Full Obama Announcement of New Afghan Policy

[tomm2thumbs]

Run time: 21:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aJ23skfVO0   Posted on YouTube: March 27, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 28, 2009 By DU Member: tomm2thumbs Views on DU: 602

 
No need to bump to main page - just putting it in videos for those hunting for it.
Good to see the entire thing for context vs. snips I keep seeing replayed.
And who is this Bruce fellah?

[tomm2thumbs]

1. We could end up looking back on this video as Obama's fallen moment - not for the policy

- but because of how he read this diatribe without genuine conviction and emotion. He seemed to be lacking the true sense of belief in this policy, which apparently was written for him by this 'Bruce' guy he mentions repeatedly.

Let's see, support Bin Laden against the Soviet Union - and he takes everything we taught him and attacks the United States. Support Saddam against Iran - and he takes everything we taught him and attacks the United States. Support Noriega against Nicaragua - and, well - on, and on, and on... How many times do we have to repeat this?

This 'training security forces' mission sounds an awful lot like the Oliver North world not long ago. My opinion is that he has been told (and swayed) that the only solution is to not ever leave Afghanistan in the future, so I see this as a 100% future commitment to troops in that part of the world. Would Obama ever admit that is the plan? I doubt it.

[FrenchieCat]

2. And we could just look at it as the beginning of the end of the Afghan war....

Rachel Maddow apparently believes that Obama's strategic plan are signaling a very different direction that Bush was going with this. She does admit that on superficiality, Obama's rhetoric was eerily similar to that of Bush's....but not on points.

I just think that Obama is using Bush's words to relax the hawks, while simultaneously offering something quite different than what Bush offered to those who are closely listening (not for what they wanted to hear, but for the actual plan offered) and are well informed about such matters.

[cooolandrew]

4. Yes, it's a whole different story it's recognizing human rights and that is a major policy change.>

Which his detractors will continue to leave out. His global strategy is to recognize people as humans first than to automatically label them combatants without assessment. Would we ideally like to see it all end yes does the world have its obligation to the region the speech makes it clear yes.

[HopeOverFear]

3. that wasn't lack of conviction and emotion

his tone was acknowledgement of the seriousness of what he was saying.

[cooolandrew]

5. Well it's not ideal but there is still no denying the policy is far more sensible than>

the road it was travelling on until now. He is not leaving the country to neglect which lead to the resurrgance of the Taliban. Now yes, the President could just say end it, but once this got started there was a commitment aand it's seen a 7 year neglect of no strategy. So this war in some respect only just started. Yes, there is a business intrests and a small amount of troops eventually will remain in the country but only once it's secured which is the sensible thing to do.