Barack Obama laid the foundations for a new US foreign policy yesterday ahead of his trips to Europe and the Middle East, promising to work with allies to tackle the threats of the 21st century with a push comparable to the Marshall plan.

In his biggest speech on the matter since entering the presidential race in 2007, he said the US had "paid the price for a foreign policy that lectures without listening".

He set out five goals for his presidency: ending the war in Iraq; finishing the war with al-Qaida and the Taliban; ending US oil dependency; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; and rebuilding US alliances.

"As president, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy - one that recognises that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin," Obama told an audience at the Ronald Reagan building in the heart of Washington DC. 

US Election: Obama Offers A Marshall Plan For The 21st Century 

& the value of hearing …..

Tom Friedman is befuddled. He cannot understand "the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush" and is specifically upset about the fact that "China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States." Friedman generously allows that "[a]n America that presides over Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantánamo Bay deserves a thumbs-down" -- a "thumbs-down": what a playful movie critic says about a boring film. In listing America's small imperfections that have caused this worldwide unpopularity, Friedman forgot to mention America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, which Friedman himself cheered on.  

But whatever else is true, when it comes to morally reprehensible and threatening behavior -- to use Friedman's righteous terms: "pure, rancid moral corruption" that is "truly filthy" -- is there anything that remotely compares with what Tom Friedman and his like-minded comrades have said and done over the last seven years? If you're a citizen of just about any country in the world, what would you find more threatening -- the repressive dictator of a small African country, or the world's sole military superpower that continues to listen to and honor a Foreign Policy Expert who utters disgusting sentiments such as this, to justify a war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the displacement of millions more:

What other country in the world has leading members of its political class who justify unprovoked attacks on other countries -- who casually justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- in such depraved and sadistic terms? And, for that matter, what other country has a leading presidential candidate who sings songs about bombing another country and who continues to joke openly about killing its citizens?

If there were a powerful nation (besides the U.S.) that had a leading foreign policy analyst unapologetically justifying the brutal destruction of another country by explaining that its citizens needed to "Suck On This," and had a leading presidential candidate who sung songs about dropping bombs on the U.S. and who told jokes about killing Americans (while his leading ally demands that that country attack even more countries), we would be subjected to an endless array of Op-Eds from Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer condemning them and demanding that "meaningful action" be taken against such a "rogue nation." And Tom Friedman would be righteously and darkly insisting that such a country be "compelled to change its behavior."  

Tom Friedman Doesn't Understand Why America Is Unpopular In The World 

Gus: The world needs dreamers... but …in the words of Jose Marti y Perez …. 

“to change masters is not to be free” …