Monthly Archives: April 2011

Arab democracy movements change Obama’s foreign policy

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President Obama’s reshuffle this week of his top foreign and military staff has been greeted positively by observers and by politicians in both parties.

Slate Magazine’s foreign policy commentator Fred Kaplan:

Under the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine a shrewder set of moves, both politically and substantively.

The moves by Obama were prompted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ desire to retire. He will now be succeeded by current CIA Director Leon Panetta, who will be replaced by General David Petraeus, commander of the troops in Afghanistan. Petraeus, in turn, is succeeded by General John Allen, who was his closest man in Iraq. The United States will have a new ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, a former ambassador to Iraq and one of the U.S. diplomacy’s leading Arab specialists. Hillary Clinton was exempted from the staff changes. She will remain as Secretary of State.

The comments also point to the need to stick to the experienced names in view of everything going on in the world, not least the three wars that America is presently waging in the Middle East.

Obama’s foreign policy — the Obama’s doctrine – is given a hard look in an article in the latest issue of The New Yorker by the magazine’s Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza, who describes how the democracy movement in the Arab world has changed Obama’s foreign policy.

In the traditional battle between realists and idealists in the country’s diplomatic service will now term “the Consequentialist” to describe Obama’s foreign policy. In the article, the president’s policy towards Libya is described by an adviser as “leading from behind,” and follows a new definition of American leadership in a world, where America’s relative power is declining while China is on the rise.

Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength, writes Lizza and ends with a quotation from one of Obama’s advisors:

“It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world, but it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”

A sad debate with serious racial understones

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As I guessed yesterday, the publication of President Obama’s birth certificate did not put an end to the silly debate about where President Obama was born. But I have serious doubts myself as to whether to continue writing about this, for America, sad story. It should really now once and for all be ignored. America, as Obama said yesterday, has more important issues to deal with, although at a fund raiser in New York last night, he was able to joke about the whole thing.

However, the debate has serious racial undertones that are important to pay attention to, as CBS’s Bob Schieffer did last night, talking about “an ugly strain of racism.” And law professor Sherrilyn Ifill writes that it is not about Obama’s birth, it’s about his race, and many black leaders, before Obama, have had to prove their “legitimacy” and allegiance to America.

Would Obama be subjected to these humiliating questions from Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and the string of “birthers” if he were not black, if his father were not an African from Kenya? I think not.

Under the heading “As American as Mitt Romney and Donald Trump,” John Nichols on his blog in “The Nation” points to this when he writes that other leading presidential candidates, such as Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, as well as many former American presidents, such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, had one or both parents who were foreign born.

We can also compare how Obama is treated to his opponent in 2008, John McCain, who was born on a U.S. military base in Panama. Is that U.S. territory? Is that the United States? In any case, it did not lead to “birther” movement. Why not?

In her article on “The Nation‘s” website, Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Perry writes under the headline, “For Birthers, Obama’s Not Black Enough,” that this is more than racism, it has to do with being black in America, ancestors of slaves without really knowing who you are and where you come from. As witnessed by Michelle Obama. But that’s not the case with Barack Obama. His father was Kenyan and his mother came from Kansas, he knows exactly who he is and from where he comes.

This is crazy…and sad

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This is crazy…and sad.

This morning the White House published President Obama’s birth certificate in order to once and for all try to put a stop to the outrageous “birther movement” who stubbornly continues to argue that Obama was not born in the United States and so not eligible to be president.

On the White House website Obama’s birth certificate can be seen, both the short and the long version, and both of which state that Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961 and that his mother’s name was Stanley Ann Durham and his father’s was Barack Hussein Obama.

The long version of the birth certificate has not been previously released as the State Hawaii does not allow this. But an exception has now been made after a special request from the president.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer:

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting.

And Pfeiffer adds:

The President’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.

Well, that remains to be seen, but it’s, unfortunately, unlikely. The president’s opponents, particularly the Tea Party movement but also possible Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann, are with the help of Fox News continuing to sow doubt about where Obama was born. In the latest Gallup survey, while 56 percent of the respondents say that Obama was born in the United States, 24 percent believe he was born in another country and 20 percent are not sure.

Yes, yes is crazy but it’s also sad, as Steve Benen writes on his Washington Monthly blog today following the White House action:

It was a reminder that our political discourse is deeply stupid. It was also a reminder that media outlets that already know the “birther” conspiracy theory is baseless continue to treat this garbage as a legitimate area of inquiry.

“Private Manning’s Humiliation”

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When several hundred of the nation’s leading legal academics protest against how the imprisoned soldier Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked secret documents to WikiLeaks, is treated in prison, such a protest cannot be ignored.

With law professors such as Bruce Ackerman at Yale and Yochai Benkler of Harvard in the lead, over 250 scholars around the United States protested. Their petition is published in the latest issue of New York Review of Books under the headline “Private Manning’s Humiliation”.

His reported treatment is contrary to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the petitioners call for the Obama administration to put Manning on trial to determine his guilt, but, until then, treat him in prison in accordance with the Constitution.

The signatories also call on President Obama directly, as a moral leader and former law professor, to address the issue and demand from the Pentagon to publicly document the reasons for the extraordinary actions against Manning, and to immediately end those extraordinary actions “that cannot withstand the light of day.”

We’ll see if they get a response. They should, but it is not certain.

“The Death of Roe v. Wade”

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Slate’s excellent legal writer Dahlia Lithwick’s article “The Death of Roe v. Wade” is both interesting and frightening.

The famous and, for many, infamous Supreme Court decision from 1973 approving the right to abortion has long been an integral part of the American debate. It is praised and criticized and continues to play a leading role in every election campaign: “pro-choice” vs. “pro-life.”

Lithwick’s take is that Roe v. Wade is, in fact, already dead. It is no longer, in reality, the law of the land, even though no one, neither supporters nor opponents, say so out loud. She points to the many hundreds of new laws and regulations in the States all of which restrict abortion rights. Most of them are illegal, but the abortion opponents ignore this and continue to chip away at Roe v. Wade.

However, to pick a legal fight with all these new laws and measures is risky, according to abortion supporters, for what happens if this legal battle ends up in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Court’s conservative majority could overturn Roe v. Wade? Is that risk worth taking?

Obama’s approval down – still beats weak republican field

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Next year’s election is still far away, but it does not look very good right now for President Obama, according to the Washington Post /ABC poll today. Half of people in the poll disapprove of how Obama handles his job as president, while 47 percent – down from January by seven per cent – approve.

Respondents are particularly unhappy with Obama’s economic policies, with 57 percent disapproving of the way he has dealt with the economy — the highest negative figure since Obama became president.

On the other hand, it does not look very good either for the seven potential Republican presidential candidates. Only 43 percent of Republican supporters in the survey are satisfied with the party’s candidates. In the last election, two thirds were satisfied.

Today, all seven are defeated in separate races against Obama in the poll. Mitt Romney does best, but still loses by 45 percent to Obama’s 49. Sarah Palin does worst, with 38 percent to Obama’s 55th

The weak support for the seven – Romney, Palin, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich – among the party’s supporters illustrates the fact this is a weak field, with several unfamiliar faces for the broader electorate; Tea Party favorite Michelle Bachmann as too extreme; Trump, the real estate tycoon, who see sees this as a good opportunity for some PR, as a bad joke. And no one knows what Palin is planning.

So, only Romney and maybe Mike Huckabee remain, although Huckabee, who now earns big money on Fox News, has not yet decided if he will run.

The economy continues to be the biggest stumbling block for Obama even though the unemployment figures today must be encouraging for the White House. In all 34 states, unemployment fell in March compared with February and increased in only seven states. Compared with a year ago, unemployment fell in 44 of 50 states. With each new sign of lower unemployment and a stronger economy, the chances of the seven to defeat Obama decrease. A weak field becomes even weaker.

How fast we forget…

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It’s really astounding how fast we forget.

Remember the housing crisis and remember how Standard & Poor’s and the other credit agencies assured everyone that the mortgage securities were solid investments, first rate, A-investments.

We believed them then, and it seems we are ready to do so now. For how else can one explain what happened yesterday when a bit of panic hit the markets after Standard & Poor’s issued a “negative outlook” on the United States if the U.S. cannot get control over its 14.3 trillion dollar debt. It was the first time that S&P gave the U.S. a negative outlook?

James Fallows, on his blog in the Atlantic, rightly points to this out, citing a report that Texas university professor James K. Galbraith burst out laughing on hearing the announcement from S&P.

“This is remarkable! It certainly will confirm the suspicions of those who have questioned S&P’s competence after its performance on the mortgage debacle,” said Galbraith, according to Dave Lindorff’s blog “This Can’t Be Happening.”

How could this non-story dominate the markets today, asked Fallows. S&P knows nothing that all of us don’t know and Galbraith is correct in saying that the U.S. government is not going to default on dollar-based bonds. It can’t.

And Dave Lindorff writes, that “Either S&P has been pressured by powerful Republicans and/or Wall Street Bankers to issue this warning, in order to add to national hysteria about the national debt and win more drastic cuts in social programs, or S&P is simply blowing it again.”

The other two ratings agencies, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings, have not followed suit. Maybe they remember the housing crisis?

Redford’s film on the Lincoln murder fails to convince

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Today, on the 146th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Robert Redford’s new film “The Conspirator” about the trial of the widow, Mary Surratt, and the others conspiring to kill Lincoln, opened here in Washington.

Mary Surratt, convincingly played by Robin Wright, was sentenced to death by a military tribunal for having participated in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, and she was hanged as the first woman in U.S. history. But was she guilty?

The film provides no clear answer to that, but it sows doubts after a politically-driven military tribunal with obvious parallels to today’s America and the upcoming military trials of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo. The main issue in the film thus becomes: how does the rule of law function in time of war? Poor, is the film’s response to the year 1865, and the implied answer to what is happening today, after Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the film is strangely silent on the four-year long Civil War and its causes. Not a word about slavery. So in some strange way, the North and those who fought for the Union, become the culprits, while the South and the conspirators against Lincoln are the martyrs, fighting and dying for a cause.

The film and its story are never convincing to me. It never grabs hold of me and shakes me. It is somehow unemotional where there should have been so much emotion and drama. With the exception of Robin Wright, the other roles are fairly uninteresting, James McAvoy as a defense lawyer, Kevin Kline as the Secretary of War, and Tom Wilkinson as a powerful attorney.

No, “The Conspirator” was unfortunately not a great movie experience.

Tough negotiations wait after Obama’s superb speech

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I thought President Obama’s budget speech yesterday was superb, one of his best speeches in my opinion, and judging from the comments throughout yesterday and in today’s papers it was exactly the kind of speech his supporters had been wishing for but, maybe, not really believing that they would hear.

The speech was not only most eloquent but also most convincing. The President put down his markers about not only where he stood in the budget debate but, more importantly, how he saw America and what it should stand for, the good society — helping and protecting the elderly, the sick, the poor, and that we all share in this responsibility. For the wealthy, that would mean higher taxes.

“At last,” writes E.J Dionne in today’s Washington Post, “after months of mixed signals about what he was willing to fight for, Obama finally laid out his purposes and his principles.”

Obama’s vision of government and society is what we call “liberalism”, wrote Steve Benen on Washington Monthly’s website yesterday, and continued:

“The ‘sellout’ of the left this wasn’t. What we saw today was an unapologetic defense of a progressive vision of government, cased in terms that were equal parts moral and pragmatic. America doesn’t hear it often enough, and Obama delivered it with passion and conviction today.”

Paul Krugman, the influential economist and New York Times columnist, who has recently been very critical of the president, was pleased. It was much better than what I expected, I can live with this, he wrote on his blog. And New Yorker’s political commentator, Hendrik Hertzberg, wrote that when Obama was finished, the Republican alternative was a “smoking ruin” … “Even Paul Krugman was satisfied. Me too,” he concluded

The Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, who had recently launched his, and soon to be, the Republican proposal, sat in the audience and seemed almost shocked afterwards, judging by his reaction:

“It was no budget proposal, it was a political speech,” he said, reflecting his party’s total opposition to Obama’s speech.

Tough negotiations now wait. Their outcome is impossible to predict, although both sides talk about the seriousness of the economic situation and their desire to make a deal. The New Yorker’s John Cassidy wrote a while back that meaningful reform can be achieved in America only at the “moment of genuine danger.”

Are we there today? Maybe. Time will tell.

 

 

 

“One of the worst causes for which to fight…”

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History often seems closer in America than in Europe, and today, on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, it certainly feels so.

Media is full of historical reflections; Ken Burns’ excellent TV series about the war has been replayed during the week; famous battles are re-enacted at the old battle fields throughout the South; and this week, Robert Redford’s movie, “The Conspirator,” about the assassination of President Lincoln, is opening.

The American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 was a war with many names, such the War Between the States, the War Against Northern Aggression, the Second American Revolution, the Lost Cause, The War of the Rebellion, the Brothers’ War. But regardless of name, it was a war about slavery, and it was bloody. During the four years of fighting, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox in Virginia, three million soldiers participated in the fighting and 620 000 were killed.

The free black population in the north was only one percent of its total population, but in the end of the war, 180,000 black soldiers fought for the Union – ten percent of all northern forces. Their victory was also the slaves’ victory, and America’s victory in the end, of course, even if the war eventually cost the life of Lincoln and if the blacks in the South had to wait and fight for another 100 years for their real emancipation.

When the northern commander Ulysses S. Grant met his counterpart on for the South, Robert E. Lee, at the surrender at Appomattox, Grant wrote the following memorable words:

“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.”

…. one of the worst causes for which a people had ever fought…