Lieberman Comments at Global Engagement Conference
From the McCain campaign:
Senator Joseph Lieberman
Remarks to Center for U.S. Global Engagement Conference, Election '08: The Global Impact
July 15, 2008
Mayflower Hotel
Good afternoon, and thank you, Jim [Admiral Jim Loy], for that kind introduction.
Let me begin by applauding the Center for U.S. Global Engagement for organizing this important discussion, and for providing a forum for such an impressive and diverse group of leaders from across the country. At a time in our politics in which important policy discussions all too often break down along party lines, your bipartisan advocacy on behalf of a robust and sustained role for America in the world has never been more critical.
It is a special honor and a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon on behalf of my friend and colleague, and a devoted and principled internationalist, the candidate I am supporting for President of the United States, Senator John McCain.
When I decided to endorse Senator McCain for President seven months ago, many people were surprised. How could a Connecticut Democrat like me possibly endorse an Arizona Republican like John McCain, they asked?
The answer, I explained, was very simple: John was the first candidate who asked!
In truth, of course, there was more to it than that. I know that it is highly unusual particularly in these partisan times for an elected official to cross party lines to endorse a presidential candidate. If this were an ordinary time and an ordinary election, I probably would not be here today. But this is no ordinary time—and this is no ordinary election—and John McCain is no ordinary candidate.
I decided to support John because I am convinced that this election is going to be one of the most important of my adult life. And the reason I believe this election is so important is the same reason that has brought all of you here today:
The world that we live in is undergoing a revolutionary series of changes—changes that are both testing and pleading for America's global leadership. It is a moment in history that is full of both unprecedented promise and unprecedented peril—a moment in history when we simply cannot afford politics as usual.
Thanks to the global economy that the United States has helped midwife into being, billions of people have the potential to reach new heights of prosperity. Parts of the world that have known only poverty are suddenly rocketing toward middle class modernity.
At the same time, we are witnessing an extraordinary expansion in human freedom, as the liberties that our founding fathers declared to be the universal right of all mankind have at last begun to achieve global reach. Today more people live under governments that they themselves elected than at any time in human history. More than ever before, and in more places on earth, a mother and father can pass on to their children a happier, healthier, longer, and freer life than they themselves knew.
At the same time, however, the global system that has opened these new possibilities for freedom and prosperity also creates new vulnerabilities and dangers. Precisely because we live in a world in which our own security and wellbeing is so bound up in the security and wellbeing of others beyond our borders, problems on the other side of planet can migrate to our shores with stunning speed. Ours is a world in which weak states can pose as great a threat to our national security as great powers, a world in which poverty, disease, economic instability, and environmental degradation are as dangerous and disruptive to the lives of our citizens as the conventional weapons in any country's arsenal.
And we have also seen how the openness and freedom of our global system can be hijacked by a small handful of zealots who use modern technologies to spread a medieval ideology and who aim to murder millions of innocent people. We are at war with an enemy for whom no attack is morally unacceptable, and no innocent life is sacred, an enemy whose murderous intents cannot be appeased or placated by sweet reason or appeals to the better angels of their nature.
In this uncertain and dangerous world, we need a President who has the experience, the judgment, and the strength to be our commander-in-chief from day one, and who is ready to lead our nation on the world stage with strength, with purpose, and with principle. That is John McCain.
Even when we identify the solutions to the problems we face in a globalized world, translating them into reality is not easy. We need only look at the partisan gridlock in the current Congress over immigration reform, or free trade agreements with allies like South Korea and Colombia, or climate change legislation, to see how special interests and entrenched constituencies can prevent progress on issues critical to the future of our nation, and the world.
That is why I believe we need a President with a proven record of breaking through the partisan gridlock that has so badly infected Washington, a President we can count on to do what is right, not only when it is politically convenient, but when it is politically painful; a President who will do what is in our national interest, even when it means bucking the polls—and even when it means standing up to his own party.
I am supporting John McCain because I know that he will be that President. Time and again, I have seen John work across party lines and put our national interest before his political self-interest, because he understands the nature of the changing world in which we live, the problems we must solve, and the opportunities we must seize, for our country and our citizens to be safe and prosperous.
Senator McCain understands that in a world in which power is going to be ever more widely and evenly distributed, American strength is going to depend not just on the force of our arms, but upon our diplomacy, our alliances, and our ability to attract others to our causes. He recognizes, as he put it earlier this year, that American power does not mean we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. Nor does it mean that we should assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed on our own.
Rather, we need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our friends and allies around the world. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we must first try to persuade our friends that we are right. And we in turn must also be open to the possibility that our friends will persuade us, that we are wrong.
I have traveled the world with John, from the Middle East to Latin America, and from Europe to Asia. I have seen the respect with which he is held by world leaders. I have also seen the friendships that he has forged with human rights advocates, from Burma to Belarus, and his passion for rising to their defense when others have stayed silent. I know that John McCain will be respected and trusted by our allies and respected and feared by our enemies.
Senator McCain understands that America must be a responsible stakeholder in the international system and a good global citizen. This is not just a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity. The fact is, how we behave at home affects what we are able to achieve abroad, and America is never stronger than when we hold fast to our own best ideals.
These are not just words for Senator McCain. They are the code by which he has lived his life. It is the reason he had the courage and the determination to stand up to a President of his own party and lead the fight against detainee abuse and torture, when no one else was willing to do so. It is the reason he has called for closing Guantanamo and working with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of the detainees under our control.
It is also why Senator McCain speaks so often about our responsibility to be good stewards of our environment, and why both he and I have worked so hard for so many years to bring about effective action to address one of the great challenges of our time: the threat of climate change.
And it is the reason John believes we have a responsibility to help developing countries every way we can—by sharing our technologies, by supporting micro-credit banking programs, and by combating infectious diseases like malaria, the number one killer of African children under the age of five, whose eradication Senator McCain has pledged to make a national goal.
As Senator McCain recently put it: “Whenever there is a hungry child, a great cause exists. Wherever there is an illiterate adult, a great cause exists. Wherever there are people who are denied the basic rights of Man, a great cause exists. Wherever there is suffering, a great cause exists.”
And there is nothing that moves John McCain more than taking on a great cause. So you can count on him to take each of these great causes personally.
Senator McCain also understands that, in today's international marketplace, America's economic wellbeing cannot be separated from that of the rest of the world. This is a reality that I wish more of my fellow Democrats understood. Rather than seizing the bold new opportunities created by the global economy, too often they instead offer up the false hope of walling off America from the world. This is a grave mistake.
The facts speak for themselves. Twenty-five percent of all the jobs in this country are linked to world trade. Exports of American goods and services are one of the few growing sectors of our economy today. Exports sustain and create jobs for Americans. In five states alone—Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Colorado—over five million jobs depend on open markets. As President Clinton was fond of pointing out, 96 percent of the world's population lives outside the United States. There's only so much we can make and sell to the 4 percent who live here. Our prosperity depends on opening world markets so that we can reach the other 96 percent.
Imports from other countries also keep consumer prices down, in a way that particularly helps middle and lower income Americans. And it is trade that has helped raise millions of people out of poverty around the world, and into a life of stability that rejects extremism and invites more freedom.
That is why free trade agreements with allies like South Korea and Colombia are so important—agreements that are now blocked by partisan gridlock in Congress. I am as proud that Senator McCain has had the political courage to stand up for free trade in this presidential election and support these agreements, and as I am disappointed that more of my fellow Democrats have not.
Senator McCain also understands that, in this dynamic world, we need an ambitious, innovative agenda for the reform of our own foreign policy institutions, so that they can meet the challenges of the day. It is imperative that our civilian institutions of government are as strong and as capable when it comes to diplomacy and development, as our military is when it comes to defense.
This is a matter of national security. As Defense Secretary Bob Gates noted last year in an eloquent and important speech at Kansas State University, one of the chief lessons of the war in Iraq must be that “military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more – these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success.”
Secretary Gates is absolutely right. Back in 1947, just a year into the Cold War, the Truman administration launched a massive overhaul of the nation's foreign policy, defense, and intelligence agencies to meet the new challenges of the age. Today, we must do the same to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
In the aftermath of the terrible September 11 attacks, Senator McCain led in creating the 9/11 Commission—against the objections of the Bush administration, incidentally—and then worked to pass its recommendations in law for the reform of our intelligence agencies and foreign policies.
But much more is needed.
For that reason, Senator McCain has pledged to increase the capacity of our civilian foreign policy institutions, not only so that we are better able to rebuild war-torn lands, but so that we can bolster peaceful development to reduce the chances of war breaking out in the first place.
He has pledged to ask Congress for a civilian counterpart to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which fostered a culture of joint operations within the separate military services. Today we need similar legislation to ensure that civil servants and soldiers train and work together in peacetime so that they can cooperate effectively in wartime and in postwar reconstruction.
We also need to develop a deployable police presence so that we are better able to help strengthen law and order where it is lacking overseas.
And Senator McCain has put forward a reform plan to revitalize our public diplomacy. In 1998, the Clinton administration and we in Congress agreed to abolish the United States Information Agency. This was a mistake. Dismantling an agency dedicated to promoting America's message amounted to unilateral disarmament in the struggle of ideas.
For that reason, Senator McCain has proposed creating a new independent U.S. agency with the sole purpose of getting America's message to the world. As he has pointed out, the Cold War was won not in a tank battle in the Fulda Gap, but by winning the hearts and minds of the people on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And so it must be in our struggle with violent Islamist extremism. We must win this war by convincing the Islamic world that freedom is better than rule by terror, even if it cloaks itself in religious garb.
In his remarks at Kansas State University last year, Secretary Gates noted that four times in the last century the United States came to the end of a difficult and painful war and turned inward. Exhausted at the end of a conflict that we had grown weary of fighting, we gave ourselves a so-called peace dividend. Four times, in the words of Secretary Gates, “we chose to forget history”—and suffered the consequences.
We will face this temptation again—and sooner than we think. We cannot afford to succumb to it again and curtail the global engagement that is the reason for the being of your Center. I assure you that nothing – including the ever-changing winds of public opinion – will push John McCain to fall to the false temptation of isolationism.
The good news is, because of the success of the surge, the war in Iraq appears to be heading toward a very good outcome. Indeed, the situation on the ground there today is nothing short of miraculous, when we only consider what it looked like a year ago.
At that time, you may recall, Congress was locked in bitter, partisan trench warfare over Iraq. On the one side were those like Senator Obama who argued that the war was lost, that the horrific human rights abuses we were seeing in Iraq were the result of ancient, implacable hatreds—a civil war that we could not rationally hope to stop, and that we should therefore simply pick up and leave without regard to the consequences.
On the other side were those like Senator McCain who argued that—in an interdependent world—we had a moral responsibility not to abandon the Iraqi people, that the violence we were seeing was being perpetrated by identifiable enemies of Iraqis and ours against identifiable human victims, that the bloodshed could be stopped, and the war could be won.
Fortunately for all of us, it is now clear: Senator McCain and others who shared his view were right, and Senator Obama and those who agreed with him were wrong.
I wish Senator Obama would just say that the surge is working, rather than changing his positions on how and when we should exit Iraq without acknowledging that these changes in position are understandably based on facts on the ground.
A President's credibility is based on his or her courage, convictions, acceptance of reality, and consistency. These are critical elements of not only a President's leadership but also national leadership, and a President who squanders those does so at our nation's peril.
Senator Obama this morning said that he wants a foreign policy that is “tough, smart, and principled.” This afternoon, I ask: was it tough when Senator Obama voted to order U.S. forces to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline—regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders, regardless of conditions on the ground? Was it smart when Senator Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve security? Was it principled when Senator Obama said that he would order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq, regardless of the humanitarian consequences for millions of innocent Iraqis—even genocide? Was it tough and principled when Senator Obama said he would be open to changing his plan for Iraq after going there and talking to General Petraeus—only to change that position a few hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like Moveon.org? I say respectfully, the answer to all of those questions is no.
Senator Obama also said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that recognizes that we have interests “not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London.” But what Senator Obama does not seem to recognize is that—in an interdependent world—what happens in Baghdad affects our interests in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London. What Senator Obama does not seem to understand is that—had we taken the course he had counseled and retreated from Iraq—the United States would have suffered a catastrophic defeat that would have left America and our allies less safe not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi and Tokyo and London.
This is a lesson that John McCain understands. He will not make the mistake of forgetting history, or indulging in the illusion that America can turn inward from the problems of the world—whether sectarian violence in the Middle East, or the controversies over global trade, or ethnic cleansing in Darfur, or the threat of climate change.
We can trust John McCain to put the national interest before political self-interest—not only when it is easy, but when it is hard. He will sound a certain and clear trumpet of American leadership. I say that because I know that he is sustained by the confidence that it is within our power as a nation, and as a people, to build a better world than the one we inherited.
Thank you.
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