In case anyone missed Senator Obama's speech at the Victory column in Berlin, you can now watch it in its entirety right here.
Feel free to fill the comments with your thoughts on the speech.
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5 comments:
It is comforting to hear an American politician speak in global terms. Well, any politician really. We will never find a cure for the problems of this century unless the entire world community comes together to solve them. Obama’s speech was so eerily reminiscent of JFK’s famous speech. Kennedy told the world to come to Berlin to see the symbol of a divided world. Obama points to Berlin as an example of global togetherness. We can come together as one human race and solve all our problems. I think Obama is a great persuader. He paints a picture in the mind of the speaker of a better world, and tells us how we can get there. It is so much more effective in getting your point across than threatening or whining. Kudos to Obama and his speechwriters. Simply amazing!
I must admit, it takes a lot of the effect out of a speech when you've been reading about it for weeks. I thought that Obama did a good job, but I didn't get chills.
I was most impressed when Obama covered Afghanistan and the need to pull through for the sake of the Afghani people. He was direct, and offered a concrete challenge to Germany and Europe. "We need your troops."
I can only imagine how difficult it is to call on your own citizens to support a military struggle, let alone a different nation. I was glad that Obama didn't beat around the bush of "cooperation". He was direct, and I appreciate that.
For the sake of organization, I'm redirecting a comment from the last post to this comment section.
Anonymous commented:
Thanks for making it so easy to hear Obama' speach in its entirety.
While I thought that it was good, especially in pointing out the importance of German and European cooperation, the July 25th Wall Street Journal, while commenting on the speech in its editorial, noted an inconsistency when it stateed in pertinent part that:
"For our money, the best line in Barack Obama's speech yesterday in Berlin came in the form of a quote from Ernst Reuter, the city's mayor during the period of the Soviet blockade and the American airlift, in 1948:
"But in the darkest hour," said Sen. Obama, "the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city's mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. 'There is only one possibility,' he said. 'For us to stand together united until this battle is won…. The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty'."
This, from a U.S. Senator whose consistent message to the people of Baghdad, a similarly besieged city, also dependent on America's protection, has been, in effect, to give up.
Mr. Obama reiterated this view earlier in the week while traveling in the Middle East, in an interview with ABC's Terry Moran. Mr. Moran asked the Illinois Democrat whether -- "knowing what you know now" -- he would reconsider his opposition to last year's surge of U.S. troops in Iraq. "Well, no," Mr. Obama replied.
What Mr. Obama "knows now" is that the surge he opposed has saved Iraq, much as Harry Truman's airlift saved Berlin and underlined America's intention to defend Europe throughout the Cold War. The surge has also saved American lives in Iraq, with combat-related deaths (so far, there have been seven this month) at an all time low.
Mr. Obama offered his own unwitting testimony to this fact by not donning body armor upon his arrival in Baghdad and during a helicopter tour with Gen. David Petraeus. "There have been few if any attacks of late on our aircraft, and the situation did not require them to be wearing body armor," explained Gen. Petraeus's spokesman.
Mr. Obama also knows that Gen. Petraeus opposes setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. This military judgment ought to count for something, particularly since Congressional Democrats have long scolded President Bush for failing to pay sufficient heed to the advice of generals...
But the significant debate is not over whether and when the U.S. will withdraw. It's over whether the U.S. will win. In his Berlin speech, Mr. Obama was at his most forceful when he insisted that "this is the moment when we must defeat terror," adding that "the threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it." This is well-said and true.
But it squares oddly with a political campaign whose central premise is that losing in Iraq -- and whatever calamities may follow -- is a matter of little consequence to U.S. or European interests. It squares oddly, too, with Mr. Obama's broader promise to "stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, the voter in Zimbabwe" and virtually every other global cause."
Anonymous, you bring up several good criticisms of Obama's Berlin speech with respect to his campaign platform and senate voting record.
Let me try to offer a counter argument.
Is it hypocritical of Obama to speak of the need to unite in solidarity against a shared enemy of the West, as he did when referencing the Berlin airlift, when in reality he has gone on the record numerous times expressing his plans to withdraw from Iraq?
While Anonymous' comments suggest that this action is hypocritical, I don't think that it is, and here is why.
Obama voted for military action in Afghanistan but not in Iraq. His reasoning is that Iraq, while being led by a terrible dictator (whom if you'll recall the US supported early in his career) had no responsibility in the 9/11 attacks. There was absolutely no direct connection. Yes, Sadam supported acts of terror, specifically against Israel, but he had no direct conntection with 9/11, which was the whole premise of our War on Terror.
Furthermore, the vote that was passed on military action in Iraq, wasn't technically a declaration of War. The vote supported removing of Sadam Hussein and remove any WMD's that Sadam had. Right now, we have achieved both of these goals. Unfortunately, doing so created a big mess, one that those among our leadership who supported Operation Iraqi Freedom didn't have the brains to foresee. By this argument, our present involvement in policing Iraq was never passed by congress. A lawyer might have a better understanding of these implications that I do, but it sounds unconstitutional.
Regardless of the surge and progress in Iraq, the way in which our military was used there under the pretenses of Operation of Iraqi Freedom is not complicit with what the Congress voted on.
When asked about his opinion of the surge, Obama has acknowledged repeatedly the positive effect of the surge. What he has not done (and will not do), is admit that he was wrong in opposing the Surge from the beginning, even in the success of the Surge.
Obama's reasoning for this stance is that a withdrawal, like the one that he supported, as opposed to the surge might also proved successful if it were tried. Personally, it sounds like a pretty weak argument to me, but when viewed in parallel with the argument of unconstitutional military action in Iraq (as outlined above), the argument makes more sense.
While Obama is less-than-neocon-"patriotic" on Iraq, he did call on those listening to the Berlin speech to support Iraqis during their reconstruction, and as they become once again a sovereign nation. It is not necessary to support an unjust war and the subsequent military action that accompanies it in order to support the rebirth of a nation from a terrible dictatorship, and a poorly executed "liberation". Obama is suggesting better use of soft power. He is demonstrating his ability to think and lead without his finger on a trigger.
Finally, the entire criticism of the "solidarity against evil" rhetoric ignores Afghanistan. Since this is the military action that Obama voted for and continues to support, it should be understood that Obama was calling for solidarity on this front.
There is quite a big difference between our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and realizing this difference is necessary for voters to understand.
Bravo Franz! Excellent response to the Anonymous post. I think one of the saddest aspects of our two party system is that those on the right automatically decry anything those on the left, and vice versa. I am not advocating for a change in our political system however, merely pointing out what I believe to be one of the most annoying byproducts of it. I am sure that no matter what Obama said in Berlin, there would be people finding something wrong with it.
Now as for the constitutional aspects of the Iraqi Wore (as in on and on and on...), according to the War Powers Act, troops have to come home within 60 days of deployment absent a formal declaration of war or congressional authoriation. At least that was the law for thirty plus years. Who knows what small pring clauses they snuck into the Patriot Act.
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