In yesterday’s post (see below) I outlined eight fundamental ethical stances Obama would have to quickly tend to in order to back up his talk of change, hope and unity.
Well he tended or at least appeared to tend to at least three of them
First, he immediately began working on the middle east situation and is involving the Palestinians in the dialogue. In the past we have preferred to demonize the PLO and Hamas and basically only spoke to the Isrealies.
Second, Obama tried to put a halt to all of Bush’s last minute laws which many of them had to do with our basic human rights.
Third, he announced plans to close Guantanamo Bay. This, of course, has potentionally strong implications in terms of ending our policies of engaging in torture and also is a step towards restoring people’s rights to trial and due process.
Fourth, Obama began talks on plans to exit Iraq. The key here is that he just doesn’t move the military from Iraq to Afghanistan as he hinted during his campaign.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the majority of this. Obama showed mid season form on his swing today, let’s see if he has any follow through.
Jim Guido