Kerry To "Drain The Swamps Of Terrorism"

[DrFunkenstein]

For those who doubt that Kerry "gets it."

"While we must remain determined to defeat terrorism, it isn't only terrorism we are fighting. It's the beliefs that motivate terrorists. A new ideology of hatred and intolerance has arisen to challenge America and liberal democracy. It seeks a war of Islam - as defined by extremists - against the rest of the world and we must be clear its epicenter is the Greater Middle East.

It's critical that we recognize the conditions that are breeding this virulent new form of anti-American terrorism. If you look at countries stretching from Morocco through the Middle East and beyond - broadly speaking the western Muslim world - what you see is a civilization under extraordinary stress.

A combination of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education and opportunity, and rapid population growth has proven simply explosive. The streets are full of young people who have no jobs, no prospects - no voice. State-controlled media encourage a culture of self-pity, victimhood and blame-shifting. This is the breeding ground for present and future hostility to the West and our values.

From this perspective, it's clear that we need more than a one-dimensional war on terror. Of course we need to hunt down and destroy those who are plotting mass murder against Americans and innocent people from Africa to Asia to Europe.

We must drain the swamps of terrorists; but you don't have a prayer of doing so if you leave the poisoned sources to gather and flow again. That means we must help the vast majority people of the greater Middle East build a better future. We need to illuminate an alternative path to a futile Jihad against the world...a path that leads to deeper integration of the greater Middle East into the modern world order.

The Middle East isn't on the Bush Administration's trade agenda. We need to put it there.

The United States and its transatlantic partners should launch a high-profile Middle East trade initiative designed to stop the economic regression in the Middle East and spark investment, trade and growth in the region. It should aim at dismantling trade barriers that are among the highest in the world, encouraging participation in world trade policy and ending the deep economic isolation of many of the region's countries.

I propose the following policy goals:

We should build on the success of Clinton Administration's Jordan Free Trade Agreement. Since the United States reduced tariffs on goods made in "qualifying industrial zones," Jordan's exports to the US jumped from $16 to $400 million, creating about 40,000 jobs. Let's provide similar incentives to other countries that agree to join the WTO, stop boycotting Israel and supporting Palestinian violence against Israel, and open up their economies.

We should also create a general duty-free program for the region, just as we've done in the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the Andean Trade Preference Act. Again, we should set some conditions: full cooperation in the war on terror, anti-corruption measures, non-compliance with the Israel boycott, respect for core labor standards and progress toward human rights.

Let's be clear: Our goal is not to impose some western free market ideology on the greater Middle East. It's to open up a region that is now closed to opportunity, an outpost of economic exclusion and stagnation in a fast-globalizing world.

These countries suffer from too little globalization, not too much. Without greater investment, without greater trade within the region and with the outside world, without the transparency and legal protections that modern economies need to thrive, how will these countries ever be able to grow fast enough to provide jobs and better living standards for their people?

But as we extend the benefits of globalization to people in the greater Middle East and the developing world in general, we also need to confront globalization's dark side.

We should use the leverage of capital flows and trade to lift, not lower, international labor and environmental standards. We should strengthen the IMF's ability to prevent financial panics from turning into full-scale economic meltdowns such as we've seen in Argentina. And in the Middle East especially, we need to be sensitive to fears that globalization will corrupt or completely submerge traditional cultures and mores. We can do these things."

[OpSomBlood]

1. I'm impressed that he said the "L" word in public.

It's about time some prominent Democrats stopped shying away from being called "liberal."

[A_Possum]

2. Hear hear!

And don't bribe with "aid," do it right.

[2Design]

3. do you have a link???

[DrFunkenstein]

4. Sorry, My Link Is Broken - It's His First Major Policy Speech

And, by my account, his best because he was allowed leverage to look at the big picture, not just the Iraq quagmire.