Left I on the News

I'm not going to bother with a complete deconstruction of Obama's speech; if you want that, see WIIIAI.

Rachel Maddow zeroed in nicely on one of the key implicit points of the speech - Obama's endorsement of the radical, illegal, war criminal "Bush doctrine" which says the U.S. has the right to attack countries which might threaten us at sometime in the future even if they don't threaten us now (though even Bush had to pretend he was attacking Iraq because of actual WMD's; whatever he might have wanted, he could have never sold the invasion of Iraq to the Congress, much less to the American people, if he had said the U.S. was invading because Iraq might have WMD sometime in the future). But, as Maddow notes, the Administration admits there is no threat now, but justifies the war to prevent Al Qaeda from establishing bases in some future Afghanistan in which the Taliban has sufficient control to allow such a thing. And, I should note, every word of the justification that Obama advanced for fighting in Afghanistan applies equally to Pakistan, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe he doesn't think so, or that the obvious may follow from that.

Just a few remarks of my own:

Obama: "What we have fought for -- what we continue to fight for -- is a better future for our children and grandchildren. And we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity."

Of course this is just platitudes, and actually nonsense. "Our children and grandchildren" will be better off if the rest of the world is living in slavery, providing natural resources and goods to us at the lowest possible price. But, taking Obama at his word, we know that he doesn't think "freedom" is something that exists in numerous countries in the world - China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe, the list goes on (and of course wouldn't include countries which belong on the list, like Saudi Arabia, but which are on the list of "good guys" so the don't count). So Obama's rationale for why the U.S. is in Afghanistan says we should be sending troops to all those other countries too, to fight for "freedom." The freedom of the grave, just as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, one key point I will steal from WIIIAI. The press picked up a lot on the talk of "exit strategy," which is of course just a lot of hot air. But, as WIIIAI notes, it wasn't even that hot, with Obama talking about how we could "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." "Begin" is a loaded word. The U.S. still has 38,000 troops in South Korea, more than 50 years after the end of that war.

Two final notes. First, we had a huge success in San Jose last night. The San Jose Peace & Justice Center organized a demonstration which attracted about 35 people, but, importantly, a news crew from the local Fox affiliate, KTVU (Ch. 2). The first minute of their 5:00 p.m. news featured a full minute of our demonstration, with favorable commentary from the on-air anchor, followed immediately by the President walking out to give his speech! Nice lead-in! Mission accomplished!

And finally, some good coverage on Russia Today last night featuring ANSWER Coaliton coordinator Brian Becker: