Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’
September 1st, 2010 by Nathan Curby
The United States on Wednesday marked the transition to a new stage in the Iraq war, when U.S. troops will be on an “advise and assist” mission called Operation New Dawn. Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Robert Gates presided over a ceremony in Baghdad to mark the change of command as Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin formally replaced General Raymond Odierno.
Nearly 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces. The Obama administration says all U.S. troops will be removed from the country by the end of 2011.
In a speech Tuesday night, President Barack Obama heralded the transition, saying, “The American combat mission in Iraq has ended.” Obama pointed out his opposition to the war from its beginning in 2003, when former President George W. Bush announced Operation Iraqi Freedom, and said that he is fulfilling his campaign promise to end U.S. involvement in Iraq. WORLD Magazine points out that the timeframe for withdrawal was actually launched by then-President Bush, who negotiated an agreement with the Iraqi government to have all U.S. troops out of the nation by the end of 2011. Obama later added the August 31, 2010 deadline for ending “combat operations” in Iraq.
An Associated Press fact check of Obama’s speech notes that American forces are still almost certain to face combat in the country, even though that is no longer their official mission.
Tags: Barack Obama, Iraq, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, Middle East, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, Raymond Odierno, Robert Gates, terrorism, war
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Military & Veterans, Obama & Biden, Terrorism & Persecution | No Comments »
August 30th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
Secretary Clinton briefs reporters on the Middle East Peace Process. She is joined by Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Talks Senator George Mitchell. (Photo: State Department/Michael Gross)
President Barack Obama will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House Wednesday night for individual talks and a joint dinner before the start of direct talks between the two leaders on Thursday. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host the negotiations, which she says the U.S. believes can lead to a peace agreement within a year.
The talks rest on a shaky basis. Israel’s partial settlement freeze in the West Bank is set to expire on September 26, and Abbas insists that he will abandon the negotiations if the freeze is not extended. Netanyahu, meanwhile, will not make any commitment to extending the freeze.
Abbas faces intense political pressure not to make concessions to Israel, and he is in a vulnerable position. His term as president is expired, and any agreements he makes will not be binding on Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas.
Hamas is reported to be planning “large-scale terrorist attacks” to disrupt the peace talks, according to Israeli and Palestinian Authority intelligence sources cited by DEBKAfile. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal delivered a harsh speech last week condemning the talks and threatening not only Israel, but also Abbas, as well as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah if they refused to boycott the negotiations.
Everyone involved, except for the Obama administration, has very low expectations for the talks, writes Shmuel Rosner in Slate:
The Americans say the time is right. The time may be right for the Obama administration, though it’s not clear why, but it is hardly right for the parties involved. Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, think Iran is a more urgent priority. They believe the Palestinian problem can wait a little longer, and they see no Palestinian leaders they can make deals with. The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, were dragged to these talks kicking and screaming, and they don’t seem to intend to give an inch. They think Netanyahu doesn’t really mean business, and they have a hard time dealing with criticism from Hamas, Syria, and other regional belligerents. “There’s clearly a trust deficit that we’re going to have to find a way to overcome,” presidential adviser and longtime special envoy Dennis Ross explained. The two leaders mistrust each other, but they also find it difficult to trust the American mediator, and the proposed pathway to peace, and the timing, and the achievability of the goals. They are the true masters of low expectations.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration remains hopeful for the outcome of the talks. The U.S. will present an outline at the talks aiming at an agreement within a year and implementation within ten years.
Tags: Barack Obama, Benyamin Netanyahu, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Hillary Clinton, Hosni Mubarak, Israel, Jordan, Khaled Meshaal, King Abdullah, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, West Bank
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Obama & Biden, Terrorism & Persecution, United Nations | 1 Comment »
August 27th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
A Mexican drug cartel is believed to be responsible for the massacre of 72 migrants heading to the U.S. border, a tragic escalation of violence in the Mexican drug wars. The bodies of the Central and South American migrants were discovered on a ranch just south of the U.S. border in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
Cartels often try to kidnap migrants and either demand money or try to recruit them as foot soldiers. This may be the most violent event of a highly violent year in the drug wars along the border.
The massacre highlights violence along the border as illegal immigration becomes an increasingly divisive issue in the U.S. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is fighting back against the Obama administration’s lawsuit over Arizona’s strict immigration enforcement law, immigration reform has become a major issue for national election campaigns, and internal divisions have arisen in federal law enforcement agencies over how to implement current law.
Tags: Barack Obama, drug cartel, drug wars, illegal immigration, immigration, Jan Brewer, Mexico
Posted in Government & Law, Obama & Biden, Terrorism & Persecution | No Comments »
August 24th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted Obama administration regulations designed to expand research on stem cells harvested from human embryos. The judge issued a preliminary injunction in a case brought by scientist studying adult stem cells.
In March 2009, President Obama released new regulations to ease restrictions placed by the Bush administration on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The new regulations allow funding to be used for research conducted from donated embryos with the donor’s permission. The administration attempted to sidestep legislative restrictions by only allowing funding to be used for the research after the embryos had been destroyed, and not for the actual destruction of the embryos. But Royce C. Lamberth, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled that the distinction violates the law.
From the Boston Globe:
“Had Congress intended to limit the Dickey-Wicker to only those discrete acts that result in the destruction of an embryo, like the derivation of [embryonic stem cells], or to research on the embryo itself, Congress would have written the statute that way,’’ the judge concluded. “Congress, however, has not written the statute that way, and this court is bound to apply the law as it is written.’’
Tags: adult stem cells, Barack Obama, bioethics, embryonic stem cells, pro-life, Royce Lamberth, science, stem cell research
Posted in Obama & Biden, Sanctity of Life, Science & Bioethics | No Comments »
August 19th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
The last combat brigade of American troops rolled out of Iraq into Kuwait early Thursday morning, a major step in President Obama’s plan to end combat operations in Iraq by the end of the month. Even though the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was the last combat brigade to leave, 6,000 scattered combat troops remain until the end of the month, and another 50,000 troops will stay in Iraq to train Iraqi forces until the end of next year.
At the same time, the U.S. will more than double the number of private security contractors in Iraq to about 7,000. With military forces withdrawing, the contractors will defend American compounds against attacks, operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress, the New York Times reports.
The troops are leaving behind an increasingly volatile situation, as the country still has no stable government in the wake of its March elections, and violence appears to be on the rise. Five Iraqi government employees were killed in roadside bombings and other attacks Wednesday. One day earlier, a suicide bomber had killed 61 army recruits in central Baghdad.
Tags: Barack Obama, Iraq, Kuwait, military, military withdrawal, security contractors, terrorism
Posted in Israel & Middle East, Military & Veterans, Obama & Biden, Terrorism & Persecution | No Comments »
August 16th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. (Photo:DoD/Cherie Cullen)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to retire next year, saying he wants to see through the current push in Afghanistan.
In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine published Monday, Gates said he wants to retire before the 2012 presidential election season gets underway. Gates has led the Pentagon through a major shift in overall strategy beginning near the end of the Bush administration and continuing when he agreed to stay on as the defense secretary under President Obama.
Gates says his strategy in Afghanistan was based on watching the Soviet Union fall apart fighting in Afghanistan. “Once the Afghans come to see you as an occupier, you’re toast,” Gates said. But he came to believe that the Soviets failed because they had killed 1 million Afghans and displaced 5 million more, turning the whole country against them. “Clearly,” Gates told FP, “none of that is what we were about in Afghanistan.”
Gates’s new strategy for Afghanistan, championed by former Afghan war commander Stanley McChrystal, is based on the idea of avoiding that fate. McChrystal wanted to add 40,00 troops, but use them as part of a strategy that emphasized building relationships with the locals and giving them control of the situation. That strategy is being carried on by Gen. David Petraeus, McChrystal’s successor.
The FP article continues:
In the end, Obama decided to send 30,000 extra troops (McChrystal had recommended 40,000) and adopt a somewhat scaled-down version of a counterinsurgency strategy, while also beginning to withdraw some of those troops by July 2011. What-if games are dubious enterprises, but it’s not unreasonable to infer that, had Gates come into those meetings as skeptical as he’d been before his summertime conversion, the emerging consensus — and Obama’s decision — might have tilted toward a smaller deployment and a less ambitious strategy.
Today, as the last 10,000 of the “surge” troops arrive in Afghanistan amid growing doubts in Washington and elsewhere about the war, Gates is optimistic that the strategy for Afghanistan will work. McChrystal’s firing did little to change the overall approach because Obama replaced him with Petraeus, who knew the plan and terrain well. “I see the process of transition in Afghanistan being similar to Iraq,” Gates said in our interview, “in which we’re in the lead, then we’re partners [with Afghan security forces], then they’re in the lead, then we’re in tactical overwatch, and then strategic overwatch. And that will take some time.”
Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, David Petraeus, Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal
Posted in Government & Law, Israel & Middle East, Military & Veterans, Obama & Biden | No Comments »
August 11th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
President Obama signs Elena Kagan's commission in the Oval Office following her confirmation to the Supreme Court, Aug. 6, 2010. (Photo: White House/Pete Souza)
The Senate voted last week to confirm Elena Kagan as the successor to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Kagan was confirmed by a near-party line vote of 63-37 as only 5 Republicans and all but one Democrat voted to approve her appointment.
Kagan’s appointment for the first time puts three women on the court at the same time. She joins Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Obama’s first appointment to the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan’s rise to the court also marks probably the first time in American history that the Supreme Court does not have a single Protestant member. Kagan is the third Jewish member, joining the court’s six Catholic members.
Tags: Barack Obama, Catholicism, Elena Kagan, John Paul Stevens, Judaism, Protestantism, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Posted in Church & Religion, Government & Law, Obama & Biden | No Comments »
August 4th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
(Image: Wikimedia Commons/Ghanson)
For years, the pro-life movement has been accused of being against science for its opposition to embryonic stem cell research that supporters say could save lives. But supporters of embryonic stem cell research have largely ignored a more proven solution that does not require destroying embryos: adult stem cells.
Now, advances in medical care using adult stem cells are getting more attention. The Associated Press reports:
For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it’s adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.
Adult stem cells are being studied in people who suffer frommultiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes. Some early results suggest stem cells can help some patients avoid leg amputation. Recently, researchers reported that they restored vision to patients whose eyes were damaged by chemicals.
Apart from these efforts, transplants of adult stem cells have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases.
“That’s really one of the great success stories of stem cell biology that gives us all hope,” says Dr. David Scadden of Harvard, who notes stem cells are also used to grow skin grafts.
In 2001, former President George W. Bush restricted federal funds from being used for embryonic stem cell research. Shortly after coming into office, President Obama lifted those restrictions. But adult stem cells have potential that embryonic stem cells do not, such as the ability to stimulate tissue repair, or to suppress the immune system.
Tags: adult stem cells, Barack Obama, embryonic stem cells, George W. Bush, medicine, pro-life, science, stem cell research
Posted in Government & Law, Obama & Biden, Sanctity of Life, Science & Bioethics | No Comments »
July 28th, 2010 by Nathan Curby
Pray for Jordan and other nations to earnestly seek peace with Israel. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu with Jordan’s King Abdullah Tuesday in Amman. (Photo: GPO/Haaretz)
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday, ending more than a year of near-silence between the two countries, Haaretz reports. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly urged Abdullah to agree to the meeting in order to smooth over tensions between the nations.
Abdullah is skeptical about Netanyahu’s commitment to peace, but Netanyahu believes Abdullah is more convinced following their meeting. Netanyahu sees Jordan as the key to convincing the Palestinian Authority to enter direct talks with Israel. Netnayahu told Abdullah he is willing to “go far” to reach agreement with the Palestinians on core issues, provided that security arrangements are suitable.
Tags: Barack Obama, Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel, Jordan, King Abdullah, Middle East, Palestinian Authority
Posted in Israel & Middle East | No Comments »
