Born on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania Senator Biden was raised along with his three siblings in the Roman Catholic religion. At the age of 10, Biden moved with his family to suburban New Castle County, in Delaware where his father was a car salesman. In 1965, Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware and then attended Syracuse University College of Law, graduating in 1968.
Biden is a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and while serving in this capacity, he has become one of the more experienced Senators on drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties.
Biden a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has gained considerable expertise in foreign policy, national security, and arms control. This expertise was tested in 1997, when as the ranking minority member his efforts to combat hostilities in the Balkans brought national attention and influenced presidential policy. During this time, he consistently argued for lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims, investigating war crimes and administering NATO air strikes. Biden’s subsequent “lift and strike” resolution was instrumental in convincing President Bill Clinton to use military force in the face of systematic human rights violations.
The call by Sen. Joe Biden for a solution in the Iraq war has grown steadily louder as just last week, Biden took part in a debate at Johns Hopkins University where he was allowed to stress that how the war in Iraq comes to an end is just as important as ending it. In that debate, he contended that “The president’s policy in Iraq is based on a fundamentally and fatally flawed premise: that Iraq can be governed from the center. However, Biden states that he disagrees and that the last best chance for a stable Iraq is federalism which would allow each of the warring factions’ breathing room and control over the fabric of their daily lives”. Specifically, Biden’s resolution calls for the United States to actively support a political settlement based on the provisions of Iraq’s constitution that calls for creating a federal system of government, with strong regions and a limited central government. The specifics of his proposal include:
- Keeping Iraq together by giving its major groups breathing room in their own regions and control over their daily lives. A central government would be left in charge of common interests like defending the borders and distributing oil revenues.
- Secure the support of the Sunnis — who have no oil — by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue and reintegrating those with no blood on their hands.
- Increase, not end, reconstruction assistance but insist that the oil-rich Arab Gulf states fund it and tie it to the creation of a massive jobs program and to the protection of minority rights.
- Initiate a major diplomatic offensive to enlist the support of the major powers and Iraq’s neighbors for a political settlement in Iraq and create an Oversight Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.
- Begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by 2008, with a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists.
Most important, he emphasized that “the war in Iraq must end but that it profoundly mattered how it ended.” He added that “it mattered not only to the Iraqis but also to our men and women on the front lines and to America’s future security.”
Interestingly in the January 23, 2006, edition of The News Journal, Delaware’s largest daily newspaper, columnist Harry F. Themal reported that Biden “occupies the sensible center of the Democratic Party.” He emphasizes that Biden “plans to stress the dangers to the security of the average American, not just from the terrorist threat, but from the lack of health assistance, crime, and energy dependence on unstable parts of the world.”
Given all of his experience and solid ideals, it would appear to this reviewer that he would definitely be a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination.
External links
Open Secrets — Senate career profile
Open Secrets — Presidential campaign
Washington Post Presidential Field
Joe Biden Presidential Campaign Web Site
[tags]2008 presidential candidate, withdraw troops, Senator Joseph Biden, Joe Biden, Democratic nomination, foreign relations[/tags]