Thursday, April 30, 2009

The 100 Day Presidential Press Conference

Here are some interesting comments by Obama on Chrysler and Waterboarding and Pakistan and its nuclear weapons. The President was asked about preventing the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM, the President stated he following, " Let me speak to Chrysler first because the clock is ticking on Chrysler coming up with a plan. I am actually very hopeful, more hopeful than I was 30 days ago, that we can see a resolution that maintains a viable Chrysler auto company out there. What we've seen is the unions have made enormous sacrifices, on top of sacrifices that they had previously made. You've now seen the major debt holders come up with a set of potential concessions that they can live with. All that promises the possibility that you can get a Fiat-Chrysler merger and that you have an ongoing concern. The details have not yet been finalized so I don't want to jump the gun, but I'm feeling more optimistic than I was about the possibilities of that getting done.......The last point -- you asked about Chrysler bankruptcy. It was the prudent and appropriate thing for Chrysler to do to engage in the filings that they -- that received some notice a while back, because they had to prepare for possible contingencies. It's not yet clear that they're going to have to use it. The fact that the major debt holders appear ready to make concessions means that even if they ended up having to go through some sort of bankruptcy, it would be a very quick type of bankruptcy and they could continue operating and emerge on the other side in a much stronger position." Thus it will be interesting to ask when did the President know that the deal had failed. Was the President blowing smoke in the eyes of the reporters. Also what was interesting was the answer to the torture debate and if he had read the memos that argued that the torture had prevented attacks on the USA. The President stated the following, "I have read the documents. Now, they haven't been officially declassified and released, and so I don't want to go into the details of them. But here's what I can tell you -- that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques -- which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques -- doesn't answer the core question, which is: Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question: Are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques? So when I made the decision to release these memos and when I made the decision to bar these practices, this was based on consultation with my entire national security team, and based on my understanding that ultimately I will be judged as Commander-in-Chief on how safe I'm keeping the American people. That's the responsibility I wake up with and it's the responsibility I go to sleep with. And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe, but I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are. And there have been no circumstances during the course of this first hundred days in which I have seen information that would make me second-guess the decision that I've made. " What was interesting, not what the President said but how he stated in views, his eyes did not look at the reporter, almost to the basement of the White House. This tells this blogger and that Obama had read these memos that state that torture has worked and it freaked him out. Obama's last comment is interesting, it gives him wiggle room if he has a 24 moment, in the future Obama might have to use these tough interrogation methods if events change, to quote and old UK PM when asked what could go wrong by a young minister, events, events was the reply. Thus Obama might find he does not have a choice, having a choice is a luxury, when a major City under a threat from a dirty bomb and your lucky to have a day you do what has to be done, otherwise you get impeached and have to share the stage with another weak President, Jimmy Carter. The President stated the following on Pakistan, " I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure -- primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army I think recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands. We've got strong military to military consultation and cooperation. I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan not because I think that they're immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan; more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services -- schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of people. And so as a consequence it is very difficult for them to gain the support and the loyalty of their people. So we need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis. And I think that there's a recognition increasingly on the part of both the civilian government there and the army that that is their biggest weakness. On the military side you're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days, that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally. And you're starting to see the Pakistan military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists. We want to continue to encourage Pakistan to move in that direction. And we will provide them all the cooperation that we can. We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear armed militant state. " These last comments by Obama could be argued show that Obama is thinking outside the box, but correctly, it could be that the USA will have to send troops in to Pakistan, in the Tribal badlands on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and also to the Capital of Islamabad to protect the nuclear weapons of Pakistan. I will state again, Obama is the new LBJ and Afghanistan and Pakistan is the new Vietnam.

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