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Once the Glow is Gone

The Presidential election is over.  We have officially inaugurated Barack Obama into the highest office of the U.S. government.  Now what?  As dedicated activists do we really believe that our new President is beyond reproach and without contradiction?  Of course we do not, and cannot, expect either if we really want to see change come to this country.  President Obama is one man with an extraordinary task ahead of him. 

Lincoln needed the Abolitionists.  Roosevelt needed the Labor movement (Eric Foner, Interview, Fresh Air with Terry Gross Jan.20th, 2009).  President Obama needs the peace movement in this desperate time of war and economic strife.    Our advocacy and activism over the next four years will provide him a vital grassroots perspective on peace issues.

One of the best ways to provide that perspective is to monitor Presidential appointments.  Members of Obama's cabinet, and their staff, will have the President's ear on the most critical issues of our time.  Peace Action must be discerning and diligent, especially with regard to Defense, State, and Energy appointments, to put the right people at the table with the President.

Peace Action has already begun to scrutinize our new President's picks for his cabinet.  Nationally, we vehemently opposed the nomination of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.  Several times during the early primaries, then-Senator Obama declared that he doesn't "want to just end the war; I want to end the mindset that got us into war." His nomination of Gates may have been a nod to bi-partisanship; but, it did not reinforce any plans for a new strategy in Iraq or for U.S. military policy.     

Peace Action West has recently begun a campaign against Denis Ross as an envoy to the Middle East, with a focus on Iran.   On their blog, Groundswell, they provided ample reasons to oppose this potential war hawk.  "Shortly before the election, Ross joined three others in penning an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal, ominously titled "Everyone Needs to Worry About Iran." The authors claimed that, "even the most conservative estimates tell us that they could have nuclear weapons soon." This is in direct contradiction to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the consensus view of 16 intelligence agencies that stated that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003."  This effort, along with others, has stalled the appointment. 

While we create political power to influence the composition of the Obama Administration we have to also try to steer policy forward.  For more than eight months we have run campaigns directed at the 'future President."  Now that he is in office it is time to deliver our message. 

No Soldier Left Behind is a comprehensive plan to get the U.S. out of Iraq without abandoning the Iraqi people.  President Obama made Iraq a central part of his platform and we intend to remind him.  We have collected nearly 30,000 signatures from almost every state affirming what the Obama Administration should already know.  The American people are sick of war and we want our troops to come home.  This petition will be delivered during the Peace Action organizers meeting in February to the President and relevant members of Congress.

The Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World asks the President to move beyond rhetoric and take real steps to eliminate nuclear weapons.  President Bush passed a disturbing legacy of nuclear proliferation onto the Obama Administration.  It will take drastic measures on the part of our new President to reverse that course.  According to the campaign coordinator, "top Republicans, Democrats, military commanders, and diplomats now agree we can, and should, make a world free from nuclear weapons. Of course, three-quarters of Americans agree."   We are proposing a politically safe move to advance our countries security by eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons. 

The President will have numerous opportunities to engage the nuclear issue.  The START treaty with Russia needs to be extended and a new treaty to reduce nuclear warheads to less than 1, 000 for each country must be implemented.  According to the Associated Press, President Obama is thinking in the same terms. Next year’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference will be a crucial opportunity for the U.S. to chart a new course toward abolishing nuclear weapons.  As these negotiations proceed, keep your eye out for important updates on nuclear weapons though our email list.

Once the excitement fades President Obama is just another politician accountable to the people who elected him.  He is just one man as capable of making poor decisions as the next.  He will need our expertise and our active participation in his Administration to bring our country back. 

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change we seek." President Barack Obama.