Edwards Actually Has A Good Idea

I've been saying this since I was in the military in the 90's. There is already some cooperation between some nations, and it is very effective. The organization should be volunteer as far as combat personnel are concerned, and only allow intelligence sharing that is strictly terrorist related. As long as there are protections from sharing info vital to national security, and the independence of those nations is respected ... it's a damn fine idea.

AP:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is proposing an international organization to fight terrorism through shared intelligence.

This is far better than his previous plan to combat terrorism.

He then attacked Bush as being the only guy in the history of the world to make mistakes with terrorism, and he said some other stupid, untrue things ... like:

"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."

Notice he failed to address Clinton's policies, and he did not give a reason why global terrorism shot through the roof in 1998. You and I know it was the fatwas, but he doesn't.

The interesting part of his comments that terrorism is worse around the world is technically false, and at best a spin.

As you can see from the graph below from the Terrorism Knowledge Base ... global terrorism is WAY DOWN this year from last.


If you look at this graph, you will see that terrorism in Iraq is also far less this year than last.


He also failed to note that outside of Iraq and the war in Israel last year ... global terror was significantly reduced. You can't count Iraq and Israel in the terror count because they were battlefields, and the argument has always been that the rest of the world was/was not safer since Iraq. Well, it is, and there is no way to deny it.

Now that those corrections have been made in what Edwards had to say ... his plan is still good.

"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."

I really don't know what he means by "called out." This seems to be Edwards' version of Obama trying to act tough because they have a reputation for being weak. We all know Edwards won't do anything but talk about countries who refuse. He won't take any real action against those nations that don't support anti-terrorist activities, and he's been critical of others who do want action against those countries.

He did make a very laughable statement in his speech regarding the Cold War.

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."

Once again another Democrat completely ignores the coalition of allies assisting us in this conflict. Even though there are more of them than the first time around.

The rest of his statement was hypocrisy at its best. He is willing to turn a blind eye to our allies doing bad things, and the Dems are notorious for continuing to focus on Cold War institutions that are now obsolete. That is the focus of appeasement.