We will support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections. That is a path that the Islamic Republic can take."

I thought that the latest inspections had determined that Iran does NOT have a nuclear weapons program??

WTF Barak?

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

I am so sick and tired of the U.S. Government's deceit, whether we are talking Bush or Obama deceit.

In Obama's case, he at first advocated single payer helath care and than reversed his position once he was elected and listened more to the big insurance company and HMO lobbyists who fu,nde his campaign.

Obama's deceit is clear again when he said during the campaign that he did not accept campaign funds from big corporate/wall street sources and yet he obviously did in a more secretive way. The selection of Geithner/Summers/Glasner are a clear indictment of that deceit. It shows how embedded Obama is in the Wall Street fraud and corruption.

His anit-war remonstrations during the campaign now show the degree of his and the American government's hypocrisy. First of all he said he would remove all combat troops from Iraq at a certain date, then extended that date, than used sleight of hand numbers to change the name of combat troops in Iraq, yet leave well over 100,000 military troops and mercenary army troops in Iraq in perpetuity.

Next he reverses his position on Afghanistan and now is increasing troop commitments there beyond any one's anticipation. Obama, like Bush, completely ignoes the fact that an illegal war is an illegal war is an illegal war. The U.S. still is an illegal occupation force in Afghanistan in violation of international law, yet that never seems to be a point to be raised. Nor the fact that Obama has once again violated international law by attacking Pakistan with Drone missiles and special commando units.

Next Obama, like Bush, continues to promote the great lie about Iran that Iran has a nuclear and ballistic missile program that is a threat to the whole world and thus needs him to continue the Bush administrations missile defense shield program.

It is clear that Obama's position on the economic crisis, illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, bloating of t he military budget, blanket support of Isreal's ultra-right wing militaristic posturing cannot be described merely as a "Bush Redux" administration. It is clearly a continuation of the fradulent, morally and philosophically corrupt of an American Empire in the advanced stages of decay.

I'm looking forward to the next Washington Correspondents' Dinner, which will feature a videotaped skit of a bemused O'bomber searching fruitlessly for "change" under his desk, in a filing cabinet, etc. "No, not here." "Nope, not under there."

While the press guffaws uncontrollably.

This is a follow on from my earlier comments "We can BUT I won't" about Mr Obamas Prague speech.

The late Ronnie Reagan nearly did check out: http://bostonreview.net/BR25.2/wittner.html

....
FOR SOME TIME, Reagan had wanted a summit at which he could meet Soviet leaders and promote a disarmament agreement. Thus, as McFarlane recalled, when Reagan had his chance to talk with the new Soviet Party Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Geneva in November 1985, "he couldn’t wait.... He was eager." At the meeting, both men recognized that they could work with one another. In a joint statement, they made new proposals for INF and START treaties and repeated the now-familiar mantra: "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

In 1986, both leaders pushed their recalcitrant colleagues toward a nuclear disarmament agreement. That January, Gorbachev proposed a program to eliminate all nuclear weapons around the world. To the dismay of US national security officials, Reagan welcomed Gorbachev’s proposal. On January 17, Shultz told the state department’s arms control group to get working "on what a world without nuclear weapons would mean to us" and how to obtain it. "I know that many of you and others around here oppose the objective of eliminating nuclear weapons," he said, "but the president of the United States doesn’t agree with you, and he has said so on several very public occasions." Furthermore, "it’s a political hot button."16
...

16 Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Nuclear Disarmament by the Year 2000: A Soviet Program (New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1986); Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 699-705, 719-20; Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 230.

"Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something." And I thought it was just the white man who spoke with a forked tongue. President Obama wants accountability everywhere but at home, where he doesn't have the courage to stand up to the oligarch's.

Obama said "change" yet he supports the old financial system that brought destruction upon itself with ten trillion dollars of taxpayer funds. Obama said he supported FISA then voted to excuse Corporations that violated the law. Obama said he opposed the Iraq War then voted eight times to fund it. Obama says he cares about job loss then gives only 1/20th of the money he gave to banks to support jobs. Obama says he is a Constitutional scholar then fails to support the Constitution in violation of his Oath of Office by failing to prosecute gross political criminality and the federal law that requires him to investigate troubled financial institutions.

A man is known by his actions, not his words.

Let this old Indian check when the last time was I trusted anything a politician spoke?

Hmmm, living in a world of mistrust.

Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.

This speech erodes the hopes the world had for some CHANGE in the world politics.(AT LEAST CORRUPT U.S. POLITICS)
If competition is the answer, why not allow every nation that can afford to develope nuclear weapons? The more the merrier. Sooner or later somebody as crazy as these current leaders will cross the line and we won't have any other human problems to fret about.
Overpopulation? Global Warming? Recessions or over-heated economic growth (bubbles)? Water wars? Deseases?
All gone...along with homo sapiens...the cause of all.
Maybe its time for some other more cooperative species to inherit the earth, like ants or bees.

The majority of missile defense is being stationed in Alaska and California with radar in Hawaii.

First question: What scares a typical commie hating conservative MIC career professional the most?

a. 0 Iranian nukes
or
b. 8,800 Russian nukes

For a ten point bonus, which country is located the closest to American missile defense in both Alaska and Poland?

a. Iran
or
b. Russia

Prague must be protected from the Iranians and the Pakistanis because Kafka once lived there (at least he did in Soderberg's movie) and Kafka was a Jew.

Obama to world: The beatings will continue until morale improves.

"As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act," he said. "We cannot succeed in this endeavour alone, but we can lead it."

This is such BS. I mean, what can you say?

Somehow, at some point, Washington's relentless campaign of terror must be stopped.

It made me sick to my stomach to hear Obama's voice on Democracy Now this morning having the courage to say something like "as the only nation that has used nuclear weapons, America has a moral obligation to stop the arms race." I had to turn the radio off, what a lousy way to start the week.

How perverted, at so many levels. How can the words "moral" and "the only nation that has used nuclear weapons" be combined in one sentence? The US has absolutely no moral authority to dictate anything. What Obusha meant was, he wants to stop every other nation to join the US in the arms race. As it's the case with every Democrat, they say one thing and do another. At least Republicans don't hide being the criminals that they are.

For me it officially becomes obama's missile shield and another big obama waste and mistake. Curtesy of our out of control military industrial congressional complex.

It's either that or Israel starts WWIII.

Obama continues the arms race with the 'missile shield' being launched into Eastern Europe while talking up 'disarmament' for the confused liberals' sake. Isn't that a frigging trip?

Every world-leader is charged with providing for the safety of his country. The safety of the United States is now President Obama's responsibility. Each elected world leader has a vision-their policies are an extension of that vision.

Reminder: Iran does not have a single atomic weapon. In other words, to spell it out for willfully obtuse Obama, there is no Iranian nuclear threat.

A power cannot have atomic weapons without testing them, and Iran has not tested any such weapon.

The U.S. has always loved to inflate threats, be it that of Soviet Union during the Cold War, that of Al Qaeda, that of North Korea, and now that of Iran.

It is a way of justifying its utterly extravagant military budgets and its hundreds of military bases around the world.

Despite what he says, Obama continues this line of hysteria (witness his reaction to North Korea's half-baked rocket launch). The fact that he is not stopping the installation of the military hardware in the Czech Republic shows that he is not serious about the abolition of nuclear weapons, for Iran does not have nuclear weapons and thus does not present a nuclear threat.

Obama's talk about the abolition of nuclear weapons is the same old promisory-note maneuver that he has come to be known for. If he were really serious about disminishing the threat of war, nuclear or otherwise, he would begin by dismantling the world-wide empire of U.S. military bases. As long as that threat hovers over the entire planet, no one is going to give up their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Ha ha ha. "Words must mean something." And that's coming from Obama, the master of doublespeak.

"As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defence system that is cost-effective and proven," (there is no such thing as cost-effective and proven and never will be. Monbiot wrote an excellent article on the subject a while ago. Here is the link: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/19/the-magic-pudding/
"If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defence construction in Europe will be removed."
Translation: "please interpret it to mean whatever you want it to mean, and don't hold me accountable for anything I say. I am just trying to make everybody happy and pretend to leave all options open."

So what does it all mean? Absolutely nothing. Gobbledygook.

He strongly condemned North Korea over its rocket launch, which came hours before his speech. He said Pyongyang had to be called to account. "This provocation underscores the need for action, not just at the UN Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons," he said. "Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something.

------------------------

But I thought Obama only liked to look forward and not focus on the past? Why does he want to punish N. Korea for testing a missile when he's told us he doesn't have time to look back into constitutonal/banking crimes here at home?

Obama's got time to look backwards now?

Why this major shift in philosophy Mr. Obama?