100 Days in Office... Obama... Change - insert Tui Ad Here

In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. On 24 April, his lawyers won an appeal that ruled Guantanamo Bay prisoners were not “persons”, and therefore had no right not to be tortured. His national intelligence director, Admiral Dennis Blair, says he believes torture works. One of his senior US intelligence officials in Latin America is accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989; another is a Pinochet apologist. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the US experienced a military coup under Bush, whose secretary of “defence”, Robert Gates, along with the same warmaking officials, has been retained by Obama.

All over the world, America’s violent assault on innocent people, directly or by agents, has been stepped up. During the recent massacre in Gaza, reports Seymour Hersh, “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” and being used to slaughter mostly women and children. In Pakistan, the number of civilians killed by US missiles called drones has more than doubled since Obama took office.

In Afghanistan, the US “strategy” of killing Pashtun tribespeople (the “Taliban”) has been extended by Obama to give the Pentagon time to build a series of permanent bases right across the devastated country where, says Secretary Gates, the US military will remain indefinitely. Obama’s policy, one unchanged since the Cold War, is to intimidate Russia and China, now an imperial rival. He is proceeding with Bush’s provocation of placing missiles on Russia’s western border, justifying it as a counter to Iran, which he accuses, absurdly, of posing “a real threat” to Europe and the US. On 5 April in Prague, he made a speech reported as “anti-nuclear”. It was nothing of the kind. Under the Pentagon’s Reliable Replacement Warhead programme, the US is building new “tactical” nuclear weapons designed to blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war.

Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”. On 25 April, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, alluded to this. It is not surprising that the polls are showing that a growing number of Americans believe they have been suckered – especially as the nation’s economy has been entrusted to the same fraudsters who destroyed it. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in.

What an absurd first sentence. Lets just completely ignore context, direction, and intent shall we Mr Pilger?

4/ The $789bn stimulus bill

But still, 100 days to change the US in a meaningful way? A

But still, 100 days to change the US in a meaningful way? Apart from his election, which i think has changed the US what could he achieve? I believe he has started thing but those thing are going to take months/years/decades to bear fruit.

Err historicly don't a lot of the meaningful changes in a presidents career come during the second term? Assuming they get one of course.

In Dubya's case, exactly the opposite. he sucked first term but was pretty good second

In Dubya's case, exactly the opposite. he sucked first term but was pretty good second

The United States served notice yesterday that it finally intends to take firm action to combat the planet's climate crisis, announcing unprecedented plans to regulate vehicle emissions from 2012 with exhaust standards that match those sought for years by California and a handful of other states.

"This is staggering," said the governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger after hearing Mr Obama speak. "This president after 120 days in office has taken the action and pulled everyone together. We are ecstatic."

Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that civilians courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror. He has now decided to preserve a tribunal process that will be identical in every material way to the one favoured by Dick Cheney.

"Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that civilians courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror.

Obama can give a great speech without mangling the language. He can smile and make people believe his rhetoric. The world, or much of it, seems to be content with the soft words that now drape Dick Cheney’s policies in pursuit of executive supremacy and U.S. hegemony.

On practically every issue, the philosophies of the President and Mr Cheney are diametrically opposed.

Mr Cheney called the Obama approach "contrived indignation and phony moralising".

Mr Obama dismissed the idea that "the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means".

Obama found himself in a real jam about Guantanamo. He and the rest of the Left had made a bogey of it... Well, Obama wins the election, and he finds that Guantanamo does the job... But he is stuck with his original language and assertions. What to do? You can't admit error; you can't cut the Bush administration any slack. So you cover Guantanamo with a fog of words... I think that is what Obama has done in this speech.

Obama's speech this morning, like most Obama speeches, made pretty points in rhetorically effective ways about the Constitution, our values, transparency, oversight, the state secrets privilege, and the rule of law. But his actions, in many critical cases, have repeatedly run afoul of those words.

Glenn Greenwald, of Salon.com

"But the president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

There are videos of kids being raped in front of their mothers, according to Seymour Hersh.

Wonder if Obama ever considered showing those?

Anyway... I have faith in the internet and the carelessness of man.

It'll all come out eventually.

Mr Obama said the administration was reviewing every one of the 240 detainees still held at Guantanamo and considering what to do with them.

Where feasible, some would be tried in US civilian courts, he said; those who violated the laws of war would need to face a military commission; some had been ordered released by the courts; others could be safely transferred to another country.

The most tricky category, Mr Obama said, would be those detainees who could not be prosecuted but who posed a "clear danger to the American people".

Some detainees had received explosives training, or pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, or made it clear, the president said, that they still wanted to kill Americans.

way to find excuses for a President....

if it was some other country (china for example) you people wouldn't be so quick to offer up a defence

He has to be president to do that and that propensity might be some of the reason why he isnt.

Stating the obvious, the reality of the situation is however that America actually needs a radical fiscal conservative in order to get out of the debt it's in. Staying in Iraq and Afghanistan and promoting fiscal stimulus packages simply will not do. They must cut Government expenditure on all fronts and attempt to balance the budget.

You know, when you have president Obama, is talking about how “everything is different in George Bush”, how “his administration is change”, “where doing it differently”, he hasn’t changed anything?!? He’s doing exactly what Bush did! He inherited the same situation, only worse, and he’s doing the same thing, only worse. His fiscal policy is worst than Bush’s, and it’s funny as he’s getting ready to sign a budget, propose a budget, with near 2 Trillion dollar deficit, in one year, he’s criticizing Bush for deficit spending? ~ Peter Schiff