Left I on the News

Barack Obama, speaking to the American Legion:

"Through their service, through their sacrifice, through their astonishing record of achievement, our forces have earned their place among the greatest of generations. Toppling the Taliban in just weeks. Driving al Qaeda from the training camps where they plotted 9/11. Giving the Afghan people the opportunity to live free from terror. When the decision was made to go into Iraq, our troops raced across deserts and removed a dictator in less than a month. When insurgents, militias and terrorists plunged Iraq into chaos, our troops adapted, they endured ferocious urban combat, they reduced the violence and gave Iraqis a chance to forge their own future."

"Topped the Taliban in just weeks"...and U.S. forces are still there, still fighting, still dying, ten years later. "Removed a dictator in less than a month"...and U.S. forces are still there, still fighting, still dying, eight years later. U.S. troops "reduced the violence" in Iraq...after killing hundreds of thousands of them and forcing millions to flee their homes or even their country.

There's a lot more in the speech to take note of, but I'll leave it there. Your recounting of history leaves a lot to be desired, Mr. Obama.

In the San Jose Mercury News this morning, one article reports on "hundreds of thousands" of people demonstrating against the regime. It's two short paragraphs in the "In Brief" section.

A second article reports on "tens of thousands" of Syrians demonstrating against their regime. It's seven long paragraphs under a top-of-the-page, 5-column headline, plus subhead.

In a feature on tonight's NBC Nightly News entitled "What we've missed this week", Brian Williams told a story this way (my transcript from the video):

"This was the thing that was going to make us feel good about ourselves after a rough week. The U.S. has been anxious to launch a space plane, a hypersonic flying wing, that could go from New York to L.A. in 12 minutes at 13,000 miles an hour, unless it crashes, which is what it did this week, nine minutes after takeoff. Thankfully no one was on board, just don't call your travel agent just yet until they work the bugs out."

We'll overlook the fact that, thanks to U.S. foreign policy and the enemies it has created around the world, it takes more than 12 minutes just to get through security at an airport. But the truly outrageous nature of this story is the pretense that this plane is something we might look forward to, and even one day call our travel agent to book a flight on.

Wrong! This plane has nothing whatsoever to do with civilian air travel. And you don't have to look any further than the website of NBC itself, where the real nature of this "space plane" is in no way a secret:

The rocket-launched vehicle is part of an advanced weapons program, called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems of reaching an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour.

And by "reaching" an enemy target, I don't think they have "delivering passengers" in mind, unless you regard bombs as passengers. And actually, the final sentence of the article (as well as the name of the program) makes that quite clear:

An engineering review board was to analyze that data in order to help shape future global strike programs, DARPA officials said.

"Global strike programs." Programs of delivering death from the air anywhere on the planet. That's what Brian Williams thinks was going to "make us feel good about ourselves."

British P.M. David Cameron, on the riots in Britain:

"This is...about culture, a culture that glorifies violence..."

George Galloway, on Press TV this morning:

"Every single day, Britain is causing as much destruction and death in Libya as has happened in all four days of the rioting in Britain."

Dealing with problems with violence? Gosh, David, where on earth could that "culture" have come from?

Today in Afghanistan:

Eight civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a US-led NATO airstrike in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
...
In a separate incident, at least four people were killed when police opened fire during an anti-US demonstration held in the southern province of Zabul on Friday.

A provincial police chief said people took to the streets to protest an attack by US-led NATO forces in the Qalad district of Zabul province that killed three Afghan civilians.

And in tomorrow's news, Afghans in Helmand will take to the streets to protest today's NATO killings, and some of them will be killed when people open fire on their demonstration.

Why, oh why, do "they" hate "us"? It's just so...inexplicable.

This war, just like the ones in Iraq and Libya, are doing nothing positive for the national security of the United States, or for the security of the people of the nations in question.

Update: In what I'm pretty sure is a reference to the same incident, the New York Times reports today that those eight people killed were one woman and seven children under the age of seven. Terrorists all.