is one reason he is passionate about
educating girls.

So I have this fantasy: Suppose that the United States focused less on blowing
things up in Pakistan’s tribal areas and more on working through local aid
groups to build schools, simultaneously cutting tariffs on Pakistani and Afghan
manufactured exports. There would be no immediate payback, but a better-educated
and more economically vibrant Pakistan would probably be more resistant to
extremism.

“Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing
some Taliban around the country,” says Mr. Mortenson, who is an Army veteran.
Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least
$500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and
in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.

The Pentagon, which has a much better appreciation for the limits of military
power than the Bush administration as a whole, placed large orders for “Three
Cups of Tea” and invited Mr. Mortenson to speak.

“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and
Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works
on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr.
Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books.
... The thirst for education here is palpable.”

Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time,
in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant
fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.

So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance
U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy
apparatus of the Bush administration.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground,
and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company




#6 13 Jul 2008 15:47

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Now thats an admirable platform.

Its easy to talk a good line, but right action is a thousand times more impressive.

Just think of what could be accomplished if we spent the big bucks following his example, rather than bushes?

roomtoread.org

www.roomtoread.org/

----------------
Overview
Mission

We partner with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, providing education to girls and establishing computer labs. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations. Through the opportunities that only education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.
Brief History

John Wood, Founder and CEO, launched Room to Read after a trek through Nepal. He visited several local schools and was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers, but also saddened by the shocking lack of resources. Driven to help, John quit his senior executive position with Microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges.

Founding Room to Read, John wove proven corporate business practices with his inspiring vision to provide educational access to 10 million children in the developing world. His novel approach to non-profit management called for:

* Scalable, measured, sustainable results
* Low-overhead, allowing maximum investment in educational infrastructure
* Challenge grants fostering community ownership and sustainability
* Strong local staff and partnerships creating culturally relevant programs

Room to Read began working with rural communities in Nepal in 2000 to build schools and establish libraries. The organization's geographic reach expanded rapidly as significant needs and opportunities were identified in Vietnam (2001), Cambodia (2002) and India (2003). The Asian Tsunami in December 2004 provided a catalyst for entry into Sri Lanka followed shortly by Laos. In 2006, we expanded to our second continent by launching Room to Read in South Africa, and we began work in Zambia in 2007.
Programs

Room to Read has developed a holistic, multi-pronged approach to help children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. The approach includes the following programs:

* School Room — We partner with villages to build schools.
* Reading Room — We establish bi-lingual libraries and fill them with donated English books and local language books purchased in-country or self-published, creating a colorful space with posters, games, furniture, and flooring.
* Local Language Publishing — We source new content from local writers and illustrators and publish high-quality local language children's books to distribute throughout our networks.
* Computer Room — We establish labs to provide students with vocational skills and employment access.
* Room to Grow Girls' Scholarship — We fund long-term girls' scholarships for young girls who would otherwise not have access to an education.

To increase the likelihood for success and long-term sustainability, Room to Read enlists community involvement and co-investment through our Challenge Grant model. Villages often raise a significant portion of the overall expenditure in the form of dedicated space, labor, materials and/or small amounts of cash. These challenge grants act as catalysts for community building while also maximizing the local participation and expertise brought to our programs.

We hire local staff, who are personally vested in their nation's educational progress and we empower them to make key programmatic decisions within their country. They are already familiar with the language, conditions, customs and governments and understand the specific needs of the educational system and work to ensure that we craft new solutions to existing problems.
Results to Date

Since our inception in 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of over 1.7 million children by:

* Constructing 442 schools
* Establishing over 5,160 libraries
* Publishing 226 new local language children's titles representing over 2 million books
* Donating over 2.2 million English language children's books
* Funding 4,036 long-term girls' scholarships
* Establishing 155 computer and language labs

Awards, Honors and Press

Over the past few years, Room to Read has received several distinguished awards, including The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Sand Hill Group Foundation's Social Entrepreneurship Award. In addition to these organizational awards, Founder and CEO John Wood has been selected for several honors, including the Draper Richards Foundation Fellowship, the Young Global Leader award from the World Economic Forum, and Time Magazine's Asia's Heroes Award.

Room to Read has been featured in many prestigious newspapers, magazines, websites, and television shows, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, the International Herald Tribune, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Town and Country, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Bloomberg, CNN, and PBS.

Please visit our Awards and Media & Press pages for more details and links to these pieces.
Future Expansion

There are more than 770 million illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds of whom are women and girls. In addition, there are over 100 million children not currently enrolled in primary school and millions of others not currently in secondary school. The need for Room to Read's educational programs spans the globe. To respond to this worldwide demand for our programs, Room to Read is committed to expanding geographically. Our expansion plans include:

* Africa — In 2006, Room to Read launched onto the continent of Africa by opening operations in South Africa and we continued our expansion in 2007 by starting work in Zambia. We are conducting a research study on the 54 countries of the African continent to help prioritize future regions and countries for expansion in Africa.
* Continued Expansion within Asia — Room to Read will continue to expand operations in Asia. In late 2007 we began setting up our operations in Bangladesh, our seventh Asian country. In addition to launching in Bangladesh, we began a feasibility study on China in late 2007. To be completed in 2008, the study will determine whether China could be a good fit for our programs or whether Room to Read should consider other countries for possible Asia expansion in 2009 or 2010.





____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#7 13 Jul 2008 23:22

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I haven't researched this in depth, but am wondering if US foreign aid is tapping into the ideas generated by volunteer organizations.. would seem to be a good bang for the buck.

July 19, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Rebuilding Afghanistan, One Book at a Time By NANCY HATCH DUPREE
Kabul, Afghanistan
www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19...dupree.html

SINCE 2001, when the Taliban were dislodged from power in Afghanistan, the
international community has spent many billions of dollars toward the nation’s
reconstruction. Yet not much progress can be seen. Poor management and lack of
coordination among aid agencies are the major reasons for this dismal record,
but another very simple problem has been a failure to make sure that the Afghan
people have access to books and other printed materials with the information
they need to move forward.

This is a serious flaw that affects health care, education and government
itself. Now, as fighting intensifies in eastern and southwestern Afghanistan, it
is especially important that we address the problem.

Afghanistan’s high mortality rates among infants, children and mothers have
fallen in recent years, thanks in part to the deployment of trained community
health workers to remote provinces. It is unrealistic, however, to expect these
workers to remain for extended periods. Because most deaths are caused by
preventable illnesses, it is important that written materials are left behind to
remind patients of health workers’ oral instructions. Only then can health
messages be strengthened and improvements sustained.

Afghanistan’s enrollment of four to six million children in primary school is
also something to be proud of. And much money and effort is spent on adult
literacy programs.

But these achievements obscure a quality problem: the lack of basic reading
materials needed to make education effective. Rural students have little or no
access to books for supplementary reading on farming, household management and
other subjects germane to their lives. And graduates soon lose their newly won
literacy because they have nothing to read.

The introduction of democracy in post-Taliban Afghanistan is also considered to
be a major success story. For the elections in 2004 and 2005, thousands of newly
trained election workers, both men and women, traveled the countryside,
sometimes by horse or donkey. Posters urging citizens to vote appeared in almost
every bazaar. There were daily radio messages. And voter turnout was
unprecedented.

Yet most voters were, and still are, unaware that for democracy to work, they
must go beyond simply voting and participate in the decision-making of
provincial councils and community groups. The Afghan people need basic
information about how democracy works, and especially about their own nascent
democratic institutions, to transform their budding political structure into a
system for good governance. This is especially urgent because national elections
are scheduled for 2009.

Afghanistan’s radio network is growing, and an estimated 70 percent of the
population listens at least three days a week, but radio messages are ephemeral.

Some people scoff at the idea of distributing books to a population that is
barely 28 percent literate. But 28 percent amounts to nearly 9 million people
out of a population of 32 million, and that is certainly a worthy beginning.

It is important that a high government body like the Ministry of Education
endorse the concept of distributing books to the population. Money is needed,
too, ideally from both foreign governments and the Afghan government. And
experts are needed to write the simple, accurate texts that Afghans need — on
subjects from health care and household management to science, culture, history
and the environment.

A pilot project called the Box Library Extension, which we operate at the
Afghanistan Center, has placed more than 100,000 books in 160 libraries in 32 of
Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The communities have welcomed the books with
enthusiasm.

Afghans possess a remarkable inner strength that has carried them through two
decades of war and displacement. If they are given the knowledge they need to
fully participate in reconstruction efforts, their country will move forward
steadily, to the benefit of all.

Nancy Hatch Dupree is the director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul
University.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company




#8 21 Jul 2008 17:29

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Post Re: PlatformZ

I haven't researched this in depth, but am wondering if US foreign aid is tapping into the ideas generated by volunteer organizations..

short answer; no.
Longer answer; see "top down hierarchal organization."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hier...ganization



would seem to be a good bang for the buck.

Yes, but you are missing the point of the problem of usurpation of authority and centralization of message.




Nice article. Its usually true that local efforts are way smarter and more on target than non local ones; real world problems are local problems.







____________
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
#9 21 Jul 2008 17:51

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usa.png JP Morgan Gender: Female


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(where are those quote thingies when u need them!)
pan wrote:
"Yes, but you are missing the point of the problem of usurpation of authority and centralization of message. "

Please elaborate this for me, and others who are of lesser intellect

tks, jp




#10 21 Jul 2008 18:59

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Post Re: PlatformZ

uhuhmmmm..

in top down hierarchies, truth, knowledge, sense, reason, do not matter as much as simple authority.
If all knowledge, sense, and facts say one thing, but the leader says do something else, what will the organization do?

Theres a lot about this in various forms of leadership psychology, groupthink, and pack psychology.

But wait i'm explaining it from the wrong end.

Hierarchal systems make a choice between AUTHORITY and TRUTH. They choose authority over truth, and "truth is the first casualty of war."
Politics, government, and economics are run in this country on the model of war.

The governments vast energies are spent suppressing truth, squashing dissent, and silencing critics. In that push for central authority,
the number on thing that gets lost is the capacity for the top to HEAR the bottom. AT ALL.

Systemically, there are several factors which contribute to this, not the least of which is how many millions of people there are versus the few people at the top who are allowed to the meetings.

By definition, a hierarchal system is built and can only function by shutting out and shutting down and ignoring everybody else. The base assumption is
that some batch of twenty people can out think millions of the rest of us, because they are the Elites, and because they have the power.
This assumption is circuitously self fulfilling, because the masses who are programmed with drivel, when tuned into, sound like a loud cacaphony of drivel.
IE; the standard fare of quite ignored and ignorable comments left at the end of most blogs now adays.

So if you are an Elite, you get this idea that you and twenty of your pals are smarter than the rest of world. Its a ridiculous assumption, but thats what they
think. The Bush "bubble" is a merely more opaque version of the same bubble that ends up surrounding anybody in our modern government. Have you ever
managed to actually have a conversation with A senator or Congressperson? do you know of anybody who has thats not working for the media establishment,
or who doesn't have a billion dollar bank account?

Ask yourself perhaps an even more meaningful, yet less obvious question. We have three main kinds of software out here on the net. BBSes or Bulleting board systems, (Of which this board is an example) Blogs, and wikis. Wikis offer the highest energy potential for equality, democracy, transparency, and
collaboration. Bulletin Board systems are in the middle. Blogs are specifically useful for simply delivering a message, and letting the proles have 300 or 4000
characters worth of commentary on- but not enough for anybody to say anything with real depth or merit. How many Sites feature Wikis? How many sites feature BBSes? And how many sites feature blogs? Blogs are the dominant technology on the web because they are useful for message and information control. Narcisists, egostists, and hierarchal organizations love blogs.

The first mission of our government is to take our power, and steal it and then oppress us with it. The casualty of such systems is intelligence, real problem solving process, or real solutions, but thats just not important to them. Read George Orwells 1984.

The "War on Terror" as
Defined by 1984's Emmanuel Goldstein
EXTRACTS FROM THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM

by Emmanuel Goldstein

(The 'Book within a Book' from George Orwell's 1984)

Hold your mouse pointer over the text to display the links...

"The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city.. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival."

"It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist."

"In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world."
"War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies."

"Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in his bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected."

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."

"The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it has never been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past has ever existed."

"The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies, all this is indispensibly necessary."
I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." - George W. Bush, June 18, 2002

www.whatreallyhappened.com/orwe....html


Chapter 3: War is Peace

Winston reads Chapter 3, War is Peace before he reads the first chapter. Chapter 3 explains the full meaning of the Party slogan after which it is named. The author reviews how the three superstates of the world came into being: The United States absorbed the British Empire to form Oceania, Russia absorbed Europe to form Eurasia, and "after a decade of confused fighting" Eastasia emerged as the third superstate; it comprises China, Japan, Korea and some other adjacent areas. In various combinations, these superstates have been at war for twenty-five years. No concrete years are mentioned, but since the present is supposed to be 1984, the implication is that the war began at the end of the fifties—and to make room for the "decade of confused fighting", Oceania and Eurasia must have come into being virtually immediately after Orwell published his novel in 1949. However, it is unlikely that The Book was written in 1984. Thus, it is possible that the war could have started as early as 1939, in which case World War II would have been the beginning of the war. However as Orwell wrote the book in 1948 and merely transposed the last two digits to create 1984 the actual dates are for the most part irrelevant. Certainly the wars were being fought with the weapons available in the 1940's but 1984 really means some indeterminate time in the future.

The never-ending war between the superstates is seemingly pointless—"it is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference". (As this chapter of The Book reveals, all three superstates are based on very much the same totalitarian ideology as Big Brother's Oceania.) However, the Party and its counterparts in the rival superstates have excellent reasons to keep the war going.

Again, the author reviews the (non-fictional) history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, how the use of machines in production raised "the living standards of the average human being very greatly". It was "clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared...hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease could be eliminated within a few generations". However, since the Party wants to maintain a hierarchical society with itself on top, this real possibility of eliminating poverty and inequality is a deadly threat rather than something to be desired: "If leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would learn to think for themselves"—eventually sweeping away the oligarchy ruling them. "In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

Since large-scale machine production could not be eliminated once invented, the Party must see to it that the products are destroyed before they can make "the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent". A permanent state of war takes care of this problem: resources are deliberately wasted on warfare, and the war effort "is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population... It is a deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another."

Moreover, the state of war creates a mentality that suits the Party well. A Party member should be "a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war." Though "the entire war is spurious...and waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones", even Inner Party members, who potentially could know better, passionately believe that the war is real and will "end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world". Research into new weapons therefore continues—but using doublethink, Inner Party administrators are also in some sense aware that the war must never be allowed to end. There can never be any large-scale invasion of enemy territory, so that citizens of one superstate would come face to face with citizens of another and discover that conditions there are very much the same as in their own superstate: Even the prevailing ideologies are almost identical. To maintain the image of the enemy as a monster whose ideology is a barbarous outrage on common sense, all sides realize that "the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs"! (This is why the British Isles have not been conquered by Eurasia, but remain part of Oceania.)

Since the war is a sham and each superstate is unconquerable, the ongoing "conflict" has no sobering effect on the oligarchies ruling the three superstates: "Each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practiced... The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they chose."

Thus, the war is actually "waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact". As far as the lack of any genuine outside threat is concerned, the superstates might just as well agree to live in permanent peace; then they would still be "freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger" (the kind of danger that might force the rulers to behave somewhat responsibly). This, according to the author, "is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace."

(Interestingly, the novel allows the possibility that there is in fact no war being waged. The evidence of a war comes mainly from fanatical media and assurances from O'Brien. At one point Winston sees a missile strike the city, but by the end there is little reason to think that the Party could not arrange that as well. As we never truly see outside Oceania except through the Party's own media, the novel itself leaves open the question whether there really are three states and a war, or whether this too is the ultimate sham. O'Brien admits that if the war ceased to serve its purpose, the Party would simply erase the other states from history.)

[edit] Later chapters

Winston never gets the chance to read through the entire book before he is arrested by the Thought Police. But he believes the proletarians or "proles" will one day rise up and overturn the world: "If there was hope, it lay in the proles! Without having read to the end of The Book, he knew that that must be Goldstein's final message." O'Brien later confirms to Winston that the program set out in The Book involves "the secret accumulation of knowledge—a gradual spread of enlightenment—ultimately a proletarian revolution—the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself that was what it would say."

[edit] The true author

In the same context O'Brien rejects this programme as nonsense. It turns out that O'Brien is not really a member of Goldstein's Brotherhood. Indeed the implication is that Goldstein, the Brotherhood and The Book are just inventions of the Party, baits to make potential rebels (like Winston) come forward and reveal themselves. O'Brien, actually a faithful Party member, later tortures Winston to cure him of his "insanity": the belief that there exists an external reality that is not defined by the Party. O'Brien claims that the book supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein is actually the product of a committee where he himself participated. When Winston asks O'Brien whether what The Book says is true, he gets this response: "As description, yes. The programme it sets forth . . . is nonsense." The chapters Winston got to read are apparently meant to be factual, since they are descriptive in nature. An alternative interpretation is that The Book is a matter of ideology, and as such cannot be descriptive but instead presents as mode of thought which one can impose upon the world. Or it could also mean that the book was created by this Goldstein, or another author; or even several authors who were captured and that the material of it was saved when it could be used for another purpose, as made possible by the Idea of doublethink.

The question arises—how could O'Brien participate in the authoring of this book, and even admit to a heretic like Winston that its description of history and society is correct, when at the same time O'Brien supports the very ideology that is exposed in the book as a vast system of cheating and deception? The answer is obviously doublethink. For as long as it took to write this book, intended as a bait for people opposing the Party, O'Brien could (partly) slip into the mindset of a thought-criminal and write the factual history of Oceania. Thus the book would appear credible to actual thought-criminals. Afterwards O'Brien would promptly doublethink all the heretic notions away and once again adopt the Party line that there is no such thing as an objective, unalterable history; history is merely what the Party wants it to be. Another theory is that O'Brien is sociopathic in nature. The average moral person holds great store in the idea of the truth and the idea that there is an objective reality. O'Brien, if he is a sociopath, has no special affection for "truth" since what is important to him is his place and position within the Party. The idea of an objective reality would be no more important to him than the preservation of works of art from the prior society. This makes the character all the more horrific to the reader since one assumes there is an intrinsic value in truth and O'Brien, as an intellectual, should appreciate it. No doublethink occurs with O'Brien since there is never the internal conflict between those opposing ideas in the first place.

The torture scenes of the closing chapters also provide another answer: what the ultimate motives of the Party really consist of. At least one critic has assumed that when Orwell made Winston stop reading at the very point when "Goldstein's" book was about to reveal this central secret, it was because Orwell himself was not able to come up with any plausible explanation. However, it seems clear that Orwell simply wanted to postpone this revelation. When torturing Winston, O'Brien tells him the simple and brutal truth: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power... Power is not a means, it is an end... The object of power is power." Since O'Brien has now been revealed as one of the true authors of The Book, and since he moreover states that this book is accurate enough as description, it would seem that this must also be the answer provided in The Book itself.

[edit] Summation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldstein%27s_book





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“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. "
-Rumi-

“The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”