The First Days In Office – Moon of Alabama

January 25, 2009

The First Days In Office

Afghan president: US forces killed 16 civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai condemned a U.S. operation he said killed 16 Afghan civilians, while hundreds of villagers denounced the American military during an angry demonstration Sunday.

U.S. raid kills Iraqi man, woman in their bed

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi couple was killed in their bed Saturday morning as their daughter slept between them when U.S. forces raided their home.

Obama endorses missile attacks

WASHINGTON, Jan 24: Hours after US missiles killed 22 people in Fata, President Barack Obama convened a meeting of his top national security advisers and endorsed the decision to continue drone strikes into Pakistan.

Posted by b on January 25, 2009 at 18:53 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Anybody who voted for the O knew that the foreign policy would be the same ol’ same ol’.
What really pisses me off is the deception of his domestic agenda. What we got in the campaign was a rational solution to economic woe: soak the rich. Well, that was nixed as quick as you can say “Lawrence Summers.”
Truthfully, the O era is already a failure.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 25 2009 19:08 utc | 1

So what are the permissible political positions for an American President at this time? To continue along this line – Is Obama the best that is possible at this time? I’m thinking, maybe yes.
b didn’t mention it, but Obama’s first phone call was to the quisling president of the Palestinians – and not their democratically elected representatives.

Posted by: edwin | Jan 25 2009 19:32 utc | 2

Is Obama the best that is possible at this time? I’m thinking, maybe yes.
my fear is that we will come to long for the good ole days of the boy king. whenever we think it can’t possibly get any worse, it does.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 25 2009 19:43 utc | 3

Don’t expect anything from Obama that doesn’t directly help the bottom line of those with the most money who run the USA. He is their representative in Washington D.C. Talk about a meteoric rise in politics…

Posted by: James Crow | Jan 25 2009 20:37 utc | 4

I shouldn’t say he’s already failed.
But his appointments are very disappointing. And the prevention of anything but stasis on the foreign policy front is shameful.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 25 2009 20:54 utc | 5

Insert new images for same old story.
XTC:
Here comes President Kill again,
Surrounded by all of his killing men.
Telling us who, why, where and when,
President Kill wants killing again.
Hooray, ring out the bells,
King Conscience is dead.
Hooray, now back in your cells,
We’ve President Kill instead.
Here comes President Kill again,
From pure White House to Number 10.
Taking lives with a smoking pen,
President Kill wants killing again.

Posted by: catlady | Jan 25 2009 21:20 utc | 6

yep, this disgusts me.

Posted by: annie | Jan 25 2009 21:44 utc | 7

Since America is no longer any good at making money, about the only thing she’s any good at anymore is making wars…
But since America has an awfully lousy track record at winning wars, then there’s no reason in the world that she should be making any wars in the first place…
And since there’s no nation on Earth that comes close to America on spending money to make wars, then there’s truly no reason in the world that she shouldn’t be winning most, if not all, of her wars…

Posted by: Cynthia | Jan 25 2009 21:50 utc | 8

This is sickening. Why not take office and call a moratorium on bombing other countries while some kind of review takes place preparatory to diplomacy? Change, remember? The stories that AQ can’t stir up anti-O hatred among Muslims won’t last long. How many dead in O’s first week? Sickening and disgusting.

Posted by: Hamburger | Jan 25 2009 21:54 utc | 9

Just reading the brief excerpts of these three articles in b’s post made me feel like crying. And the details made them even worse.
How many hearts and minds lost from this single raid?

Omar Dhia Hussein, 14, was in shock Saturday night. He said in a telephone interview that in the morning he’d seen his parents’ bodies side by side in their bed, the sheets covered in blood. The wall was covered with his father’s blood, he said.
At 2 a.m., Omar said, he heard a bang of a percussion grenade. When he opened his eyes he saw American soldiers standing over him in the room where he slept with his two sisters. Except for an Iraqi interpreter there were no Iraqis with the Americans, he said.
The interpreter shouted at the young boy.
“You are hiding weapons,” Omar recalled the interpreter saying. “Where are you hiding the weapons? You are terrorists, you are hiding weapons in that unfinished house. Confess!”
Omar began to cry and his sisters wept with him, he said. Then the American soldiers left and he heard gunfire next door. The soldiers carried Omar’s wounded sister from the room and took the remaining four children, including Omar, to his uncle’s home. Outside were at least four U.S. Humvees and two SUVs, Omar said. His grandfather, Hussein Ali, who lives next door saw no Iraqi soldiers, either.
After the Americans left, Omar and his sisters returned to their home with their grandfather. In his parents’ bedroom, Omar said, he saw his father’s body at the very edge of the right side of the bed, motionless and bloody.
His mother lay in the middle of the bed in a pool of her own blood. She’d been shot in the head, the family said.
“I will avenge my father’s death,” Omar said calmly Saturday evening. (My emphasis)

Posted by: jawbone | Jan 25 2009 22:45 utc | 10

So as most of us feared, there has been no let up in the slaughter of ‘unamerikans’ despite the installation of ‘prez change agent’.
Altho I’m guessing we won’t see the dem party hacks in here for a while, if ever again. Until the next election. . . Waldo dropped by last week for what seemed to be the first time since election day to boast of the great change agent.
I dunno why I want to berate the creep now “I told you so” or “See I was right, you were wrong/lied” aren’t sustaining tucker and they provide no relief to the poor buggers copping the worst of the murderous amerikan empire’s naked greed and lust for power.
So here we are back at the place we knew we would be, where we were before November 08, still with only one pertinent question.
Are amerikans ever going to wake up and smash the promoters of this violence themselves, or are they going to continue down the line of least resistance?
By lapping up whatever new fantasy the spinners of elite sustaining myths feeds them, regardless of whether it conflicts with the last ‘truth’ or not, amerikans are condemning themselves to the same fate as their bosses. Probably worse if there is any veracity in the line “It’s the rich what gets the gravy and the poor what takes the blame”.
Each new step by the empire up the rung of greed motivated perdition awakens millions more angry humans outside amerika.
If amerikans refuse to fix their ‘problem with others possessions’ eventually a fix will be imposed from the outside. The result of that will be the deaths of many millions more amerikans than would have occured had they fixed the problem themselves.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 26 2009 1:00 utc | 11

Each new step by the empire up the rung of greed motivated perdition awakens millions more angry humans outside amerika.
I’d say you ersatz afrikaaners down there have done a good job over the past 300 years enjoying the empire.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 26 2009 1:14 utc | 12

Obama, sadly, is not a failure, at least not yet: He is doing what he was hired to do, which is, after the open and blatant disasters and crimes of the Bush years, to bedazzle the public–and not just the US public–with talk of hope and change.
It is working, oh! is it working! It is “good cop/bad cop” with Obama the sympathetic-sounding good cop coming after the roughing up by Bush the bad cop. And this time it is the left that gets punked as they buy the con and drink the kool-ade.
It is really depressing, watching people who just weeks ago used to think now stop, and instead put on the happy-face. While I do not expect Obama to do worse things than Bush, he will do DIFFERENT bad things, things that Bush with his open malevolence could not have done. The most public crimes will be repudiated (if not prosecuted)–the Guantanamo prison-camp is to be closed–while the less well-known crimes (secret rendition, the other torture sites) will continue, and new crimes quietly be added.
And the focus of war is to be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan. Now the Taliban is once again to be the Big Enemy, the soul of “Terrorism”–but why? The Afghani oil pipeline will never be built, and with Cheney gone even the impetus to build it is fading. But note, perhaps the most important thing the Taliban did when they held national power was suppress opium production, and likely they would do so again. Think about it: The opium trade, one of the few remaining sources of real cash in the international banking business, is now more important than oil–the one essential industrial resource. Does this suggest that economic crisis has taken over from resource scarcity as the driver of industrial collapse?
If so, the coming Greater Depression may be bigger than we think, for it implies that demand destruction will be so deep and so long-lasting that oil prices will not recover, and opium will become the commodity of value.

Posted by: Gaianne | Jan 26 2009 1:59 utc | 13

I had a thought after watching Biden refuse to answer any questions about the Pakistan strike on Face the Nation this morning that Uncle encouraged me to voice.
what if elements within the military are still carrying out Bush’s orders and the strike was meant to bind O to a position he wasn’t prepared to take yet. Obviously with Holbrooke being selected, and O’s previous promise to escalate the Afghan war, the strike was probably known and agreed to by O, but this refusal to comment seems strange. If it was part of a recognized policy of the incoming administration, why not just admit that, yes, this country will still do whatever the hell we want to do?
Whatever is happening, we’re not going to wake up to it in time here. In my neck of the woods the dems are still celebrating and engaging in the same old partisan bickering about stimulus spending and tax cuts. It would be almost amusing if the situation wasn’t so dire, and if the rest of the world wasn’t so sick of the arrogant behavior of this delusional nation and its scared/stupid citizenry.

Posted by: Lizard | Jan 26 2009 2:20 utc | 14

what if elements within the military are still carrying out Bush’s orders and the strike was meant to bind O to a position he wasn’t prepared to take yet.
this occurs to me. but that window is closing rapidly. i want heads to roll.

Posted by: annie | Jan 26 2009 2:42 utc | 15

Acch!–I may have spoken too soon. Obama may actually close down the CIA secret sites. Well, it is too soon to say: We will just have to wait and see if he does it.
It still looks like a wider Afghani war, and as well as a Pakistani war, are on. But again we will have to wait and see: In just a couple of months I expect we will know.

Posted by: Gaianne | Jan 26 2009 3:03 utc | 16

ersatz afrikaneers Hmm desperate – so far wide of the mark it’s prolly unworthy of rebuttal especially when coming from a zionist. The epitome of ersatz afrikaanerdom.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 26 2009 4:22 utc | 17

If amerikans refuse to fix their ‘problem with others possessions’
This is also simplistic caricature of the problem of resistance against a system of global domination which is abstract–abstract because domination is generalized to include french pensioners and NZ indigenes on the public dole. Everyone is occasionally a capitalist, unless you have the misfortune to live in Africa.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 26 2009 4:28 utc | 18

NZ were among the first little whores to bend over for neoliberal penetration. And she liked it!

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 26 2009 4:31 utc | 19

I defended a “zionism” which is more than what is in your cartoon. I tried to do w/ zionism w/ what alabama heroically did in a defense of leo strauss. I tried.
Your opposition to zionism is like a genius eighth grader who reads Mein Kampf in eleven languages.

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 26 2009 5:14 utc | 20

Chavez warms up to the big O

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 26 2009 8:08 utc | 21

chomsky: Obama on Israel-Palestine

Posted by: b real | Jan 26 2009 15:18 utc | 22

NZ were among the first little whores to bend over for neoliberal penetration. And she liked it!
Such a kindly, gentle, tender, and warmhearted spirit…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 26 2009 16:49 utc | 23

I see Obama is a realist (irony alert)
Obama aims for oil independence
though I imagine you all have your own versions of that speech. I maintain now, as I have for some time, that it is only possible to describe many Obama attitudes as simply not up to speed on realities. I prefer that over the cynical.

Posted by: alex | Jan 26 2009 16:59 utc | 24

dude’s a neocon thug, advised by neocon thugs.
We’ll be nostalgic for the golden years when Cheney ran the country before it’s over with.

Posted by: ran | Jan 26 2009 17:21 utc | 25

It really cuts to the question: How much power does the President of the US have? How can he use it? To what end?
As the public face, the CEO of America (inc), what would he even wish to do as he accepted the position?
Talk is cheap. Hopiness and changiness, demagogic electoral talk about millions of jobs, withdrawing from Iraq, the following groupie adulation, and so on, is quite alarming.
Obama gives me the absolute creeps.
He will de-Bushify hard, was not surprised to see today’s papers mention stem cell research (as I predicted, as it is an easy one that no one cares about anyway, the research is done abroad and results are available to rich Americans), just one thing on the long list that Dkos-ers bash, there is a lot of meat there in the Xtian pandering by Bush, hated by progressives: abortion, euthanasia, drug prices, no child left behind, dignity for workers (how?), and, along the trad. Democratic line, contact, discussion and negotiation, then sanctions, as opposed to immediate shock and awe. It is all whitewash.
The US under Obama will just shift its wars. To Afgh and Pak, as he has said….
Watch and see: he will ‘reform’ Social Security, meaning he will diminish or change it fundamentally, or pulverize it – Bush did not manage – and he will also strongly reduce, partially destroy, Medicare and Medicaid. It won’t be apparent right away, there will be ‘new’ insurance plans, a lot of propaganda, talk, etc. and basically no one will be able to figure it out, what role is played by whom, the drug companies, the medicos, State authorities, etc.
I sincerely hope I am completely wrong.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 26 2009 17:34 utc | 26

‘Truthfully, the O era is already a failure….NZ were among the first little whores to bend over for neoliberal penetration.’
First, I see that the NYT finally booted Krystalnacht but we can be assured that there are millions of loud, confident and deludedly egotistical fools out there waiting to spew slime over the president for the same reason as Billy: to aggrandize themselves and reinforce their pathetic worldview.
Take slothrop for instance.
He/she has no problem dismissing a presidency to failure within ten days of its innauguration because of people dying at the hands of the US military.
World to slothrot: the US military is a law unto itself. It has massively-funded secretive tentacles that penetrate arms deals, drug deals and political deals all over the world. Its blunt edge is under-educated, indoctrinated, gun-oriented, not-very-bright children who’ll butcher anything in their field of scope and, with the exception of a few brave individuals, perpetrate any brutal crime when ordered. Murder, rape, the torture of children have SOP during this and previous war crimes. (See Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). Witness their actions in Iraq over the last six years and any current outrage is perfectly in keeping. It is, ironically, these brutes that the US reveres as their ‘best and brightest’ and it this glaring misnomer and misrepresentation of reality that is the Republican party’s favourite political tool, which has been used to discredit, compromise and berate the democratic party for the last thirty years of illegal war, arms deals and political sabotage.
As for your comments about NZ, they are uncannily similar to comments made to me by the denizens of the anti idiotarian rottweiler when that crew were up to their necks in promoting chimpy’s war crimes. Congratulations; I haven’t seen foul stupidity quite so pusillanimous repeated ’til now.
As for the rest of the resident nappy-wetters decrying the president, Obama has made more positive decisions and actions in his first ten days than any other president but, ummm, better ignore that. It might take your minds off your nappy rash.

Posted by: waldo | Jan 27 2009 4:08 utc | 27

Obama has made more positive decisions and actions in his first ten days than any other president
haha

Posted by: b real | Jan 27 2009 4:12 utc | 28

“World to slothrot: the US military is a law unto itself”
dude, Obomba signed off on the cowardly drone strikes. he *wants* the CIA and USAF to continue them.
he’s the CiC remember? that makes him responsible for the war crimes his goons are carrying out. particularly when they are doing them on his orders.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 27 2009 5:00 utc | 29

good to see you’re still at it, waldo, and it looks like you got some juicy new lingo to throw down in support of you’re guy. cheers. I think Uncle can steer you toward some awesome action figures of the new prez if you’re interested.
given what the guy has to work with, I’m sure most here are being unfair by pointing out how the intractable fundamentals of empire stay in place despite face changes.
honestly, I think a little variety in your commentary would be nice, because your unyielding, dogmatic resolve is but a raindrop in an ocean of bullshit. remember, bullshit is bartered commodity in politics. sadly the BO is not immune.

Posted by: Lizard | Jan 27 2009 5:27 utc | 30

By the way, I was not joking about the Afghani drug connection. On the importance of drugs to banking, the UN crime chief seems to agree:
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/01/25/europe/OUKWD-UK-FINANCIAL-UN-DRUGS.php

Posted by: Gaianne | Jan 27 2009 5:45 utc | 31

Lizard, nice to chat with you again.
Look, remember a couple of months ago when this was a forum for the same crap in this thread? I think it was Tantulus that said ‘if Obama doesn’t stop the military killing civilians on his first day”…
How does anyone here, in a fairly edgy political blog, get the idea that in the first seven days in office the president can control everything the US military does while it’s acting in a current war zone? How does anyone here think that the apocalyptic problems left by chimpy will be reversed or solved in a week?
Obama is the real deal but I’ve never been under the illusion that he’s a messiah who’ll wave a spaghetti monster and solve every problem immediately. Obama begins his presidency facing two wars and an economic downturn more serious than any since the Great Depression. But he’s working on that from day one. He’s already setting up meetings to calm the Middle-East. He spoke on al-Arabiya of how he wanted to “initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest” between the US and Muslim nations. He’s started eco-policy rolling. He’s cleaning up the DOJ. He’s even trying bipartisanship, which will inevitably be criticised by liberal blogs who have come to hate and distrust republicanism wioth a passion. All in one week. And remember, he’s dealing in the real world, not sitting in his mother’s basement writing scathing nonsensical criticisms to semi-obscure blogs.
I totally believe in Frank Zappa’s adage “cut the schmuck some slack” when dealing with my fellow man but I won’t sit back and cop cynical adolescents, who’ve achieved very little if anything at all, spewing garbage at the best hope the world has to achieve some respite from the brutality, stupidity and regressiveness of the era of the chimp.

Posted by: waldo | Jan 27 2009 14:19 utc | 32

I totally believe in Frank Zappa’s adage “cut the schmuck some slack” when dealing with my fellow man but I won’t sit back and cop cynical adolescents, who’ve achieved very little if anything at all, spewing garbage at the best hope the world has to achieve some respite from the brutality, stupidity and regressiveness of the era of the chimp.
Hmmm, I guess all I can say is I feel for ya’ man.

Posted by: David | Jan 27 2009 14:36 utc | 33

Waldo, he fucking ordered the drone strike.
Shuck and jive all you want but there’s no getting around the fact that he’s already a mass murderer and he’s only getting warmed up.

Posted by: Ran | Jan 27 2009 14:45 utc | 34

Waldo:
It has to be said that when I expressed the wish that Obama would give some sort of executive order to prevent the US military killing civilians at will – note, not suspend all military operations, disarm the US army or some other kind of pie-in-the-sky hope – I did not actually think he would go ahead and kill more civilians on his first couple of days in office.
He might not have meant to kill those women and children, but he didn’t prevent them being killed, nor did he issue a statement expressing regret, or anything else that might indicate that these killings represent anything other than the pattern we can expect under his administration.
And that probably isn’t surprising, seeing as we appear to have entered an age where mass murder has become ‘collateral damage.’ That’s not an original statement, and it isn’t intended to be. But murder is an absolute, and no amount of pragmatism or moral obfuscation can change that.
And by the by, if we’re throwing accusations of juvenility around, you might want to pull back on the 1st grade name-calling. I doubt you have seniority of age around here. Personally, I’m several decades removed from my parents’ basement.

Posted by: Waldo | Jan 27 2009 15:46 utc | 35

35 was me, not Waldo. How odd. Apologies.

Posted by: Tantalus | Jan 27 2009 16:02 utc | 36

It will be interesting to see if you can maintain your naive support in the months to come, waldo. the fact you don’t even live in Obamanation really irks me. when you say crap like He’s even trying bipartisanship, which will inevitably be criticised by liberal blogs who have come to hate and distrust republicanism wioth a passion I fantasize about reaching through cyberspace to slap some damn sense into you.
Democrats, Republicans, honestly fuck the whole lot of ’em. the paradigm must change, and both sides or hopelessly enmeshed in a dying system. overproduction and overconsumption are major factors in the economic mess Obama is trying to remedy with his stimulus. reaching out to rethugs means more useless taxcuts that won’t do a goddamn thing.
unlimited growth was never sustainable. Obama wants to prop up a dying system so we can continue buying cheaply made shit we don’t need. if we don’t focus on food, water, shelter, and health, for EVERYONE, then the endgame will be class warfare. and that will really suck.

Posted by: Lizard | Jan 27 2009 17:32 utc | 37

Tantalus:He might not have meant to kill those women and children, but he didn’t prevent them being killed, nor did he issue a statement expressing regret, or anything else that might indicate that these killings represent anything other than the pattern we can expect under his administration.
he meant it Tantalus, as meant it in his speech a year ago.
Pakistant does as we want, or we will do for them.
anytime someone throws a big fat bomb on a house/village etc. they will kill women and children. They live there, the bombed house was their home.
And he will never have to issue a statement of regret, as he did nothing regrettable. Au contraire, were he to issue such a statement, his ratings would go down, i am sure of that.
USA, USA, fuck yeah!!

Posted by: sabine | Jan 27 2009 17:50 utc | 38

sorry for the all cursive, more coffee.

Posted by: sabine | Jan 27 2009 17:51 utc | 39

Lizard-
Have you got your blinders on? There’s big change in Washington; the big BO is younger, hipper, supported by chicago criminals as opposed to texan criminals and he’s even a nice, tawny blackish color as opposed to the pasty white we normally see.
When he speaks about screwing the rest of the world, he does so in that warm, even-toned sort of way that makes ya’ feel GOOD, don’t it?
I think rather than call our politicians bipartisan, we should think of them as bisexual, because they’re always willing to screw who’s ever handy at the moment.

Posted by: David | Jan 27 2009 17:52 utc | 40

Loathesome AIPAC-owned hack is on my innertubes today insisting on our little Apartheid “ally” Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
Translation: Israel can do anything it wants and we’ll make sure they get away with it.
This is change only a putz like Waldo can believe in.

Posted by: Ran | Jan 27 2009 18:16 utc | 41

I’m referring to Hillary Clinton above.

Posted by: Ran | Jan 27 2009 18:19 utc | 42

And now Cheney/Obomba’s SecDef is telling us the criminal drone strikes will continue.
Feel the changiness yet? I know I do!

Posted by: Ran | Jan 27 2009 18:43 utc | 43

Back to Main