Obama's speech marking the end of Combat Mission in Iraq

[Norman Solomon]

By Norman Solomon

On the last night of August, the president used an Oval Office speech to boost a policy of perpetual war.

Hours later, the New York Times front page offered a credulous gloss for the end of "the seven-year American combat mission in Iraq." The first sentence of the coverage described the speech as saying "that it is now time to turn to pressing problems at home." The story went on to assert that Obama "used the moment to emphasize that he sees his primary job as addressing the weak economy and other domestic issues -- and to make clear that he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan next summer."

But the speech gave no real indication of a shift in priorities from making war to creating jobs. And the oratory "made clear" only the repetition of vague vows to "begin" disengaging from the Afghanistan war next summer. In fact, top administration officials have been signaling that only token military withdrawals are apt to occur in mid-2011, and Obama said nothing to the contrary.

While now trumpeting the nobility of an Iraq war effort that he'd initially disparaged as "dumb," Barack Obama is polishing a halo over the Afghanistan war, which he touts as very smart. In the process, the Oval Office speech declared that every U.S. war -- no matter how mendacious or horrific -- is worthy of veneration.

Obama closed the speech with a tribute to "an unbroken line of heroes" stretching "from Khe Sanh to Kandahar -- Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own." His reference to the famous U.S. military outpost in South Vietnam was a chilling expression of affinity for another march of folly.

With his commitment to war in Afghanistan, President Obama is not only on the wrong side of history. He is also now propagating an exculpatory view of any and all U.S. war efforts -- as if the immoral can become the magnificent by virtue of patriotic alchemy.

A century ago, William Dean Howells wrote: "What a thing it is to have a country that can't be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!"

During the presidency of George W. Bush, "the war on terror" served as a rationale for establishing warfare as a perennial necessity. The Obama administration may have shelved the phrase, but the basic underlying rationales are firmly in place. With American troop levels in Afghanistan near 100,000, top U.S. officials are ramping up rhetoric about "taking the fight to" the evildoers.

The day before the Oval Office speech, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs talked to reporters about "what this drawdown means to our national security efforts in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia and around the world as we take the fight to Al Qaeda."

The next morning, Obama declared at Fort Bliss: "A lot of families are now being touched in Afghanistan. We've seen casualties go up because we're taking the fight to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their allies." And, for good measure, Obama added that "now, under the command of General Petraeus, we have the troops who are there in a position to start taking the fight to the terrorists."

If, nine years after 9/11, we are supposed to believe that U.S. forces can now "start" taking the fight to "the terrorists," this is truly war without end. And that's the idea.

Nearly eight years ago, in November 2002, retired U.S. Army Gen. William Odom appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program and told viewers: "Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism."

With his Aug. 31 speech, Obama became explicit about the relationship between reduced troop levels in Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. "We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists," he said. "And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense." This is the approach of endless war.

While Obama was declaring that "our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work," I went to a National Priorities Project webpage and looked at cost-of-war counters spinning like odometers in manic overdrive. The figures for the "Cost of War in Afghanistan" -- already above $329 billion -- are now spinning much faster than the ones for war in Iraq.

One day in March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Our government has become preoccupied with death," George Wald said, "with the business of killing and being killed." More than four decades later, how much has really changed?

Norman Solomon's book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is "Made Love, Got War." He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign and co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay; www.GreenNewDeal.info. He lives in Marin County.

[Barry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzO9LZzZoOk



I thought it was a very good speech and I appreciate that Obama is doing what he can to extract us in a responsible manner from Iraq, and that he is setting the stage for a similar withdrawal from Afghanistan, which no doubt will be yet more difficult.

I was disappointed at the very end that he did extend his request of blessings to people everywhere.

What did you guys think of it?

[enigmaha]

Basically, it was a good propaganda speech geared to make the American public believe we were there to help the Iraqis get free from the oppression of Al Quada and that we'll now continue our heroic mission to ferret out the terrorist enemy in Afghanistan. Sounds good but it's utter hogwash. Obama is a great speaker but what he was saying was polished rhetoric intended to whitewash the horror of what we were really doing there and are continuing to do in Afghanistan.
Glad the troops are leaving Iraq now but it's most probably because the oil fields are secured. We still have oil pipeline business to complete in Afghanistan so must send more troops there, instead. If this were not our agenda, we could bring all the troops home now.
I would so like to believe that Obama is the great guy I campaigned for, (I wept with joy when he was elected), but his escalation of the war in Afghanistan is indicative that he's being instrumental in carrying out the same Imperialist agenda as Bush. It breaks my heart to see this. He's charismatic which makes it even harder to accept. I want him to be a hero and restore our country to the ethics and ideals upon which it was founded. I realize that the MI Complex is really running the show in our country but, even so, Martin Luther King would have demonstrated more courage.
You've probably seen the testimony of Mike Prysner before but I'm including the links for it here again. It paints a more accurate picture of our troops presence in Iraq than the heroic depiction Obama presented. Watch 'Iraq for Sale' if you can, too. First hand accounts by our guys who were over there. It's a big eye-opener.

I agree with you. I wish Obama had extended his wish of blessings for people everywhere. And, I wish his actions would help make this come to pass.

Mike Prysner
AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3...layer_embedded

(Part I testimony)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i5Z...eature=related

Winter Soldier Mike Prysner testimony, Pt2
http


And, lastly, in addition to Norman Solomon’s books and films, the writings of Michel Chossudovsky in Uncovering the Big Lie - America's so-called 'War on Terrorism' and 9/11 and the "American Inquisition" are very revealing.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/index....t=va&aid=10144

He writes:
Going after "Islamic terrorists", carrying out a Worldwide preemptive war to " protect the Homeland" are used to justify a military agenda.

"The Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) is presented as a "Clash of Civilizations", a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.

The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over extensive reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region.

Muslim countries possess 66 percent of total oil reserves. In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Iraq has five times more oil than the United States.

Across the land, the image of an "outside enemy" is instilled in the consciousness of Americans. Al Qaeda is threatening America and the world. The repeal of democracy under the Patriot legislation is portrayed as a means to providing "domestic security" and upholding civil liberties.

When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards.”

[busyb555]

Obama is just trying to cover his a_ _ as usual. Point is that he is lying. I have many emails from trusted friends who are in high ranking positions in Iraq and the fact is that Obama just changed the verb describing what is going on in Iraq, just like he changed the "war on terrorism" to what ever the he_ _ he called it. NOTHING has changed in Iraq, NOTHING. Its just Obama trying to look better in the face of the beating he has brought to the left and the Democratic party.

AND CHANGE IS FINALLY AROUND THE CORNER - GOD BLESS AMERICA.