IS OBAMA A MODERN DAY CHARLIE McCARTHY?

It is not unusual for the Secretary of State to precede the President when a European trip is planned. The Secretary of State attempts to smooth the ground and corrects any misconceptions that the leaders of the country and the Media have regarding foreign policy issues.
But when a candidate for president plans a trip to Europe, ostensibly to discuss foreign policy if he is elected. Why would a member of his campaign entourage have to speak about policy issues before he arrives?

Such is the case in Germany today, as we see that foreign policy adviser(one of 300) Susan Rice was interviewed by Der Spiegel about Obama's foreign policy.

Ms.Rice is no light weight when it comes to foreign policy, as her resume indicates, she is somewhat of a "wonk"!
"
In 2004, Rice took a leave of absence from Brookings to serve as Senior Advisor for National Security Affairs on the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Rice served President Clinton as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1997-2001. From 1995-1997, Rice was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) and, from 1993-1995, was Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping at the NSC. She is now an unpaid senior advisor on foreign policy to Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign".source:Wikapedia


Could it possibly be that Obama only shines when he has A TELEPROMPTER TO READ FROM, OR ARE HIS HANDLERS AFRAID HE WILL MAKE ONE OF HIS NOW FAMOUS FLIP-FLOPS FOR THE WORLD TO WITNESS? A perfect example of his problem with unscripted interviews is illustrated in this ABC interview:

"Yes, Obama's campaign is getting stirring visuals at every stop of his world tour. But his answers in the interviews are terrible,
Obama to ABC's Terry Moran:

Q: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?

Obama: No. Because, keep in mind that —

Q: You wouldn’t?

Obama: "Keep in mind, these kind of hypotheticals are very difficult. You know hindsight is 20/20. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one I just disagreed with".


In Berlin, an inerview with Ms. Rice was held by Gregor Pter Schmitz of Der Spiegel. The following are excerpts from that interview.

SPIEGEL: What would be the major change in trans-Atlantic relations under a President Obama?

Rice: Obama would proceed from a fundamentally different premise than has been the case in recent years. Obama does not perceive Europe in terms of "old" versus "new." He thinks it would be counterproductive to kick Russia out of the G-8. He sees the world as more complex than simply good versus evil. He recognizes that we can only deal effectively with global challenges if we have 21st century partnerships that work -- partnerships based on shared values, common security and mutual respect, in which everybody does their part and pulls their weight.


SPIEGEL: You said Europeans have to "pull their weight." What would that mean exactly in terms of their contribution in Afghanistan? More troops?


Rice: Obama's view is that circumstances in Pakistan and Afghanistan pose the most dangerous threat to Europe and the US right now. Al-Qaida is regrouping and reconstituting their safe haven; the Taliban are gaining strength. Europe is closer to that threat than we are. Yet, we all have to take it very seriously. The US has to put more resources and troops into Afghanistan, and NATO should do the same, while -- to the greatest extent possible -- lifting operational restrictions.

SPIEGEL: Would that lead to disillusionment with Obama in Europe?

Rice: We must be honest in acknowledging that neither Germany nor the US has the luxury of assuming that we can skate by on half-measures in Afghanistan and Pakistan and not risk suffering the consequences.

I guess Ms. Rice has not advised Obama about the bombings in Madrid Spain in March of 2004 carried out by Moroccan terrorists. They killed 200 people!
Or the failed bombings by terrorist groups from Mesopotamia, linked to Iraq, in Glasgow Scotland and London, England in 2007.
But more importantly, she deliberately ignores Iraq involvement with Al Qaeda because of this statement by the Bush Administration.

"In an April 2007 speech, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, called AQI "probably public enemy No. 1" for U.S. forces. In the first seven months of 2007, President Bush highlighted the importance of defeating AQI more than forty times during public speeches. After years of near-constant attention from Washington, the group's ability to carry out attacks in Iraq appears to have been diminished in 2007, experts say. But AQI is not the only purveyor of violence in Iraq. By the end of 2007, AQI was one among dozens of groups contributing to Iraq's violence". Source: Washington Post 11/1`9/07


Expert estimates on the number of foreign fighters among Iraqi insurgent groups range from a few hundred to over 3,000. Total AQI(al Qaeda International) numbers have been estimated at over 10,000. Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Syria, and Yemen were among the top suppliers of non-Iraqi militants to Iraq as of September 2005, according to the most recent data from the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index (PDF). As of August 2007 between forty to sixty foreign fighters entered Iraq each month, though U.S. military officials say foreigners still account for the majority of suicide bombers. Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, writes (PDF) that AQI insurgents, along with other foreign fighters, "entered Sunni-inhabited central Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, from the Kurdish controlled north" and elsewhere in the Middle East.

They also believe that supporters in the region, including those based in Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, provided the bulk of past funding. AQI has also received financial support from Tehran (despite the fact that al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization), according to documents confiscated last December from Iranian Revolutionary Guards operatives in northern Iraq. But the bulk of al-Qaeda's financing, experts say, comes from internal sources like smuggling and crime. Source: Council on Foreign Relations

Some one ought to tell Obama and his advisers that there are many terrorist threats inside our own country as well as has been proven true in England. A"peacenik"like him is a clear and present danger to the USA just as these Britons were to London and all the passengers flying to and from America!

8 'Plotted to Blow Up' 7 Airliners
"An Islamic terrorist cell plotted a suicide mission to blow up seven transatlantic airliners in mid flight, killing more than 1,500 passengers, a prosecutor charged yesterday as a trial began for eight men in London. The explosives were to be hidden in soft drink bottles and set off by detonators improvised from disposable cameras, reports the Guardian".So much for there being one main treat!