~~ Ronald Reagan ~~
Friday, January 23, 2009
Obama’s First Three Days and Counting
So far the newly anointed President has:
- Talked to Palestinian Abbas first of all foreign leaders
President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”.
In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement.
The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office.
- Requested the Israelis open their border with Gaza
Financial Times reported: President Barack Obama urged Israel on Thursday to open its borders with Gaza.
The plea came in a speech that signalled the new US administration’s shift from Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. In a high-profile address on his second day in office, just hours after he signed an executive order to close the centre at Guantánamo Bay, Mr Obama proclaimed that the US would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of this month’s Gaza war.
“As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.”
- Removed the ban on embryonic stem cell research and instituted Federal funding.
US regulators have cleared the way for the world’s first study on human embryonic stem cell therapy.
The US Food and Drug Administration have been considering the 21,000 page application for months.
The decision by the FDA to give the go-ahead comes at a symbolic moment, just days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
- Ordered the Guantanamo closure
- Renounced harsh methods of interrogation
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S. treatment of terror suspects Thursday, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, shut down secret overseas CIA prisons, review military war crimes trials and ban the harshest interrogation methods.
With his action, Obama started changing how the United States prosecutes and questions al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters who pose a threat to Americans — and overhauling America’s image abroad, battered by accusations of the use of torture and the indefinite detention of suspects at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba.
- Ordered Federal funding for abortions overseas
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama is set Friday to overturn a ban on funding family planning organizations which carry out or facilitate abortions overseas, a senior White House official said.
Asked if the president was to sign an order overturning the ban, an administration official said it was “likely today” (Friday).
The so-called “global gag rule” cuts off US funding to overseas family planning clinics which provide any abortion services whatsoever, from the operation itself to counselling, referrals or post-abortion services.
First introduced by Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1984, it has been repeatedly repealed by Democratic administrations and then reintroduced by the Republicans.
Obama’s move would overturn the orders of president George W. Bush, who when he came into office in 2000 immediately once again froze funds to many family planning groups working overseas
- Begun to piss of the Chinese at exactly the wrong moment
BEIJING (AFP) — China denied Friday that it was manipulating its currency, reacting to a statement by US President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary-designate Timothy Geithner.
“The Chinese government has never used so-called currency manipulation to gain benefits in its international trade,” the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement faxed to AFP late Friday.
“Directing unsubstantiated criticism at China on the exchange rate issue will only help US protectionism and will not help towards a real solution to the issue,” said the statement.
The statement from the commerce ministry was in response to a request from AFP for a reaction to statements made by Geithner released Thursday.
“President Obama—backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists—believes that China is manipulating its currency,” Geithner wrote to members of the Senate finance committee in written answers.
In its response, the Chinese commerce ministry promised to maintain a basically stable currency.
“Even though the global crisis caused by the US subprime crisis has brought serious challenges to the development of China’s economy and China’s foreign trade, we nevertheless have emphasised many times that China will maintain the basic stability of the exchange rate,” it said.
“We will not rely on depreciation to support exports.”
It added that “in a situation where the impact of the global financial crisis continues to spread, all nations should strengthen cooperation and coordination and face the challenges together”.
- Ordered the withdrawal from Iraq in 16 months.
WASHINGTON, Jan 21, (Agencies): President Barack Obama was to meet top military brass on Wednesday in a bid to follow through on his key campaign pledge to order US troops home from Iraq within 16 months, aides said. In his first full day in office, Obama will meet Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and the top US commander in southwest Asia, General David Petraeus. “The President is going to get an update about what is going on in Iraq,” said his spokesman Robert Gibbs. “He will ask for planning to redeploy combat troops within 16 months.”
Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, says he wants to redeploy thousands of combat troops from the country to Afghanistan, where conditions have deteriorated and which he says is the prime front against al-Qaeda. While pushing his plan for a withdrawal within 16 months, Obama has said he will listen to his generals to get up-to-date information on conditions on the ground before making final orders. Last week, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the US military nevertheless would be ready to present the new president with a full range of options, and the risks associated with each. “We want to be prepared to show the incoming president a variety of options, 16-month drawdown being one of those options,” he said.
The Iraqis have a different view as reported by Aswat al-Iraq
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Legal expert Tareq Harb on Wednesday said that new U.S. President Barack Obama can not withdraw his troops from Iraq before one year from notifying the Iraqi side, noting that he can withdraw the forces only if the Iraqi government agrees.
Commenting on Obama’s speech upon taking office, Harb said “the president vowed to withdraw troops from Iraq but he did not mention the articles of the agreement in this respect.”
“The agreement stipulates the withdrawal of troops in one year after notifying the Iraqi side,” he said, noting that the agreement does not allow the withdrawal before this period unless the Iraqi government agrees.
New U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the United States will leave Iraq to Iraqis.
In a speech upon taking office, Obama echoed key promises from his historic election campaign by saying: “we will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people.”
Just a couple of questions for the masses.
Do you want terrorists housed in you backyard?
When adult and skin stem cell therapy is proving more viable than embryonic stem cells, do you really want the federal government in the business of killing babies for research?
Are you a terrorist-loving anti-Semite who believes Israel should capitulate to those who want to destroy them?
Do you trust Obama on military matters, how ‘bout those sour grapes retired generals, or should we listen to the Iraqis and the boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan? Me, I don’t trust Obama at all, let alone on military matters, and I believe that if he can weaken America in the War on Terror, he will do whatever he can to do just that.
And let us not forget one of the main reasons we do not want to see the release of Gitmo detainees:
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.
The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.
His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.
“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.”
The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications.
Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one. Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.
“The lesson here is, whoever receives former Guantánamo detainees needs to keep a close eye on them,” the American official said.
RELATED:
The lapdog liberals that support Obama are cheering the immediate return to the law enforcement model of counter-terrorism, somehow able to view that as a victory, even though that flawed model led us to void in the Manhattan skyline, a smoking crater in Shanksville, and a gaping wound in the hide of the Pentagon.
[...]Our new President prefers to think that subpoenas are more effective, despite the fact every American President who has avoided conflict with modern terrorists—Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton—has only served to encourage its growth. Only our most recent President sought to put terrorists and terrorist states on the defensive through military means, and as a result, we did not see another successful terror attack in the final seven years of his Presidency. Say what you will about his his domestic programs, his expansion of government, his expansive view of executive authority, and the loss—God forbid—of popularity among the world’s lesser nations.
He keep [kept] us safe.
Barack Obama, less than a week into the first executive leadership role of his entire life, dispensed with all that has succeeded these past seven years without review.
“We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.”
Barack Obama
On US troops in Afghanistan
August 14, 2007
[...]Bombs away...
President Barack Obama air-raided two villages and killed innocent civilians today.
Posted by 
