"Axis of Reason" -- Bill Richardson at the CSIS
** updated link-- sorry!
if the link still doesn't work, check out the speech at
http://media.csis.org/...
NM Governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson gave a foreign policy address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today. You can see the speech here and you can read the AP article about it here.
I'll start off by saying that I've got a huge pro-Richardson bias, and think that he's got the combination of experience, policy values, and charisma to be a great candidate and an even better president.
The speech was great, and shows off Richardson's foreign policy acumen, his sense of humor, and his leadership. Watch for a couple of minutes if you have the time.
A couple of highlights from the speech were:
We need to sacrifice to cut oil imports from 65% of fossil fuel use to 10% within 15 years, using a massive public and private investment in renewable technology and a drastic increase in automobile fuel standards.
Increase diplomacy around the world, even with Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The U.S. needs to lead a global effort for nonproliferation, to include reducing our own levels of nuclear weapons.
He also said that "prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, renditions, and evasions of the Geneva conventions must have no place in our policy."
There's a lot more in the speech- he talks about expanding the Security Council, renewing our commitment to international law and multilateralism, more third world debt relief, pressuing pharmaceutical companies to allow greater access to generic drugs, and on and on.
Richardson is the real deal. I hope that you'll check out his speech and watch him closely in the months to come.