I listened to Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize with astonishment. He is on the home team, and doesn't wish America's destruction. He's a Christian, with his feet squarely within Niebuhrian rhetoric and principle. He understands Just War theory. He's familiar with the Geneva Conventions, and he's against complicity with Maoism, with N. Korea, with Iran, and with the communist rulers of Burma (he mentioned this TWICE!). He had good words for Ronald Reagan and the dissidents of Eastern Europe. He had kind words even for Nixon, who opened diplomatic ties with Red China. He even said something good for capitalism: he said that "commerce has stitched much of the world together" after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And yet he also believes that MLK and Gandhi are our "north star," and that "the human condition can be perfected" (I think he really said this). He thinks that we can make true what ought to be true, and that our "moral imagination" should be extended lest we lose our "moral compass." He didn't say anything about the bloodbath of Tibet.
But Obama defended war, and the American tradition of war. He said we defeated the Nazis, and it is the blood of our soldiers that has kept the world decent for the last 60 years (I'd say 100 years if we include WWI and the Spanish-American War). Obama is not a determinist. He argues that it is our willingness to do something that has made the difference. We can't leave everything to God in history.
America's greatest moments are military. Nothing stirs an American like the thought of our soldiers on that half-frozen river as Washington crossed the Delaware. Nothing stirs us so much as the thought of 50,000 fallen soldiers at Gettysburg working out the notion of equality. The 271 word Gettysburg Address stirs us, but it's also the blood on the "hallowed ground," that seals it. The Battle of the Bulge in which America gave ground only to recover it, and finally push the Nazis back across the Rhine. American fighter pilots taking on the Japanese fleet at Midway and obliterating their aircraft carriers. All these moments stir Americans to tears.
Peace is stupid.
We are not a peace loving people, if peace means we sit and do nothing while idiots take over governments and clobber their own people with the cudgel of the military and use their police to keep human rights from them. We do not stand idly by while the leaders of Burma bully their people. We don't sit still for terrorism. Violence brings out the best in Americans.
That Obama recognized this means that he's American. He is a little too idealistic still when he argues that we have to fight in an idealistic way, with our hands tied behind our back, while our enemies "abide by no rules."
We must remember that it is the atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese will to fight. We must remember that it wasn't Lincoln's Gettysburg Address that defeated the South, but it was Sherman's march to the sea. When Reagan told the Russians that they were an empire of evil, it was only then that they crumbled. Truth is a sword of lightning, and it must strike to the heart. Julia Ward Howe recognized this when she penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic and ignited holy hell.
Obama is half-way there. He recognizes that evil exists. He recognizes that we will have to fight it, and that this fight will last as long as does our world. But he still thinks that the human condition can be perfected, and that Gandhi and King should be part of our military thinking. Obama seems to be two persons in one. Will the real Obama please stand up? Is he with General MacArthur, or is he with Mohatma?
When he speaks out of the dark (or realistic) side of his nature, I'm with him. But seemingly no one present in Oslo was with that side. When he talks of Gandhi and oughtness they erupted into applause. I hated that syrupy and nonsensical side. I found myself tapping my fingers and muttering, get real.
War is not a beer picnic.
Thinking proportionally while the enemy chops childrens' heads won't cut it. War is a last resort. I don't think we should enter into it lightly. But when we do, let all hell break loose. When we let slip the dogs of war, we enter an animal realm, in which survival belongs to the fittest, and survival belongs to the one that can take the other by the throat.
Washington did this at Valley Forge. Jackson did this in New Orleans. Sherman did it in Georgia and South Carolina. MacArthur did it in the Ardennes, and again in the Philippines, and would have done it in Korea had he not been recalled by the supercilious fussbudget.
We fought an idealistic war in Vietnam with our hands tied behind our backs by peace protesters. It got 50,000 of our men killed, and there was no good result. That's what fighting an idealistic war will get you.
If you're going to fight a war, fight it.
We can never soften the hearts of our enemies. We can only tear out their hearts. In the process, we become monsters unrecognizable to ourselves. The only thing that makes this justifiable is the end result: Lockean justice. The end justifies the means. Does Obama understand Locke's four principles? I think not. It's part of his moral vocabulary that is missing. If he had that, he would have a sense of what the Woodstock generation was missing: Country Joe had no idea what we were fighting for in Vietnam. No one at Woodstock did. They thought that you had a choice to "make love" or to "make war." But you can't "make love," especially the way they were doing it. That way you can only spread diseases. True love is a promise to the other that you will stick with them until death, and have their back in all things. War, on the other hand, is something you can make.
If we feel justified in going to war, then we have to fight like we mean it: whole hog. Anything less is complicity with evil.
Does Obama plan to fight like a saint, or like an animal?
Gandhi and King fought against basically enlightened people. We are not fighting that kind of person. We are fighting people who chop off the heads of children for the crime of learning to read. We are fighting devils who keep more than one wife, and who do not allow anyone to speak or worship in their own way. The people we are fighting are worse than the Third Reich. At least the female children of Nazis could read. We are fighting for Locke's four rights: life, liberty, health and property. Obama did understand that we have never fought a war with another democracy. If we can spread democracy around the world, and erect democratic institutions, then war will be a thing of the past.
Bush recognized this. Obama recognizes it, too. But he hasn't yet steeled his will. I hope he does. If he ever does, he will become a human hammer, and justice will triumph, as it did under Charles Martel, at the Battle of Tours. May God be with our president. God is not only a God of Peace. He is also a God of Wrath. He destroyed civilizations: burning Sodom to the ground, and destroying the Egyptians who held our dear Moses captive. Lockean liberty has a price, and the price is war.
But it also has an end: the freedom and human rights of all people around the globe.
40 comments:
Sigh.
Please then go shoot people.
Perhaps you'd rather drop bombs on children?
Which of your children would you wish maimed or murdered? Maybe all of them?
Which of them would make you proud by killing others?
Jesus, Kirby, is about love, not war.
kirby i think your best line is
violence brings out the best in americans
sancta merde
sancta caca
i guess football is the american sport par excellence'
complete with injury reports in stats on mondays
hollywood perfected the violent suspense thriller
as long as we're dead set on dying by the sword we might as well go down in blood and glory
yeeeehaaaaawh!!!
funny too
niebuhr was busy rearticulating medieval catholic principles on just war while catholic thought was moving more in the directions of ghandi and MLK
john paul II stated he could no longer imagine a situation on earth that could warrant a just war for in his mind this would lead to mass destruction...i think he was right
out of afghanistan
here's the plan
bow out gracefully
apologize
and say call us when you need us
we don't know what we're doing here
you folks know what to do
now do it
or live with the consequences
if we can help
call me on my cell
tough love
my native sense wants to say
big kenyan chief speak with forked tongue he say peace he smoke peace pipe but then
he kapow kapow kapow the man he call bad
hmmmmnh
this not good
still i think his peace prize is well deserved if only for the reason that he's willing to say he doesn't deserve it
you shoulda voted for him man
he's the real new deal
jh
I'd be perfectly happy if he said, you know, I'm not in the mood for war. I'm bringing the troops home for a beer picnic on the White House lawn.
But if he's going to fight a war, I wish he would fight it, and I wish he would have some sense of what was at stake.
The guy has a huge rift in his thought. He's for peace, but he's for war, because that's the only way to get peace, but this is going to be a peaceful war, in which no one is going to get hurt.
Of course, Bill Clinton did good in Sarajevo, because he was a Democrat, but let's not mention Lincoln, because he was a Republican.
He just seems so all over the place.
He's against what the Burmese are doing in Burma. But he doesn't mention Tibet.
Obama's the weirdest nuttiest little con artist, but only he is being fooled by his back and forth.
He does have at bottom some appreciation of Niebuhr. It's there. But he doesn't understand that he can't back Niebuhr and Pelagius simultaneously.
He's either down with Augustine or he's not.
It's as if he's done all this reading, but hasn't really digested it.
So out comes all these amazing words from all these amazing traditions, and they don't match up, and he finally, dithers. He wants a war, but he wants it to be peaceful. He wants peace, and he wants to find it through war.
Wars have to finally be about principles: and I really don't know if Obama has any. Or if he does, has two sets of principles that are like two heads in a jack in the box.
And in some way they cancel one another out.
Who is this guy? It's like he's trying to work out a massive identity crisis from the Oval Office.
Are love and war opposites?
One of the aspects of the Christian just war doctrine is that, if it is a just war, you ought to fight to win it - but within certain parameters.
There's "jus ad bellum" which has to do with what the right reasons are to go to war.
And then there's "jus in bello," which has to do with the right ways to fight in war.
Bombing or otherwise targeting non-combatnats is definitely against "jus in bello." But so is half-heartedly fighting a war that is just according to the principles of "jus ad bello."
But of course determining whether a war is "jus ad bello" is always a dicey task.
One of the myths that circulate much about these days is that the early Christians were pacifists, and that it was only after the Constantinian establishment that the Church began to think war might be just.
There was indeed a bias in the pre-Constantinian Church against Christians serving in the military, but that had more to do with the pagan religious practices serving in, say, a Roman legion entailed. Tertullian, for one, got his knickers all in a knot about the insignia Roman soldiers were required to wear.
It's interesting how many Roman military men show up in the Gospels. In every case I can think of off the top of my head, they are always cast in a sympathetic light. In the Gospel of Mark, it's a Roman soldier who, at the foot of Jesus' cross, delivers the climatic line of the whole story: "Surely this was the Son of God."
Never in the New Testament are these men told to lay down their arms.
I do not mean to suggest that Christianity is all for war. Only that it's not pacifistic, primarily because it's realistic about the evil that's in the world.
Jep, et al,
Certainly there are military men in the NT.
However, killing children is wrong.
If we wanted to actually make Afghanistan a better and safe place we would have sent in half a million men. We didn't. Instead we are bombing children.
Bad practice, that, especially in light of Jesus' comments.
The only just war is a defensive war. Period.
jep you speak truth
i like it
jpII alludes to this very fact in his leaning to a more pacifistic stance...he understood how man has used war out of a sense of necessity but also out of gross human negligence and stupidity...so thus with the advent of weapons which can kill millions almost instantaneously the justification for property and defense of wealth and or accumulation of more land is out of the question...he puts it in terms of a sort of evolution one in which we must recognize the complete impracticality of using modern weapons of mass fucking destruction (emphasis mine)
the present pontiff restated this last year in his easter homily
maybe the catholics really are the stupid ones - peace after all
what a joke
i know it sounds like a prissy sissy shwishy thing to say but i really think it's time for all the football games to go to touch touch football
this will even things up then everyone can play girls boys geriatrics wheel chair folks motorized chairs are a go teams made up of all sorts of people not just mammoths and orangutangs and brahma bulls
bring some civility back to the game
but KIRBY you liked the speech? -----
or
you can't believe the superficial rot that passes for honor and virtue these days in oslo
i think michelle is holding the whole thing together
ever notice how much more self assured he looks when she's around man what a woman
i really dig michelle
does anyone know if GWB has awoken yet
the deal in afghanistan is about the petroleum pipeline and opium of course
one a gooey black substance the other a gooey white substance
both highly addictive
isn't afghanistan the poorest nation in the world or something like that
gm is right
we must be warriors
but our hands are nailed like were his...we must defeat with a ridiculous love
\
my sense is that barack hussein obama really does believe in the high ground of morality that there is a place to which we might all aspire...imperfect as we are
let's tell the afghanis - we will only give you money for roads and schools roads and schools that's it
i think there are a lot of people holding barack obama up in prayer
the republicans are trying to get some groudswell
they have michelle bachman out there screaming louder than sarah palin so that's a good thing isn't it screaming women hell why not
the GOP is philosphically bankrupt
they thought it was all about business and profit and savoir faire but really it's about people and how peopel screw everyting up and helping them to do that if it seems the right thing to do
i hope obama has the wherewithall to tell the whole world to leave him alone for a few weeks he should take some power naps long leisurely power naps and ignore everything
eat lounge around play some hoops watch tv with michelle and the girls some pingpong arrange with castro to make gitmo into a bigtime resort with profits going to rebuild cuba or an international biodiversity university or soemthing a fish farm
yeah barack kick back listen to some miles and let the world go by
for a few weeks
things are real things are good things are fine
you gots yourself soem trouble
but it is doable baby you can do this barack
my man
yeah baby
take it take it
jh
Kirby - you often say things about how war is what ensures freedom and peace...now you seem confused that obama says the same thing?
What's wrong with minimizing civilian casualties and following the treaties we've signed?
Brett,
My point is that Obama set out to say that, but the message ran thin and suddenly he was talking about global warming and the need to morally reimagine or re-engineer the human soul.
I suspect a deeper division on the part of Obama, but it's one that I have trouble understanding.
All the current trouble begins with the question of Palestine.
That in turn began with the Balfour Declaration -- a document made up by a British lord that granted a Jewish homeland in Palestine in exchange for Jewish support in World War I.
Thirty years later in 1948 Israel suddenly appears. It was originally designed to be one-third of Palestine. However, it took over the entirety of Palestine, muscling its way to total sovereignty over a land that belonged historically to another people.
If you go back far enough the Jews did of course own that land but not since about AD 70 when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and wiped out all Jewish resistance, burning the temple to the ground. That was in turn a metaphysical struggle between the Romans and the Jews.
Caligula tried to put a statue of himself in the Jewish temple.
Jesus himself was killed in the struggle with the Roman state.
Skip forward to 1948 and you have the return of the Jews -- 800,000 Palestinians forced out, 450 villages destroyed, and then in 1967, Israel expanded even further.
On strictly territorial grounds, Islamic Palestine has a pretty big beef.
And Osama has claimed that that beef was at the center of his beefs both with Israel and with its sponsor, the USA.
Obama claims Osama has been the first to attack American soil, and this legitimates our conquest of Afghanistan.
But this is problematic.
The Afghans did not participate in the attacks of 9/11 except as unwittingly allowing terrorist camps within their terrain to train the terrorists. There were no Afghans among the 9/11 terrorists.
They were in fact from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Because Osama was in Afghanistan, we attacked that country, and are now trying to rebuild it as a democracy. Obama says that democracies don't attack democracies, an argument that arises from Amartya Sen's claim.
But the Confederacy was a Democracy, of sorts.
And we definitely attacked and defeated them.
Obama's claims might still be founded on Lockean liberalism: that any state that is not conducive to the liberal values of life, health, liberty and property as conceived by Locke -- are liable to overthrow, since we are a nation dedicated to the proposition of equality.
This is what the Gettysburg Address said.
But when you fast forward again 150 years, does Obama believe in Locke? If so, is he really aware of Locke's core principles? If so, why didn't he announce them in Oslo?
If this is a war of territorial gain, it is of course bad, even in Lockean terms.
If we don't have a realistic endpoint, then how can we win it? What does winning it even mean? Locking out the Taliban and their long beards and lack of interest in pop music?
If Obama is a multiculturalist, and a believer in tolerance for every variety of culture, then he has to accept the Nazis and the Taliban as well, or else articulate a reason that they are evil. He says that they are evil, but is it because in Lockean terms they don't believe in the four key terms?
Or is it because they don't believe in equality?
Or simply because they are friends with someone who attacked our country?
Obama at the deepest level is incoherent.
Osama at the deepest level is coherent.
Osama knows what he wants.
Obama is fragmented, and he dithers because he cannot pull his mind together into a coherent whole.
He's half Niebuhrian darkling, and half Pelagian optimist.
He's a multicultural relativist, and a Lockean universalist.
The worst part is that he doesn't even know any of this.
His peech was beautiful at first, and then petered out, and cracks appeared and he got on to thinner ice after the global warming remarks appeared. He then started to flounder, and ended in almost total incoherence, as the applause began.
I'm not saying McCain would have been any better. Or Palin.
Or Huckabee.
Grappling with the problems of multiculturalism versus any kind of universalism whether Lockean or Marxist, will require a lot of time that Obama hasn't got to ponder his own ideas.
He's just going to flounder around and a lot of people are going to be killed, while he smiles, and grins, and mouths platitudes.
But he does have the beginning of an idea: go back to Niebuhr. Stick with Niebuhr. And go back to Lincoln. And stretch back to Locke. and you have the beginning of a coherent foreign and domestic policy founded in Christian thought.
Scrap Marx and hopeful Pelagianism, and scrap multiculturalism.
Wow, Kirby, that was really great.
Sadly, it is a war of conquest.
"When we let slip the dogs of war, we enter an animal realm, in which survival belongs to the fittest, and survival belongs to the one that can take the other by the throat."
If survival belongs to the fittest, you've set up a standard of conduct and consequence that does nothing to insure that right will triumph. Hitler was about 4 months away--by present-day estimates--from having his own nuclear bomb and perhaps another year away from being able to deliver it with a rocket--if not via a standard bomber. Had that happened, and Germany conquered the Western Democracies in 1945, the "fittest" might have been the Nazis. Obviously this argument doesn't work, Kirby.
"We can never soften the hearts of our enemies. We can only tear out their hearts. In the process, we become monsters unrecognizable to ourselves."
If we must become monsters, then what is the obvious consequence of maintaining a "warrior culture" as the Teutonic Knights did? Might doesn't always make right, Kirby. Strength isn't by itself a good--you can't posit a "righteous wrath" entity without facing the moral ambiguity of its purpose. The Muslims also think of themselves as righteous soldiers--in what way is this different in principle from what you advocate?
"If we can spread democracy around the world, and erect democratic institutions, then war will be a thing of the past."
First you say war is eternal--that we must fight forever, until the end of time. Then you suggest, here, that war might someday by eliminated. Under what conditions would free will be permitted to lead to a "perfect" civilization? Who's going to define "perfect"?
"God is not only a God of Peace. He is also a God of Wrath. He destroyed civilizations."
God is whatever you say he is. He's also whatever I say he is. This is nonsense. You're just summoning up versions of convenience.
gosh kirby i'd like to respond to your insightful criticisms of our leader but i am disturbed by one litttle fact and that is
you sound a-patriotic here you sound like democracy is not supposed to be this blind
you trash our prez
out of what?
out of a superior judgement on your part
i think frigggggiiinnn NOT
dood
hoops
set up a time to play hoops with the president
i think people are stunned with O (z) eloquence
his stance of peace while fighting some world warfare is typical rather than unique every prez done it to some degree
locke lincoln niebuhr kirby olson
ronald mcdonald
daffy duck
roy rogers
phyllis diller
chubby checkers
tom mixx
dean martin
gilda radner
peter pan
yogey bear
a long line of political wit coming from the lockean tradition
i guess george carlin should be in there too and red skelton and stu
whose humor is off the board
somebody needs to check on that guy
the zealots of mohammed may win out because they take the idea of warrior very seriously we think it's a video game
kirby if you met the prezident
would you bow?
would you be gracious?
i mean the guy is clever even if he doesn't know what the hell he's doing i mean in a real sense who does?? it's all sort of wierd isn't it everyday who knows what the hell is really going on so he is a bit of a doofus but i like that bush was a doofuss too but he was scarey the kind of guy you don't want drunk at a party with gasoline in the garage
obama he's got style
he's got grace
he';s got smile
he's got pace'
he's got
cool
he's got guts
he's got pinache
he's got the world baffled in many ways
which is not bad
i mean
even you kirby are asking the very important question
who is this guy and why and how does he continually amaze
i want him to do good on the national railroad schema
bring back the railroads BROTHER BARACK!!!!
that will be the legacy of the people born in the 50 z and 60z
something the next generations can use and care for
RAILROADS
TIME TO BRING BACK THE RAILROADS
christopher hitchens balked the other day at the christmas tree lighting in the white house
i think it's charming but the
idea that the american government has some obligation to remove religious sentiment from the public govt sphere is ludicrous it requires a complete misreading of the constitution and the bill of rights and the decl of indpndc
hitchens thinks that somehow america is obliged to be a neutral place....we're obliged to keep our convictions private and out of the faces of enlightened humanists
barack obama does stand up
he's quick he's real
he knows a fat cat when he sees one
and the money is coming back
the blood transfusion was successful
are the jews a paradigm for
all devastated cultures
i mean can we see the plight of the
natives in USA in the same light
as we see the jews??
i gotta go
gd dy
jh
The thing about Christian soldiers like you, Kirby, is you've never seen real battle--never experienced the degrading, soul-wrenching, debilitating effects of combat. Hence, you're unqualified to gauge the costs involved in waging conflict. It's just a fantasy computer game to you. "Fighting with our hands behind our backs" isn't a phrase you can use with any authority. You think America should have used nuclear weapons on Hanoi? Would you have entertained a third world war with China?
I will agree on this point: The U.S. never prosecuted the war against Al Quaeda with serious purpose. We've known all along where bin Laden was hiding, and we've never gone in there and rooted him out. Instead, we conquered the whole nation of Afghanistan, set up a puppet government, and marked time. This is pretty much exactly what bin Laden wanted us to do, and we've fallen into the trap. Now, 8 years later, we're still hanging back, trying to convince the Pakistanis to do it for us. bin Laden knew we'd have, in effect, to level Waziristan, in order to flush him out, and that the consequence of doing that would have severe repercussions. bin Laden was perfectly willing to burn a million deaths in order to win the hearts and minds of Islam. But we've dithered and frittered. What fools we!
Curtis, for people who take God seriously, or even personally, the notion of who and what God is and asks of us is obviously important. For outsiders, of course, any such notion is the equivalent of a sock puppet.
But for insiders in any faith, it is of course a serious commitment.
I think it may be possible that if Lockean democracy were a universal standard, war would cease.
But can it become such a thing? Only over lots and lots of dead bodies.
That's the dilemma that Obama faces.
The other side of right makes might is the idea that the Essenes could stand up to Roman might at Masada. We know how that went.
They were extinguished.
Those Jews who stood up to fight for their Temple were also massacred.
If you're going to fight, you have to make sure your military is up to it, and then you have to fight.
It's not about whose correct at THAT point. It's about who can kill who with more efficiency.
I think that a lasting peace cannot be had if there is not a fundamental justice that is agreed upon by all.
I don't think this can happen without a lot more work in terms of finding a bottom line between all comers.
And obviously it goes the bone of contention between the dogs of Christianity and Islam is Palestine.
Without that settlement, there can't be peace.
Obama didn't want to look at that at all in his address.
He's a lightweight who poses.
He looks better to me from his right side. His left is a tad goofy.
Kirb:
Why didn't you post my last entry?
Obama obviously didn't "earn" the Nobel Peace Prize. Peace-making is in short supply these days. Who should they give it to? Probably, no one.
A strong defense is a strong military. But how you use that military matters. When you're not defending your own people, then it's vastly more complicated. Trying to set up justifications for the invasion of other nations isn't a simple philosophical problem, like deciding who has the best logical proposition. International diplomacy requires a delicate set of adjustments. Usually, going to war to save face, or to salve one's arrogance, aren't good reasons. We had no business invading Iraq. We had every reason to want to get bin Laden, but we didn't do that. Why? I don't have a clue. We fell right into bin Laden's trap. And it's cost us dearly.
Meanwhile we have folks like you and Cheney advocating a 30 years war in Afghanistan, for no other reason than that the war profiteers can make more treasure, and the domestic budget can be diverted away into sand.
Meanwhile we have folks like you and Cheney advocating a 30 years war in Afghanistan, for no other reason than that the war profiteers can make more treasure, and the domestic budget can be diverted away into sand.
It's a good thing Afghanistan doesn't have any oil. Then we'd have three skulduggerous reasons!
Curtis, I didn't get rid of any of your comments that I know about.
Why would I?
Read up the column and see if you can't locate something you sent through. You wrote something this morning and I responded ad nauseam.
I thought we were in Afghanistan to take dancing lessons from the locals, and to enjoy the vistas.
Surely that's another reason!
The main reason we don't go into the Congo is the views are so -- clogged with jungle junipers.
Plus, there's a history there. The Russians got a smackdown in Afghanistan, and before them the British.
I thnk we are trying to show American exceptionalism.
Everythang comes in threes!
Kirby - I think that a lot of the incoherence (though not all, of course) that you see in Obama comes from the fact that your Assumptions about him and the Reality of him are different - this is an incoherence that is Your fault, not his... (Well, your fault, and Fox's, and Jacques', and Obama's public relations folk for letting others define 'im).
That, and there are some viewpoints that you think are mutually exclusive which, in fact, are not.
I do think you need to get your own house in order
before you can really know
what part of the mess comes from Obama
and what part of the mess is yours...
Well, point out to me precisely how his Pelagianism fits with his Niebuhrian notions, and I might buy it. But otherwise it´s too vague a criticism: in essence you're just saying he's more coherent than I think, but you're not giving me any evidence, or reasons for this belief, so I have to take your word for it.
I think he's something like a skater whose legs got wider and wider until he could no longer support his argument, and he collapsed.
Not that anyone at Oslo noticed.
Argument 1. He doesn't have a good reason to support a war in either country.
a. Bush's rationale was Lockean.
b. Obama is not a Lockean.
c. Therefore, Bush's rationale cannot be Obama's.
d. What is Obama's rationale? Point this out to me, and I might buy it. But you'll have to find precise sections of the speech that add up to make your point.
Argument 2: Obama's references to global warming came out of nowhere. What do they have to do with the global war on terror?
Did he get his signals mixed up, and think he was over in Copenhagen? This was Oslo.
Tell me how global warming (which may or may not exist, and if it does, may or may not be man-made) fits into the wars, and Obama's peace prize. I confess it just seemed like a sore thumb.
If you can find a coherence for these two arguments then I'll listen.
But I can't imagine how you'll do it.
Bush goofed up grammatically here and there. But his arguments hung together and had central points.
I never saw anything where he just stuck parts and bits of various speeches together and went to town with them.
The speech was written for him. That's all there is to say. Very sad, but that is how the people voted. We can "shrink him all we want" but the American people, blinded by his handlers rhetoric, are getting what what they deserve.
Ditto for the Congress.
Hopefully, pain is gain is gain for the kids future.
"I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region."
Of course, the above quote was from Obama's speech about sending more troops to Afghanistan - the Nobel speech was more about addressing the paradox that war is sometimes necessary in the pursuit of peace.
The connection to Climate Change was very specific and natural -
Obama was addressing ways to achieve just, lasting peace when he brought up climate change (all of a half-paragraph in the speech)... Point number one was that the international community should use persuasion and punishment other'n violence (sanctions etc.) when possible.
Point number two was about civil rights and freedoms for citizens.
"Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can't aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
And that's why helping farmers feed their own people -- or nations educate their children and care for the sick -- is not mere charity. It's also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement -- all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action -- it's military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance."
All seems crystal clear to me...where's your hickup?
brett has writen the
final statement on the peace prize address
exquisite prose
i think more need not be said
kirby
the starckness and clarity of bretts' prose makes your dithering tirades sound like you'd never heard the speech you're simply winding up with old armaments of verbiage and blather
i will confess i watched only blurbs
of the speech never saw the whole thing read a review or two
but now i feel obligated
to watch it
today
i sort of miss jacques' excessive blathery vituperations inflected with invective and highbrow sarcasm peppered with clever insult
he was good at that tossing names around like spit
i'd give anything to watch kirby and brett actually go at it with over sized boxing gloves
the problem with statements like
americans are at their best when they are violent
is that it sticks in your head like a line of poetry and you can't get it out
maybe i'm just jealous because
i didn't come up with that line
barack hussein obama
gotta love the guy
glenn beck is the salon choice for crazy of the year with a big C
jh
"And that's why helping farmers feed their own people -- or nations educate their children and care for the sick -- is not mere charity. It's also why the world must come together to confront climate change."
Huh? You go on to say that there is little dispute that climate change will cause problems. That is absolutely incorrect. There is plenty of dispute about that very thing. Now there are plenty of people SAYING that the science is settled, but there increasing evidence that this is a political desire rather than a scientific reality.
As to the main point of your argument, I think you are quite correct that peace is way more than the absence of war.
Brett did a good job pulling the threads of Obama's speech back together. I listened to the speech, and couldn't figure out that part. Now I see that he's saying that without clean water and decent food supplies that there will be fights for dwindling water rights, etc.
This seems at least to me to be a totally separate issue from the clash of civilizations that is how the right viewed the collision between Christian and Islamic enclaves: that there is a differing conception of rights within the two civilizations.
Esp. wrt women's rights.
I don't see how global warming has contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda.
For a minute (that portion only lasts for a minute) I thought that Obama had perhaps mistaken Oslo for Copenhagen, and had segued between speeches before getting back on track.
He says there is "little" scientific discussion of the possibility that warming is caused by sunspot activity, for instance (I know I've heard some scientists argue for this) and others have argued that Greenland hasn't even turned green yet.
Glaciers have been up and down N. America many times in the last million years. They were here only 13,000 years ago.
But Greenland was totally green in about 700 AD. You'd think the greens would want more green.
Resources do get shuffled about in any time of change, but also in any time of change, there are new species that arise, new opportunities that arise.
Some banks have grown quite a bit in the last decline that demolished some of the bigger banks.
At any rate, I still didn't get a clear sense of Obama's paradigm in the war on terror. He seems to segue between paradigms unproblematically: that resources and rights are somehow the same thing.
I don't think they are!
If we continue to attack Ag=fghanistan and Pakistan in order to root out the Taliban there, how is it linked to fighting global warming?
Moreover, if Islam's beef with the US has to do with Palestine (ultimately), then is this not a question of land rights?
I didn't find any clarity on the overall issues within Obama's speech.
They attacked us (don't ask why) and we will defeat them (don't ask why), and meanwhile, we are going to fight against global warming (scientists tell us this is a problem, so we must attack it by getting rid of industry to the extent that we can so that China can make our products for us, so that our workers can sleep beneath bridges), and ultimately, everything's going to work out.
I guess I still have work to do.
at least there are a lot of bridges for people to sleep under
i mean if everyone staked out a bridge that would open up quite a lot of territory
once the marxists the nuovomarxists take over completely it will all work out allright if and only if they instill some intelligent thinking into the mixx
you know not be so preoccupied with accomplishment and success and that sort of thing
some people just do things like cut outs all theire life they are cutout artists they glue colored pieces of paper together and make holes in the world for all the world to see through
everyone needs to do something but maybe for a few folks anyway that is merely describing how the clouds go by and what makes them the shapes they are
i think we make far too big of a deal when it comes to practicalities
pragmatic ends are boring
if all i do on any day is play some new things on my guitar
well that has to be regarded as a successful day
perhaps this needs to be incorporated into the presidents' week
some days where it is actually expected that nothing is going to happen nothing is going on everything is just as it is and nothing has to be done
more being
less doing
obama is a stand up guy
bush was a frightened puppy
for most of his reign
he really didn't know what hit him
his press conferences were glib and
idiotic like it was joke time folks
obama stands there and takes the questions he thinks on his feet
he listens
bush never listened to anyone but cheney and karl rove and laura once in a while
the only time i can recall bush making a statement of what he believed in was when he said
"i don't know if you know this about me but i am a free-market free-trade sort of guy i just am that is what i believe in and that's what i intend to do is make this world safe for free markets that's what democracy is all about"(paraphrase obviously)
he always thought freemarket and democracy were synonymous
he was basically a puppet of milton friedman
many were
some still are and the guy is dead
barack read his niebuhr
david broks is even on the record saying
he listened to a rather impromptu delivery of the social thought of niebuhr by BHO and was floored with the guys accountablity to intelligent discourse
if nothing else
war abortion disease global gluttony scourge pillage and rape
man is a intrinsically perverted
managed by what
jh
BHO just parroted whatever he had read.
The Bush baby was ineducable, and so, a better thinker on his own terms.
Bush was about free markets.
What is BHO about? Does he have a single idea that he's really and truly for?
Abortion, perhaps. He's absolutely for abortion, I think.
Beyond that, I think he's just trying to be a prize pupil. But doesn't have his own perspective.
He's always been 100% pro-abortion.
I think everything else is negotiable and in flux.
Kirby, attacking Afghanistan and Global Warming are not directly linked -
Obama had a very simple point 1), point 2), point 3) line of reasoning with regards to the idea of how to maintain and sustain peace around the globe in ways Other than war.
So why did Obama bring up Climate Change in a speech about peace?
Because he views 'freedom from want' as a necessary aspect of achieving peace. Significant Climate Change, were it to occur, would cause famines and poverty.
Argue that Climate Change isn't happening/won't happen - fine. But that's an old argument that has nothing to do with whether or not it was appropriate to bring up Climate Change in this speech - Obama believes that climate change is happening and will worsen, and having that belief, it made perfect sense for him to bring it up in the context that he did.
Obama is a Lockean who believes in governments that protect and support the liberty, life, health, and property of humans around the globe - he just takes a different approach than you'd like, Kirbster.
But his reasoning for 'just war' were perfectly Lockean.
That's why Some of this 'incoherence' is your problem - you say up and down he ain't Lockean, but that's really a false labelling on your part...
Brett, can you give me precise points where he discusses life, health, liberty, and property, as a package?
I'd LOVE to believe he was a Lockean. I could stop worrying and learn to love da bomb.
Kirby,
It's amazing that you can write all of this hyperbole about Afghanistan without really mentioning Bush. This is not Obama's war! You seem to wonder why we aren't trying to really win the war, correct? He is increasing the amount of troops in an attempt to eradicate the Taliban. You raved about Bush's surge in Iraq, why is this any different? You seem to not understand why we need to eradiacte the Taliban. This is no longer a question of Afghan security, rather the implications extend into a strategically important zone, Pakistan. The radical Islam in this geopolictical zone is important to one of our allies, India. Should Pak fall to radicals, they would have nuclear weapons at their disposal. This is a highly volatile situation.
I was never opposed to the Afghan war, but was disappointed in how it was initially conducted. This was really swept under the carpet in light of the Iraq fiasco. Bush never committed many troops to the Afghan front; rather, we dropped special ops and cia agents behind the lines, with bags of cash, and they bought the local tribal leaders. We then let the northern alliance engage in most of the ground assualts while we provided air support. The NA is not a loyal group, they switch sides frequently. You can verify this info in many sources, off the top of my head I suggest the Steve Coll book on 9/11 and Dexter Filkins book "The Forever War." Essentially, we failed to kill the enemy.
Eventually people will one day realize that we cannot fight and win limited wars. We should only fight wars when necessary, and when we do, we need to annhilate the country ww2 style.
For the record, Bill didn't do well in Sarejevo. NATO floundered in its Bosnian actions which is why he overracted about Kosovo. The Croats, backed with German arms, defeated the Serbs in the Krajinia, effectively beating back the Serbs.
You are always rhetorical in your analysis, I urge you to arm yourself with some facts! This is a quick post, please forgive any spelling errors!
"The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud."
"The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans"
"For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting."
The previous three quotes show a strong commitment to liberty. The justification for attacking Afghanistan (to protect us from attack) shows a strong commitment to life (amongst other statements, of course). The comments about the economy having promoted peace and the necessity of helping those in poverty = health, property.
Again, you're confusing yourself because you approach Obama with the preconceived idea that "Obama has no Lockean principles or justification for his actions," and then he uses Lockean justifications and espouses Lockean principles, and then where are you left except confused?
i don't mind god being the god of wrath i mind when someone else seems to think he or she knows that he or she is an instrument of god's wrath
make me a channel of your peace
make me a channel of your wrath
the selfrighteous angry veangeful god is but an excuse for man's worst impulses
extreme fighting
Sodom.
lot's wife
40
Post a Comment