Foreign Affairs

Ever since President Bill Clinton "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," whatever remains of standards seem to have fallen even lower among people who hold offices and positions once thought to require good behavior and strong moral character. Last year, several Secret Service agents left the agency amid scandal after allegedly engaging the services of prostitutes while advancing a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, for President Barack Obama. A side note: One of the prostitutes, Dania Londono Suarez, wrote a tell-all book about the incident titled "Room Service.

Ever since President Bill Clinton "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," whatever remains of standards seem to have fallen even lower among people who hold offices and positions once thought to require good behavior and strong moral character. Last year, several Secret Service agents left the agency amid scandal after allegedly engaging the services of prostitutes while advancing a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, for President Barack Obama. A side note: One of the prostitutes, Dania Londono Suarez, wrote a tell-all book about the incident titled "Room Service.

The article, "Free speech clash grips U.N. " (Sept. 25) could also apply to the recent lecture at the Baltimore Council for Foreign Affairs (BCFA), where its president, Frank Burd, caved into pressure from pro-Israel groups and would not allow questions concerning the Middle East during a lecture by University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer. Even though the topic was China, Mr. Burd was evidently afraid that the professor's comments critical of Israel and U.S. policy favoring Israel would offend some of his audience so he limited discussion solely to China, something that he had never done before.

The article, "Free speech clash grips U.N. " (Sept. 25) could also apply to the recent lecture at the Baltimore Council for Foreign Affairs (BCFA), where its president, Frank Burd, caved into pressure from pro-Israel groups and would not allow questions concerning the Middle East during a lecture by University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer. Even though the topic was China, Mr. Burd was evidently afraid that the professor's comments critical of Israel and U.S. policy favoring Israel would offend some of his audience so he limited discussion solely to China, something that he had never done before.

NEW YORK -- A national survey astonishingly reports that a majority of Americans say that President Clinton is the greatest of America's postwar presidents -- so far as foreign policy is concerned.The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations has surveyed American opinion on foreign policy matters every four years since 1974, providing a significant and useful series of portraits of what the public, as well as a selected group of leaders concerned with foreign affairs, thinks about the country's international policies.

SEN. JESSE HELMS, the abominable no-man to the Clinton administration's foreign policy, was going to give President Bush less trouble. The North Carolina Republican, who refused to hold a hearing on a nominated ambassador he despised, who prevented United Nations dues from being paid, who presumed to legislate a boycott of Cuba by other countries, was going to behave better this term. Even during the Clinton presidency's last weeks, he reached a historic deal for U.S. dues to be paid to the United Nations, after Ambassador Richard Holbrooke got him invited to vent to delegates.

Kevin Kallaugher, The Sun political cartoonist known to readers as KAL, received the prestigious Thomas Nast Award last night for the best cartoons on foreign affairs from the Overseas Press Club of America.The award, named for the famed late-19th-century political cartoonist for Harper's Weekly and presented at a black-tie dinner at New York City's Grand Hyatt Hotel, included a $1,000 prize and a hand-drawn certificate.Kallaugher's winning entry was composed of 10 cartoons, including drawings on U.S.-Iraqi relations; the Wye River peace accord reached last year between Israeli and Palestinian authorities on Maryland's Eastern Shore; and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

"Foreign Affairs" is the made-for-TV sleeper of the month. And, with a bunch of highly promoted network junk-movies on this week, you're liable to miss this little cable gem at 8 tonight on TNT if you're not careful.The film is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alison Lurie. And the script does the book some justice. But it's Joanne Woodward and Brian Dennehy, the stars, who deserve the prizes for their work in the TV adaptation.Woodward plays Vinnie Minor, a professor of English at a small American college who goes to England for research on her next book.

For almost a year now, Johns Hopkins juniors Jay Suresh and Hari Chandra have been working for no pay with a limited budget to draw some big names to the Homewood campus for the school's second Symposium on Foreign Affairs."

Maryland social studies teachers will get a chance to question three representatives of the U.S. State Department at a conference sponsored by the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs Nov. 14 in the Constellation room of the World Trade Center.The Foreign Affairs Council will host the State Department representatives.E9 For more information, call Marci LeFevre at 727-2150.

Once again, with his intemperate criticisms of the handling of the anti-American episodes in Egypt and Libya, Mitt Romney has leaped before looking into the arena of President Barack Obama's greatest political strength. In accusing the Obama administration of apologizing in the wake of an attack on the American embassy in Cairo and the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Mr. Romney has laid himself open to the charge of politicizing a foreign policy crisis. Worse, he has at least temporarily shifted the focus of the presidential campaign away from his strongest debating point, the stalled economy at home.

T oday, President Obama will release his budget request, asking more for defense than any other president - a whopping $708 billion for the Department of Defense in fiscal 2011. Also today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will release a document known inside Washington as the QDR - the quadrennial defense review, a four-year snapshot of our security plans. The last QDR was done under Donald Rumsfeld, with George W. Bush as president, but be prepared to wonder if Mr. Bush is still president.

PROVO, Utah - As the party conventions draw near, there has been a flurry of media speculation about the candidates' choices for vice president. Yet an arguably more important choice is the next secretary of state. For the most part, the vice presidency is a kind of understudy-in-waiting job, charged with a few ceremonial chores. To be sure, Dick Cheney has wielded considerable influence and power behind the scenes as vice president. But it is doubtful that Sen. John McCain's or Sen. Barack Obama's No. 2 would exert the same kind of authority.

Iraq's ambassador to the United States urged yesterday an indefinite stay for American troops in Iraq, telling a Baltimore audience that a withdrawal before the country is stabilized would fuel the al-Qaida terrorist network. Samir Sumaidaie said al-Qaida is responsible for the majority of mass murders in his home country and railed against setting what he called "arbitrary deadlines" for American troop withdrawal - instead asking for more troops to help combat the steady stream of violence.

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban By Sarah Chayes Penguin / 386 pages / $25.95 Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as the forgotten war. Once the linchpin of America's war on terror, which hinged on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting down Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the bloodshed in Iraq. Five years after the Taliban collapsed, the country is struggling to cope with lawlessness, corruption, a roaring illicit drug trade and attacks by insurgents determined to drive out foreign troops.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's president says he and U.S. officials have met with leaders of seven of the country's armed insurgent groups and believe they can be persuaded to end their rebellion, according to a summary of remarks released yesterday by his office. President Jalal Talabani told a gathering of Iraqi and Arab intellectuals during a Kurdish cultural festival Saturday that he believes that some of the Sunni Arab insurgents waging a bloody guerrilla war against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government can be persuaded to swap violence for a role in the political process.

Clovis Maksoud, the Arab League's former chief representative to the United Nations and the United States, will address the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs at 6 p.m. March 9 at the World Trade Center.The title of Maksoud's talk will be "Global Challenges and Arab Responses."Maksoud teaches international relations at American University in Washington, where he is also director of the school's Center for the Global South. He was the Arab League representative from 1979 to 1990.Anyone wishing to attend his address should call the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs at 410- 727-2150.

The 11th annual Baltimore Sun Foreign Policy Panel is to be held Jan. 10 in the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel, starting at 6 p.m. The Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs is the sponsor.Reservations are required. Membership in the council is open to the public. For more information, call 727-2150.

CHICAGO - President Bush may have trouble with voters on his handling of the economy, the deficit and other domestic matters, but when it comes to foreign policy, he's been riding high. The latest Gallup Poll found he gets his best ratings in international affairs, with 54 percent of Americans approving of his policies. Given recent events, that's the equivalent of New Yorkers throwing a party for the people who caused the blackout. His record on foreign policy, after all, is not exactly studded with triumphs.