The Progressive: Three more years of War in Afghanistan: "The Presidents rhetoric was hideous"

[Better Believe It]

Obama: Three More Years of War in Afghanistan
By Matthew Rothschild
Editor of The Progressive
June 23, 2011

Our war president promised more war. While he trumpeted his big Afghanistan speech as the first step in ending that war, Barack Obama essentially told the American people that tens of thousands of our soldiers would still be fighting there for at least three more years.

The president’s rhetoric, overall, was hideous. “The tide of war is receding,” he said, and he repeated the “tide” metaphor a little later on. But war is not a fact of nature, like an ocean. It is a rash act of rulers.

Obama all but claimed to be clairvoyant, saying, “The light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.” I’m not sure what telescope he’s using, but I wouldn’t rely on that, either in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

Then, when he decided to draw the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama fed the American superiority complex. “We must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events,” he said. He told us not to succumb to isolationism—a spiel that echoed George W. Bush. The only difference was that Obama stressed the need to be “pragmatic” about the way the United States responds, arguing that often “we need not deploy large armies overseas” or act alone.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.progressive.org/wx062311.html

[somone]

1. The light can be seen in the distance

[Hippie Puncher]

2. speaking of hideous rhetoric

[sufrommich]

23. I take it this is your first attempt at trolling? Here's a hint: your

name kind of gives you away. Better luck next time.

[treestar]

3. What is wrong with saying the tide of war is receding?

Is there some anti-metaphor society out there?

[EFerrari]

9. You mean, besides draping your decisions in natural forces drag?

[emulatorloo]

10. I think of it more as "Word Parsing in Hyperdrive."

You see that a lot around the Internet

[tekisui]

17. Did you also like it when the bushies said it about Iraq

every 6 months?

[treestar]

22. I don't remember it

I don't like Bush for starting the war in Iraq, but I don't care how he put things. That is, when he put them in any comprehensible way.

[GeorgeGist]

24. anti-stupidity

[polichick]

4. Sad but true. This sentence pretty much says it all:

"But Obama refused to come clean, choosing once more simply to play the role he’s carved out for himself: a more reasonable-sounding steward of a foreign policy that for more than a century has been awash in national delusions and has served the interests not of the American people but of the tiny slice at the top."

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Translation: We lost but we're sticking around until it doesn't look like we lost.

[Kahuna]

7. Nope. Translation: We're sticking around to keep an eye on

Iran and Pakistan. Why doesn't he just say that you may ask? Why would he want to tip his hand to Iran and Pakistan? I'm sure that they are probably way ahead of Americans and already KNOW that's why they're sticking around.

[EFerrari]

8. Tip his hand? You mean the weekly denunciations of Iran

and Pakistan didn't do that years ago? You don't give Iran or Pakistan enough credit. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. He's tipping his hand to the fact that we lose wars in the region.

And, that the "Mightiest Military in the World" is inept at guerrilla war.

[whatchamacallit]

6. He's kicking it up the road to the next pre-chosen war-administration. n/t

[xiamiam]

13. yep..nt

[nichomachus]

11. A light at the end of the tunnel

LBJ re: Vietnam in 1968

French re: Vietnam in 1953

Seems to be a recurring theme.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. Wasn't it Westmoreland who plagiarized Navarre?

[nichomachus]

20. I stand corrected

Westmoreland came up with it, but I believe LBJ repeated it and on national teevee

[lunatica]

14. Since when does being against war equal being an isolationist?

I hate that habit they have of making everything either one extreme or the other. Even Obama is doing it now.

I consider myself a citizen of the world. A world I would like to see at peace for a change.

[tekisui]

15. knr.

[gratuitous]

16. Just six more Friedman Units, and then we'll be all done

Of course I'll respect you in the morning, baby.

The only thing worse than ending this whole thing right now is to dick around for another three years and then end this whole thing.

[tekisui]

18. Exactly. It will be up to the next president to get us out.

[amborin]

21. the cost, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1348162