Getting Warmer

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.

Comments

[MagisterLudi]

A-stan action has full approval of the world. Just as in the case of liberation of Kuwait from Iraqis.

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.

[MagisterLudi]

The invasion and reconstruction of Afghanistan is fully justified and approved by United Nations.
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.

[Berettasskeeter]

Wow, I rarely agree with you, but on this?? I'm with you!
Semper fi

[TheHandyman]

Yes, that is exactly what the British and the Russians said and guess what? For you to say what you did shows you have absolutely no idea of Afghanistans history nor its place in the modern world, let alone the concept of how free nations are born and survive. Afghanistan, like Iraq, was and still is another one of the shrub's blunders. The Afghan problem cannot now nor ever will be solved by military intervention! And Afghan has no more strategic value to the US than did Serbia!

[Yermammy]

You forget Alexander the Great and the Indian Mughuls, but hey, whose counting! This is a catastrophic mistake.

[Yermammy]

Yeah, mmkay... it's our 'vital strategic interests" (world domination) that instigated 9/11. "[T]hey don't come and attack us over here because 'they hate our freedom', they come here because WE'RE OVER THERE"- Ron Paul.
SHOCK: Everything you've been "taught" is wrong. Time to wake up as we are in the last days of Rome and we can no longer enjoy our John Waynish Imperial Military Adventurism (tm) anymore. ALL empires crumbled from within and it's happening now, but yet you drivel on about our "interests".
It's called the "Graveyard of Empires" for a REASON.

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”- W. Durant

End of the REAL story.

[Berettasskeeter]

Perhaps you could tell your audience of all the countries that the Imperial America has conquered and brought into the empire??! Let's see, you should not include any that have been released and never asked to be annexed, including Philippines, Japan, Burma, Thailand, China, Taiwan, France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Belgium, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala. With more time, I could probably think of more. Or... did you think a country can be an empire without an empire to control??
Semper fi

[Berettasskeeter]

The author's comments on how to cut the military budget reflect only his sense that America is the problem instead, as I feel, of being the solution. Submarines may seem redundant when there is no war at sea, but I remind the author and the readers that China is building a deep water navy, including aircraft carriers and modern submarines. Further, the Russians are attempting to modernize their submarine fleet in a bid for dominance of the seas. While noone wants a war, without submarines we would be at a 2-5 year disadvantage, as it takes that long to build one sub. Many HuffPo readers were outraged that the military's Humvee's were not up-armored at the start of the current war, many don't understand that what happened was an inability to point to a specific conflict that prevented funding for that prior up-armoring. Submarines are expensive, no doubt about it, but without them we cede control of the undersea battleground to any potential enemy.
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

[TheHandyman]

Ah, the old semper fi mentality that sees everything and everybody as a potential enemy. They never see that extending a helping hand and an apple pie is cheaper and more valuable than arming the perimeter with all kinds of expensive and frightening weapons of mass destruction! They never connect the lack of education, healthcare, clean environment with the constant expense for things that only kill and create hate for the US.

[Berettasskeeter]

You neglected to respond to my point. China and Russia are dictatorships, literally in China's case, functioning in Russia's case. Reaching out to the people does not work for dictatorships, and neither the dictators of China nor the oligarchs of Russia need our handouts. You are right, however, that an intelligent, educated, person sees enemies where appropriate and where circumstances and history warrant.
Semper fi

[Yermammy]

Drop and give me fifty. Or something else more useful. Russia and China know the consequences of MAD. I bet the MIC just LOVE brainwashed individuals such as yourself. Everything that YOU fear might happen is a direct result of our superior sense of self worth and hyper aggressiveness in our foreign policy. And don't drop no military crap on me, I'm an old Vet that fought on a damned lie. Fool me once...

[Berettasskeeter]

For an old vet, you've certainly forgotten the meaning of MAD! It has to do with nuclear weapons, not conventional weapons. Attack Submarines are conventional weapons.
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

[holeybuybull]

Our only significant export, besides bad debt, is death (armaments). What are we going to start producing that will take the place of our number one export? Sorry if I don't count "democracy" as a viable product, it's difficult to export a product that you don't have.

[Berettasskeeter]

We also export humanitarian aid to the tune of several billion's in goods, and many billion's in manpower and other intangibles. What was the cost of providing aid, in toto, to Indonesia following that serious earth/seaquake several years ago??
Semper fi

[KillTheMessenger]

Afghanistan is the quagmire of the world and so are Pakistan, North Korea, Somalia, Zimbabwe etc.. We can not avoid to address these problem countries. We also can't take them on unilaterally. That's what the UN was created for, the very organization we have been disabling for the better part of its existence by insisting that our interests take precedence before the interests of the world. The Obama administration will fail the task if it continues on the path of the old US. It will win if it changes course and either makes the UN an enabled, effective organization OR replaces it with something else (e.g. a NATO based police force for Afghanistan) and more regional solutions for the other failed countries.

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.

[Berettasskeeter]

So, not wishing to employ weapons designers, as your final comment implies, from where will you get weapons designers when needed, and how will you lure them away from potentially better paying jobs?
Semper fi

[KillTheMessenger]

There are weapons designers and there are weapons designers. I did not say we get rid of all of them. We only stop paying the military industrial complex for making more than we need. How they lay them off and what these people do with their "knowledge" is, as usually in the US job market, their own problem. Unless you want to declare these people first class citizens, of course, and give them rights that nobody else has.

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.

[Kaviraj]

NATO AS A POLICE FORCE? You must be joking! What is North Atlantic about Afghanistan? Which NATO country did Afghanistan attack to justify NATO troops in that country? That is as illegal as the war in Iraq and will do nothing for US standing except to further undermine it, together with that of the NATO allies that fight alongside it. Have you forgotten the attacks in Spain and the UK, just because they were so eager to join the US in Afghanistan and Iraq? You would only increase the resentment.
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.

[KillTheMessenger]

NATO troops are already in there. You bet they don't like it. But they are there.

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.

[Thordeer]

Amen! Obama is also equivocating on health reform--he'll never cut out the insurance companies and make single-payer insurance--and is offering a Bush-esque "universal savings account." WTF? Just imagine if Bush had succeeded in getting his version of Social Security reform through. Obama's oratorical gifts aside, I am trying to read between the lines and am scared. This is not the hour for public-private, for bipartisanship, for cuteness.

[AbrahamSadegh]

This President will hopefully go down in history as one of our greatest but there is a problem when we consider ourselves the leader of the free world. For a leader those who are led should be treated the same when their humanity is being taken into consideration.

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.

[mjc]

While I agree that most of his speech was not based on the usual film-flam that Bush, father and son, and perhaps Clinton as well used, the remark about not being able to say that this country is NOT engaged in torturing is an example of his shading his values and those of this country. He has apparently approved the treatment of "detainees" in Bagram in the way that have been treated, under Bush's administration and for many years. He knows that certain practices will be ongoing and it is totally unacceptable but now a part of our military's interrogation. As you have also mentioned his financial advisors all come from investment firms and were proponents of easing our banking system out of regulation, Summers being the most obvious but Rubin is beloved of the Obama team.
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.

[KarelS]

For the first time in my entire life, I actually felt proud being an American watching Obama at least try to bury Bush's refuse. For sure, there are lots of things I disagree with and there will be parts of his agenda and policies that will raise alarms with me. But to have an intelligent, articulate, genuinely caring individual as president--one who will at least try to do the right thing and not pander to the business elite--gives me a sense that we are heading in the right direction.
Watching JIndal's attempt at explaining his alternate universe to to the American citizenry REALLY justifies my initial faith in Obama.

[JohnFromCensornati]

I'd like to know why we need to "reform" Medicare & Social Security, but the War on some Drugs does not need "reform".

[graffen48]

Excellent point. Just what the he** does the DEA do with their billion dollars plus budget every year. What a bunch of jacka**es.

[RoloTomassi]

Not to mention the vast sums of money flowing through their hands that never see a ledger....