The US vice presidential candidates, the Democrat Joe Biden and the Republican Sarah Palin, clashed on a range of foreign policy issues in a debate yesterday in which they defended positions set out by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain before the Nov 4 election. Here are some of their comments:
Mr Biden: "Barack Obama offered a clear plan. ... Ironically the same plan that Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, and George Bush are now negotiating. The only odd man out here, only one left out is John McCain." Mr Biden: "We'll end this war. For John McCain, there's no end in sight." Mrs Palin: "Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq." Mrs Palin: "We'll know when we're finished in Iraq when the Iraqi government can govern its people and when the Iraqi security forces can secure its people. And our commanders on the ground will tell us when those conditions have been met."
Mrs Palin: "The surge principles, not the exact strategy, but the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan, also. And that, perhaps, would be a difference with the Bush administration." Mr Biden: "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan. ... While Barack (Obama) and I ... have been calling for more money to help in Afghanistan, more troops in Afghanistan, John McCain was saying two years ago, 'The reason we don't read about Afghanistan anymore in the paper, it's succeeded.'"
Mrs Palin: "Those who would try to destroy what we stand for cannot be met with just sitting down on a presidential level as Barack Obama had said he would be willing to do. That is beyond bad judgment. That is dangerous." Mr Biden: "John McCain has said he would go along with an agreement, but he wouldn't sit down. Now, how do you do that when you don't have your administration sit down and talk with the adversary?"
Mr Biden: "I don't have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. ... We should rally the world to act and demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get the 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide." Mr Biden: "When a country engages in genocide, when a country engaging in harboring terrorists and will do nothing about it, at that point that country in my view and Barack's view forfeits their right to say you have no right to intervene at all." Mrs Palin: "As for as Darfur, we can agree on that also, the support of the no-fly zone, making sure that all options are on the table there also. ... All of us, as individuals, and as humanitarians and as elected officials should do all we can to end those atrocities in that region of the world."
Mrs Palin: "A two-state solution is the solution. ... That will be top of an agenda item, also, under a McCain-Palin administration." Mr Biden: "No one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion." * Reuters
