Michael
Jan 5th 2010, 09:52 AM
Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism
By PETER BAKER
Published: January 4, 2010
...
Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first president to take office in the Age of Terrorism. He inherited two struggles — one with Al Qaeda and its ideological allies, and another that divides his own country over issues like torture, prosecutions, security and what it means to be an American. The first has proved to be complicated and daunting. The second makes the first look easy.
The attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines passenger jet on Christmas Day heightened a debate that has percolated over the last 12 months. Obama’s approach has been either a dangerous reversal of the Bush years or a consolidation of the Bush years, depending on who is talking. In fact, the new president, during his first year, has adopted the bulk of the counterterrorism strategy he found on his desk when he arrived in the Oval Office, a strategy already moderated from the earliest days after Sept. 11, 2001. He did, however, shave back some of the harsher edges of the remaining Bush policies and in the process of his recalibrations drew simultaneous fire from former Vice President Dick Cheney and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all)
This isn't exactly news. I said this back in 2008 during the Democratic primary when Obama first opened his mouth on the topic.
What is news is that the mainstream media is finally catching up with reality. Either way, it is business as usual in Washington and never was going to be otherwise despite Obama's ernest protestations to the contrary.
I've said many times, US foreign policy doesn't change with WH. Same game all the time, regardless of which party or personality occupies the oval office.
* * *
As a sidenote, I almost stopped reading this article after the first paragraph - which I omitted to post here. Why do journalists write so badly? Its a fucking news story so why does it need emotional soft-story 'hooks' in the first fucking paragraph? It begins like some puff-piece vanity story (and in such cases, I'm never sure who's vanity is more important, the journalist's or the subject's?). This is the kind of writing style that marks the doom of newspapers. They are writing for an audience that doesn't exist and ignoring the one audience that does exist! The first paragraph that I quoted here ought to have been the opening paragraph for a proper news story! Of course, it was buried at the end of the article. :shrug:
By PETER BAKER
Published: January 4, 2010
...
Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first president to take office in the Age of Terrorism. He inherited two struggles — one with Al Qaeda and its ideological allies, and another that divides his own country over issues like torture, prosecutions, security and what it means to be an American. The first has proved to be complicated and daunting. The second makes the first look easy.
The attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines passenger jet on Christmas Day heightened a debate that has percolated over the last 12 months. Obama’s approach has been either a dangerous reversal of the Bush years or a consolidation of the Bush years, depending on who is talking. In fact, the new president, during his first year, has adopted the bulk of the counterterrorism strategy he found on his desk when he arrived in the Oval Office, a strategy already moderated from the earliest days after Sept. 11, 2001. He did, however, shave back some of the harsher edges of the remaining Bush policies and in the process of his recalibrations drew simultaneous fire from former Vice President Dick Cheney and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all)
This isn't exactly news. I said this back in 2008 during the Democratic primary when Obama first opened his mouth on the topic.
What is news is that the mainstream media is finally catching up with reality. Either way, it is business as usual in Washington and never was going to be otherwise despite Obama's ernest protestations to the contrary.
I've said many times, US foreign policy doesn't change with WH. Same game all the time, regardless of which party or personality occupies the oval office.
* * *
As a sidenote, I almost stopped reading this article after the first paragraph - which I omitted to post here. Why do journalists write so badly? Its a fucking news story so why does it need emotional soft-story 'hooks' in the first fucking paragraph? It begins like some puff-piece vanity story (and in such cases, I'm never sure who's vanity is more important, the journalist's or the subject's?). This is the kind of writing style that marks the doom of newspapers. They are writing for an audience that doesn't exist and ignoring the one audience that does exist! The first paragraph that I quoted here ought to have been the opening paragraph for a proper news story! Of course, it was buried at the end of the article. :shrug: