Meetings of the G8 and G20 leaders over the weekend in Canada ended with the usual official summit statements, which in critical areas indicated signals of disagreement with Obama administration policies. The G8 leaders from the countries of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia met Friday before the larger group shown above met in Toronto in the G20 summit.
After the G8 meeting, a Communiqué was issued that included (for the first time) a timeline for withdrawing NATO troops from Afghanistan, as suggested by the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Cameron. The Communiqué urged the Afghan government to "combat corruption, address illicit drug production and trafficking, improve human rights, improve provision of basic services and governance, make concrete progress to reinforce the formal justice system and expand the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces to assume increasing responsibility for security within five years."
This statement, which was urged by the leader of the NATO partner contributing the second largest number of troops to the war effort in Afghanistan (after the US military forces), comes just days after President Obama replaced the NATO commander in that war effort, General Stanley McChrystal, with General David Petraeus after a magazine article appeared that demonstrated a lack of respect by McChrystal's staff for the Commander in Chief and his staff. During the events that accompanied this change in command, Obama restated his goal to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in July of 2011, just one year from now..... not within five years from now, as announced in the G8 statement.
Today the G20 summit ended with another statement that parted with the objectives of the Obama team in Toronto. The normally Obama supporting news outlet at CBS reported the conclusion of the G20 summit this way:
"The G-20 summit concluded in Toronto late Sunday with signs of an economic policy rift between President Obama and other world leaders..... The president came to Toronto hoping to convince his G-20 colleagues to put more emphasis on stimulus spending to keep the economic recovery alive..... For the most part he did not succeed.
The G-20, the top industrialized and developing nations of the world, ended the Toronto summit with a pledge to cut their budget deficits in half within three years. It's something Mr. Obama has been pressing for but [Obama] has also urged more stimulus spending in the short-term to keep the recovery going, a position rejected by Great Britain and some other European nations that say cutting debt should be the top priority."
The Summit host, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said: "Advanced countries must send a clear message that as our stimulus plans expire we will focus on getting our fiscal houses in order." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/27/eveningnews/main6624612.shtml
While the rest of the economic power players in the world see the wisdom in cutting government spending and exercising fiscal discipline, our President and his team want to keep spending taxpayers' money, growing the government bureaucracy (which has proven to be very inefficient in helping clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico) and driving up our federal deficit.
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