This is a three part special on the national security speeches given by President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney. President Obama came into this speech on the backdrop of a heavy defeat in congress for his plan to close down Guantanamo Bay.

After the standard niceties, the speech began with President Obama talking briefly about the economy, on how the economy’s engine is slowly beginning to turn. He also mentioned about health care and energy, future speeched I assume.

He then warmed up the topic of keeping America safe. Saying that it is his prime job and mentioning 9/11 to showcase its importance were points out of the Republican play book. “For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and the strategic leadership to take the fight to the extremists that attacked us on 9/11…” I feel that this is the first slap to the face of the Republicans that he gave. It is they who often claim that the Democrats are weak and are not going after the terrorist. In this case President Obama shredded the argument with this line. Essentially, he was saying that the Republicans failed in this issue. To add on he said that he has taken further steps to improve the military and to secure all loose nuclear materials withing four years.

The next point that he brought up was the importance of the documents in the National archives. like the bill of rights and the declaration of independence as the foundation of liberty and justice in America. I felt that it was a drag and the President should not have talked about it for too long.

The most bizarre part of his speech was when he seemed to echo the words of the President Bush term He said that “We need new tools to protect the American people. And that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those that carry them out.” This is after all the justification for torture given by VP Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney in the past week and I was rather shocked that it was mentioned.

President Obama then went for a power punch. “.. (O)ur government made a series of hasty decisions…(B)ut I also believe that our government made decisions out of fear rather than foresight.” The President blasted them for basically not adhering to American principles. He then reminded the Republicans that the Americans nominated people from both parties that wanted to close Guantanamo Bay and reject torture. The President called the previous administration’s legal approach ad hoc and said that it was ineffective and unsustainable.

Next, he laid out things that he felt would better protect the American people. He said that by banning enhanced interrogation techniques and closing of Gitmo. He then challenged the Republicans head on that he had seen the intelligence and is responsible for keeping America safe and in that capacity he said that those interrogation techniques are not the most effective. He then listed the reasons why those techniques undermine the war against the terrorists. On Gitmo, he made the point that it created more terrorists than it detained and that it weakened American national security.

President Obama’s most harshest statement came next when he was talking about reviewing of all pending cases at Gitmo. He said “ We are cleaning up something which is quite simply a mess. A misguided experiment that has left in its way a flood of legal challenges…” Wow! That was harsh.

The best part of the speech for him was when he played defense on the issues that he was being attacked on. He made clear that it was the courts that ordered the release of 17 Uighurs during the Bush administration and everybody was mum about it then. He also said this problem was not caused by his administration rather it was there already during the Bush’s.

Defense number 2 : He made it clear that he would not release anyone if it endangers national security. And in its name he also made his case for putting some in maximum security prisons that already have hundreds of convicted terrorists.

President Obama elaborated the these cases would fall into 5 distinct categories; The first option is to try the prisoners in Federal courts. The second option are detainees that violate laws of war. They would be tried by military tribunals. The third are for people that have been ordered release by the courts. They have to be released according to the President as that is the law. The fourth are detainees that can be transferred to another country. The last group are people that cannot be prosecuted but are people that pose a clear threat to the United States. For this group of people, I suggest that making their actions a crime is the best way to prosecute them.

President Obama then said that prolonged detention should not be determined by any one man and he would have the Congress to check and balance the Executive branch. This part was also rather boring but it was not long.

He then went to the Left vs. Right mentality with both wings after him right now. He morphed the argument into a question about transparency vs. national security. Again, on the defense, President Obama was flawless. He really made so much common sense that it is going to be very difficult to wrong him on this. He defended his decision to release the torture memos, saying that it was common knowledge and that these practices would not be used in the future. He defended his decision to block the latest photo releases as that would endanger America as the terrorists would use a few bad seeds that were already punished and paint Americans in a broad and damning brush.

After more talk about the accountability of the executive branch, went on to talk about defend his decision to not concentrate on the past. Yet again, this painted President Obama in a positive stroke rather than a negative one. He said that playing the blame game would be a distraction for the challenges they face.

After a fair amount of time spent on of righteous speech, he ended by saying that national security should not be a wedge issue that separates the nation but a key issue for it.

I felt that the speech was good but not up to par with the President’s standards. His talks of constitution and the principles of America were there to feed some scraps to the left, but it was a speech to the masses and the Independents.

I would reserve further commentary till the third part of the series. In the next commentary, I would comment about VP Cheney’s rebuttal which came about very quickly.

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I really cannot believe this when it came out on CNN. A few days ago, CNN showed a clip on their program Cafferty File, a GQ article that showed soldiers praying and others in triumph with Bible quotes over them.

One photograph showed a couple of soldiers kneeling down in prayer with the verse “Whom shall I send and whom shall send for us?” Another photo had a tank in the forefront and a sunset in the background with the phrase “ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Yet another photo showed a soldier in action on an air craft carrier with a fighter plane in the background with the phrase :
“ If I rise on the wings of the dawn;
If I settle on the far side of the sea;
even there your hand would guide me,
your right hand will hold my feet O LORD.”

What in the world was this General thinking? Is he crazy? What does he want to do : Out Jihad the Muslims? Since when did America become the army for the Christians? When did America make out the enemies of America to be the enemy of God, Christ or Christianity? The best part: This is what Secretary Rumsfeld put on the cover page of World Intelligence Update that was delivered to President Bush everyday!

What is so ironic about this is that we just mentioned this about a week ago! We just mentioned then that the American military should not have so much of Evangelism in their army. But in that article, the army were not the main target, Reza Aslan was. Now I wish to put the spotlight on the American army and put this point across.

The military is there to protect the country. “This we will defend.” is the motto of the US Army. The “this” does not refer to Christianity. “This” refers to the flag, the Star and stripes. The flag is the country, land, sovereignty and her people. There is no cross on the flag as there are on England as the US is and was never a Christian country. It is a country that is for all her citizens.

I do not say that the US army is an organization that discriminates against non-Christians, I just feel that there are too many elements of Christianity within the American army. Even the television programs, they show pastors and church services being held within an air craft carrier.

They should do somethings more patriotic rather than religious over there. For example, rather than having a prayer before an army dinner, why not have all members say the pledge of allegiance instead? Why not have the Army visit old folks home and really win hearts and minds rather than have a Church session or a Mosque session of Fridays?

Mixing religion with the army is something that the enemy of America wants. They want America to be viewed as a county that is fighting for Christianity and fighting against Islam. They want America to be the country that is viewed as the White, blue-eyed devils that is out to spread white superiority.

After all is being said, I feel that GQ did something that was very wrong. They should never have released this at all to the public. They should have rather released this to the administration and tell them to change it. No amount of torture photos would do as much harm as this would.

This is the evidence of vindication that Al Qaeda gives. Al Qaeda tells the world that the US is the puppet of the Jews and are out to destroy Islam. These photos would have just given them the “evidence” that they have for this. These photos should not have been published at all.

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I really could not believe it that this is what happened. Al Jazeera showed a US military base burning Bibles that were written in Persian and Dari (Afghanistan national language). There is some just outrage felt by Christian all around the world.

Before I go on writing this article, I would like to declare that I am neither a Christian or a Muslim. I do not believe in many things that are written in the Bible or the Quran. What I am though is a person that believes in religious tolerance. I think every religion should be respected and so should their holy books.

Yes, I agree that the Americans that brought this books of worship to Afghanistan are very wrong in their actions. They could have made a bigger impact that any torture photos released by the United States government. When you are a soldier, you fight for your country, not you religion. If you fight for your religion, you are no different than the Jihadist that you are fighting.

I think that people should be able to practice their religion in private while serving their army. I am really against people who spread their religion in the army. I think that is very dangerous. I do not think that chaplains belong in a air-craft carrier. I do not think that there should be Sunday or Friday prayer sessions either.

So yes, the American were wrong to bring their Bibles there. But it is also wrong to burn the holy book of the Christians. What if this is the Quran? What do you think the Muslim world would be doing if these were Qurans instead of Bibles? Why is there a double standard when it comes to non-Muslims on religious issues?

This is something that some people believe to be the word of God. I do not, but I like most people on Earth do have friends that are Christians that believe in what is written in the Bible. On a personal note, I would not want it to happen to my religion too.

The US military gave the excuse that they did not want these Bibles to be returned to the Church that send them as they fear that they would send these Bibles again via another route. Don’t they think that the same Church could just make print more and send them overseas? Why do something so drastic when the loop-hole was so big?

The reason that they could not leave it on the base as it was non-essential items in the base. They took these Bibles to be trash! How could they possibly have done that? It is a holy book, it should be respected, not desecrated. What if the US called some copies of the Quran as trash? Can you even imagine the consequences?

Please get religion out of the Army, it does not belong there. There should not be a cross or a crescent that the American military should bow to, only the Stars and the Stripes. They should not be pursuing the glory for God, rather pursuing the cause of the Old Glory. It spoils the image making them sound like Crusaders rather than heroes.

The world is a dangerous place. Religion is one of the most potent tools that is used to recruit people to conduct terrorist actions. Adding another religion into the mix makes the situation worse. It makes people that are the defenders seem to be the attackers.

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One of the most difficult thing for a non-Centrist politician to do is to shift to the center. In American context, it is always virtually impossible for a Democrat to piss off the liberal base and for a Republican to piss off their conservative base.

President Obama has been doing that all week though. First was the release of the photos. He decided against releasing those photos after getting advice from General Patreus and General Odierno. This was viewed as a flip-flop by the conservatives and they mocked him.

The liberals were angry with him and demanded that these photos be released. But this makes him more popular amongst soldiers in the eyes of the public. He seems to go against his base when his general advices him to; that is something that goes down well with the public.

His next move was to carry on with the military tribunals with some of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. This is the move that really puzzles me. Firstly, if military tribunals are the best way to go about trying these people, why must it be stopped in 7 months? Is there really enough time to try all these people in 7 months? They are being tried for terrorism, not radio theft. Secondly, why try them in military tribunals now? Why can’t they be tried in courts when they have so many similar rights as other crooks?

His latest move makes a lot of sense. He made the very popular Governor of Utah, John Huntsman Junior the Ambassador to China. That is a very practical move as Governor Huntsman is very fluent in Mandarin. He also has served as an Ambassador before and thus has the experience for the job.

What is shocking about that move though now is that there are many Republicans that are now suddenly after Governor Huntsman. “There is no such thing as a moderate Republican.” “All moderate Republicans are Democrats in disguise.” Many also actually criticize him taking this position. The more saner ones say it is all a ploy by President Obama to take out his best competitor for the 2012 General election.

The question that morphs out of this week is this: Is what President Obama doing now politically motivated or is it something that he is doing it for the best interests of America? Some moves he make are really making his base angry, something no politician wants to do. Unless it is strategy that he is pursuing.

21% of American voters are Republican, 37% are Democrats and 42% are independents. In my opinion, there is a significant chunk of independents (about 25% of them) are inclined to vote Republican but pol themselves as Independents. I think that the amount of Independents that are inclined Democrats are much less than that and the rest are the swing vote.

So on a perspective, about 30% of people would never vote for President Obama in the next elections. About the same number would. So the main game changers are the Independents. And the more centrist that he goes, the more he appeals to them. The more he seems to be standing up against the far left and at the same time being barraged by the far right for every breath he takes, the more appeal he has with the Independents.

I am leaning towards the President playing a game of politics here. He seem to want to run against a radical right person and virtually took one of the best rivals out of the contention the next round. He also seem to be courting the central base of American politics.

The argument against this is this: Isn’t it too early for the President to think about re-election? He still has elections in 2010 for the House and Senate to think about. He needs his Democrats to pus his agenda. Though voters are more Independent then they are either party, the Senate and House are not. He needs them.

President Obama also is not getting the Republican support that he is hoping for. They are on a all out-out-war with him. Many Americans are turned off by this behavior but in reality, this is what opposition parties all around the world do.

To end it all off, while I think that it is much a political week for President Obama, there are also other doses of reality that influence in his choice to making his decisions.

For a second day in a row, dissenters have stormed into Congress and were taken out forcibly by the police when they disrupted a hearing demanding single payer system health-care or universal health-care.

This is something that could ultimately cause President Obama and the Democrats a few elections into the future. The base of the Democratic party is the far left. This is something that the Democrats and Americans would have to live with. A good 33% of the party are far left liberals.

And these people have puppet pushers like Ed Shultz and Keith Olbermann to do their dirty work for them. These people push liberal agendas and viewpoints just as much as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Karl Rove said it on the other side of the isle.

If most of the cabinet are not in favor of single payer health-care why should it be pushed? Why create a war when there can be a peaceful situation out? And are these people that protest and shout during congress sessions, who do they think they are, Kings of America?

When it comes to things on health-care, I am a non partisan. I think that there can be good solutions either way. To me, it is very similar to playing soccer. There are many methods to playing soccer. The Brazilians like a fast pace attacking game which usually ends up with lots of goals scored. The Italians play a very boring rigid system that they called catennacio.

Yet with these two seemingly opposite systems have made Italy and Brazil won more World Cups then any other country on earth. In the same way, having a left-wing or right wing system for health-care can result in success. France has the best health-care system in the world and it has universal health-care. However the 6th (Singapore) and 10th (Japan) best system in the world use Republican method and they are still better than countries like Germany who has universal health-care.

It is a no-brainer that the American system needs to be fixed. Having so many people uninsured is just ridiculous. The system is bad and needs change and needs complete overhaul. At the end of the day though, it is how the government runs or regulate the health care industry that really matters. I feel that rather debating this on a idealogical stand-point and lets be open and talk about the numbers.

Now this is where President Obama has done some good work, though verification on what he say still needs to be done. He said that the amount saved over 10 years with this new plan would amount to 2 trillion dollars. One should only take its word though after the Office of Management and Budget. They tend to be less bias and stick the the facts more.

The Democrats should know that what won them in the 2008 elections was a person that stuck to his center and the prior administration screwing up big time. The further left they go, the more Independents they are going to alienate.

I think that American should politicians should stick to their task of getting the job done rather than being a slave to ideologies. That is something that should happen more often on Capitol Hill, but on this issue it is an absolute must. American lives are literally at stake here.

Lets be open about what system we can use. Lets see the numbers before we make the decision. Let us not make mistakes that could cost our kids their life.

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