Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Real News Video (with transcript): Obama's Vietnam-lite

Pepe Escobar: It's not Vietnam, said Obama, but neither it is what he said it is


More at The Real News


"President Obama's widely expected surge in Afghanistan is the "gift" US taxpayers received right in the middle of the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. The Pentagon for its part got (more or less) what it wanted - for now. As much as Obama stretched himself to stress this was not a new Vietnam, he trapped himself by conflating al-Qaeda with the Taliban and rehashing the same "war on terror" rationale - all clad in the glorious robes of a "noble struggle for freedom". Pepe Escobar argues the most significant point about Obama's West Point address is what he omitted. He simply ignored the current, high-stakes New Great Game in Eurasia, on which the Pentagon is focused like a laser, and of which Afghanistan is just a peon."

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