Our Changing Globe

Posts Tagged ‘Bush’

As we now all know or should do by now, President Obama is an Afro-American, the son of a Muslim father and a one-time resident of Indochina which is predominantly Muslim.

The upside to this of course is that it makes it much more difficult for the Islamic world to typecast him as a son of the “Great Satan” especially because his middle name is Hussein.

Rightly or wrongly however, President Barack Obama is getting a lot of praise heaped on him right now by much of the Muslim world because he chose the Saudi-owned Arabic TV news channel Al-Arabiya on which to make his first formal television interview.

So what’s wrong with that?

Well when you give interviews to foreigners that are basically hostile to your country it’s probably not a great idea to firstly criticize your own country and secondly praise the one that despises you, but that is what Obama basically did.

He said,

“All too often the United States starts by dictating and in the past on some of these issues we didn’t always know all the factors that were involved. So let’s listen. Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace”.

The U.S. was previously dictatorial and the Saudi king had been courageous.

Obama went on to say,

“But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task. So what we want to do is to listen, set aside some of the preconceptions that have existed and have built up over the last several years. And I think if we do that, then there’s a possibility at least of achieving some breakthroughs. But I think that what you’ll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I’m speaking to them, as well”.

So even though America did the following praiseworthy things Obama gave the impression to haters of the U.S. that America had only been bad!

” American saved Kuwait.
” Spoke out against Russia on behalf of the Chechens.
” Tried to save the Somalis.
” Bombed, Christian European Serbia to save the Kosovan and Bosnian Muslims.
” Helped the Afghans fight the Soviets.
” Is still fighting the Taliban.
” Overthrew Saddam Hussein and is still fighting in Iraq.
” Invested billions fighting disease in Africa much of which is Muslim.
” Aided tsunami victims.

And the list goes on and on and Bush can list many things to his credit.

” The U.S. was not hit by terrorists for seven years.
” Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation was stopped.
” Libya gave up its nuclear program.
” Syria mostly left Lebanon.
” Al Qaeda’s leadership is scattered and less effective.

Throughout the almost two years of political campaigning it was tacitly understood that mentioning Obama’s ancestry and middle name were off-limits.

Obama however does not feel himself limited by this tacit understanding,

“Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries. The largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I’ve come to understand is that regardless of your faith, and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers, that regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

The bottom line is that Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush all tried hard to promote peace in the Middle East but amongst the major obstacles to peace are religious intolerance, illiberality, violent aggression and complicity in the promotion of terror by Syria, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The above mentioned countries know only too well the role that they’ve played for their own political reasons and Obama knows it too but he has already set out to placate them with the downside being that he will mostly likely make a bad situation far worse.

Read the rest of this entry »

Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian Plans

During the Presidential campaign neither Obama nor his spokespeople gave much information about his intended plans for the middle east.

Now however with only eight weeks to go before Obama is sworn into office it is possible to get more than an inkling of what those plans might be in spite of the fact that he and his minions are still tight lipped.

We can gain a fairly good idea of his plans and intentions by looking at the people that are now likely to be chosen to both give advice and to carry it out.

At the time of writing it appears likely that retired general James Jones will be named national security adviser and it is known that Obama and Snowcroft (who served as national security adviser in the administrations of Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush) have spoken on at least two occasions since the elections.

Snowcroft and the man that succeeded him as national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski recently penned an op-ed piece for the Washington Post which might perhaps give valuable insight into the “Obama Plan For the Middle East”.

In spite of the fact that since being elected that Obama has not stressed the Israel- Palestinian conflict as one of his top priorities the two former NSA chiefs have already called upon Obama to lend “priority attention” to the ‘peace’ process.

Their plan centers on four principles which are:

1) An Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, with slight alterations that would be mutually agreed upon.

2) Compensation for Palestinian refugees in lieu of exercising the right of return to pre-1948 Israel.

3) Jerusalem as a “real home” to two capitals.

4) A demilitarized Palestinian state.

Since it is a given that Israel will have legitimate concerns if it is asked to hand over territory to a Palestinian government that is clearly incapable of combating terrorism, the two former national security advisers have recommended the stationing of an international force, which could be NATO whose remit would be to protect Israel and to train Palestinian forces. Scowcroft and Brzezinski also believe it is highly important for Obama to publicly declare his support for these principles before the Israeli elections which are scheduled for February in order to provide Israeli voters with the opportunity to register their views.

Last June in a speech to the ‘American Israel Public Affairs Committee’ Obama pledged to immediately act towards achieving an Israeli-Arab peace if elected and he stressed a number of points that would safeguard Israel’s security:

1) An American commitment to military aid to the tune of $30 billion over the next decade;

2) A “contiguous and cohesive” Palestinian state;

3) Defensible, secure, and recognized borders and the preservation of Israel’s “Jewish identity”;

4) And Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel although he later somewhat altered his stance on this.

He has since called on Israel to ease the day-to-day lives of the Palestinians, to allow for greater freedom of movement in the territories and to halt settlement construction.

It might also be of interest to note that although Obama opposed Hamas’s participation in the Palestinian elections in 2006 he has not revealed his position on the group’s participation in future elections.

Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian Plans

Read the rest of this entry »