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Obama's Pick to Lead Afghan War Linked to Abuse of Prisoners & Secret Assassination Unit

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Marc Garlasco, Tom Engelhardt - Jun. 08 (News Report) - he oversaw a secretive program to hunt down and assassinate suspected terrorists around the globe. Last year, lawmakers delayed Stanley McChrystal’s nomination for a key position because of questions about prisoner abuse by forces under his command. Many of the reports of abuse center on Camp Nama, a US base near Baghdad’s airport where Special Operations troops ran an interrogation and detention center.

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Approval of U.S. Leadership Up in Some Arab Countries

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Gallup - By Julie Ray, Mohamed Younis - Jun. 02 (Poll) - President Barack Obama may find audiences in many Arab countries more willing to listen when he addresses the Muslim world Thursday from Cairo, Egypt. New Gallup Polls conducted in 11 Arab countries show that although approval of U.S. leadership remains generally low, ratings are up in 8 countries including Egypt.

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Obama to Speak at Campus Where Political Freedoms Are Few

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Schneider - Jun. 03 (Special Report) - expectations have risen in the Arab Middle East that his speech will mark a fresh start in U.S. relations with the region and with its dominant faith, Islam. At Cairo University, where academic freedom is trumped by the government's security concerns, some students and faculty members are skeptical.

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Memo to Obama: Leave Egypt

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Reza Aslan - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - Obama should have chosen Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, a moderate, pluralistic, wildly successful democratic country whose citizens just last month overwhelming voted for secular and moderate Muslim parties over the country’s more radical Islamist groups. Instead, by choosing Cairo as the backdrop to his speech, Obama has in effect rewarded Egypt’s president for life, Hosni Mubarak, for his bloody, blatantly anti-democratic, and dictatorial rule.

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Lebanon's American-Backed Government Holds on to Power

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Andrew Lee Butters - Jun. 08 (News Report) - The full results aren't yet official, but it appears that Lebanon's American-backed ruling coalition maintained its majority in parliament after the country voted in record numbers yesterday.

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Obama's Middle East Test

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Michael Gerson - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - Any presidential speech abroad has multiple audiences. One of them, in this case, is the Egyptian government, whose cooperation is needed on issues that range from proliferation to peace. But another audience will be dissidents and reformers in Egypt and beyond

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Using New Language, President Shows Understanding for Both Sides in Middle East

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Glenn Kessler, Jacqueline L. Salmon - Jun. 05 (News Analysis) - There was no mention of "terrorists" or "terrorism," just "violent extremists." There was the suggestion that Israeli settlements are illegitimate and the assertion that the Palestinians "have suffered in pursuit of a homeland." There were frequent references to the "Holy Koran" and echoes of Muslim phrases.

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Egyptians set the stage for Obama address

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Theodore May - Jun. 02 (Special Report) - Obama has decided to fly into the region at a time of deep crisis. Gaza lies in ruins, the Pakistani government remains unstable, Hezbollah appears set to win elections in Lebanon and Iran continues to rattle the saber. Terrorist threats abound and Obama is banking on the fact that words still count.

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What Muslim World?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Scott Carpenter, Soner Cagaptay - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - Even before U.S. President Barack Obama utters a word of his long-anticipated June 4 address to "the Muslim world," there is already a problem with the rhetoric. As well meaning as it sounds, the term "Muslim world" is a trap. There is no unified Muslim world. And describing it as such legitimizes the idea that it is "us vs. them" -- just the sort of divided world that al Qaeda wants to create.

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Cairo University Preps for Obama

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Link TV - Jun. 04 (News Analysis) - Cairo University is prepping for President Barack Obama's historic visit. Old and cracked roads are being repaved and workers have been busy mowing the lawns and planting new shrubs and flowers. Initially, Obama was scheduled to speak at the world's oldest university, Al Azhar, built almost a thousand years ago. However, for security reasons, Cairo University was chosen.

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Cairo University staff, students weigh in on Obama’s visit

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

thedailynewsegypt.com - By Tamim Elyan - Jun. 03 (News Report) - US President Barack Obama’s choice of Cairo University as the venue from which to make his much-anticipated address to the Muslim world elicited different reactions from university staff and students.

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Egyptians’ Approval of U.S. Leadership Up, But Still Low

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Gallup - By Adam Sitte, Dalia Mogahed - Jun. 03 (Poll) - As President Barack Obama addresses the Muslim world from Egypt's capital Thursday, a March 2009 Gallup Poll shows that current approval of U.S. leadership among Egyptians is up to 25% from 6% in May 2008 -- revealing a dramatic improvement and a long way to go.

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Speech stirs mixed feelings

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Jun. 05 (News Report) - Arab intellectuals remain unsurprisingly split over the speech by Barak Obama to the Islamic world. While some consider it as bold, historic and an opening of a new chapter in US relations with the Islamic world, others simply see it as evasive and lacking substance.

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Obama's speech in Cairo: Are Muslims convinced?

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Jeffrey Fleishman - Jun. 04 (News Analysis) - Cairo -- He came. He spoke. But did he convince? President Obama's long-anticipated speech to the Arab world today sought to dissolve the mistrust between Islam and the West by highlighting his personal appeal as he urged ending intolerance and violence and moving toward a shared future. It was a carefully textured blend of history, the president's personal experience with Islam and the need to quell religious extremism.

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Egyptians worry that Obama will inadvertently bless repression

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Dion Nissenbaum - Jun. 02 (News Report) - Cairo prepares to welcome President Barack Obama on Thursday, when he's scheduled to deliver a major speech to the Arab world, politicians such as Nour are growing increasingly concerned that Obama will sacrifice democratic reforms in Egypt to shore up Mubarak in pursuit of the American president's broader Middle East agenda.

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Leftover Policies Pose a Challenge to Obama's Cairo Message

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Byard Duncan - Jun. 08 (Opinion) - absent from Obama's comments was the promise to address existing policies of exceptionalism and hostility that continue to rot American foreign policy from the inside out. Without a recognition and serious reconsideration of these practices, the current administration has little chance of making tangible the changes it spent much of the last year promising.

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Iran Listens as Obama Speaks

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Cameron Abadi - Jun. 06 (Special Report) - The U.S. president's speech clashed with a day of mourning for the late Ayatollah Khomeini. But many Iranians found a way to listen.

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Obama's Middle East Trip a Balancing Act

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Michael D. Shear - Jun. 02 (News Analysis) - President Obama's visit to the Middle East, which begins today, will test the administration's relationship with Israel's new leadership and the president's promise to reach out to the Arab world as the region struggles to find peace.

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Can the U.S. Contain Iran's Nuclear Ambitions?

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Massimo Calabresi - Jun. 06 (Special Report) - The U.S. has never been good at making sense of Tehran's knotty power structure, and the distrust is mutual: many in Iran suspect that the U.S. is looking for an excuse to attack their nation, as it did Iraq.

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Netanyahu rejects US calls for settlement freeze

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Amy Teibel - Jun. 01 (News Report) - Israel’s prime minister on Monday rejected the U.S. demand for a settlement freeze as unreasonable, moving closer to a collision with the Obama administration, while mobs of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian laborers and burned West Bank fields.

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Israeli Rejection of Settlement Freeze Spells Trouble for Obama's Cairo Outreach

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Tim McGirk - Jun. 01 (News Analysis) - If President Barack Obama thought he could deliver the promise of a few Israeli concessions during his upcoming Cairo speech to the Muslim world, he was sorely mistaken.

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Bin Laden's Problem: Obama IS the Message to the Muslim World

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite - Jun. 04 (Opinion) - I made no headway in convincing this Turkish Muslim that President Obama is a devout Christian. I had plenty of time to make my case; Istanbul traffic is appalling. But over an hour, I was struck by the stunned admiration of this one Muslim for the United States. I am certain he is not the only one. Gallup polls show I'm right.

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Just Like Bush

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Michael Crowley - Jun. 04 (Opinion) - Most of his main arguments have been made before--not just by Obama himself, but by his predecessor. "Today I'd like to speak directly to the people across the broader Middle East," George W. Bush said at the United Nations on September 16, 2006.

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In Obama's speech, a new approach to Middle East: candor

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Peter Grier - Jun. 05 (News Report) - Did President Obama in his Cairo speech signal a new toughness towards the Arab-Israeli peace process? Past presidents have opposed Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In Cairo, Mr. Obama said plainly that the US will not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.

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