Pryor’s foreign affairs dodge

A kink in the format may leave many disappointed that a platform for foreign affairs is not on the program in the first, and at present only televised debate, between U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor and U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton.

The debate between the incumbent Pryor and challenger Cotton is scheduled to take place in Fayetteville on Oct. 14.

It seems in the back-and-forth to get these two diverse personalities together on the same stage under the TV lights for a debate resulted in a watered-down agenda of: Education, transportation and job creation/economic development. Those are centric issues that might be discussed in every race from small town city council to the Arkansas Governor’s race.

After the deal was struck for these three central themes to be discussed, some members of the ever-changing cast of their multifaceted staff of handlers, consultants and media gurus simply asked: “Hey, what about foreign affairs?”

The Cotton camp wants to include foreign affairs. Pryor’s side said, “No.”

Later the Pryor camp wanted to deny that the two-term, sitting U.S. Senator wanted to dodge a discussion of foreign affairs. Stories in the state’s media from a spate of emails on the issue eventually proved the Pryor camp was attempting to dodge the issue.

Somehow Steve Clark, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, and the debate’s sponsor, encouraged the two sides to stick with what was agreed upon. Pryor’s camp, via spokesman Erik Dorey, told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that “Debate negotiations are always a messy process … ”

I agree. It’s also a messy process to clean up an error. Mark Pryor has some scrubbing to do to wipe this dodge off his political record. With the almost hourly updates on the ISIS resurgence in the Middle East, I don’t see how foreign affairs can be left off a debate platform among two men who want to serve in the U.S. Senate – the body of Congress with several important and unique roles in foreign affairs.

And we can’t forget the thousands of men and women of Arkansas who were called up, sent overseas and returned back home wounded, disabled or killed in these foreign affair wars of the last almost 20 years. How can Pryor refuse to talk about the foreign affairs duties of a U.S. Senator?

As the dust was settling over this debate scuffle, Pryor, it seems, was caught in another Washington blunder. After authoring in July an amendment to block funding to train and arm Syrian rebels, Pryor suddenly votes to arm and train Syrian rebels, something he previously sought to make illegal. It should be noted that Pryor and U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., this past week voted with the Senate and House majority to arm and train these Syrian rebels, as requested by the White House.

Therein, the Cotton camp says is another reason why Pryor’s campaign has gone to such extraordinary lengths to avoid foreign policy as a debate topic in the only one-on-one debate of this important Senate election. Pryor is simply not foreign affairs savvy as a U.S. Senator. Pryor is probably the least traveled abroad U.S. Senator from the South – if not the entire nation.

While saluting Cotton on his brief background as a member of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his Harvard education, I’m also not sure how well versed he is on foreign affairs. His war record is not a real foreign affairs qualifier. That’s all the more reason foreign affairs should be included in the debate.

A news release from Cotton’s campaign calls Pryor out for his flip flopping on the most recent issue: “Many Arkansans are rightfully concerned about the complete lack of seriousness of our senior United States Senator when it comes to matters of war and peace. After introducing his amendment in July to block funding that would arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, Pryor told Politico that he was completely unaware of an identical amendment in the House and that he had done little homework or preparation before offering his amendment: ‘I offered it without a lot of phone calls and background work,’ Pryor said. ‘I just thought it was the right thing to do.’”

Adding to the fire from Cotton’s campaign, there are some startling statistics from a recent speech by a Democratic colleague of Pryor’s in the Senate, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. The cost of the wars in dollars, according to Manchin looks like this: The U.S. has spent $818 billion for Iraq and $747 billion for Afghanistan. The costs in Afghanistan are still growing. That’s a total cost of $1.6 trillion dollars, not including the costs of long term care for the wounded.

But costs of war alone are not the entire costs from United States foreign affairs policies. There have been 4,000 dead in Iraq and 2,200 in Afghanistan. Any debate for a national political office in which one candidate does not want to discuss why we send our youth into harm’s way would certainly be a disqualifier for me.

How about you, Mr. and Mrs. Voter?