Double Talk?

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama's Defense Secretary, Robert M.Gates, said that under the plan, 100,000 American troops would be in Afghanistan in July 2011, and “some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.” The intention, it now appears, is that the transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces would only be starting from that date.

This sounds, to me, like a different message than Obama's West Point address last Tuesday, when he said that his administration would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”

Exporting Gun Crime

""I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence. Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.

It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before today's 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado -- and just after a spree of mass homicides across the United States took the lives of least 57 people.

No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And, unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.”

Who will face down the gun lobby? – E. J. Dionne Jr - WashingtonPost

Playing it safe?????

Two items, along the same lines, caught my attention today (one in the New York Times, the other the Washington Post); I must admit that one side of me wonders if the (capitalist)system is worth bailing out whilst, at the same time, it should be obvious to anyone that without some kind of bailing out action such vast numbers of innocent people are going to suffer!


"And the argument that our culture won’t stand for nationalization — well, our culture isn’t too friendly towards bank bailouts of any kind. Yet those bailouts are necessary; and even in America they may be more palatable if taxpayers at least get to throw the bums out." - Paul Krugman : Obama on nationalization

"Geithner did not want the administration to seem leftist, so he rejected the temporary nationalization of the bad banks. Yet the advantage of nationalization is that it's straightforward: The government would take over the bad banks -- as opposed to throwing endless sums of money at them -- clean them up, and sell them off." - E.J.Dionne Jr.:Lost in the Middle

ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

“Of all the beautiful phrases in Barack Obama's inauguration speech, these are the words that stuck in my mind: "You are on the wrong side of history."

He was talking about the tyrannical regimes of the world. But we, too, should ponder these words

In the last few days I have heard a lot of declarations from Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. And every time, these eight words came back to haunt me: "You are on the wrong side of history!"”

These words are the opening of an article by Uri Avneri – it really warmed my heart to discover such an Israeli journalist and peace activist (a former Irgun and Knesset member). 

To my shame I had never previously been aware of the life and work of this great man. His website address is: http://www.avnery-news.co.il/ 

I stumbled across the full article on Ekklesia.co.uk