Live from Cleveland: Day Two
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Hi I'm Nicola. We鈥檙e coming live from WCPN in Cleveland, Ohio. We've just heard that US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is resigning his position. The Democrats have won control of the House of Representatives, and the race for the Senate is too close to call. We鈥檙e asking America what they think about the results and this surprise announcement from Rumsfeld.
Let's kick off with this email from Ohio:
Christopher鈥淚 would guess that Rumsfeld looked forward to an eternity of being grilled by congressmen and women about everything he did. He will probably end up getting a nice highly paid job in the private sector where he doesn't really have to be accountable to anybody.鈥
And up on the phone:
Rob from the UK says: "There鈥檚 a lot of anger being directed against Bush and Rumsfeld. Anger should be directed towards your European allies who do nothing but criticize you. Your so called allies, the Germans, the French sit back and offer no support. It鈥檚 only Tony Blair that has supported you. America is trying to help. When it does help it gets criticized, when it doesn鈥檛 help it gets criticized. They are in a catch 22 postion."
Some comments from our Cleveland Audience:
鈥淭he war on terror is not in Iraq and never was.鈥
鈥淲e need to bring diplomacy back. We鈥檙e wasting our time on Iraq. We need to win the hearts and minds of the worlds Muslims.鈥
Chrisfrom Canada responds to Rumsfeld鈥檚 resignation with the following email:
鈥淲hat鈥檚 the atheist equivalent of hallelujah?鈥
More comments from the audience:
鈥淭he US seems to feel we can give democracy. This is an illusion that is very short sited.鈥
鈥淭he minimum wage is going to be raised. We are going to get rid of these elitist neo-cons. We have the first Muslim African American in congress.鈥
鈥淭he biggest problem in American voting is that not enough people do it.鈥
The conversation has now moved on to Iraq with a caller from Baghdad:
Lubna in Baghdad: 鈥淚 have great admiration for American democracy. I鈥檓 not optimistic about the current situation in Iraq. I don鈥檛 think the Democrats will do much for us. We live in a very harsh situation in Iraq. The American troops invaded our country three years ago. If they left now they would leave a mess behind them.鈥
Clayton in Texas says: 鈥淚 would volunteer to go back to Baghdad if we had sufficient troops to do the job in the right way鈥
Response from the audience:
鈥淗aving the Democrats in power will mean more dialogue and a change for Iraq. They will be able to reach out to the international community.鈥
鈥淭errorism is not just a problem of the United States. It is a global problem. Bush needs to start building a global community that can work on the war on terror together.鈥And here's a text message:
鈥淭errorism is not just a problem of the United States. It is a global problem. Bush needs to start building a global community that can work on the war on terror together.鈥
George from Germany called in to the programme to say: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. We in the Western world have to face one problem; and that is Islamic extremism. The plans for the 9/11 attacks began long before George Bush was president. America is pulling back and this is not correct.鈥
And final thoughts from the audience:
鈥淲e need to be very concerned about the control of the senate鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 hoping we can address the higher education issue. I鈥檇 love to see something done with that.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 hoping we can have an honest dialogue with the international community.鈥
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