Thus Obama In Indonesia yesterday:
The nations of Southeast Asia must have the right to determine their own destiny, and the United States will strongly support that right. But the people of Southeast Asia must have the right to determine their own destiny as well. That is why we condemned elections in Burma that were neither free nor fair. That is why we are supporting your vibrant civil society in working with counterparts across this region. Because there is no reason why respect for human rights should stop at the border of any country.Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.
Bush himself would have been proud of this hogwash. What about the freedom of the people of Afghanistan to 'determine their own destiny'. And wouldn't millions of people still be alive and living in Iraq if they had been free of US interference and 'support'. I know it is naïve to take anything Obama says seriously but surely he and his speechwriters can do better than this claptrap.
O and W have the same speech writers.
ReplyDeleteI wish the complete sign in this photo was visible.:-)
Hi, Tony. That speech should have been filed in the round filing cabinet before it ever became public.
ReplyDeleteThe only vibrant societies they seem to support are the ones that think exactly the same way as the "Western" vibrant societies.
Now we have to disentangle people, societies and nations. It doesn't matter if the people or the societies are against continuous, never ending war, the nation (i.e. whichever dingbat is in power at the moment) will do whatever it (he) wants.
I see that there's a link from CTV to Harper's complete one-eighty on Afghanistan withdrawal. Wow. I'm so surprised. He needs a new speechwriter, too. He keeps recycling the old lies of "we must stay or our soldiers' sacrifices will have been in vain".
And so the war has been pushed forward to 2014, like the ever-retreating mirage of an oasis in the desert.
As Arthur Silber has written in his blog for November 8 under "Lies are All you Know":
"In our world today, if you are minimally conscious and honest, profound anger and bitterness are major indicators of psychological health."
I must be really healthy.
RZ,Filostrato and Arthur Silber all meet the criteria of robust psychological health as far as I can see. US General Smedley Butler wrote 75 years ago, "The flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag." A prescient sentiment. I will be posting on Harper's embarrassing statement later, Filo. I have many relatives and friends in Ontario and it shocks me how Canada has sunk in self-esteem since my first visits there in the 1980's.
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