Obama has named his new staff for when he comes into his full powers in January. Some surprises, even for me. It is a ‘team of rivals’. I earnestly pray that we will not hear that phrase ever again. I prefer ‘team of arch-nemeses’ (thank you Jon Stewart). From his selection thus far, don’t be too surprised if Lex Luthor or Dr. Evil get a cabinet post.
Robert Gates is still around. Defense Secretary under Bush so one can imagine what his thoughts on Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be. Yes, that first war is going seven years strong now. Afghanistan is a very difficult place to simply walk into and expect to conquer ‘by christmas’. Ask the British, the Russians, and more recently the Americans.
Among other things, both want to close Guantanamo Bay. Great, but no mention of charges laid against torturers (to prevent a repeat somewhere else) or for civilian trials of detainees. What is almost guaranteed is that no detainee will have the right to emigrate to the United States. Though, you’re more likely to be stabbed by a drugged-up elephant than find a detainee willing to emigrate to the land of his tormentors.
Obama will back the Bush administration’s plans to increase the size of the U.S. military. Something to the order of 100,000 new troops.
Weapons programs will not suffer any cuts for fiscal year 2009/2010. This should allay big defense shareholders’ fears of Obama the Peacenik. Now, and human military history is a testament to this, if someone has a really cool weapon, be it a longbow, a maxim gun or a nuclear weapon, they really REALLY want to use it. You know, to see what it does to stuff.
What this really means is the Pentagon’s base budget of $512 billion will not be reduced. Base meaning the budget excludes cost of a war on two fronts. Though to be fair, US$512 billion is probably equivalent to 6 Euros.
Hillary Clinton is now the Secretary of State. One needs to remember the venom they spat at each other during the Democratic primaries. Apparently having tea parties with foreign leaders DOES qualify you for the top diplomatic position in Obama’s administration (paraphrasing here).
At press conferences one can see a world map with “Department of State” emblazoned on the top. Frightening. Imagine if China’s equivalent bureau did the same thing.
Do we expect much change in U.S. foreign policy? I hope so, but I doubt it. One of my students (age 11) reminded me that Obama is not the world president but the U.S. president. Obviously, his charge is to strengthen the U.S. and hopefully his focus will be on the economy for the time being. That should leave the rest of us to get on with business.
On the plus side, we can hope Obama does a change, of McCain-esque proportions, from the essential-to-be-elected centre-right foreign policy (again, drugged-up elephant…) to a man of international law and peace which we all know him to be. More likely we have the same Frankenstein’s Monster with a more pleasing visage.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, China, Dr. Evil, George W. Bush, International, Iraq, Japan, Lunacy, Movies, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, democracy, government, human rights, test | Tagged: Afghanistan, American, Americans in Afghanistan, British, British in Afghanistan, Bush, China, Department of State, Dr. Evil, elephant, Frankenstein, Guantanamo Bay, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Iraq, Jon Stewart, Lex Luthor, longbow, maxim, McCain, military, nuclear weapon, Obama, Pentagon, Robert Gates, Russian, Russians in Afghanistan, Secretary of State, team of rivals, United States, US
