President-elect Obama is hard at work during the waning Bush days. Today, he announced his national security team. His appointments tell a great deal about his vision for American foreign policy in the coming years. All members of the team support a shift in U.S. policy. Like Obama, they want it to include more diplomacy and fewer military solutions.
Over the weekend, terrorists killed hundreds of people in Mumbai. These attacks underscore need for global solutions to terrorism. After the announcements, each nominee spoke briefly. Several times, they referred to the attacks. Each nominee pledged to keep Americans safe, and many stated that the America cannot solve global problems it faces alone.
Obama recognizes the support he enjoys throughout the world. He is ready to use his influence to change America's standing in the world community. When other countries begin to see America as a partner rather than an adversary, terrorism will decline. This is Obama's stated goal.
Several members of the team will disagree often and vigorously. Obama stated that he appointed them because of their differences, saying that it was dangerous for the President to surround himself with yes-men. He told the press that he would direct foreign policy after hearing and considering the views of the team.
The current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates will remain in his position. This appointment fulfills Obama's promise to appoint a bi-partisan cabinet. The team also includes Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Obama praised Clinton's intelligence and work ethic. He defended her to the press who questioned his change of opinion following the campaign, noting that it was fun for the press to pose such questions. He also stated that he would not have offered her the job if he thought she was not the best candidate for it.
His candidate for ambassador to the United Nations is Susan Rice. Dr. Rice is a Rhodes scholar who served in President Clinton's State Department. She was also foreign policy advisor to several other Democratic campaigns for president before Obama's. In her statement, she pledged to support and improve the United Nations. Her pledge is a signal that the United States plans to become more of a team player in world affairs. Retired General James L. Jones will serve as National Security Advisor.
William Holder is Obama's candidate for attorney general. He pledged to work for policies that were more in line with the constitution. Closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay will likely head his list. Janet Napolitano, nominated for head of the Department of Homeland Security, will be concerned with domestic issues. She is currently the governor of Arizona, and many expect her to bring a practical and sane approach to immigration reform.
Many of the team stressed the complexity of the world situation. The United States needs to change course from trying to achieve domination to being a world citizen. During that change, it is important that its national security team be intelligent, experienced, and supportive of its new direction. At the same time, they must represent diverse views to prevent a kind of policy tunnel vision. Obama has carefully selected this team to do exactly that.
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Comments: 85
Unfortunately, I do not foresee a quick end to global terrorisim or even a long term solution.
Be that as it may, he has my hopes in his hands. My grandchildren depend on it.
Amen to that. Give the UN a blood transfusion and some new teeth.
No more horse judges,cronies and college roomies in critical positions.
Competent adults in charge again.
...Instead of having to deal with all those tiresome neoconservatives with Republican leanings, I'll be dealing with a whole new crowd. Of course, a lot of veteran neocons will turn up, particularly at the fringes of the incoming administration, but the real core of the War Party's strength will be in the State Department, with Hillary Clinton lording over a new nest of neocon hatchlings, albeit of the social-democratic variety. In alliance with the "humanitarian" interventionists, whose shtick is sending troops to places like Kosovo, Darfur, Congo, and Burma, this new, reinvented War Party is ready and willing to open up several new fronts in our endless "war on terrorism," with potentially cataclysmic consequences for America and the world.
Hillary the hawk at State, Bush's warlord Robert Gates at Defense, and Gen. Jim Jones – who wants to station U.S. troops in the occupied territories under the rubric of NATO! – as national security adviser to the president. Yes, antiwar voters took a chance on Obama, reasoning that anything would be better than four more years of Bushian belligerence, yet now they discover to their chagrin that the dice are loaded.
The same old crowd that brought us the invasion of Iraq is back, if not in full force or purest form, then at least in worrying numbers and high positions. The cries of "betrayal" are already being heard."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13838
"Barack Obama’s got a big problem.
He’s suckered himself into believing that we need a bipartisan foreign and military policy.
And so he’s reappointing Robert Gates as head of the Defense Department.
Let’s remember: Gates was head of the CIA during Bush I. As such, he was involved in the invasion of Panama, the funding of a genocidal regime in Guatemala, the support of Suharto’s brutal government in Indonesia, and the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.
With Bush I, he pushed the first war against Saddam Hussein, even when it seemed that Saddam was preparing to withdraw from Iraq.
And now with Bush II, he’s been running the Iraq War, which Obama vowed to end.
And Gates has come out with modernizing our nuclear weapons arsenal—that means making new nukes—even though Obama talked about nuclear disarmament during the campaign.
Something’s terribly wrong with this picture.
And it’s simply this: Obama doesn’t really want a change in foreign and military policy. He said as much during the campaign when he praised Bush Sr. and said he wanted to return to the bipartisan consensus of the last forty years.
In those forty years, the United States waged war against Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It helped overthrow the Allende government in Chile. It supported Suharto’s invasion of East Timor. It financed and trained death squads in Central America. And on and on.
With the Gates choice, Obama proves he’s not about ending the U.S. empire.
He’s about running the U.S. empire—with less bravado than Bush-Cheney, but perhaps more efficiently.
And he’s perfectly willing to use the old hands like Gates, bloody as they are, to get that job done."
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx112608.html
"Barack Obama never presented himself as a candidate of peace. Rather, he used his prescient opposition to the Iraq war to create an image that attracted most people on the foreign policy Left. However, even his comments on Iraq were carefully calculated: he proposed a 16-month withdrawal and said he would rely on the advice of military commanders, but said ever less on the issue as it faded from public debate.
He joined his opponents in advocating an expensive expansion of the Army and Marine Corps. On Afghanistan and Pakistan he was more hawkish than John McCain, proposing a troop buildup in the former and overt cross-border raids against the latter. Sen. Obama attended the AIPAC convention and pandered as obscenely as his opponents. Although urging a dialogue with Iran, he promised to do "everything in my power" to stop Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and refused to rule out use of military force.
Sen. Obama started out with an evenhanded approach to the Russia-Georgia war, but quickly followed Sen. McCain in backing Georgia's impulsive, irresponsible Mikheil Saakashvili, who, evidence increasingly indicates, triggered the conflict with an unprovoked invasion of the territory of South Ossetia. Sen. Obama proposed an extensive democracy-promotion program and advocated concerted action in humanitarian crises, such as Darfur. Never once did he question any of Washington's antiquated Cold War alliances. In fact, after his election he called up South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and promised to "strengthen" an alliance which has lost any role in today's world.
To shore up his foreign policy credentials Sen. Obama chose his colleague Joe Biden as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. Yet Sen. Biden was an uber-hawk on the Balkans, pushed NATO expansion up to Russia's borders, backed the Iraq war, flew to Tbilisi to embrace Saakashvili in the latter's aggressive war, and speaking of Israel declared: "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." Not only is Sen. Biden a master political panderer, but it has been decades since he, just like Sen. McCain, has seen a war that he didn't want America to fight.
...The president-elect's rush to embrace the liberal interventionist establishment in choosing his foreign policy staff suggests that the next four years will be a lot like the last eight in substance if not tone, and a lot like the previous eight years in both substance and tone. This means that anyone who believes in a foreign policy of peace and nonintervention must continue the battle. The fight against the Bush-McCain neocons is over. The fight against the Obama-Clinton liberal interventionists is about to begin."
http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=13827
Well, I never cared much for radical Muslim sympatiizers and I care less them them now than I did on 911. How I feel about the Bush administration and its mistakes and corruptions has nothing to do with how I feel about the neccesity to wipe out radical Islam, and the sooner the better, the sooner the cheaper, the sooner the less damage.
Is it good or bad to achieve notoriety?
This takes you in the front door, and this takes you in the back door. If you’ve been, don’t click again.
Gather Broadcasting: Have it your way
Obama is smart to use some experienced people with some of the new people he is bringing in. It's one thing to bring in some "fresh eyes" and another thing to have a team of nothing but rookies. But, as a lot of people are saying, we will just have to wait and see what this new team will bring us. It isn't going to become a perfect world overnight. I'm sure I will find things to criticize in the new administration, but I am going to wait until they make mistakes before I start my criticism. (for one thing, I am worn out from criticizing the current administration)
One note: Gates is not Secretary of State. He is Secretary of Defense. You might want to change that typo in your post.
I have faith that he can bring that needed change. I also believe he will have no problem getting rid of people who can't fulfill the job. My only regret is that we are losing our beloved Governor Napolitano. She has done an outstanding job here in Arizona amongst a strong Republican house and senate. That certainly demonstrates her ability and worth. Unfortunately for our state, she will be replaced by a Republican. Hopefully, the attorney-general learned a thing or two serving under Janet so she can keep our state safe.
The "peaceful" Muslims can't or won't do it themselves and there really is no "good" way to do the job. So what I will bet will happen is that there will be provocative actions like Mumbai that will either kill a lot of people or threaten a lot of people and a huge reaction will be unleashed indiscriminately against Muslims as it was against the Germans and the Japanese in WWII. The world cannot accept intolerant Islam and the force required to break it will be considerable and civilians will be involved.
So it comes down to - do we want to analyze and react to what we know is going to happen eventually at great cost, or do we want to be forced into doing something so that we don't feel too bad about ourselves after the fact, that is, if we do survive. How big a hit do we want to risk absorbing. How many allies and Western affiliates are we going to accept losing, or break faith with? And do we want the enemy to have nuclear weapons before we do it?
It's a no win situation, at least until history looks back on it and realize honestly that it was an extreme threat that called for an extremely overwhelming and final reaction after nothing else proved to have any effect.
Maybe there is something brilliant that someone will think of but the clock keeps ticking.
Nothing bad, and things are ready to go. I just cannot think of Hillary Clinton coming up with great creative ideas in State. I know she can make decisions, but so can anyone else. Hillary over Ross seems to be a signal to expect the US to be firm and hardline, which is a good thing and appropriate, if mostly symbolic.
The problem with installing people in these positions is the need for experience without including a lot of people with a lot of blood on their hands - like Gates, as Felix mentioned.
If we could just be about cooperation with the world rather than force, which almost always generates resistance, we could generate some policies that don't come back to smack us in the face for a change.
JaySuess! I had almost forgotten what intelligence looked like in an American Leader.
SO nice to have it back.
I'll say this now, Obama may not do everything perfectly, but he's doing the right things, so far, for the right reasons. He has always said he was going to be a conservative dem, and that he was going to act in a bi-partisan manner, he really does want to hear from "All the people" All sides. THEN, he can make the best decisions for the majority of Americans and other world citizens.
Work for peace.
Blessings!
Wilka
Obama with set up team is wait and watch factuality
hoping as expectations to be a boon !!!
Of course this would never happen, but if Obama were to make a speech outlining what I've described, terrorism would, for the most part, dry up and blow away. It's not that the most radical of these guys want to kill us because we don't believe as they do, or that they think we're infidels, it's the fact that we try to shape their destiny in our interest that's the problem.
Actually, for these people, it does not matter whether Hillary were President elect, or some other Democrat, they would still hate them.
They could only embrace a conservative, and they more that person is willing to turn America into a third world country, the better they would like him.
I must say I am disappointed to see him appointing ANY Republicans to his cabinet, and I am especially disappointed to see him appointing Hillary Clinton to any position...
That's more consideration than any of them would have shown HIM, if their positions were reversed!
GT
There will obviously be mixed reviews on the selections. This is pretty common with every incoming president. I'm not particularly thrilled about Hillary for Secretary of Defense because a) I don't think she brings any qualifications to the table and b) I think she and her husband have the combined integrity of Satan's pet snake.
I'm also very concerned about Napolitano, because I've heard (but don't know for sure) that she's a strong advocate for illegal aliens.
Before we bury anybody, however, let's see this thing play out. It could be a great success story; it could be a tremendous failure. Most likely, it will fall somewhere in the middle, with liberals calling it a success and conservatives calling it a failure.
We'll have four to eight years to bitch & moan. In the mean time, let's let the new Administration start doing its job. We certainly haven't given the past three Administrations that courtesy.
I guess you didn't see the videos of massive crowds cheering across the world.
No, a man of confidence surrounds himself with people willing to challenge him in order to sharpen his vision. Anyone with half a brain knows that surrounding yourself with people who think exactly like you do leads to stagnation.
Exactly.
A President who surrounds himself with "yes" men is only looking for a boost of confidence.
Over on the political side, Chris wrote an interesting article on the Mumbai massacre fallout, and I remember what Hillary had said during the campaign about nuking Iran... and yet, I agree that Hillary will make a great Sec. of State despite that stupid political soundbite.
Obama is putting into practice exactly almost what Lincoln did when he assembled his cabinet at another point in US history when America was on the edge of annihilation (and now we are on that edge with the world), by employing even his big foes during the election.
Were Bush's team now to be spearheading the coming international policy from America, we would be seriously worrying about a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
And as anyone with a half brain knows, there exists no such thing. This article got nearly 600 views Hillary Wake Up!
Oddly, even with what that article elucidates, I believe that with Obama at the helm, Hillary will make a good Sec. of State.
When I watched from my Danish cable feed the local Indian TV stations interview folk on the Mumbai streets, some of them said, "We need to go to war with Pakistan."
That is very scary. Very!
But this event could just as easily become a watershed event, if the right heads get empowered and wise, so that Pakistan and India come closer to work out their differences over that disputed Kashmir region through some transparent and cooperative effort at nipping terrorism in the bud. And that is just for starters... with Obama at the helm.
I cannot thank America enough for having been wise and gutsy enough to have elected Obama. As you'll see, he is a dude not to be messed with. Speak soft (in his case, wise) but carry a big stick
God Bless America and God Bless Barack Obama!
> We could end the 99.9% of the threat of "radical Islam" as manifest
> in terrorism tomorrow, if we would vow to stop meddling in the affairs
> of foreign countries
I think this is absurd. Islam has been radical since its inception, as many
other religions have been when hijacked for poliical purposes. Islam has
not ever reformed and shows now signs of a reformation now ... maybe
some smalls efforts.
Second, 99% of Muslims are not violent, but your numbers are misleading,
because they still allowing themselves to be leveraged to the extent they
can by not challenging radical Islam, by remaining quite, by allowing their
countries to rule religiously and not secularly, in many ways.
I am not saying America's meddling has no bad effects, but we also have
many good effects too. We look at the macro effects like development and
growth, even in our own country and call everything good when we see
money is being made. That is not evil on our part, it is incompetent
pragmatism, and human nature being greedy and lazy. Also, there are
things we that or anyone else do not do well - being winning hearts and
minds. We know that bribing people just leads to ingrates who say what
have you done for me lately when you try to wind down the bribes.
Countries deal with big problems inhumanely for the most part, and the
US is no exception, it is not that we are evil or worse than other countries.
I think your whole POV is based on a need in many Americans to minimize,
dismiss and deny problems by oversimplifying it so that it is something that
we are doing wrong - so it would be easy to fix by just stopping whatever
we are doing. This mental contruct is rampant in the US and we hear
this kind of argument all over.
It leads to the worldview that the world would be the garden of Eden if
just the US were not here to interfere, patent BS if you ask me.
Micky, you are anti-Obama for so long, anything you say is impeached because you can never resist making absurd statements to dig at Obama. Try keeping an open mind and just watching.
As far as Obama and Lincoln, this could be a PR stunt for marketing. Adding to the Obama mystique and building his image. Not that emulating Lincoln is bad, but the reason we think Lincoln's style was good was because it worked - so the proof is in the pudding in this case.
Bent, what does Bush have to do with nuclear war between India and Pakistan? You are like the opposite of Micky, everything Obama does is bad for him, and everything you could think that Bush could do is bad. I am more in sympathy with you, but the anti-Bush fantasies are not useful or productive any longer.
Indians are very sick of Islamic radicalism, and few countries know better than they do. Whole towns and regions have done to war or been slaughtered in these kinds of wars. I don't know of any other place where Hindus are so belligerent, but all over the world we see Muslims unable to get along with anyone, even themselves. We are all human and we all can be good or evil, but there is obviously something pathological going on inside Islam - how long are people going to ignore it because they cannot look past their PC preconceptions - ie. it requires thought? We do agree that Obama is a good sign.
I sometimes wonder if Obama was not picked at a high level just for his image and just for his marketing ability to the world. McCain sure did not put up much of a fight, and Palin was an absurd choice, and things were getting way out of balance ... when "Barack Hussein Obama" pledges or protect and defend the Constitution the world will see that, and is has as much power as tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East.
That his presidency will have diversity, and fairness.
That would be Bush and Cheney.
Yes, we supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the
USSR, but as bin Laden is not part of Saudi Arabia, he is also
not part of the Mujahadeen, and his presence while appreciated
in the fight against the USSR did not really buy him much. There
is nothing I have ever read that indicated that the US ever
supported bin Laden personally or Al-Qaida.
I guess this all could be covert or deniable, but then what do we believe?
Do you have a link or book you want to reference Robert?
http://archive.capecodonline.com/special/terror/binladen17b.htm
Contains this: "Thousands of Muslim radicals joined the CIA and mujahedeen, including bin Laden, the wealthy son of a Saudi road builder. Though he didn't actually take up arms, he helped build roads and arms depots, using his own funds and CIA money. We funded him, we and the Saudis," said Glynn Wood, professor of international policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "He was not seen as any kind of threat until Desert Storm."
In the context of what some articles are saying, the US helping Afghanistan
build roads is cause for 911?
The source here is given as Glynn Wood whom I'm assuming does not have
priomary information for that statement. I'd like to know what it is based
on. Still, it does not say that bin Laden was working for the CIA, it implies
that.
My take on the situation is that the Muj, were Islamic freedom fighters opposing the Russian's occupation of Afghanistan. We supported them, basically the story in "Charlie Wilson's War". Also working against the Russians was Bin Laden, who was trying to earn a name for himself in the Islamic fundamentalist world, and to unite radical Muslims towards an Islamic califate, centered in Iraq.
I believe the CIA knew about bin Laden way back, and it was not much later after Afghanistan that he worked against the US in other places. The USS Cole was attacked in Aden, in his birth country of Yemen, an attack which was believed to be done by Al-Qaeda, ie. bin Laden.
There is no information that I know of that ties bin Laden to the CIA, but there is a huge number of conspiracy theorists that would benefit from such a connection, tying 911 to the CIA and so forth, which is why I make the statement challenging it. There is more information tying Saddam Hussein to terrorism than there is bin Laden to the CIA. I am sure he was close to CIA people in the Afghan rebellion, I just think his goals were well known at the time by the CIA.
What are you, incapable of ordinary linear and lateral logic?
The entire Bush policy in his war on terror is what has now led to the proliferation of terror. His policy has only empowered those who seek what they consider righteousness through terror. The entire economic policy from the Bush administration has further undermined the vulnerable regions of the world, so that one child every 5 seconds now dies of hunger, and the UN stated last year that we produced enough food in a world of 6.7 billion to feed 12 billion. Those are the seeds to terrorists agendas. I would appreciate less ad hominen attacks and more direct intelligence in your arguments over disagreements, and perhaps see through the spin-doctor facades of whatever your POVs are derived from. You have shown yourself eminently capable of reasonable intelligence in the past.
Goodness, some of the more intelligent journalists of Europe are in quite agreement with my perspective http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977523473&nav=MyGather Then follow a couple of the links I provide...
But it ought to be blatantly clear for anyone with intelligence...
Do a bit of simple investigative digging about hornets prior to entering a hornet's nest...
I'm way too busy for your nonsense.
Nice opening line.
> The entire Bush policy in his war on terror is what has now
> led to the proliferation of terror.
I figured you would say something like this. It is basically
blame the victim. If you think we have terrorism because of
Bush you are sadly mistaken and employing anything but
logic, lateral, linear or any other brand.
> His policy has only empowered those who seek what they consider
> righteousness through terror.
Another hyperbolic statement. His mistakes have empowered
Obama. While he was making his mistake terrorism seemed to
proliferate, but it can also be perceived as potential terrorists
came out of the woodwork. Part of the "war on terror" has
to be flushing terrorist out to find them and neutralize them,
and to a certain extent that is going to activate more terrorists.
> so that one child every 5 seconds now dies of hunger, and
> the UN stated last year that we produced enough food in
> a world of 6.7 billion to feed 12 billion.
Sooner of later this road of argument always leads to the
children somewhere. This is a sympathy argument to
make it look like you are nice guy who cares about children
and anyone on the other side is an evil child-killer - is
that what you are referring to as linear logic?
I think you have shown yourself reasonable as well, but you
never resist the veering off into hyperbole I feel justified to say
something.
I am anything but a Bush supporter. I will be one of the happiest
Americans next Jan 20th, but the US is not responsible for the
Islamic terrorism that is gripping and expanding in the world, and
it is not responsible for the children dying either.
At any time in the last 60 years the hugely rich and large Muslim
states could have solved this Palestinian problem by taking in
refugees from Palestine, as the US and other countries have
taken in refugees from all over the world, yet they do not make
a move except to furnish the Palestinians with guns and bombs.
Why don't you blabber about how terrible they are just once
or twice Bent, then maybe it would not bother me and seem so
unbalanced when you take the easy pot shots at Bush.
Charlie Wilson's war wasn't a very accurate account. Here's what happened (in case you don't know this): The Afghan government was aligned with the Soviet Union, and they began a program teaching young girls to read. The Afghan religious fundamentalists didn't like that an began protests. Jimmy Carter seized upon this and had the CIA work on it. Contrary to popular idea on this, and, I believe, contrary to the Charlie Wilson's War notion, we began funding the anti-Soviet movement well before the Russian invasion in order to provoke that invasion and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union (this being one of the prime factors). Here's a little piece of what Zbigniew Brzezinski said in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur: "Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention." This version of events was also corroborated by CIA head Robert Gates in his memoir.
Guess what??? These are tired, fed-up New Yorkers - some of them are not "peaceful, happy, people" One or more of them resents having his foot stepped on so carelessly and smacks you "upside the head."
Basically that's what were talking about here. If you don't step on peoples toes, you don't buy yourself trouble. When was the last time you heard about radical Islam carrying out a vendetta against Switzerland?
I know what you think you're trying to say, I'm just saying, no,
not with radical Islam. Switzerland will be on the front lines of
this war soon enough, and when it is I'm sure we can look forward
to you blaming them in some way until they no longer exist.
Why doesn't the world ever see Muslims criticising and demanding change from other Muslims, especially the radical ones?
I just wanted to say I am finally going through what is now under 7,400 pieces of gather new mail that is in my inbox on here. So with that in mind I have finally come to a piece of mail that was addressed to me in regards this article submission you have created to share with the gather community. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your piece with us here at gather. :o)
And as well Merry Christmas... and Happy Holidays... :o)
Gates oversaw the policy that is giving him the breathing space on Iraq. The same policy he said was a failure and resulting in us "losing" there. So Obama continues him because now he realizes he was wrong there or that he had no Dem 'talent' up to the task?
Nice to see your hopefulness shining here. Start looking at what you wrote and think it through however.