Obama’s War Speech: An Unconvincing Flop

by Justin Raimondo, December 02, 2009

(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)

"After 92 days of waiting for the Word from on high, the nation received its marching orders from our commander-in-chief – and it was a flop of major proportions. As his West Point audience looked on disdainfully – applauding only twice, and then tepidly – President Obama tried to make the case that his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is really just a prelude to withdrawal. But is it?......

So, you thought Obama was going to be different – that he represented “change”? Well, in the end, you got the same blood and thunder, the rhetorical boilerplate common to all demagogues:

"We are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes."

The resolve of fanatics and fools is perpetually "unwavering." Aggressors and bullies are always "going forward." And the mighty are always supremely assured of the rightness of their cause. They claim to want only "security," and their appeal is invariably to the "highest of hopes."

And it always ends in oceans of blood. "