The Cabinet

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Permalink Reply by siddiq rasuli on November 19, 2008 at 9:15pm

Asalaam,
Wow I just read Ramins post and that was powerful and just so accurate. You know haji I dont like hurting the Ummah but after reading this post by ramin it will hurt them. Everyone had high expectations for Obama thinking real change will be coming but it was all a scam. I know people will not acknowledge it but he really wanted the Muslim vote in places like Virginia, Michigan and all these other US states. What people really need to understand is that Obama is just a Politician look at what he did in front of AIpac, look at what he did to Jimmy Carter. It was all about his personal ambitions he doesnt care about no one else. Thats just a fact.

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on November 20, 2008 at 4:38am

ASA
OK. So, what are we supposed to do about it? Should we mount opposition against him? Should we organize committees to go after every statement that he makes that is favorable to Zionism? Futile. I think that it would be much better to try to work with him and his supporters, but with open and critical eyes.
My fear is that Obama is going to be the fall guy for the coming economic catastrophe in the US. He will be blamed for having been unable to stop it or do anything meaningful to fix it. This will pave the way for a right wing xenophobic authoritarian to win support in the American heartland.
I think it is just plain stupid to think that Obama is the savior of the Muslims in America who will transform the country into the Kingdom of Allah on earth. In that respect, I think we are in agreement. But we have to consider who his major opponents are, and what their strategies are.
fi aman Allah,
Hajj Muhammad

siddiq rasuli said:

Asalaam,
Wow I just read Ramins post and that was powerful and just so accurate. You know haji I dont like hurting the Ummah but after reading this post by ramin it will hurt them. Everyone had high expectations for Obama thinking real change will be coming but it was all a scam. I know people will not acknowledge it but he really wanted the Muslim vote in places like Virginia, Michigan and all these other US states. What people really need to understand is that Obama is just a Politician look at what he did in front of AIpac, look at what he did to Jimmy Carter. It was all about his personal ambitions he doesnt care about no one else. Thats just a fact.

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Permalink Reply by Richard D. Allen Jr. on November 21, 2008 at 1:28pm

Well, Gentlemen, as of today ( Friday ) it seems the tide is going against us, if the discussions and rumors in the internet and news sources are true.
Politically, it is a Machiavelian move of the first order.Hillary and Bill reveal all of their finances, the sources of funding for the library and foundation; the ones that they would rather keep to themselves.Then it removes a voice from the Senate who might oppose portions of Obama's legislative program. It makes it very difficult for Hillary to run against Obama in 4 years.She WILL have to be a team player and toe the line for the Pres and his staff.
On the other hand, if Obama were to decide that he could not hire her in the end because of things found in the "vetting "process, Obama and his team know all of the Clinton's secrets.
It does show a great amount of confidence on Obama's part.
I just wanted someone better for the country. Hillary has never been a good organizer and her staffs has always engaged in internecine warfare.From healthcare in the 1990's to her presidential campaign, her organization has always been a disaster.
We saw in her campaign how her international experience was fabricated and she got caught at it. And reportedly, the morale of the State Dept. will be hurt....in the ranks of the career employees; because of the factors I just named.
I'm just hoping and praying that Obama knows something I don't.
Richard

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on November 22, 2008 at 6:01am

Here's a pretty good article about Obama's options on Iran:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/11/22/worldupdates/...

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on November 23, 2008 at 4:15am

It looks like Obama wants Janet Napolitano to be the Sec. of Homeland Security. Here is the LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/scotus/la-na-napol...
and some excerpts:
As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano last year signed into law the nation's harshest penalty for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, a measure that would take away their business licenses for a second violation.
Her record in Arizona, where she has been both the U.S. attorney and the state's attorney general, suggests she is willing to be a tough enforcer. Her state has a 376-mile border with Mexico, and she was the first governor to call for stationing the National Guard along it.
[On the other hand, she favors going after businesses that hire illegals rather than the illegals themselves.]
Napolitano has not been a backer of the border fence currently under construction: "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she has said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also:
Adolfo Carrión Jr., the Bronx borough president, is being considered for a senior position in the Obama administration, possibly as secretary of housing and urban development, people involved in the transition said on Saturday.

Mr. Carrión was elected Bronx borough president in 2001 and re-elected in 2005. He is one of several prominent Hispanic officials reportedly under consideration for a cabinet post; Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is considered the country’s most influential Hispanic politician, is a contender for secretary of commerce.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/nyregion/23carrion.html?_r=1&...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's the NYTimes week in review on the Clinton appointment:
From Week in Review
If They Can
TOGETHER
Change Is Landing in Old Hands
By JOHN HARWOOD

Could Barack Obama ultimately find himself pulled toward the Washington folkways he has vowed to surmount?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/weekinreview/23harwood.html?ref=us
[It looks like victory for the Democratic establishment]
The same preference for battle-tested stature was evident in his selection of Tom Daschle to lead the charge for health care reform as health and human services secretary. As the second-ranking Senate Democrat,
Mr. Obama’s top candidate for attorney general, Eric Holder, lived through the turbulence at the Clinton Justice Department; his leading prospect for budget director, Peter Orszag, now in the Congressional Budget Office, has seen the partisan budget skirmishes of the Clinton and Bush years.

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on November 25, 2008 at 4:07am

Article from JTA, the Global News Service of the Jewish People

Jews mostly at ease with Obama appointees

By Ron Kampeas · November 24, 2008


WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Barack Obama's "team of rivals" is turning into a collection well known to the Jewish community, which should comfort those who expressed apprehension about who the president-elect would appoint to his Cabinet.

Obama is fulfilling pledges he made during a grueling election campaign by reaching out to notables in both parties with deep wells of experience.

While Obama has yet to announce his foreign policy team formally -- he publicized his economic team Monday -- a welter of leaks has lined up U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state and former NATO commander Gen. James Jones as his national security adviser.

Some Jewish observers are uneasy over who might prevail in a rivalry between Clinton, who is seen as pro-Israel, and Jones, about whom some Jewish observers have expressed reservations.

Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC foreign policy chief who now writes a blog hosted by the Middle East Forum, has raised concerns about Jones that have redounded in the conservative Jewish world through e-mails. Rosen’s piece on Jones was titled “Jones to be National Security Adviser; wrote harsh report on Israel."

Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of state, added Jones last year to her team of generals monitoring the "road map" peace plan launched by President Bush in 2003. Jones reportedly wanted to publish a report that was harshly critical of Israel's failure to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian security force and to allow more freedom of movement for the Palestinians.

But the report, which was never published, also was tough on the Palestinian force, expressing doubts about its readiness to meet Israeli expectations that it would contain terrorism. And in public forums and as NATO's commander in chief, Jones has been friendly to Israel and its regional security concerns.

As for Clinton, her deep ties to the pro-Israel community date back to her days as the first lady of Arkansas, when she gained an admiration for the Jewish nation after introducing Israeli early childhood programs in Arkansas.

She endured some criticism from pro-Israel groups while her husband was president -- for her infamous embrace of Yasser Arafat's wife and for being a stalking horse for Palestinian statehood, floating the idea without President Clinton's administration formally proposing it -- but as a U.S. senator Clinton has been solidly pro-Israel, emphasizing the need for Palestinians to temper incitement against Israel as a precondition for peace.

Her likely deputy will be James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser under President Clinton. Deputy secretaries of state often serve as day-to-day point men in dealings with the Middle East, and Steinberg's record is reassuring to the pro-Israel establishment. He has advocated an increased role for Arab states in helping to create conditions for a Palestinian state, long the position of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Some in the pro-Israel community have expressed concerns about others who might make it into Obama's inner circle, noting that after the election it emerged that Obama had been speaking frequently with Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush who supports making eastern Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state and advocates putting an international peacekeeping force in the West Bank.

In an Op-Ed column in the Washington Post of Nov. 21, Scowcroft argued in favor of those positions in a piece that was co-authored by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser and a longtime critic of the pro-Israel lobby.

But Steven Spiegel, a UCLA political scientist who advises the Israel Policy Forum, said the fact that Scowcroft and Brzezinski felt they needed to make their case in a newspaper rather than privately to Obama demonstrates that they don’t have the president-elect's ear when it comes to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

"If Scowcroft was sure the president-elect was on his side, he wouldn’t be taking this public," Spiegel said.

Seymour Reich, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Obama's deliberative style means that he's unlikely to press Israel into an accelerated peace process, especially with Hamas terrorists still controlling the Gaza Strip and making a comprehensive deal unworkable.

"He's very pragmatic, during the campaign and in his appointments," Reich said of Obama. "For those who want him from day one to put two feet in the peace process, it’s not going to happen. It's going to be deliberate; nothing's going to happen overnight."

Obama's emphasis will be the economic crisis, Spiegel said. On foreign policy, he said, Obama is deliberatively choosing people who will have the independence to handle the international stage, but without drama: Clinton as diplomat, Jones as a tough-minded coordinator.

"What these appointments suggest to me is that he's got to solve his economic problems first and foremost," Spiegel said.

It was "ridiculous" to worry about Jones, he said, with a Cabinet that includes Clinton and a White House that has as senior advisers Rahm Emanuel and David Axelord -- both of whom are deeply pro-Israel.

Meanwhile, Obama's domestic choices have been widely praised among Jewish groups.

The United Jewish Communities federation umbrella organization has issued several news releases hailing Obama’s appointments, including the selection of former Sen. Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as chief of Homeland Security.

By contrast, over the past several years the UJC criticized the Bush administration for starving federal entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Obama also pledged during the campaign to move away from Democratic Party dogma when it comes to church-state issues, favoring, for instance, vouchers for families who send their children to private schools, including parochial schools.

The Jewish community is divided on the voucher issue and is waiting to see what Obama's education appointments augur.

However, the Orthodox Union already has praised two appointments announced Monday to the White House's Domestic Policy Council: The incoming director of the council, Melody Barnes, and her deputy, Heather Higginbottom, are both former Senate staffers who helped author legislation protecting religious rights in the work place and in federal institutions.

http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/24/1001192/jews-praise-obama-ap...

Also published at JTA and worth a look is:
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/21/1001141/brzezinski-scowcroft...

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on November 29, 2008 at 7:05am

Doves Keep The Faith as Obama Team Tilts Right

By Jonathan Martin

November 28, 2008 "Politico.com" -- Leading opponents of the war have mostly been silent as president-elect Barack Obama, who first built his national image on the foundation of his early opposition to the Iraq war, assembles a group of national security hands that is anything but a team of doves.

It's a disorienting moment for the peace wing of the Democratic Party, at once elated America selected a new president opposed to the Iraq war and momentarily disoriented by the imminent removal of a commander-in-chief whose every action they've opposed for the past eight years.

"Shock has paralyzed them for the moment," said Steven Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation who writes The Washington Note, a popular foreign policy blog. "We are in an Obama bubble now. And it's tough to step out and be first to deflate the bubble."

Especially, he added, before that bubble takes shape.

"You've got some people like myself who are saying there may be an interesting design in what Obama is trying to do. Maybe it doesn't fit easily in a neatly sculpted box of liberal pacifist and warmonger hawk. Maybe it's more complex than that."

Still, it's clearly a team that tilts to the right of Democratic foreign policy thought.

Vice-president-elect Joe Biden initially backed the war in Iraq and has supported other military interventions in his long Senate career. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton also supported the Iraq war resolution, a vote that Obama framed as a critical failure of judgement during the primary. She's also taken a harder line on Iran than the president-elect-and is in line to be his Secretary of State.

Jim Jones, a retired Marine General who advised Clinton, Obama and John McCain during the campaign and has refused to disclose his partisan leanings, is slated for National Security Adviser. And running the Pentagon? For at least the first year of his administration, it's virtually certain that the new president will retain Robert Gates-the Secretary of Defense appointed by President Bush.

Liberals scored one victory, though, when a top candidate to take over the CIA withdrew from consideration this week after concerns surfaced over his views on the agency's interrogation methods. In a letter taking his name out of consideration, John Brennan said he didn't want to be a "distraction" to the president-elect.

Yet most leaders on the left are keeping to themselves any criticisms of the centrist quartet that will help shape and implement Obama's foreign policy.

For now there is a measure of trust from liberals who believe Obama will hold to the principles he espoused during the campaign: end the war in Iraq, negotiate with adversaries and restore America's standing in the global community.

"We should have a simple sign on our wall saying, ‘It's the policy stupid,'" said Tom Andrews, the former Maine congressman, riffing off James Carville's 1992 Clinton campaign mantra. "Many will give President-elect Obama the benefit of the doubt about who is executing the policy as long as there is no comprise or backtracking on the policy itself," added Andrews, who now heads the group "Win Without War."

There is, Andrews noted, a reluctance to carp before Obama is even sworn in. "He hasn't been president for one second yet," the former congressman observed.

Progressives who knew Obama before his ascent onto the national stage also suggest that he's remaining on the same course he's always charted - one that hews closer to the middle than those on the right will give him credit for or those on the left would prefer.

Maryiln Katz, a veteran of the peace movement dating back to her days as a member of Students for a Democratic Society, helped organize the October 2002 rally in Chicago's Federal Plaza where Obama declared his opposition to what he called a "dumb war."

But, Katz recalled, the then-state senator also made certain to point out he was no pacifist.

"He asserted his own position in contradiction to [the] anti-war movement," she said. "He wasn't us. He didn't pander to the crowd."

But Katz, a well-connected Chicago public-relations executive, said that some liberals chose to ignore the part of the speech where Obama stressed that he was not against military force and actually urged more aggressive pursuit of al Qaeda.

"A lot of people took his position on Iraq and projected our politics onto him," she said. "And that was never him. It was never true."

Still, President Obama sounds a lot better than President Bush to a peace movement whose members have spent the last seven years in a posted of principled, if often powerless, opposition-and who now have to find a new point of orientation.

"It's a real challenge to those of who have grown up in opposition to everything," said Katz. "How do we behave in a way that it expands the progressive point of view? How do you maintain an independent NGO, issue-based infrastructure based on something other than a culture of complaint?"

Some clues could come in Chicago, where from January 1st to the 19th (MLK Day and the day before Obama's inauguration), a coalition of liberal groups will rally in Hyde Park at what they're calling "Camp Hope" to push for various liberal priorities at home and abroad. Still, the language of their "presence" -- they do not call it a protest-highlights the confusion as to how to relate to an incoming president who is, at the least, less adversarial to their agenda.

The group will congregate daily to "congratulate Senator Obama as our new President-elect and recommit ourselves to progressive actions he promoted on his campaign trail," states the message on their Web site, which adds, "We earnestly hope his presidency will signal the dawning of long-needed progressive change in the United States."

To be sure, there are some voices who haven't hesitated to take on the president-elect when he's departed from their line, but those voices have found themselves increasingly marginalized by the press and those in the peace movement willing to give Obama a chance.

"He is violating the people's mandate," complained Jodie Evans, a Code Pink co-founder who emailed from Tehran, where she was meeting with government officials and other peace activists. "The people elected him over her precisely because of their different foreign policy stances. Here we are in Iran, working to establish citizen diplomacy, hearing the concerns of the Iranian people and how it feels to have [Clinton] say she wants to obliterate Iran. Those comments are not taken lightly and [are] seen as policy positions here."

Evans, who with her husband helped raise money for Obama during the primary and general election, hinted at how the new president-elect has kept the left-wing at bay since winning the election-by focusing on the issue that first brought them to his side.

Recalling her interaction with Obama at fundraisers, the veteran liberal activist said: "It has gotten to the point where he sees me coming and before I am close he just keeps repeating, 'Jodie, I PROMISE, I will end the war, I promise I will end the war.' It is effective in limiting the amount of time I have to complain about what ever is up [to] at the moment."

Those vested in power, though, are less inclined to complain just yet.

"My immediate reaction was that I feel sure that President Obama knows that he was elected on a campaign of change, and that includes on foreign policy," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), a Bay Area liberal who co-chairs the House Progressive Caucus, when asked about the new commander-in-chief. "Regardless of who advises him, he must and I believe he will embrace a bold agenda that uses our non-military power,"

Woolsey said others in the peace movement are holding their fire because they are "so relieved that we will have a leader they can trust," even as, she said, they are "counting on the progressives in the Congress to keep his feet to the fire."

So far, though, Obama's yet to feel the flame.

Observed Clemons: "It's very hard for even leaders of the left to poke holes because too many of their followers will say, ‘give the guy a break-he hasn't even been in there yet.' You should see the ridicule or hate at anyone that tries to poke a hole in the Obama myth right now."


© 2008 Politico.com

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Permalink Reply by Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen on December 20, 2008 at 3:59am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2...
Team of Heavyweights

By Henry A. Kissinger
Friday, December 5, 2008; A25

President-elect Barack Obama has appointed an extraordinary team for national security policy. On its face, it violates certain maxims of conventional wisdom: that appointing to the Cabinet individuals with an autonomous constituency, and who therefore are difficult to fire, circumscribes presidential control; that appointing as national security adviser, secretary of state and secretary of defense individuals with established policy views may absorb the president's energies in settling disputes among strong-willed advisers.

It took courage for the president-elect to choose this constellation and no little inner assurance -- both qualities essential for dealing with the challenge of distilling order out of a fragmenting international system. In these circumstances, ignoring conventional wisdom may prove to have been the precondition for creativity. Both Obama and the secretary of state-designate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, must have concluded that the country and their commitment to public service require their cooperation.

Those who take the phrase "team of rivals" literally do not understand the essence of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state. I know of no exception to the principle that secretaries of state are influential if and only if they are perceived as extensions of the president. Any other course weakens the president and marginalizes the secretary. The Beltway system of leak and innuendo will mercilessly seek to widen any even barely visible split. Foreign governments will exploit the rift by pursuing alternative White House-State Department diplomacies. Effective foreign policy and a significant role for the State Department in it require that the president and the secretary of state have a common vision of international order, overall strategy and tactical measures. Inevitable disagreements should be settled privately; indeed, the ability of the secretary to warn and question is in direct proportion to the discretion with which such queries are expressed.

The U.S. Foreign Service is an incomparable instrument honed by lifetimes of dedicated service. Like every elite service, it does not avoid a certain clannishness. The views of those who did not rise through its ranks are not always taken seriously enough, perhaps on the theory that they could not have passed the Foreign Service exam. Secretaries of state have been frustrated by its complex internal clearances, and presidents have complained in their memoirs about how slowly it reacts.

In its daily business, the State Department is in effect a big cable machine responding to thousands of reports from posts all over the world. In the vast majority of cases, these deal with the immediate; there is no institutional filter on behalf of the long-range. Processed through the various assistant secretaries for formal action, only a small percentage of these cables ever reach the secretary, and even fewer make it to the White House. Geopolitical and strategic considerations have no organic constituency. Though a Policy Planning Council exists, its activities are often shunted off into non-operational, semi-academic sideshows or, most frequently, into speechwriting.

No one can question the secretary-designate's leadership potential for breaking through encrusted patterns or her formidable presence in a negotiation. Her most immediate challenges are to provide strategic guidance and to reorganize the department so that its implementing capacity matches its extraordinary reporting skill. This role of the secretary is all the more important because, organizationally, the State Department is geared more toward the secretary than the White House.

No one has ever been appointed national security adviser who had the command experience of retired Gen. James L. Jones, the former head of the Marine Corps and NATO commander. Inevitably, the facilitating function of the security adviser will be accompanied by a role in policymaking based on a vast, almost unique, experience.

The maxim that the national security adviser should act as a traffic cop, not a participant in the policy process, is more theoretical than practical. No president will feel obliged to limit advice to flow charts prescribed by schools of public administration. Whenever a department insists on its bureaucratic entitlements vis-a-vis the White House, it has already lost half the battle. And the frequency of the security adviser's contact with the president makes the distinction between management and policy advice psychologically untenable.

Ideally, the task of the national security adviser is to ensure that no policy fails for reasons that could have been foreseen but were not and that no opportunity is missed for lack of foresight. The security adviser takes care that the president is given all relevant options and that the execution of policy reflects the spirit of the original decision. Departments tend to equate internal morale with the adoption of their own recommendations and are prone to interpret decisions in the sense closest to their proposals. The security adviser's role in insisting -- if necessary -- on additional or more complete options or on more precision in execution is therefore not universally embraced.

The security adviser inevitably has the advantage of propinquity. His or her office is 50 feet from the president's; the secretary of state is 10 minutes away. That difference seems to ensure special access for the security adviser. Then, institutionally, the security adviser works almost exclusively on problems of concern to the president. The secretary of state has many clients around the world requiring attention, sometimes not of overwhelming presidential interest. The secretary also travels frequently, while the security adviser is almost always within reach of the president. His special relationship to the president requires a delicacy in conduct not always achieved by security advisers, including myself.

The continuation in office of Robert Gates as secretary of defense is an important balancing element in that process. Alone among the key players, he is at the end, not the beginning, of his policy contribution. Having agreed to stay on in a transitional role, he cannot be interested in the jockeying that accompanies all new administrations. The incoming administration must have appointed him with the awareness that he would not reverse his previous convictions. He must make the difficult adjustment from one administration to another -- a tribute to the nonpartisan nature of the conduct of his office in the Bush administration. He is a guarantor of continuity but also the shepherd of necessary innovation.

Process is no substitute for substance, of course. But even with this caveat, the new national security team encourages the hope that America is moving beyond its divisions to its opportunities.

The writer was national security adviser to President Richard M. Nixon and secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.

© 2008 Tribune Media Services Inc.

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