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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Politics Obama's Speech

Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 5:43 PM

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  • H/T to anonymous commenter

Oh for Christ's sake—for the first time during an Obama speech I'm screaming at the TV in disgust.

Did that motherfucker really come right out of the gate with a history of 9/11? It was downright Bushian. I'm sick. And what happened to the idea that antagonizing Muslim populations makes us less safe?

Who is this man?

No talk about how we're going to pay for the troop increase. No talk about how we expect a government that amounts to a cartel to take over, were we to succeed. No talk about personal responsibility, or sacrifice from ordinary Americans like you and I. Again, eerily remnant of Bush-era policy.

Levelheaded people, like Nicholas D. Kristof of the NY Times, note that each soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan costs an average of $1 million per year. After Obama's troop increase the combined wars will cost around $100 billion per year, or, the approximate annual amount for increasing public heath to cover the uninsured. Kristof writes:

...lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system?

Let's not even get into the jobs problem... Jesus.

And as scary as it is to hear John McCain and other republicans saluting Obama's decision, they may be right about a key difference: a withdrawal date signals how long insurgents must hunker down until, or simply dissolve (or head into Pakistan) only to later re-appear.

Obama has become, it seems, a sickening example of power's corrupting influence. Hopefully there is more to it, but the escalation of war—after the failure to appropriately censure Wall St and leaving gays out to dry—make the chances of a significant Obama turnaround almost as unlikely as the success of this Afghan surge (which is scheduled to end, conveniently as the re-election campaign ramps up).

UPDATE:

I'd very seriously recommend reading "Stanley McChrystal's Long War" by Dexter Filkins. It's a complex examination of the many aspects that make up the new U.S. strategy. I see them as a series of Hail Marys. Filkins gets amazing access to McChrystal. Add that to courageous reporting from the front lines and it's one incredible piece.

 

Comments (13) RSS

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1
Health insurance only works when you're not already dead.
Posted by D on December 1, 2009 at 5:56 PM · Report
2
Were you paying attention during the campaign? He's doing exactly what he said he would do re: Afghanistan. Try to understand that he's the president of the United States and not your personal Jesus.
Posted by peenew on December 1, 2009 at 5:58 PM · Report
3
Oh, fuck your whining.

Obama is a politician. He was always a politician. If you expected anything else from him, you're a moron.
Posted by Kyle! on December 1, 2009 at 6:01 PM · Report
4
Yes, I know what was said, but since the campaign Afghanistan has changed-- fraudulent elections, along with increased corruption and violence. It's a different reality than it was during the election. The U.S. is in much worse shape as well.
Posted by workingclassdog on December 1, 2009 at 6:03 PM · Report
5
Sorry, but I don't think he should base his decisions just on what's best for the USA. Apparently you don't give a shit about what's best for the people of Afghanistan (and Pakistan), but Obama does, and that's what makes him so much better than certain recent ex-presidents.

If you want to make a case that the surge is bad for Afghanistan, fine. It's a reasonable case to make, and can make for interesting discussion. But if you're just going to go for the kind of American-lives-are-worth-more-than-foreign-lives bullshit normally heard from Republicans, you can go take a long walk off a short pier.
Posted by Stu on December 1, 2009 at 6:17 PM · Report
6
Independents say: We told you so.
Posted by NIG GER on December 1, 2009 at 6:56 PM · Report
7
You are frustrated, I'm sure all the military, aid workers and the Afghan people are too. What would you suggest? Afghanistan is a complex society, like any, with poor farmers and herders in very traditional settings, city people, people who have been schooled outside the country. It's complicated by Pashtunwali. Whatever we do needs to unwind the corruption and communicate authentically to the Afghan people, creating a sustainable economy. Interestingly, Afghanistan has been poor through the "green revolution", they never could afford agricultural chemicals, so anything grown is organic.
Posted by R on December 1, 2009 at 7:16 PM · Report
8
http://images2.cafepress.com/image/3677527…
Posted by NIG GER on December 1, 2009 at 8:30 PM · Report
9
[COMMENT DELETED: SPAM.]
Posted by pearlstarrr on December 1, 2009 at 8:52 PM · Report
10
Keeping campaign promises is apparently the source of hand-wrenching these days.

I may not agree with the decision, but this is what he said he would do in no uncertain terms.
Posted by The Guilty Carnivore on December 2, 2009 at 9:15 AM · Report
11
Thank you Kyle! I must second his comment. Obama has always been full of shit. Sorry if you fell for his charisma and his clever marketing package, but the guy is still just a Tony Robbins trained professional liar. And no, I'm not some conservative wacko either. Just someone with their eyes open.
Posted by iwouldprefernotto on December 2, 2009 at 9:54 AM · Report
12
People who thought Obama was going to come in and change everything are foolish. The reason he won't enact the more radical reforms everybody (relevant liberals such as Mercury's readership) wants is because it would be too much too fast for this country. Conservatives go positively ape-poop when anybody even remotely liberal assumes power. Imagine if Obama actually tried to pass federal legislation. Oh, wait, he did and conservative America has gone literally crazy with their fight against health care reform. Anyways, my point is that Obama is smart for not trying to do more right now, and as a liberal I think he is doing a fantastic job.

Regarding the Afghanistan strategy, at this point we are in full-on nation building mode. I just hope Obama's strategy includes a lot of road building and civil institution building projects, because thats what will lead to a positive outcome there. The troops are to make it secure so the civilian projects can have a chance. And its a legitimate concern whether we can afford to be investing so much resources in fixing another country's problems. But the stakes are high with nuclear Pakistan next door, so I understand perfectly why Obama is doing what he is doing, and I agree with the policy so far.

All told, I think Obama has been a great president so far, and as a liberal I could not ask for anything more in a president.
Posted by Around on December 2, 2009 at 12:29 PM · Report
13
He came to my office the day that he stopped campaigning against Hilary and started campaigning against McCain. Things I learned that day:
1) He is very smart.
2) He knows what looked good on national TV.
3) He is slightly left of center.

If you were looking for something more than that, someone that was actually going to go ahead and deal with complicated issues like Our Occupational Armies, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Population, or whatever instead of paying lip service to them, well, that wasn't this guy. So much better than the main alternative candidate, (deny that those things are even problems,) but Obama never advocated for "We are going to have to make sacrifices in our life now, or we'll be forced to make bigger ones in the future." That may have been what many of us wanted to believe he stood for, but it isn't what he really did...
Posted by Matthew D on December 2, 2009 at 6:14 PM · Report

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