Patterico's Pontifications

6/22/2011

Open Thread: Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 4:51 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

I am not sure I am going to be able to watch with my wife being sick (it’s not serious, but she is needy and it’s very easy to care more about her than whatever Obama is going to say).  But still, here’s a thread to talk about it on.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

33 Responses to “Open Thread: Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan”

  1. she is needy

    I am so telling her that you said that…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  2. Some want us to be isolationists.
    Some want us to get involved everywhere.

    But not me. I am the true path.

    MayBee (081489)

  3. After a decade of debate, we must refocus on getting that unity we had at the beginning of this war. That didn’t really exist, but now I’d like you to do what I want you to do.

    MayBee (081489)

  4. It was awesome, cuz he made a dig at Bush in the first 3 sentences.

    MayBee (081489)

  5. OBTW, don’t bother asking me why I’m killing civilians in Libya because I don’t gotta tell you. Why don’t I gotta tell you? Because I won.

    Old Coot (77a11b)

  6. 30,000 out of 250,000 troops and contractors? Still, the president’s actual words I thought reflected a very isolationisty new foreign policy to appeal to a newly isolationisty trend within the scared and unemployed body politic. Guess the heart pumping Kennedy doctrine is officially dead.

    “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

    elissa (4eb04a)

  7. Obarcky sure is a POS

    JD (306f5d)

  8. Yeah, I liked the way he kinda pretended Libya isn’t happening and it’s free .

    MayBee (081489)

  9. That was kind of a political isolationisty speech I thought to appeal to a newly isolationisty body politic which is unexpectedly scared, broke and unemployed. But, does that policy track with his recent Libya incursion? Does he ever review his previous work for insight and consistency before he speaks?

    elissa (4eb04a)

  10. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource — our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war. For our nation draws strength from our differences, and when our union is strong no hill is too steep and no horizon is beyond our reach.

    actually here at home in Obamastan we’ve already spent way over a trillion in the past few years on much-vaunted clean energies and slopping our union piggies and frankly I think the whole dealio is a lot over-rated

    No I don’t imagine I’ll soon be instilled with a common purpose what I’ll be sharing with a cowardly dirty socialist anti-American Soros-fellating whore like yourself Mr. Obama. You’re a pathetic wretched weakling and your America is cowardly, feckless, god-awful poor, and as increasingly unfree as it is beggared and pitiful.

    So good luck with that common purpose thing, loser.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  11. That “common purpose we shared at the beginning of this war” to “focus on nation building here at home” just burns my hide. Every time.

    First of all, he’s already tried the unity gambit, after Tuscon. The idea that we should somehow get along the way most of us did in the months after one of our worst tragedies is just appalling. We were hurt, demoralized, terrified. Does he want to replicate all of that?

    The progressives hated Bush on 9/11, hated the flag waving, hated the Goat-reading, hated the going to war. They thought Afghanistan should be an international police effort. They did not feel one bit of unity. So there’s that.

    FInally, the idea that we needed to spend less on war and more at home was an issue from the minute the boots hit the ground in Afghanistan and was one of Obama’s own campaign memes during Iraq. Remember stupid Sebilius saying there weren’t enough Kansas National Guardsmen left in Kansas to pick up after the tornado that killed 100,000 because of Iraq?

    Obama did spend more at home on his stupid stimulus. It went nowhere.

    MayBee (081489)

  12. MayBee–I have noticed that you have a very long memory.

    elissa (4eb04a)

  13. OBAMA: ‘10,000 PEOPLE DIED’ IN KANSAS TORNADO
    Wednesday, May 09, 2007
    Print
    ShareThis
    RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.
    The death toll was 12.
    “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
    Obama mentioned the disaster in Greensburg, Kan., in saying he had been told by the office of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that the state’s National Guard had been depleted by its commitment to the Iraq War.
    “Turns out that the National Guard in Kansas only had 40 percent of its equipment and they are having to slow down the recovery process in Kansas,”
    Obama said, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his head glistening with sweat.
    As the Illinois senator concluded his remarks a few minutes later, he appeared to realize his gaffe.

    “There are going to be times when I get tired,” he said. “There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes.”
    Obama spokesman Bill Burton said later that the senator meant to say “at least 10,” instead of 10,000.
    During his speech, Obama stirred the crowd as he often does by skewering President Bush over the unpopular war and noting that he opposed it from the outset.
    “How could we have been involved in a war that never should have been authorized, that has already cost us half a trillion dollars,” Obama said.
    It was Obama’s third visit to Virginia’s capital in eight months. It came as national polls show him trailing rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., by double digits.

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270852,00.html#ixzz1Q3a4evoh

    MayBee (081489)

  14. elissa- and very long rants as well! Sorry!

    MayBee (081489)

  15. MayBee: Love those rants, please don’t stop.

    Old Coot (77a11b)

  16. At the time around 9/11 with all the iconic images and special moments available for posterity to latch on to did you ever for a moment think that “My Pet Goat” would be one of them?

    elissa (4eb04a)

  17. Obama is in full reelection mode as he desperately attempts to politicize his favorite war, Afghanistan. Remember his remarks on the campaign trail where he trumpeted Afghanistan over Bush’s Iraq? Not any more. He ignores Petraeus and disregards the sacrifices of the worlds best military for purely partisan gains.

    Hiding behind NATO is a fools errand that is so blatantly ignorant that it defies reason. He baldly throws NATO under the bus as he sets them up for certain failure with false claims of leaving that besotted state from a position of strength.

    In short, he is trying to salvage his presidency by hiding behind the robes of a dead Bin Laden.

    vet66 (9d1bb3)

  18. Perry’s foreign policy is not yet well known.

    I guess that’s OK. This election will be about the economy unless something major changes (And we all know that’s a looming possibility).

    Afghanistan matters a lot. It was worth even the price in blood. But I’m not sure we’re going to get what we earned if we cut and run. Obama is clever enough to push that out to 2014. Seems he never sets anything up in a way where he will take responsibility by 2012. Obamacare, foreign policy, Gitmo.

    I hope Petraeus offers a speech with his views on this matter.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  19. Hey, did y’all see that the shady guy who was a Marine reservist with a funny name who was caught skulking around the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery and had jihadi literature in his car got arrested? Yeah that was another story that had sort of slipped from the headlines for a few days.

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/06/marine-reservist-yonathan-melaku-arrested-in-connection-to-dc-military-building-shootings/

    elissa (4eb04a)

  20. Mr. sdferr who has smartness in his head made the following observation elsewheres after the speech:

    sdferr posted on 6/22 @ 8:03 pm

    That whole foreign affairs field is another good reason to be rid of the man. Throw it on the pile with the regulatory stuff and we’d be better off with Gumby as President. Any idea, for instance, what Obama’s going to do vis a vis Syria? No? That’s odd, given the

    “When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own.”

    monkeyshine.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  21. Right, ‘what happens in Syria,’ doesn’t stay there it ripples north to Turkey, (Jis Jabour) South to
    Jordan (Deraa) ans east to Iraq, (Deir er Zour)

    ian cormac (72470d)

  22. That whole “lead from behind doctrine” is what we used to call sucking hind tit. Since it worked so well in Libya, Obama has decided to apply it in Afghanistan also…. or that is what I got from him.
    Please advise if I misunderstood.

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  23. Aww, Old Coot. Too sweet.

    MayBee (081489)

  24. How’s this for a coincidence: Obama plans to start the major draw-drown in Afghanistan just in time for the 2012 election season. Who woulda thunk it?

    JVW (24ee9a)

  25. JVW, clearly timed that way. It’s sickening the more I think about it, as we’ve had quite a few casualties lately. If Obama intended to get out of there, instead of win, there was a strategy for that, but I guess he needed to time this just right for his election hopes.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  26. dustin

    on the other hand, the fact is the challenger, whoever he is, just can’t challenge Obama on national security, because his answer to everything will be “I got Osama, didn’t I?” Of course there is much more to a successful foreign policy than the “gutsy call” of getting the person we all hate the most (yeah, way to go out on a limb, there, barry), but life isn’t fair.

    So bluntly they have to hammer him on obamacare and the economy. especially the economy.

    of course Romney will have a hard time hammering him on obamacare.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  27. Far in the future, this will be known as “When 0 threw victory under the bus.”

    htom (412a17)

  28. Aaron, I sorely hope the American people will interpret ‘gutsy call’ as a very cheap excuse for a foreign policy. But I know most Americans are not paying much attention to the world, and the long term changes in the last few years.

    Obama has been extremely wrong on all the difficult calls, from Iran’s nukes to the Iraqi surge. Knowing to send the SEALs to get Osama Bin Laden is a call any 13 year old could make, but even there, I think Obama had a difficult time making the call.

    What he’s good at is avoiding responsibility while taking credit.

    But you’re probably right. Foreign policy is probably off the table for a number of reasons, and that’s harbinger for America having problems in the future no matter who we elect.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  29. all you need to know about faily faily fail America’s foreign policy is how many trade agreements we’ve ratified in the last 10 years

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  30. Yeah but the current administration seems to think US trade is just hegemony dressed up in Nixon era dollar bills

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  31. Well, I saw the transcript (didn’t bother to read it, it looked like just more verbosity from Teh Won), and I certainly didn’t listen (went to the range instead and ran through about a hundred rounds of 230g hard-ball), but I think I can safely predict that whatever the Obamanator said, the WH will start to walk-it-back in 5, 4, 3,…

    His “War of Necessity”, and he’s splitting before the job is done!

    AD-RtR/OS! (d0a08c)

  32. It would be ridiculous to think there will not be a reckoning with events in Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen,
    it’s not like the 90s, where we could waste time in Haiti, Bosnia, and even Eastern Africa,

    narciso (72470d)


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