[Peace-discuss] The "self-righteous blowhard"

[C. G. Estabrook]

 From <http://www.counterpunch.org/>:

[That was] appalling drivel served up by Obama in Oslo. “Whatever mistakes we 
have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped 
underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our 
citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and 
women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and 
enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.”

Obama was in peak form as self-righteous blowhard, proclaiming that “America 
cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow 
them ourselves. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And 
that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva 
Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight 
to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, 
but when it is hard.”

As his words hang in the air, captives of the Empire are being kidnapped and 
rendered to Bagram and other dungeons and tortured, all the while with no legal 
standing as “enemy combatants”.  Stand naked in a cold cell, waiting for the 
next beating from your interrogators and listen to Obama being piped through the 
PA at max volume, right after ‘Born in the USA’ (sorry, Birthers): “We do not 
have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the 
human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world 
to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place… So let us 
reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still 
stirs within each of our souls.”

McCain loves the speech. Sarah Palin loves the speech. But that doesn’t mean 
Obama’s Oslo address was a Republican speech. When it comes to invoking “just 
wars” Republican presidents can go through the motions, but they haven’t got 
their hearts in it. Who needs to talk about justice as you drop high explosive 
and scrawl Death to Ragheads on the side of the bombs? When you want a just war, 
whistle up a Democrat who can talk with a straight face about installing 
democracy in the Balkans. After eight years of Bushian crudities the Empire 
needed an upgrade in its salespitch, which is why we have Obama...

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