US Democrats demand new foreign policy
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
MANCHESTER, Jun 4 (AFP): Democratic presidential candidates demanded a total overhaul of US foreign policy Sunday, chiding China over Darfur, and urging intense diplomacy over Iran and Pakistan.
In their second televised debate, the 2008 candidates for the party nomination castigated President George W Bush over Iraq, clashed over the rationale for the war, and the best way to get troops home.
But they also ripped into the administration over its wider foreign policy, and accused Bush of disdaining diplomacy and fracturing US alliances abroad.
Veteran Senator Joseph Biden made the most impassioned appeal, demanding a US-backed no-fly-zone in Darfur, and the dispatch of 2,500 NATO troops.
"You could take out the Janjaweed tomorrow," Biden said, referring to militia accused of atrocities in Darfur, during the debate in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary nominating contests next January.
"I went there, I sat in the borders, I went in those camps. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act," Biden said.
Another candidate, former US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, even suggested a US boycott over the Beijing Olympics in 2008, if China did not accept Western attempts to defuse the crisis.
"We need China, to lean on China, which has enormous leverage over Darfur," Richardson said.
"And if the Chinese don't want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won't go to the Olympics."
Senator Hillary Clinton, front runner for the party nomination, meanwhile pledged to focus "like the proverbial laser" on the US 'war on terror' ally Pakistan.
In their second televised debate, the 2008 candidates for the party nomination castigated President George W Bush over Iraq, clashed over the rationale for the war, and the best way to get troops home.
But they also ripped into the administration over its wider foreign policy, and accused Bush of disdaining diplomacy and fracturing US alliances abroad.
Veteran Senator Joseph Biden made the most impassioned appeal, demanding a US-backed no-fly-zone in Darfur, and the dispatch of 2,500 NATO troops.
"You could take out the Janjaweed tomorrow," Biden said, referring to militia accused of atrocities in Darfur, during the debate in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary nominating contests next January.
"I went there, I sat in the borders, I went in those camps. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act," Biden said.
Another candidate, former US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, even suggested a US boycott over the Beijing Olympics in 2008, if China did not accept Western attempts to defuse the crisis.
"We need China, to lean on China, which has enormous leverage over Darfur," Richardson said.
"And if the Chinese don't want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won't go to the Olympics."
Senator Hillary Clinton, front runner for the party nomination, meanwhile pledged to focus "like the proverbial laser" on the US 'war on terror' ally Pakistan.