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Edwards Proposing Global Anti-Terrorism
Agency
AP
Saturday September 8, 2007
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is proposing
an international organization to fight terrorism through shared
intelligence - cooperation that he says will combat the dangers
facing the United States where President Bush has failed.
"We need a counterterrorism policy that will actually counter
terrorism," Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery
at Pace University. "We've got to throw away the failed George
Bush policies of the past, and move in a bold new direction."
The 2004 vice presidential nominee was delivering his speech
four days before the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks,
not far from Ground Zero. The speech also comes in chief primary
rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's home district, and he made a point
of challenging he notion that post-9/11 reforms have made the
nation safer.
"Today, terrorism is worse in Iraq, and it's worse around
the world," Edwards said in excerpts provided by his campaign.
"It means the results are in on George Bush's so-called global
war on terror and it's not just a failure, it's a double-edged
failure."
(Article continues below)
Edwards said the centerpiece of his terrorism policy will be
a new multilateral organization called the Counterterrorism and
Intelligence Treaty Organization. He said it will be designed
to coordinate operations like the recent arrest of three suspected
terrorists in Germany who were suspected of plans to bomb airports
and other institutions in the country.
"Those nations who join will, by working together, show
the world the power of cooperation," Edwards said. "Those
nations who join will also be required to commit to tough criteria
about the steps they will take to root out extremists, particularly
those who cross borders. Those nations who refuse to join will
be called out before the world."
Edwards accused Bush of focusing on Cold War institutions designed
to win traditional wars instead of cooperation with allies to
take out small hostile groups. He also accused him of "an
exclusively short-term focus on the enemy we know" and "a
foreign policy of convenience that readily does business with
whoever is available and regularly turns a blind eye when our
allies behave wrongly or fail to cooperate."
"Most of all, instead of reckless, solo pursuit of an ideological
agenda that abandons our moral authority and disregards our allies,
we need to re-engage with the world and reassert our moral leadership,"
Edwards said.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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