Obama on Iraq’s ‘Ending’:
A Speech for Endless War
September 6, 2010
By Norman Solomon
Beaver County Peace Links via Z-Net
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.
As PDA continues its work through summer 2010, we are pursuing an aggressive progressive agenda in support of economic and social justice and a call for the end to war funding. We have joined with our allies to fight for this nation’s social insurance safety net programs—Social Security and Medicare—in the face of cries by conservative groups and other non-progressive types to cut benefits and raise the retirement age as a mechanism to somehow put a dent in the federal deficit.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 