Iraq. Iran. While those two countries have dominated the news and our government's attention, tensions and hazards have been festering in Pakistan, while our backs were turned. John Kerry has been one of the strongest voices calling for the Bush Administration to wake up to the looming threats there.
One of our most important allies in the fight against terrorism, Pakistan is beset with problems that bode ill for both Pakistan and U.S. security: political instability, growing Muslim extremism, and lawlessness in what are known as the tribal regions, which both Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been using as staging areas to gather their forces and launch attacks. John Kerry has been warning for months of the threats in Pakistan.
Yesterday, Senator Kerry convened and chaired a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Pakistan crisis and the Bush Administration's plans to avert disaster in that volatile environment, calling this "a pivotal moment in Pakistan." The key testimony on the Administration's outlook came from Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary for Political Affairs at the State Department, introduced by JK as "the third ranking official at the State Department,with oversight responsibility for U.S. policy throughout the world."
We at KerryVision feel that this is a very important issue and one on which we should all know more about what is happening and what is at stake, and so we plan to bring you the entire hearing in a series of posts over the next few days. Here we present Senator Kerry's opening statement, in which he succinctly lays out the key issues.
As Senator Kerry notes, our relationship with Pakistan is "one of the most important, strategically and substantively, we have anywhere in the world." The troubling developments there deserve careful attention, including, as Senator Kerry points out, attention to our relationship not only to the Pakistani government in the person of President Musharraf, but to the Pakistani people and the efforts we are making and can make to aid them and foster positive attitudes toward the US.
-- Prepared by Karen Van Hoek and Kerryvisionary
Comments (3)
Posted by Ejaz Asi | July 27, 2007 1:54 AM
I am at loss of words trying to comprehend the puzzle that US can not win democracy and peace when it exactly has been destroying the very roots of peace and democracy in foreign countries. How easily Americans can be doped into a war only one man believes in and can get away with that? May be because the ones being killed are bearded men or sunni-shiites murderes etc... And now, US wants to invade Pakistan for what reason? Because the insanity has found its permanent ally: USA.
Here's a simpler and safer advice for anyone or everyone who genuinely believes in Peace and Democracy in Pakistan/Iraq/Afghanistan from someone who's seen it all:
You don't send them bombs and weapons, give them education and economic improvements.
It's the only chance given to US and western powers to show their greatest and sincerest concern and honesty towards making the world a safer and better place. You subject a nation to supported-wars and conflicts, subject them to ignorance and darkness, this is what you'd get out of them after many years. You want love, give 'em some first.
Posted by Kerryvisionary | July 27, 2007 7:03 AM
Ejaz:
Thanks for your comment. I had a quick look at your blog and will read more of it. I, personally, know very little about the situation in Pakistan and I am only beginning to learn.
One of the reasons I admire Senator Kerry is that he has been paying attention to what is going on in the world as a whole and that he is working to find solutions based in reality and grounded in compassion and positive action.
Everything I have seen of JK's position on the U.S. relationship with Pakistan points to favoring a policy that emphasizes aid related to education and promotion of human rights and the rule of law over military action and that seems like a sensible course to me, beneficial for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and beneficial for America. I know he will keep pushing these ideas and using all his influence to move the Administration onto that path.
Posted by Kerryvisionary | July 27, 2007 6:10 PM
I would add this, which I just found again today and I think is relevant. From JK's speech on faith at Pepperdine in 2006. It's clear that this point of view informs all of his political decisions:
"We are more than just Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims or atheists: we are human beings. We are more than the sum of our differences -- we share a moral obligation to treat one another with dignity and respect -- and the rest is commentary. Nowhere does this obligation arise more unavoidably than in when and how to resort to war.
Christians have long struggled to balance the legitimate need for self-defense with our highest ideals of justice and personal morality.
Saint Augustine laid the foundation for a compelling philosophical tradition considering how and when Christians should fight.
Augustine felt that wars of choice are generally unjust wars, that war -- the organized killing of human beings, of fathers, brothers, friends -- should always be a last resort, that war must always have a just cause, that those waging war need the right authority to do so, that a military response must be proportionate to the provocation, that a war must have a reasonable chance of achieving its goal and that war must discriminate between civilians and combatants."
Full text of speech here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801046_pf.html
Watch speech here:
http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2006/september/kerry.htm