+- Forums (http://india-forum.com)
+-- Forum: Archives (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=7)
+--- Forum: Trash Can (http://india-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=20)
+--- Thread: USA And The Future Of The World (/showthread.php?tid=805)
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 12-28-2008
Add Dallas highway shooting by ex cop, 3 died.
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 01-03-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Iâve just started reading Matthias Changâs âThe Shadow Money Lendersâ and already in the introduction itâs plain that the scope of the the scam - the derivatives market, is monumental. Cheching out the Apendices, as of Sept 30, 2007, JP Morgan Chase & Co had about $92,000,000,000,000 thatâs USD $92 trillion dollars worth of derivatives yet only $1 trillion worth of assets. And this pattern is repeated across the board. Citygroup is next, $39 trillion derivatives, $2.4 trillion assets. This pattern repeats itself for the 25 magacrop institutions presented, giving a total derivative holding of $179 trillion yey only $10 trillion assets.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 01-10-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Full text
The sixth World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations" held in Rhodes in the second week of October 2008, convened as all the previous ones under the joint auspices of the Glory of Russia Foundation and Kapur Surya Foundation, acquired added relevance from the troublous global context in which it was taking place. The planetary economy was undergoing a heart attack at that very time and all stock markets and financial institutions were in acute turmoil. Hence financial, economic and financial considerations could not fail to dominate the discussion and overshadow all other issues, despite the almost bewildering wealth of talent and information available from the hundreds of invited participants who had come from every continent and from several dozen countries.Â
Economists therefore tended to get the lion's share of attention, inevitably in some cases to the detriment of the outstanding scholars and inspirational trailblazers who represented the competing areas of politics and international relations, arts and culture, humanitarian matters, environmental and other scientific problems and philosophy in general, all reflecting diverse facets of the human condition and the state of its planetary home.
The host country, Russia, expectedly occupied a central role, but that reality also revealed that in most such international gatherings it is the USA, as leader of the dominant "West," that is the fulcrum of debates; thus the necessity of bi-polarity, absent real multi-polarity which is still a project, was made apparent. Only by highlighting the Russian and "Eastern" and Southern view on many issues could the subjectivity or, in many cases, the patent unfairness of the so-called "international community" consensus - in fact the "fiat" verdict of the American establishment, more or less enthusiastically supported by its satellite nations - be exposed. In contrast, the power, variety, and originality of intellectual, scientific, cultural and artistic life and activity in Russia was displayed to great advantage, belying the common outside view that the Federation is mainly a frigid repository of oil, gas and strategic minerals lorded over by oligarchs and the KGG.
That the current economic crisis is mainly caused by the corrupt, irresponsible speculative financial and monetary stratagems perfected by the Anglo-American banking system with the willing or forced consent of governments in the USA and Britain, not to mention Japan and the leading Western European nations, came as no surprise to the rather well informed participants. There were some brilliant analyses or even dissections of the processes that led to the disaster by experts from very different backgrounds, such as Helga Zepp Larouche from Germany, wife of the now venerable but always feisty "enfant terrible" of US politics whose dire predictions about the consequences of US political and economic systems have often been proved right, Lyndon Larouche; the senior French economic pundit Jacques Sapir from the IHESS and a bevy of distinguished Russian (Vladimir Popov, Alexander Ageev, Vladimir Potokov), Chinese (Xu Wen Hong), American and European practitioners of what has come to be rightly known as a conjectural science.
Russia, as one of the most egregious victims of capitalism gone wild in the last two decades, has understandably accumulated valuable and costly experience about of the nature of the beast, while China has been trying to preserve itself from its most noxious effect, even though Beijing still tries to have the best of both the socialist and liberal worlds, yet has not avoided suffering from some of their combined worst maladies.Â
The Chinese delegates were predictably sanguine about the ability of their country to protect itself from a potentially fatal downturn, but many foreign observers were much less confidant, pointing to the Asian colossus's critical dependence on exports to the USA and Europe and to the PRC's huge holdings of US sovereign debt instruments which may well turn out to be worthless, either in case of a default by the USA or of the only alternative, to wit, hyperinflation of the American currency. As a matter of fact, China is already suffering from an epidemic of factory closures leading to a job hemorrhage as a result of the worldwide collapse of credit and consumption.
It is worth noting in any event that a reduction in China's annual growth rate from the recent 11% rate to less than 8% would have relatively catastrophic effects, as would be the case if India's were reduced by 3% of 4% percentage points. Contrary to Washington, however, Beijing can pump hundreds of billions of its currency reserves into the domestic economy to keep it humming, while maintaining control over the value of its Renmibi Yuan; on the other hand, the USA can only add to its astronomical foreign debt as long as outside lenders will permit.
Among economists, the senior Russian financial expert Mikhail Khazin in particular pointed to parallels between the current American financial meltdown and credit freeze with the Russian collapse of 1998, which was likewise induced by a massive emission of speculative, esoteric debt instruments that poisoned the entire economy. However, in this case the septicemia is global as US financial markets in his words "for yearsâ¦were sucking the resources out of the entire world" and created artificial domestic prosperity by printing currency and spreading it in American households in order to boost consumption, thereby eating the resources of future generations so that private debt in the country is now much larger than the national economy as a whole. The grim result of this situation is that the US will lose about one-third of its businesses and GDP in the coming months and years, thus sinking into full-fledged depression.
Some speakers at Rhodes were refreshingly candid, being markedly free from the heavy restraints on real dissidence which overshadow ideological discussions in the West. A few pointed out that the nature of the US-led global system required it to create and feed wars and also nurture and "synthetically" instigate terrorism in order to muster the resources needed for its survival, while dividing its allies, satellites and rivals in order to rule them. Recent examples in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Georgia (and on US soil itself on 11 September 2001) provided clear illustrations of the "modus operandi," but these notorious tactics are now falling short of their goals as the instigator is terminally ill.
Such autopsies are almost impossible in Euro-American public fora, where any allusions to those unpalatable truths are quickly drowned in floods of pious rhetoric about the West's commitment to freedom, justice and human rights, just as analyses of the shell game that underpins the global banking mechanisms are dismissed as conspiracy theories. Yet there is little doubt that the Federal Reserve of the USA is a private institution, mainly dedicated to the benefit of its shareholders, which plays a "check kiting game" with the US Treasury, just as commercial banks do among themselves, in order to suck up the private savings of citizens into the coffers of the financial elites.
These stratagems have led to a situation in which the Bush government is injecting at its sole discretion and without any supervision, untold hundreds of billions into the banks and financial institutions, in which its chief officials were groomed and selected and to which goes their loyalty. The so-called rescue or bailout package is becoming increasingly opaque, arbitrary, and probably illegal, to the extent that the Bloomberg Financial Services organization is now suing the Treasury to force it to clarify the use it is making of some $ 2 trillion worth of public funds which are meant to "save" major banks and corporations.
The world economy is now subordinated to this "Ponzi scheme" which Nathan Meyer Rothschild alluded to in his time by stating: "Give me the control of the credit of a nation and I care not who makes the lawsâ¦The great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests".
Ruminations over the ominous economic situation in the USA led many to try to predict the character and effects of future US leadership. Though the American Presidential elections had not yet taken place, few saw a strong possibility for a McCain victory, so palpable was the anger of the US electorate and the country's desperate need for a radical change of leadership.
In Rhodes, however, there was only measured elation about the expected Obama presidency which was not regarded with great trust by people too accustomed to American arbitrariness and arrogance to expect a great change in the "providential nation's" attitude. Russia and China gave the impression that they were hunkering down for self-protection against prospective new US political and economic, if not military, offensives to which the Kremlin opposes a national - and collective Eurasian - security policy recently articulated by President Medvedev and which some outside observers have dubbed as 'Russia's Monroe Doctrine".
Khazin's view that Obama would most likely be made a scapegoat for the country's ills which he would not be able to cure, only differed in degrees from the widely held belief that Obama is a gifted individual, selected and trained by the ruling oligarchy to carry out their mandate under the cosmetic appearance of revolutionary change, thus co-opting many of the dissidents into a system which he, on the surface, appears committed to challenge. This cynical view is supported by the unrivalled amount of financial and institutional support the Harvard-trained candidate has mustered from Wall Street, big business and the industrial and technological leadership of the country, including household names such as Warren Buffett, George Soros and the Silicon Valley kings.
The strikingly ironic or apocalyptic (depending on the point of view) allusions embedded in the new President's name (Barack Hussein Obama echoing three shibboleths and scarecrows of US foreign policy in the last two decades, to wit Iraq, (Saddam) Hussein and Osama) have come to everyone's mind, but only Muslims and people somewhat familiar with Islam noticed that Barack is the name of the Prophet's faithful charger.
It is also worth noting incidentally that prior to joining Columbia and Harvard, Obama was a student at Armand Hammer's Occidental College in California, whose mission is to train the supra-national elite of leaders of the future. Hence those countries which are in Washington's crosshairs as challengers and rivals such as Russia, China and even India, not to mention smaller but non-compliant nations like Iran, Syria, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela, must be prepared for a continuation of the traditional US power politics even if greater attempts are made at diplomacy in Washington and if the first Afro-American President is instinctively driven to try conciliatory gestures.
The question that arises is that if Obama is indeed a manufactured phenomenon on the US political scene, then who are the manufacturers and puppeteers? For it stands to reason that the imperial Shylock is not about to let control slip out of his hands and that he has planned strategies to keep securing his pounds of flesh and perpetuate his supremacy in various guises.
In the sea of criticism of the Bush regime and Neo-conservative political and economic theories, the few Republican Americans who had come to Rhodes stood as an island of defiance, or rather estrangement, and seemed oddly disconnected from the wider zeitgeist. They were unenthusiastic about John McCain as a Presidential candidate, as most of their fellow Christian Conservatives; but they appeared terrified of Obama's victory which they darkly hinted at as being a prelude to Armageddon. They seemed stuck in their own oversimplified Biblical world in which preventing abortion, preserving God's place in the Constitution, capitalism in society, and the right to bear arms for citizens sufficed to ensure a nation's compliance with the Divine Writ.
No wonder that such blinkered perspectives lead such a "Born Again" leadership to commit barbaric crimes and accumulate stupid blunders with a clear conscience, undisturbed by any inconvenient intrusion of reality. This self-styled Evangelical vision of the world for many betrays an odd kind of superstition consonant with Bush's evil genie, Carl Rove's famed statement to the effect that the Bush administration could design reality as it wished and force the rest of the world to live with it.
However, Protestant conservatives owe much of their appeal among American masses to the simple fact that they are the only ones to still oppose the politically correct ultra-liberal diktats of the self-styled intellectual and financial elites which make economically "progressive" opinions inseparable from a blind support to such faddish causes as homosexual marriage or the ban of any religious reference from the public arena. The very day that Barack Obama was elected by an overwhelming majority of Californians, the same state democratically adopted Proposition 8 which aimed to delegalize homosexual unions.
To the distress of fashionable Liberals, many people who want reform for social justice do not want to support marriages that would have been described in olden days as "anti-physical" and patently contrary to biological realities. It is indeed thought-provoking that many of those who claim to champion an ecological vision of life and society deny the existence of natural law in human affairs, although the Conservative notion that preventing homosexual marriage should be the main concern of a government is obviously off-target. "God, guns and gays" are well known hobby horses of the Christian Right and these simplistic pet-subjects have robbed its spiritual claims of much of their genuine validity.
Any dialogue between various religions tends to be overshadowed by the issue of conversions and the misgivings they arouse, especially in the "less developed" continents of Asia and Africa, but also in Latin America, and even in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The traditionally indifferent attitude of Orthodox Churches to other creeds can provide a welcome respite to all others from the often aggressive proselytization practiced by Protestants (especially Evangelicals) and Roman Catholics. There was a widespread sentiment in favour of respecting and not simply tolerating non-monotheistic faiths, which made some "Abrahamic" clerics uncomfortable as all three Semitic religions see themselves as invested with the Mission to reveal the True God to all mankind, and do not encourage their followers to recognize "pagan" or "idolatrous" beliefs.
Likewise, Israeli writer Israel Shamir's call for a united nation of Palestine for all its citizens, irrespective of religion and liberated from the ideological militancy of Zionism, was heard in hushed silence, but followed by enthusiastic applause as it provided a welcome change from the fire-breathing philippic earlier proffered by the representative of the European Jewish Council and predictably directed against Iran, Hamas, Syria and Russia in that order. Indeed Shamir's apology on behalf of his country's and community's aggressiveness and thirst for power and control was music to many ears.
All in all, at Rhodes, some of the world's fine minds were not afraid to go where few in the supposedly free West dare to tread.
The author is Convener, Editorial Board, World Affairs Journal<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 01-10-2009
<b>Pakistani Terrorism: its real aim and how to respond</b>
By: Dr.Dipak Basu
<i>(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The terrorist attack on Mumbai is already a few days old. Thus, the journalistic emotions have died down and now this is the time to think hard about the Pakistani terrorism and its aim before we can think about how to respond. The journalists in the British media are making the mistake of trying to link the issue of Kashmir to this terrorism, while most of these Western journalists, including the "English woman born in India" Arundhuti Roy, have no idea about long history of Islam and the history of the Indian subcontinent to understand the basic issue.
Let us take the case of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the main terrorist group based in Pakistan and financed by Saudi Arabia and U.A.E, named by the Indian authority as the real culprit behind the Mumbai attack. Lashkar-e-Taiba - "The army of the pure" - was a militant offshoot of Markaz Dawatul Irshad, was founded in 1989 by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. Saeed was a former teacher of Islamic studies at Lahore"s University of Engineering and Technology.
Lashkar based its philosophy on Wahhabism, the austere brand of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, and has relied on donations from these Saudis and the Gulf Arab states. The group"s objective is to impose Islamic rule to the whole of South Asia so as to free the Muslims from being ruled by the Hindus, who as the "idolaters" are specifically targeted by The Koran itself. In the Chapter Al-Taubah 9:5 of The Koran it is written clearly: " When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them." and in 9: 12: "Make war on them. God will chastise them at your hands and humble them".
Thus, Kashmir is a small fry in this strategy. Even if India will hand over the whole of the Jammu & Kashmir to Pakistan, the war against the "unbelievers" will go on. Although almost all Hindu reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Dayananda even Ramakrishna Param Hansa have no hesitation to accept the similarity of the Hinduism and Islam as both of these religions accept only one creator, Muslims will never accept even the purest fundamentalist Hindus as "monotheist". Thus, there will be no end of this war.
Anglo-American journalists do not understand that there are no comforts for the Christians or the Jews, the so-called "people of the books" either. The Koran said clearly in the chapter Al-Maidah, 5:15, " Unbelievers are those who declare, "God is the Messiah, the son of Mary" and in 5:51, " Believers, take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends". Attack on the Jewish center in Bombay shows that Jews are legitimate targets of the "believers".
Most commentators, whether Indian or Western, completely ignore this aspect of fundamental religious difference between Islam on one side and all other religions on another side and try to analyse the issue in terms of contemporary world politics. As a result, the analysis presented by them in the world media is always missing the main point and the solutions they are now suggesting now to India, i.e., to compromise on Kashmir, falls short of the reality. When the aim of these terrorists groups is to hoist "Green Flag of Islam" on Washington and Moscow, the battleground is the whole world not just Kashmir.
India needs to think its strategy considering this grim reality. It is unfortunate that in 1947, at the time of the birth of India, India had two leaders, Gandhi and Nehru, who could not understand the history of the world since 7th century and had looked at the communal problem from a very narrow view. According to them, secularism and an appeasement policy towards Islam can eventually narrow the gap between the two warring communities. However, the recent history of the subcontinent showed that no amount of well intentional gestures could undermine the basic religious aim of Islam where secularism has no place but considered to be a dangerous heresy.
Here let us analyse some recent issues to demonstrate that the worldview of the Muslims are entirely different from that of the secular political analysts. Whether it is Kashmir or Afghanistan or Kosovo or 9/11 or 26/11, that worldview of the Muslims is very consistent but unknown to the secular media.
Kashmir Issue:
The view of Arundhuti Roy and assorted journalists in the British media is that India disregarded the UN resolution of plebiscite on Kashmir and the right of the self-determination of the people of Kashmir, which according to the Pakistan are all Muslims. That has created an outrage for the Muslims to react as they did on 26/11 in Mumbai.
However, there are about 20 resolution passed by the UN security council on Kashmir from 1948 to 1971, the most important one is the Resolution no 47, all others are repeating the same points. The UN Resolution No 47, on April 1948, which Pakistan regularly refers, said clearly: ".After Pakistan troops withdrawal, India to withdraw the bulk of its forces but to maintain a requisite strength for safeguarding the law and order in the state." As Pakistan never vacated the areas it had occupied, no plebiscite could take place. It makes no sense, after fifty years to implement the UN resolution in only 45 percent of the original state of the Jammu and Kashmir, which is in India now.
Pakistan launched three large-scale wars on India in 1965, 1971 and in 1999 with an attempt to militarily change the territorial status of J&K. As soon as the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Islamic Muzzahadins, who were fighting in Afghanistan, came to Jammu & Kashmir, supported by Pakistan, to change the territorial status of J&K unilaterally. In 1992, all Hindus from the Indian part of Kashmir were forcibly expelled. There are large-scale infiltrations of Pakistanis in the Indian part of the state of J&K. The percentage of the Muslim in Ladakh went up from about 10 in 1947 to 46 in 2001; in Jammu it went up from about 20 in 1947 to 30 in 2001. In the "Northern Area Province", there were hardly any Muslims in 1947, now there is no non-Muslims in either there or in the Pakistan held Kashmir. The original people of Kashmir have long since left, thus it would be next to impossible to determine who are now eligible to vote in the plebiscite as real Kashmiris.
The proposal of the former President General Musharaf in November 2004 has listed several options for a settlement: (a) the whole area could be demilitarized and made autonomous; (b) it could be put under the joint control of the two countries; © some parts could be divided between the two countries and the Kashmir Valley either would become autonomous or would be under UN supervision (The Nation, 21 November, 2004). Pakistan"s demand is now not restricted to the Indian part of Kashmir valley only, but it has extended to include Kargil of Ladakh Valley and Muslim inhabited districts of western Jammu as well. Pakistan has clearly explained that the problem of Kashmir is religious and a partition along the religious line is the only acceptable solution for Pakistan.
The increased appetite of Pakistan to include Kargil and western Jammu means Pakistan and Bangladesh both gradually demand inclusions of Muslim majority areas in India in their respective countries. In about six districts of Assam, Muslims are now in majority. The situation is the same in parts of West Bengal, north Kerala, and northwestern Uttar Pradesh. Pakistan and Bangladesh will not wait for a long time to demand these areas. Thus, acceptance of Musharaf"s proposal would imply fragmentation of India in future and open war between Muslim and non-Muslim communities as we have seen in the former Yugoslavia recently.
Plebiscite, Exchange of Population and the Origin of Pakistan:
Pakistan came into being because the leaders of the Muslims in British India had refused to live with the non-Muslims. In Kingsway Hall, London on December 13, 1946, Jinnah made a passionate plea for the Muslim State of Pakistan, which would be inhabited by "one hundred million people, all Muslims. Earlier in August 1946, the Muslim League resorted to the "Direct Action" against the non-Muslims in British India to get the Muslim homeland. Jinnah said, referring to the driving out of non-Muslims from East Bengal, that it was already the transfer of population in action, and some machinery should be devised for affecting it peacefully and on a large scale. At a press conference in Karachi on November 25, 1946, Jinnah had appealed to the central as well as provincial governments to take up the question of exchange of population based on religion.
However, the exchange of population was never implemented, as Britain has never included it in the Independence of India Act of 1947 as presented to the British Parliament. Pakistan went ahead to implement the expulsions of the non-Muslim population. In 1947, about 34 percent of the population of Pakistan was non-Muslim. In 2001 less than 3 percent of the population of Pakistan are non-Muslims and less than 1 percent of the population are Hindus. In India, the percentage of the Muslim population increased from 9 percent in 1947 to 14 percent in 2001. Thus, only an one-way transfer of non-Muslims from Pakistan to India took place, but there was no proper exchange of population. That is the root of the Kashmir problem and the Muslim terrorism in India, which the Western media ignores. If there are no Muslims, the Muslim terrorism can only be a part of an invasion from the neighbouring countries but cannot be sustained and supported by the Muslim population in India, as it is the case today.
The cases of Greece-Turkey, Germany-Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria-Turkey, Poland-Germany, Bosnia-Serbia, Croatia-Serbia, are the examples where full-scale exchanges of population along with partition were organized under the administration of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Soviet Union immediately after 1945 has organized exchanges of populations between Germany and Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Poland and Germany, Ukraine and Poland, and between Bulgaria and Rumania. In 1989, the Soviet Union has organized an exchange of population between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well. In fact, it is unnecessary to partition a country if the populations are not to be exchanged.
In 1989, the last soldier of the Soviet Union had left Afghanistan. A full-scale attack on the non-Muslims of Kashmir also had started in 1989 to drive them away from Kashmir. General Zia addressed a meeting of selected military commanders and top bosses of I.S.I. (Inter Services Intelligence) in April 1988 and said:
" As you know, due to our preoccupation in Afghanistan, I have not been able to put these plans before you earlier. Let there be no mistake, however, that our aim remains quite clear and firm and that is the liberation of the Kashmir Valley - our Kashmiri brothers cannot be allowed to stay with India for any length of time, now. We whip up anti-Indian feelings amongst the students and peasants, preferably on some religious issues, so that we can enlist their active support for rioting and anti-government demonstrations. By the grace of God, we have managed to accumulate large stocks of modern arms and ammunition from US consignments intended for Afghan Mujahideen. This will help our brethren to achieve their goals."
Benazir Bhutoo, the darling of the British media, was the main architect of that plan to turn Kashmir from " a heaven on earth" to "a killing field". In 1992 President Clinton"s special assistant to South Asia Robin Rafael had declared that USA recognize the whole of J&K as a disputed area but not a part of India.
Destruction of Afghanistan:
Pakistan has invaded Afghanistan informally many years before the Soviets came to Afghanistan in December 1979. Major General Naseerullah Babar, later Interior Minister of Benazir Bhutto and the organizer of Taliban, said,
" In October 1973 an Afghan named Habibur Rahman Shaheed came and contacted me about setting up a resistance movement in Afghanistan with active military assistance of Pakistan. I conveyed the same to Zulfiqer Ali Bhutto, who accepted my proposal in view of the changed situation in Afghanistan and asked me to organize training of Afghans. Thus we established the base of Afghan Mujahideen resistance in 1973. We gave them basic infantry weapons, some specialized training in how to conduct guerrilla warfare. It was a top-secret affair and the ISI had no role. The secret was shared between Bhutto, myself, Aziz Ahmad and Tikka Khan, then the Army Chief. Who were the pioneers of the anti-Daud Afghan resistance? They were Ustad Rabbani, Hikmatyar, and a host of others who came to Pakistan after October 1973. Mr Bhutto laid the foundation of the Afghan resistance in 1973. He had the foresight and vision to do it. As a matter of fact we created the organizational network which was used by Zia and the USA to oppose the Soviets." ("Remembering our Warrior-Babar the Great" in Defence Journal, April 2001).
If Benazir Bhutto, the darling of the British press, was so opposed to Osama Bin Laden and terrorism, why then did she work with a retired military general as her Interior Minister, Naseerullah Babar to create the Taliban? Major General Naseerullah Babar was a leader of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami, which was a political party that controlled the Madrasahs (religious schools) where the Talibs (students) were recruited to create the Taliban. During the 1965 war with India, Babar was awarded Sitara-e-Jurat. In the 1971 war, he commanded an artillery brigade. Then he was appointed Governor of NWFP because of his close association with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He contested the 1977 election on a Pakistan Peoples Party ticket from his home district of Nowshera. In 1988 he became the Special Assistant to Benazir Bhutto to mobilize the Muzzahideens to capture and destroy both Afghanistan and India.
In Bebar"s own words, "All my life thence I have not been able to reconcile with the feigned Indian democracy and been involved in four wars against India, viz; 1948 (Kashmir); 1965 Rann of Kutch, 1965 (Indo-Pak War), 1971 (Indo-Pak War). In three of these I found myself in Kashmir! I took part in the 1947-48 Kashmir War as commander of a Tribal Lashkar in Jul/Aug 1948 in the Poonch Sector. " (In "Remembering our Warrior-Babar the Great" in Defence Journal, Pakistan, April 2001)
Destruction of Yugoslavia:
The crisis in Yugoslavia and its eventual destruction was caused by Germany when it had recognized pro-Nazi provinces of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia, as sovereign nations and started calling the Yugoslav government as the Serbian government and the Yugoslav army as the occupation army in Bosnia and Croatia. Later the NATO member countries also recognized these former provinces of Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia was caused by mass murder of thousands in which Pakistan, along with Turkey, and Saudi Arabia played major role. Their aim was to create the Islamic Bosnian state and to destroy Yugoslavia through their campaign of terror. Pakistan was the leading light of these terrorists.
A contingent of 20,000 heavily armed men was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI of Pakistan, which was then sent to Yugoslavia at the request of the Clinton administration. About 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA"s contingent in Bosnia. In January 1993 already, a Pakistani vessel with ten containers of arms, which were destined for the Bosnia, was intercepted in the Adriatic Sea ["Wapens moslims onderschept" ("Muslim arms intercepted"), Trouw, 21/01/93]. Sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles were air lifted by the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, to help Bosnians fight the Serbs, an ex-ISI Chief Lt.
Despite a UN arms embargo, and with the support of the US, arms, ammunition and thousands of fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan were smuggled into Bosnia. General (Retd) Javed Nasir has officially admitted in a written petition submitted before a court in Lahore ["Ex-ISI Chief Reveals Secret Missile Shipments to Bosnia defying UN Embargo", in: South Asia Tribune Publications, Issue No 22, Dec 23-29, 2002]. During a visit to Sarajevo of the later Prime Minister of Turkey, Tansu Ciller, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, both publicly called for a lifting of the arms embargo.
The 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, directed by the US general Wesley Clark, was said to be stopping an alleged "genocide" by the Serbs in Kosovo. However, the real goal of USA was to assist the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), although the year before, the US state department had branded the KLA a terrorist organization, financing its operations from the heroin trade and funds from some Middle-Eastern countries and individuals, including Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden and his network were also active in Kosovo, and KLA members trained in his camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Albania.
During an interview on Fox TV in the summer 2006, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British intelligence had used the Al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit terrorists with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo. One British of Pakistani origin took very active part in the civil war in Yugoslavia was Omar Saeed Sheikh. Omar Sheikh, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks [as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI"s financial crimes unit].
Omar Skeikh has killed the journalist Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal, who has disclosed the link between Al-Queada, Pakistan"s ISI and the CIA. According to Benazir Bhutto Omar Sheikh also has killed Ben Laden later after his job of the 9/11 incident was completed (according to the statement of Bhutto on November 2, 2007 in Al-Jazeera TV channel). Thus, the link between Al-Queada, Pakistan"s ISI and CIA is very obvious, thus raising serious question about the real purpose of the "war on terror".
Analysis:
In recent past particularly since 1978 USA and NATO has been actively helping Pakistan and their fellow Muslims to subvert all progressive governments in Eurasia but they could not understand that they are also helping the real ambition of Saudi Arabia-UAE and the rest of the Islamic nations to re-establish the Islamic Empire from France to the Philippines and from Russia to Sri Lanka and eventually turn the entire world Islamic.
In 2006 in Munich, former US Defense Secretary has warned the world about the rise of a "global extremist Islamic empire" that could be as deadly as Hitler"s Third Reich, as "the Islamic radicals seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent. They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire." It may be too late for the Western countries to realize this plan but the British media is still ignorant about the nature of this Islamic revival, as explained by the founder of the Mujahideen movement Hasan-Al Banna.
According to Hasan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the pioneers of today"s Islamic revival, "Islamic Homeland extends to the first Islamic Empire which the Pious Ancestors built with their dear and precious blood, and over which they raised the banner of Allah. The Muslim will be asked before Allah why he did not work to restore its lands. Then the homeland of the Muslim expands to encompass the entire world."
Also "Working for Islam is a must from the Islamic point of view because the existing political and economic system and manmade laws operate functionally to deny the wisdom of Allah on earth. This denial makes it compulsory for every Muslim to establish a functionally Islamic society in every country on earth and to restore the Islamic way of life taught by all the prophets." "Since transforming every society into a functionally Islamic community and governing in accordance with the law of Allah, the Almighty, is a must, therefore every effort to accomplish these goals, according to the shari"ah is also a must."
Thus, no amount of "confidence building measures" or bus trips to Lahore or trains to Dakha will change the mindset of the Muslims, for whom it is their religious duty to fight the unbelievers. They have taken their fight against modern civilizations whether it is Anglo-American or Slavic or Hindu, because in the words of Hasan-Al Banna,
" Our task in general is to stand against the flood of modernist civilization overflowing from the swamp of materialistic and sinful desires. Western secularism moved into a Muslim world already estranged from its Qur"anic roots, and delayed its advancement for centuries, and will continue to do so until we drive it from our lands. Moreover, we will not stop at this point, but will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland, and struggle to overcome it until all the world shouts by the name of the Prophet and the teachings of Islam spread throughout the world. Only then will Muslims achieve their fundamental goal, and there will be no more "persecution" and all religion will be exclusively for Allah."
Thus the 9/11 in New York or 26/11 in Mumbai cannot be neutralized by giving small concessions in Palestine or Kashmir as the worldview of the Muslims are not restricted to these insignificant issues. Those who do not understand it are suffering from serious myopia and complete ignorance of the world history since the seventh century.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Shambhu - 01-11-2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/09/asi...tant.php?page=1
Obama's worst Pakistan nightmare
7 pages
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-14-2009
Clinton's list of contributor
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->$1,000,001 to $5,000,000
Paul Reynolds
Robertson Foundation
Bernard L. Schwartz
Walter H. Shorenstein
Arnold H. Simon
Bren and Melvin Simon
<b>Amar Singh</b>
Michael Smurfit
Harold Snyder
State of Kuwait
........
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Amar Singh donates Clinton's more than million US $ !!!
Is this guy printing money in his basement? How does he have access to so much cash? And what's a politician from UP doing with Clintons?
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-14-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Amar Singh donates Clinton's more than million US $ !!!
Is this guy printing money in his basement? How does he have access to so much cash? And what's a politician from UP doing with Clintons?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did RBI gave approval? Did he declared this amount in his election financial declaration ?
This is nuclear deal hafta.
USA And The Future Of The World - shamu - 01-14-2009
Why doesn't BJP use this to nail Amar and SP down forever?
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 01-14-2009
REX NUTTING
Seven most horrible things about Bush presidency
Commentary: An alternative to commander-in-chief's view of his time in office
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:37 a.m. EST Jan. 14, 2009
Comments: 167
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The remarkable thing about President George W. Bush wasn't that he was a horrible chief executive; it's that he was horrible in so many ways.
Contrary to the president's own assessment of his tenure earlier this week, it was an astonishing eight years - and not in a good way. The country suffered two recessions, and two shooting wars. The government botched its response to a brazen attack by terrorists on two cities, and then four years later utterly failed to react when another city was consumed by a natural disaster.
The president took on tyranny by embracing torture. He fought a war for freedom by trampling human rights. He enriched the already rich, excused their excesses, and then bailed them out of trouble and handed us the bill.
He politicized everything, promoted incompetents, and -- whenever things got tight -- appealed to our basest instincts of fear, greed, ignorance and hate.
Bush had all the luck of Jimmy Carter, the attention to detail of Ronald Reagan, the adaptability of Lyndon Johnson, the abiding respect for the Constitution of Richard Nixon, the humility of Teddy Roosevelt, the rhetorical skills of Calvin Coolidge, the fiscal restraint of Franklin Roosevelt, the cronyism of Warren Harding, and the overreaching idealism of Woodrow Wilson.
And his election had all the legitimacy of Rutherford Hayes'.
None of the disasters of the past eight years can be entirely blamed on Bush, of course. No president is all powerful, and Bush was handed some raw deals, especially in that first year with the recession and then the nightmare of 9/11. But other presidents - Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the incoming Obama come to mind -- have had to deal with worse. The test of greatness is what you do when faced with the impossible.
Here's my list of the seven worst things Bush did during his time in the White House.
7. Bush politicized parts of the government that should be nonpartisan. From NASA to the Justice Department, professionals were forced out or silenced if they departed from the true Republican way. What was good for the Republican Party trumped what was good policy for the nation. Every administration is political to some extent, but the Bush administration took it too far. When Paul O'Neill was forced out at Treasury, it was clear that every major decision would be determined by Karl Rove's calculus.
6. Bush squandered the budget surplus. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bush had a near-religious faith in the ability of tax cuts to deliver prosperity. Tax cuts were the panacea that would cure all ills. Economy too strong? Cut taxes. Economy too weak? Cut taxes. Stock market falling? Cut dividend taxes. Investment weak? Cut capital gains taxes. But tax cuts didn't make the economy stronger; they merely blew a big hole in the budget. Now, when we could really use that surplus to pay for the bailouts and the stimulus, it's gone.
5. Bush comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted. The Bush years were the ultimate test of trickle-down economics, the theory that says the government should favor the rich because the benefits will flow down to the rest of us. The results of that experiment are clear: We've had the weakest job growth since the 1930s. We've had the biggest increase in debt ever. We've had the highest share of national income going to profits since the 1920s. Income inequality has soared while our public and private investment has slowed to a trickle. Instead of building a fundamentally sound economy, Bush nurtured a Ponzi economy based on get-rich-quick schemes.
4. Bush rewarded incompetence. Because politics and personal loyalty were all that counted, Bush appointed incompetent people to vital jobs. He hired interns to run Iraq. He hired a horse expert to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He wanted to hire Harriett Miers to be a Supreme Court justice. Top jobs were reserved for sycophants, toadies and failures.
3. Bush lied us into war. Every argument for war against Iraq was a delusion, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost as a result.Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11 in any way. He was not a danger to the United States. The Bush administration ignored or dismissed mountains of evidence that showed that Saddam was not building an arsenal of chemical or nuclear weapons. Bush rushed to war without giving diplomacy or weapons inspectors a chance. Later, administration officials blew the cover of a CIA employee whose husband told the truth, and then lied about their involvement.
2. Bush has exposed himself to war crime charges. By his own admission, Bush authorized interrogation practices that are illegal under U.S. and international law. His administration at best looked the other way and at worst ordered prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to be tortured. Not only is torture an immoral and heinous crime against humanity, it is ineffective in the fight against terrorism. Nothing has given Osama bin Laden more support than Bush's immorality. And our nation's reputation has been tarnished, possibly forever.
1. Bush weakened our democracy. Bush has embraced a theory of dictatorship. Bush, under Vice President Dick Cheney's guidance, encouraged an imperial presidency answerable to no one. Working with a complacent Congress, Bush gutted the constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep any part of the government from growing too powerful or too corrupt. In the name of an endless war against an amorphous enemy, he canceled our most fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to be free from unreasonable government spying.
One final note: Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, the nation was as united as it had been since Pearl Harbor, and Bush rode a wave of popularity that he could have used to turn around the nation's politics, security and economy.
Instead of uniting us as he promised, he divided us instead. End of Story
Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 01-18-2009
http://www.cyberastro.com/asp/obama_article.asp
Swearing of the 44th US President on the 20th of January 2009 at 12 noon.
<img src='http://www.cyberastro.com/grfx/obama_chart.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
The 44th Presidency of United States of America will be sworn on 20th of January 2009 between 11:30 am to 12 noon. As per US constitution notification. Mr Barack Obamaâs presidency will commence from 12 noon on 20th of January 2009. We have cast the swearing in chart for 20th of January 2009 at 12:00 pm at Washington, DC.
The astrological parameters of the vedic swearing in chart are as follows :
The Ascendant is Aries. Lord of Ascendant Mars is located in 9th house, Sagittarius. Mars is also the Lord of 8th house.
The Moon sign is Scorpio and Moon is debilitated in Scorpio which is also the 8th house in the chart.
The 10th house in the chart is Capricorn which is ruled by Saturn. There are 5 planets in 10th house Rahu/ Jupiter/Sun and Mercury are the 4 Vedic planets. Neptune is also located in Capricorn in the 10th house. Lord of 10th house Saturn is located in 5th house.
Venus Lord of 2nd and 7th house are located in 11th house. Ketu is located in 4th house.
Uranus is located in 11th house, Aquarius and Pluto is located in 9th house along with Mars in Sagittarius.
Both Saturn and Mercury are retrograde in the swearing in chart.
The starting planet period/sub-period is Saturn/Mercury/Ketu period.
The Vedic chart is pasted below:
Obama Chart
An overview of this chart :
This chart indicates that this government will be very focused, ambitious and determined. It will aggressively pursue itâs goal with a clear vision about itâs priorities. The leadership will not only be strong and powerful but it will also be perceived by others and other counties as strong and determined.
Debilitated Jupiter in 10th house also confirms astrologically that financial crisis will be the major challenge in front of the government. Ketu in 4th house and 4th Lord Moon being debilitated in 8th house indicates that there will be further deterioration in US domestic situation in form of unemployment etc. As a result the new president will have to suffer a certain loss of popularity among his domestic constituents because of the huge expectation of people. He is unlikely to come up with any magic solution for the sufferings of people or will be able to introduce any quick populist solution or fix to the crisis.
The first 30 days of the new presidency will be sending mixed signals and there may be several flip flops in the various initiatives that this administration may undertake during the first 30 days.
The same will be true in foreign policy initiatives also. There will be major flip flops on Afghanistan and Iraq front also during the early days of this administration. However, in the final analysis this administration will be more successful in itâs foreign policy initiatives than on the domestic front.
2009 in detail:
After initial flip flop, this administration will come with clear foreign policy initiative as well as major policy initiative in trade and commerce which will be in favor of US companies. This will be announced after 19th of February 2009 with the onset of Saturn/Mercury/Venus period, which will be operative between 19th of February 2009 till 2nd of August 2009. There will be major administration reforms which will be initiated by this new government with the onset of Saturn/Mercury/Sun period between 2nd of August 2009 till 20th of September 2009.
Clear cut economic reforms will be initiated and new fiscal policies will be announced by May 2009 when Jupiter will move to Aquarius. USA will be vulnerable to major terrorist attack either in itâs various foreign outposts or even in the domestic front during the Saturn/Mercury/Moon period between 20th of September 2009 to 11th of December 2009. President Obama and his immediate family may be in danger during this period itself. This will be Jupiter/Mars/ Ketu period as per Barack Obamaâs natal chart.
However 2010 will see USA more proactive and united behind Barack Obama and the policies of his administration. The total recovery in all the fronts are only expected by end of 2012 only when Saturn/Venus period will be operative as per the swearing in chart between 4th of December 2012 till 12th of August 2015. This will also ensure that he will have no difficulty to become the president for his second term also.
However, I must confess that today is the first time I looked into President Barack Obama's Natal Chart. His natal chart does not give any indication that he could become the President of USA. But he is among the very few people for whom astrological chart does not matter. He controls and shapes his own destiny.
It has renewed my hope that he will definitely bring far reaching changes for the betterment of everybody in the world.
Satrajit Majumdar
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-21-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âWe ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and <b>when white will embrace what is right</b>,â Lowery prayed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From today's Inauguration , this is causing lot of heart burn and anger. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-21-2009
acharya,
Satrajit Majumdar's analysis never came true. When analysis is done based on personal agenda or ideology, it never works.
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 01-21-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jan 21 2009, 12:25 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jan 21 2009, 12:25 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âWe ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and <b>when white will embrace what is right</b>,â Lowery prayed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From today's inanguration, this is causing lot of heart burn and anger. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->[right][snapback]93513[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
According to Husky, "Black", "brown", "yellow" are just euphemisms and replacement identities for the 'deracinated'. Having postcolonial discourse in the hands of these types is problematic for Hindus.
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-21-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jan 20 2009, 02:55 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jan 20 2009, 02:55 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âWe ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and <b>when white will embrace what is right</b>,â Lowery prayed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From today's Inauguration , this is causing lot of heart burn and anger. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->[right][snapback]93513[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The inaguration itself's caused a lot of heartburn to such people. They'll have to just drink pepto-bismal and suck it up -- for next 4 whole years. <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Did you notice reference to 'Hindus' in the speech? Pepto-bismal for Farmer and Witzel too (remember how they disputed the number of Hindus in US saying we didn't amount to hill of beans)
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-21-2009
Here those who voted for Hope and Change are angry because they voted for Right. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Pandyan - 01-21-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Jan 20 2009, 03:28 PM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Jan 20 2009, 03:28 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jan 20 2009, 02:55 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mudy @ Jan 20 2009, 02:55 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->âWe ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and <b>when white will embrace what is right</b>,â Lowery prayed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From today's Inauguration , this is causing lot of heart burn and anger. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->[right][snapback]93513[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The inaguration itself's caused a lot of heartburn to such people. They'll have to just drink pepto-bismal and suck it up -- for next 4 whole years. <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Did you notice reference to 'Hindus' in the speech? Pepto-bismal for Farmer and Witzel too (remember how they disputed the number of Hindus in US saying we didn't amount to hill of beans)
[right][snapback]93516[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't mistake that for some benevolence. He mentioned Hindus because there is no other significant group left.
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-21-2009
<b>U.S. Stocks Slide to Worst Inauguration Day Drop in Dow Industrial History </b>
WTI CRUDE FUTURE (USD/bbl.) 40.8 +3.75
USA And The Future Of The World - Capt M Kumar - 01-22-2009
Dalits hail Obamaâs inauguration
PNS | Hyderabad
The historic inauguration of first African-American President in the United States seems to have fired millions of dreams in India as the members of the downtrodden sections specially the Dalits and the tribal came together in Hyderabad to witness the history unfolding itself and celebrating the "coronation" of Barak Hussien Obama.
A large number of Dalits, including the intellectuals, academicians, students, Government officials, social activists and ordinary souls gathered under a roof to see the oath taking by a US President. Giving them the company was the US consul general in Hyderabad Kornellis M Keur. A group of young Dalit boys and girls preparing for the civil services examination were glued to the television screen trying to absorb the unfolding drama and grasp to the every word uttered by their hero Obama.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/151548/Dalits-...auguration.html
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-22-2009
<b>Obama takes presidential oath again after stumble</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->President Obama on Wednesday took the oath of office for a second time â just in case. Â
A day after Obama and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the oath, Roberts administered the oath again, the White House announced Wednesday evening. <b>The oath was administered at about 7:35 p.m.</b>
Obama joked about the matter to pool reporters covering the event.
âWe decided it was so much fun...,â he said as Roberts donned his black robe. Â
âAre you ready to take the oath?" Roberts asked. âI am, and we're going to do it very slowly,â Obama replied. The whole ceremony took 25 seconds.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 01-22-2009
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Giving them the company was the US consul general in Hyderabad Kornellis M Keur.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indians should have brought some blacks and watched with them.