Posts tagged as:

McCain

League of Democracies: what a Bushy idea

by Brendan on October 20, 2008

McCain’s proposal for a “League of Democracies” is an absurd idea. McCain argues that the world’s “more than 100 democratic nations” should form this league to work in concert on issues such as terrorism, Russia’s turn towards authoritarianism, and climate change.   

There are two fundamental problems with McCain’s plan for a League. First, it views the world as a place in which democracies share values and interests that are consistently opposed to those of non-democracies.  The truth is that on each of the issues that McCain mentioned, various democracies — the United States, Europe, India for example — have drastically different interests and positions. And the United States’ interests are often closely aligned with those of very undemocratic states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.   

Click to continue reading “League of Democracies: what a Bushy idea”

{ 0 comments }

The comforting similarities of McCain and Obama on foreign policy

by Brendan on September 27, 2008

Watching last night’s Presidential debate in a local pub, I was suddenly struck by something (not a dart, happily). These guys don’t really disagree on much of anything when it comes to foreign policy.

How is this possible, you may ask. These guys couldn’t be more different, you may say.

Fair enough. But, let’s look at the actual transcript of the debate.

The debate on foreign policy (which followed extensive debate on the financial crisis) consisted of 5 “lead questions”. Here are the questions, and the candidates’ heavily redacted answers. (I have tried to cut out everything that did not directly answer the question posed by the moderator, Jim Lehrer).

Click to continue reading “The comforting similarities of McCain and Obama on foreign policy”

{ 1 comment }