U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, who is in Africa this week as part of an official Congressional trip, opined about his last trip to the continent in his blog recently.
Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, was criticizing GOP presidential candidate John McCain about what it takes to have some foreign relations savvy. Miller, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, visited Nairobi, Kenya, and the Darfur region of Sudan last summer on another official tri.
He recalls his visit to a slum in Nairobi and says such understanding of a region's "music" is vital to understanding foreign relations, Barb Barrett reports.
Miller writes: "The more questions we asked, the more guarded the answers became. Then we walked through the slum. … As our delegation walked through Kibera, we all asked the same question: how can this be a stable society?"
Comments
Re: Miller blogs about Africa trip
June 30, 2008 - 9:50pm — scharrisonExcellent article on TPM, but it really doesn't surprise me. Brad Miller is incredibly insightful and intelligent, and having him represent Congress (and us) on these trips gives me hope we can (once again) be a stabilizing force in this world.
Some of the people I talk to think we shouldn't get involved in countries that don't directly affect our national security, or they feel like there's not much we can do to help them anyway. The thing is, we are involved in nearly every country on this planet, whether directly via corporations or financial institutions, or simply because economic ripples in the U.S. send waves across the rest of the world. In this day and age, we can't separate ourselves from the rest of the world. But we can try to make sure the net result of that involvement is positive.