Inspiration For The Nation
God willing, the return of adult leadership to the world
It’s amazing how refreshing it is to hear someone state the freaking obvious. However, after years of doublespeak and bullshit, it is a breath of fresh air. These are a few quotes from Obama on detainees and Afghanistan. You don’t have to abandon your values because you’re at war. You don’t have to fight wars in a dumb way, under the cover of media blackouts and (in Sri Lanka’s case) media black eyes. War doesn’t give politicians a blank check and make everyone else a traitor – they’re still subject to, God forbid, reason, and we are reasonable to point out their mistakes. It is not foolish idealism to defend dignity, rights and a Constitution, it is actually smart, honorable and a winning strategy. Yet the toxin of the Bush years is such that strength is denial and weakness is basic inquiry and thought. Man, war makes people scared, and scared makes people stupid, and stupid decisions lead to more war. If there’s a way out for America, however, there might be a way out for us.
We do not need to choose between our most deeply held values, and keeping this nation safe. That’s a false choice, and I completely reject it…
I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States. The other side likes to use 9/11 as a political bludgeon. Well, let’s talk about 9/11.
The people who were responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice. They are Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and their sponsors – the Taliban. They were in Afghanistan. And yet George Bush and John McCain decided in 2002 that we should take our eye off of Afghanistan so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The case for war in Iraq was so thin that George Bush and John McCain had to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein, and make false promises that we’d be greeted as liberators. They misled the American people, and took us into a misguided war.
Here are the results of their policy. Osama bin Laden and his top leadership – the people who murdered 3000 Americans – have a safe-haven in northwest Pakistan, where they operate with such freedom of action that they can still put out hate-filled audiotapes to the outside world. That’s the result of the Bush-McCain approach to the war on terrorism. (Time, via Andrew Sullivan)
Man you are on a roll! (blogging and politics). Yes it only takes 51% (morons) of people to select a 100% moron. You need a brain to do anything. Let us hope we will have a better four years! But keep in mind only about 50% of Democrats voted for Barko Bama (as some call him!). It is a strange place where body builders become governers and cut all the education funds!
lol, did you hear obama’s aipac speech? or what he said about venezueval? or dealing with latin americans?
yeah, its certainly a breath of fresh air
At the risk of sounding like an apologist, I’d say that Obama’s AIPAC speech was something he had to do to stay on the road to the Whitehouse. He had to counter the OMG-a-towel-headed-hussein-is-going-to-be-President germ before it got out of hand.
If we take a step back, however, it is absolutely clear that Obama has enough going for him to be a great President who can help reverse some of the damage done by Bush. Obama is not and can never be a magic pill for all the ills… he will ultimately be President of the USA, and that the USA has been consistently on the wrong side of several issues (Cuba for one), irrespective of whether it was a Red or a Blue Whitehouse.
The path that America took (is still taking) with 9/11 is interesting and Appu might take a closer look at that in his blog in the next week or so but, simply put, the Americans are realising that their knee jerk reaction to 9/11 has caused ‘em more pain and made the problem worse (indicator: The Taliban has been hijacking & selling American helicopters). For the first time in a long time, the Americans have been forced to use their brains at an election (to the extent that it is possible).
Can Sri Lanka be far behind or would we just ask for more of the same as we always do? These are things that make Appu go “hmm…”
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