Obama Inagurated..100 Days In office

[EMTL]

Assalamu alaikum,
Many I believe have watched yesterday's historic events. There are lots of lessons for the whole World. The Americans are unique people. I am proud to be a Nigerian... anyway.

[waduz]

Indeed a historic moment. I look at him as the President of the whole world, going by the international accord and regards Obama has. He has already ordered the military tribunal trying detained suspects at the guantamo bay to stop work.

[Lawwali]

:'(

[Lawwali]

YES indeed a historic and more so a patriotic event. Despite abhorence that one may held against American government, tha people are so wonderful. I nearly cried when i watched with disbelief How all differences (Colour, racial,political, etc) were eschewed for the posterity of American Dream. Every body was there; John Mc Cain the defeated Republican candidate, etc. look at how Bush wore a blue tie ( a democratic party colour) and Obama wore a red tie (a republican colour) in a broad show case of unity of American people. The speech by Obama though Indicts bush For prefering safety for Ideals, bush consistently shows it is a matter of individal policy. It is envious.

I hope oneday such spirit of patriotism will come to Nigeria. :-X ??? :o :'(

[Muhsin]

Indeed a historic moment. I look at him as the President of the whole world, going by the international accord and regards Obama has. He has already ordered the military tribunal trying detained suspects at the guantamo bay to stop work.

Thats exactly the belief of many ppl, waduz, including many Americans. And not only Obama has such regard but all the other presidents US had had. I had just been reading Sheldon's The Best Laid Plans (a novel), there he says this on several pages as its (the novel) about US president, White House and the media. I wonder how this is so. But it is. ;)

Concerning the thread, yeah...its a historic moment for blacks, Americans and the world populace in general. And history will never, ever 4get that unprecedented, momentous event and the day.

BUT, as one caller said on BBC World Have Your Say; ppl were just having a meriment feeling that Bush is no more at the WH. We should pray for Obama not be another Bush because US policy in ONE.

[EMTL]

Assalamu alaikum,
Part of Obama's speech...

Standing on the steps of the Capitol, Obama noted that "a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

Though he said he was "mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors," Obama did not dwell on race but spoke of the colorful tapestry of "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth."

Obama also sent an immediate message to the rest of the world, and Muslim nations in particular, after America's ties with some of its top allies were tarnished during the Bush years, especially over the Iraq War.

"America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more," he said.

"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect ... To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."

Obama, one of the nation's youngest chief executives, must now deal with some of the most daunting challenges that any new president has faced in many years. The economy is in crisis; millions of Americans are out of work or fear they will be; many are losing their homes; there are wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a global threat still exists from terrorists; and the nation is deeply worried about its future.

His most important legislative goal is to win congressional passage of a massive economic recovery package that could cost more than $1 trillion when all the bargaining is done.

"The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth," Obama said. "We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise healthcare's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do."

Soon after being sworn in, Obama enjoyed his first presidential lunch hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies at the historic Statuary Hall at the US Capitol. Approximately 200 guests including the new president, vice president, members of their families, the Supreme Court and Cabinet designees, and members of congressional leadership were present. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is suffering from a terminal brain tumor, was taken out of the luncheon on a stretcher. No further news was available as Arab News went to press.

Since 1953, the president and vice president have been guests of honor at a luncheon held by the Unite States Congress immediately following the inaugural ceremony. Other than the State of the Union addresses — and state funerals — it is the only time the president, vice president, and both houses of Congress gather in the same location.

Following the luncheon, the presidential inauguration parade brought the new president from the steps of the Capitol to the White House. Open to the public, the parade is an American tradition honoring the newly sworn in president and vice president, and included a procession of ceremonial military regiments, marching bands and floats.

Moments after Obama took the oath of office, the website for the White House, www.whitehouse.gov, underwent a dramatic metamorphosis, offering a new blog for online readers.

The new website will serve as a place for the most technology-savvy president in US history and his new administration "to connect with the rest of the nation and the world," Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House, said on the site.

Not to be overlooked was the importance of the day's dress. First lady Michelle Obama wore a sparkling yellow-gold sheath dress with matching coat by Cuban-born American designer Isabel Toledo for the inauguration. Her husband wore a red tie and white shirt with his suit, topped with an overcoat adorned with an American flag pin.

[manasmusa]

Salam!

Yeah, a historic moment ever for black populace in U.S. But, wani hanzari ba gudu ba. I watched how president Obama was inagurated and delivered his speech with superflous use of words- and he convinced almost all his audience and how Bush departed(I pray that he would not be another Bush).

Two things worried me about the innagural speech of this Afro-American orature. One is hispsition concerning possession of neuclear weapon in the world- more especially Iran issue and secondly, he talked of how U.S would try to devise other means of generating energy apart from petroleum. I really worried about how this will affect opec countries.

Any way, we will watched how this man who clinched on this hot sit with alot of expectations will run his administration and hope that he will not be like blair of England. I will say more later inshaallah.

[EMTL]

Assalamu alaikum,
Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?
Gwynne Dyer | Arab News
 
You aren't really the US president until you have ordered an airstrike on somebody, so Barack Obama is certainly president now: Two in his first week in office. But now that he has been blooded, can we talk a little about this expanded war he is planning to fight in Afghanistan? Does that sound harsh? Well, so is killing people, and all the more so because Obama must know that these remote-controlled Predator strikes usually kill not just the "bad guy," whoever he is, but also the entire family he has taken shelter with. It also annoys Pakistan, whose territory the United States violated in order to carry out the killings.

It is not a question of whether the intelligence on which the attacks were based was accurate (although sometimes it is not.) The question is: Do these killings actually serve any useful purpose? And the same question applies to the entire US war in Afghanistan. Obama may be planning to shut Guantanamo, but the broader concept of a "war on terror" is still alive and well in Washington. Most of the people he has appointed to run his defense and foreign policies believe in it, and there is no sign that he himself questions it. Yet even 15 years ago the notion would have been treated with contempt in every military staff college in the country.

That generation of American officers learned two things from their miserable experience in Vietnam. One was that going halfway around the world to fight a conventional military campaign against an ideology was a truly stupid idea. The other was that no matter how strenuously the other side insists that it is motivated by a world-spanning ideology, its real motives are mostly political and quite local (Vietnamese nationalism then, Iraqi and Afghan nationalism now).

Alas, that generation of officers has now retired, and the new generation of strategists, civilian as well as military, has to learn these lessons all over again. They are proving to be slow students, and if Obama follows their advice then Afghanistan may well prove to be his Vietnam.

The parallel with Vietnam is not all that far-fetched. Modest numbers of American troops have now been in Afghanistan for seven years, mostly in training roles quite similar to those of the US military "advisers" whom Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy sent to South Vietnam in 1956-63. The political job of creating a pro-Western, anti-Communist state was entrusted to America's man in Saigon, Ngo Dinh Diem, and the South Vietnamese Army had the job of fighting the Communist rebels, the Viet Cong.

Unfortunately, neither Diem nor the South Vietnamese Army had much success, and by the early 1960s the Viet Cong were clearly on the road to victory. So Kennedy authorized a group of South Vietnamese generals to overthrow Diem (although he seemed shocked when they killed him). And Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy soon afterward, authorized a rapid expansion of the American troop commitment in Vietnam, first to 200,000 by the end of 1965, ultimately to half-a-million by 1968. The United States took over the war. And then it lost it.

If this sounds eerily familiar, it is because we are now at a similar juncture in America's war in Afghanistan. Washington's man in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai, and the Afghan Army he theoretically commands have failed to quell the insurrection, and are visibly losing ground.

So the talk in Washington now is all of replacing Karzai (although it will probably be done via elections, which are easily manipulated in Afghanistan), and the American troop commitment in the country is going up to 60,000. Various American allies also have troops in Afghanistan, just as they did in Vietnam, but it is the United States that is taking over the war.

We already know how this story ends. There is not a lot in common between President John F. Kennedy and President George W. Bush, but they were both ideological crusaders who got the United States mired in foreign wars it could not win and did not need to win. They then bequeathed those wars to presidents who had ambitious reform agendas in domestic politics and little interest or experience in foreign affairs.

That bequest destroyed Lyndon Johnson, who took the rotten advice of the military and civilian advisers he inherited from Kennedy because there wasn't much else on offer in Washington at the time. Obama is drifting into the same dangerous waters, and the rotten advice he is getting from strategists who believe in the "war on terror" could do for him, too.

He has figured out that Iraq was a foolish and unnecessary war, but he has not yet applied the same analysis to Afghanistan. The two questions he needs to ask himself are first: Did Osama Bin Laden want the United States to invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11? The answer to that one is: Yes, of course he did.

And second: Of all the tens of thousands of people whom the United States has killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, would a single one have turned up in the United States to do harm if left unkilled? Answer: Probably not. Other people might have turned up in the US with evil intent, but not those guys.

So turning Afghanistan into a second Vietnam is probably the wrong strategy, isn't it?

[bamalli]

Barack Obama tells Muslims 'Americans are not your enemy'

Assalaamu `Alaykum wa Rahmatullaahi wa Barakaatuhu
US President Barack Obama has told the Muslim world that "Americans are not your enemy" and renewed his pledge to travel to make an address in the capital of a major Muslim nation.

The President noted that he had lived in Indonesia for several years while growing up, and said his travels through Muslim nations had convinced him that regardless of faith, people had certain common hopes and dreams.

"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy - we sometimes make mistakes - we have not been perfect,"

Read Barack Obama's interview: interview with the Al-Arabiya satellite television network .

Watch video

TRANSCRIPT

Fee Amaanillaah
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