Egland had this to say:

Last weekend, Barack Obama dazzled crowds in Europe. Discussing international security, he spoke eloquently about the need for an American-European partnership to defeat terrorism.

In Paris, he said that “terrorism cannot be solved by any one country alone”, and that America should establish partnerships. In Berlin, he expressed hope that Europeans and Americans “can join in a new and global partnershipto dismantle the networks” of terrorists worldwide.

Eglin outlines a problem with Obama’s speeches, we already have a counterterrorism partnership with the European Union.

Obama only needed to hold one meeting, yet he hasn’t. Senator Obama said this during a debate hosted by MSNBC with Tim Russert and Brian Williams. Here is Russert’s question and Obama’s answer:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Obama, I want you to respond to not holding oversight for your subcommittee. But also, do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn, with sizable troops in order to quell any kind of insurrection or civil war?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven’t had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.

Eglin has more on the partnership, one that was so urgently needed, post 9/11. Here are his thoughts on that:

The urgency of this partnership became clear after investigators discovered that a cell in Hamburg, Germany, had helped in Al Qaeda’s attacks against America on Sept. 11, 2001. After bombings in Madrid and London, the partnership expanded.

Since then the number of attacks and plots aimed at our European allies has dropped. And here in the United States, of course, Al Qaeda has been unable to attack since 9/11.

The major continues by discussing the challenges the intelligence community and others had in finding the source of the “new” bombs. He says the following on those challenges:

One challenge we had was to find where the research and testing of new bombs was taking place. Eventually, American intelligence and European law enforcement officials discovered together that much of the work was being done outside Iraq with the results transmitted via the Internet.

Acting on this information, the police in France arrested electrical engineering students at a French university who had been recruited by their local mosque leaders. After these arrests, American tactical countermeasures and improvements in technology became more effective and the number of casualties from certain types of explosives declined.

Such close collaboration between the United States and France against terrorist cells in Iraq may surprise those accustomed to digesting easy sound bites of “cowboy diplomacy” and “unilateralism.” But the partnership is real, and not just with France.

The partnership does indeed include other countries in the European Union (EU). One of these other countrie is Germany. Eglin said this about Germany and its efforts to combat terrorism. Here are his words:

The Germans contribute as well. I also worked on counterterrorism operations in southern Europe to stop a plot against American interests there. Thanks to German intelligence and law enforcement officials, a planned attack modeled on the 1983 truck bombing against U.S. marines in Lebanon - but several times larger - never happened.

Major Eglin tells us about diplomatic efforts at the highest levels:

Such tactical success is only possible after effective diplomatic engagement at the highest levels. Agreements between the United States and Europe, like the Declaration on Combating Terrorism and the Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, have helped enormously. And for years, NATO, the Group of 8 industrialized nations, and other multilateral organizations have contributed as well.

The major has this to say about testimony that was given prior to Obama entering the US Senate:

In 2004, J. Cofer Black, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, testified about the success of these partnerships before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on European affairs.

He has this criticism to offer about Obama. His criticism once again points out either, 1) his inexperience or 2) his lack of interest and inability to educate himself on his job as a senator. Eglin said this:

Had Obama, who now heads that subcommittee, read the transcripts from the meeting, which took place before he came to office, or had he held a similar hearing, he might have known that the partnerships he called for last week already exist.

The major says it best about Obama’s credibility as a potential commander-in-chief. He says this:

After years of investment and sacrifice, Americans and Europeans deserve accurate information about our efforts to defeat international terrorism, especially from a prospective commander in chief.

And another voice speaks out questioning Obama’s “qualification” to be our next president.

Seven minutes and seven seconds. . .

Via his blog Washington Note.

Image and headline via Mark Halperin, Time. Luckily, I watched BBCAmerica’s BBC World News America, or I would have scarcely known about the market crisis since CNN and MSNBC rarely, if ever, mentioned it yesterday. (BBC interviewed investors and others around the world; there is grave concern about the U.S. economy.) Here’s the latest from the NYT: “Responding to a worldwide stock sell-off and fears about a U.S. recession, the Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark interest rate before the opening of the U.S. markets.”

Here’s the front page of the UK’s Guardian newspaper:

::::::::::::

MORE ON THE UPDATE ANNOUNCEMENT from Steve Clemons:

The Fed just dropped the fed funds rate by 75 basis points — the largest such Fed move since 1984 and the market barely noticed.

No matter what the issues were yesterday, it is clear that the economy — domestic and global — is now the biggest political issue today and tomorrow. . .at least for a while.

So, tomorrow morning — from 8 am til 9:30 am — the New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program will host a forum with economic policy advisers to the various political campaigns.

Thus far, the campaigns included are Obama, McCain, Clinton, Huckabee and Edwards. The Romney campaign has been working very hard to send someone but after back and forth, the campaign was not able to produce someone for the meeting but hopes to work with us in the future. Senator Fred Thompson’s campaign and Rudy Giuliani’s team are also still trying to find someone at this point.

RSVP directly to me if you can make it at clemons@newamerica.net. If you have media questions, please call Erin Drankoski at 202-986-4901.

This event will be digitally recorded — and we’ll have the file on the web immediately after the event tomorrow – but also are happy to send the link direcly to anyone who requests it, particularly those outside of Washington or abroad.

As the Economy Screams:
Perspectives and Proposals from the Presidential Campaigns

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

… I wish I had heard none of the political commentators afterward because listening to Mark Halperin (a virtual friend of mine) after, I was very irritated. He said he gave Obama an A- tonight and then a B+ each to Hillary Clinton and to Edwards.

I have to go with my own filters … each scored points [but] Hillary Clinton performed with an authority, presence in that huge hall, and mastery of detail that was just second to none. She hammered Bush on the semi-secret deal he’s trying to rig with the Iraqi government to commit American troops and bases indefinitely — something the others did not mention. She had numbers and details flowing forth as if they were as natural as could be.

One thing that was weird for me in this debate is that Hillary Clinton is clearly not mimicking her husband in any way. John Edwards is. Bill Clinton is the master of anecdotes. … Hillary is dense with facts, details, experiences — but it’s not warm and fuzzy. …

“First, I was miffed at Obama and Edwards for their ignorance or purposeful duplicity about the subprime home mortgage crisis. …”

First, I was miffed at Obama and Edwards for their ignorance or purposeful duplicity about the subprime home mortgage crisis. They both said that African-Americans were perniciously targeted by lenders. That’s about as untrue as one can imagine. The subprime crisis is an outrage — but it was a systemic problem — and everyone who wanted credit got it. Had everyone else other than the African-American community received loans that were subprime and based on substandard collateral then there would be a case of discrimination, but to argue that Blacks were targeted to give bad loans to — below prime rate levels — was grossly wrong.

Hillary Clinton, alternatively, did not say that. She argues for a “work out” plan that freezes rates for six months and stops foreclosures for a period of time. The neoliberal Chicago school economist won’t like this approach because it lengthens the period in which capital is ineffectively and wrongly distributed. But the government — mostly because of a combination of financial innovations in the market it doesn’t understand, leading to poor regulation — actually helped create the housing bubble and the crisis. To extend the bubble to work out the worst elements so that the shock harms fewer people is sensible.

I was surprised to hear Obama and Edwards not embrace this plan. Obama didn’t want to reward speculators. This isn’t a simple game of good guys and bad guys. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans hiding out there in financial portfolios that are not yet disclosed — and much of the financial network will not finance each other in fear of subsidizing a corrupted portfolio. So, the problem is not only with homeowners but with the entire financial network.

Hillary Clinton got this in a way that really surprised me. …

ON THE HEALTH PLAN DEBATE:

I’m glad that Obama got hit by both Hillary Clinton and Edwards for his health plan. He needs to change it and just come up with a plan that covers all Americans. Edwards’ best moment was on health care policy I think, although he was wrong to say that none of their plans cover illegal aliens. I believe that Clinton’s plan does in fact have a sub-tier package of health care for illegals as it’s important to the core mechanism of her plan to cover everyone. When Edwards said that none of them covered illegal aliens, she shook her head no — but then never commented about it.

ON REZKO:

And while I didn’t like Hillary raising the slum lord issue with Obama, I was surprised to hear him refer to Rezko as “that indivdual.” That individual is someone Barack Obama has known for 17 years and someone who has raised more than $10 million for him and who was on his Senate campaign finance organization. Now Hillary Clinton had Norman Hsu — but while I didn’t expect Obama to embrace Rezko, he might have just said that he was surrounded (as they all are) by people who are not always what they seem to be. At that moment, Barack Obama using “that individual” sounded a lot like — well — you know who. . .

[Susan's NOTE: Read more on REZKO here, including all the background on that 17-year association.]

ON BUSH’S REBATE PLAN:

Hillary Clinton was right to blast President Bush’s financial rebate plan in his stimulus package. That kind of spending should be directed at generating America’s next platform for innovation and for rebuilding the core infrastructure of the country. Clinton got some of this right in my view, but Obama was a bit more defined and thorough.