We are lucky to have Barack Obama as president. I write that even though I believe the content of his Tuesday evening speech deserved no more than a B+/A-, for its failure to seriously address the origins of the banking crisis and for only hinting at the severe military budget cuts required to get close to his goal of reducing the federal deficit by the end of his first term.
But first the positives, which were stunning, and I am not referring only to his superb delivery, which thankfully is logical and informed and inspires without pandering. The one truly memorable, historically significant line -- unfortunately desperately needed because of the shameful actions of his predecessor -- was: "... I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States does not torture."
That simple declarative sentence justifies my vote for the man, no matter my disagreements with him. It is recognition of the essential vitality of a free society as defined by our Founders through the protections they wrote into the Constitution and which George W. Bush so casually demolished. As Obama put it, "... living our values doesn't make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger."
Another gift of this speech is the reassertion that government exists to redress our grievances rather than exacerbate them. His is a bold reincarnation of the wisdom of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the Democratic Party had all but abandoned. Obama's insistence that government rather than just the "free market" should set needed priorities is refreshing and important, particularly in light of his emphasizing the changes needed in education, health care and energy efficiency -- the three areas that a short-term view of economic growth systematically neglected since the New Deal.
So, he was great, and when I was just listening to the speech, I was quite enthralled, as were those around me. But on reading his remarks, I have questions.
Speaking of the financial crisis, he observed, quite correctly, "... it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament." Then he went on to observe, "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market." Leave aside that his top economic advisers, particularly Lawrence Summers, were responsible for that gutting. Maybe they have reformed and will now do the right thing.
But the right thing begins with a recognition that it was deregulation, specifically the ending of all statutory regulation of the "hybrid instruments" that allowed for the exotic financial products that have turned so toxic. Just read the language of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Summers as treasury secretary pushed and which he got then lame-duck President Bill Clinton to sign.
When Obama stated "I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system," he missed the point. The system is not outdated; it is a get-out-of-jail-free card for Wall Street bandits. Unless we return to the New Deal-created rules that separated the activities of banks, stockbrokers and insurance companies and put them under tight regulation, we are doomed to a repeat of this meltdown.
The other problem with the speech is that while Obama made some fleeting references to getting rid of Cold War-era weapons and did promise an end to the Iraq disaster, he once again left open the door to the United States being trapped in an even more treacherous quagmire in Afghanistan.
At some point, if he is to make good on his promise to cut the deficit by half within four years, he will have to confront the military-industrial complex, which now obtains much larger annual budget allocations than when President Dwight Eisenhower issued his famous warning.
Currently, military spending makes up 60 percent of the federal government's discretionary budget. Let me offer one example of why the president must begin to turn swords into plowshares if we are to have a sound economy. That example concerns his bold call for spending $15 billion a year on the entire program to develop alternative sources of energy. Sounds like a lot of money, but it isn't when one considers that an almost equal amount, $14 billion, for Virginia-class submarines -- worthless in fighting landlocked terrorists -- was pushed through the Congress in the month before Obama took office.
The critical test for Obama will be to break that incestuous circle of influence, particularly the clout of the bankers and the war profiteers and the other top lobbies that pay off both parties, and put the public interest first.
It is absolutely clear to those with a modicum of analytical ability that abandoning Afghans yet again ( as U.S. did in the 90s) to the tender mercies of Taliban and Al Qaeda is out of question.
Hey, if in the process of pacifying A-stan U.S. retreats from some of its military bases around the world-- so much the better. No one said that Pax Americana will last forever.
It is vital to the strategic interests of United States, Europe and Muslim world.
Opinion to the contrary is based on a monochromatic narrative devoid of flexibility required to address vital strategic interest.
End of story.
Semper fi
If you were one who raged at the system for not having sufficient preparation for urban warfare, think twice before agreeing with the author!
Semper fi
Semper fi
If you lost yours, I still DO have a superior sense of self worth, both for myself and for my country.
Please learn your military history before you denigrate the understanding of others. Then, you may be able to make a cogent argument.
Semper fi
Semper fi
And, yes, the excessive spending on the military industrial complex has to stop. But it can't stop by moving out of Afghanistan. It can only stop by not buying blindly into "future weapons" that are as playful as they are ineffective and are nothing but employment programs for weapons designers.
Semper fi
Now how about that?
In any case, people keep screaming for US manufacturing. Well, if we want US manufacturing, we will need lots of US engineers. Why we can't have some of our best engineers design something else than an even bigger "boom" is besides me. There is a lot of talent there. We just have to use it and, if necessary, let these people re-tool their knowledge a little but.
Nobody ever won in Afghanistan since Alexander the great. History will prove me right, simply because history repeats itself, as humans fail to learn from it.
http://www.rferl.org/content/US_To_Deploy_More_Troops_in_Afghanistan/1361859.html
It is not illegal for NATO countries to assist with their military in policing Afghanistan. The US can not and should not attempt to stabilize the country all by itself. And Europe can not afford Afghan drugs to swamp their markets forever. You need to put this into a larger security perspective than that of the US alone.
If the Spanish are too afraid of terrorists to step up to the plate, they need to ask themselves a few questions and come to a few conclusions. In the meantime the world can't wait for them to make up their minds if they want to be afraid of the problem or solve it for good. Afghanistan is a worldwide problem and needs to be treated as such. I am pretty sure you will find any number of Spanish people who actually understand that. Whether you can find a Spanish politician who is willing to take that risk is another question.
We do not need to win in Afghanistan because we do not come as conquerors. We need to help the Afghan people to win. They are the ones who have the most to lose.
If you think that history is repeating itself, and there is nothing one can do about it, you have already lost.
When this administration decides to follow some questionable policies of the past administration, such as considering, for example, that the detainees in Afghanistan as having no constitutional rights or putting an stamp of approval on CIA’s atrocious extraordinary rendition, then it is undermining, in my opinion, that claim to leadership from the rest of the world's perspective.
Our Constitution deals with fundamental human rights and those rights do not seize to exist beyond our own borders. Dealing with the rest of humanity as having the same fundamental rights would be the greatest indication of our own humanity and a true measure of our global leadership.
In addition, by siding with some of Bush Administration's misdeeds domestically and not trying to seek the truth in regard to every aspect of George W. Bush and his closest advisors undermining our basic civil liberties is a great disappointment.
Regarding Afghanistan, our involvement there is a matter of principal not only for us but also the whole of human civilization and especially all the nations who have committed themselves to establishing a humane Afghanistan. In the long term we cannot afford being defeated by the likes of Taliban.
Overall, yes, his delivery and alignment of facts and figures was elegant but there are still IMO lots of questions about the crisises and whether or not the various problems will be able to be solved.
Watching JIndal's attempt at explaining his alternate universe to to the American citizenry REALLY justifies my initial faith in Obama.