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Reparations?
Sometime after midnight, 44 caught a quick helicopter ride out to the Dover Air Base to stand, wind-whipped and slender, as the bodies of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan were off-loaded from a C-17 in their flag-draped coffins. It was the first time in eight years of war that a President has greeted our returning dead. Obama flashed a neat, palm-down right-hand salute, which cameras recorded matter-of-factly, as if images of respect for the returning dead were an everyday affair.
When Glenn Beck says the Obama presidency is all about "reparations," he's insinuating that the President wants to lavish government goodies on blacks while stealing from whites. But this is how the Obama camp perceives reparations: Obama is indeed going about repairing things his predecessor bungled, it is truly an appalling mess to clean up, and they don't want to hear criticism of how he "holds the mop." Obama is doing his level best, they say, to restore the national honor, and if we give him enough time he will bring the bloom back to American policy.
But Thursday morning was not the first time flag-draped coffins have returned from Afghanistan since Obama took over. How the deaths of these Americans, killed over two days earlier this week, affects his upcoming decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan is what makes his emotional midnight run so significant.
Most speculation in the media suggests that Obama will agree to an increase, though perhaps not as large as the generals want. Obama's appearance on the tarmac--something his predecessor avoided, apparently for fear of damaging domestic "morale"--may well be a way of underlining that he does not take this decision lightly. Still, it would seem to suggest that he is going to escalate one of Bush's wars by sending even more troops (Obama has already committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, approving that increase last February).
Lord yes, Obama is better at just about every act of presidenting than Bush was, more graceful, more self-aware. But progressives don't want him to just make Bush policies succeed--we want new policies. Some things Bush did, like drain the Treasury for two ridiculous occupations halfway around the globe, are now completely unsalvageable. Polls show that most Americans already get this truth. It's time to plant new seeds in different ground.
17 Comments so far
Show AllLeslie Savan believes that "Obama is doing his level best" and that "if we give him enough time he will bring the bloom back to American policy." One strongly suspects that the average Afghan and Iraqi and Pakistani so not believe that Obama is doing his "level best" in bringing peace to their respective countries. In all likelihood they probably do not think that Obama needs "more time" to wreak even more death and destruction upon their countries.
One has to wonder if The Nation and Leslie Savan are giving Obama the bomber the benefit of the doubt because he is a Democrat. If this were Bush, liberals like those from the Nation would have been demanding, like the Queen from Alice in Wonderland, Off With His Head!. Perhaps if a reporter from The Nation, unlike Obama, were to fly to Afghanistan and attend the many funerals that is endemic of life in Afghanistan because Afghans have been ripped apart by Obama's bombs, then they might finally realize that the last thing that Obama needs is "more time" to somehow make the situation right. The only way that Obama can make the situation right is to get those American soliders out of Afghanistan and Iraq as the Afghans and the Iraqis recognize that the faces of American soldiers are not want they wish to see in their countries.
As a bumper sticker points out:
"BOOKS NOT BOMBS"
What you are describing is just the Nation's standard operating procedure. They defended Clinton in the same way or worse. I cancelled my Nation subscription 12 years ago.
Looks like the Bomber has started on the campaign trail again.
Perhaps Obama feels, like LBJ and Nixon regarding Vietnam, that the US must remain in the Middle East and should be given "more time" in order to protect America's "vital interests". A far better idea would be for the Afghans and the Iraqis to to be allowed to engage, like the Vietnamese, in self-governance.
Long live the memory of Eugene V. Debs.
It's "The Nation"'s mind-set that needs "reparations", in the broad sense of the term.
Another Obama-struck minion falls off the "Nation" truck! How many of these dupes or shills ARE there?
The "Obama camp" perceptions described by the author are ludicrous, if not laughable-- all the more so for their self-righteous edge. It's impossible to tell whether his inner circle truly believes such perceptions, or cynically push this preposterous view to advance the imperial agenda toward its second term.
But this puerile crap isn't going to fool those of us who HAVEN'T just fallen off the truck-- or had our brains run over by one.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Glenn Beck is only trying to play another rightwing distraction game of race baiting to keep it from being known that Obama is playing to the ruling class. Reparations are one thing and we could do better by getting better leaders who fight for good policies for all Americans regardless of color but Beck shows that he is fighting for the ruling class by his own race baiting talk.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, if President Obama commits more troops it will become his war and it can't be won.
His war/can't win = huge misfortune for all of us.
Why one of the smartest people on the planet allow themselves to roped in gives me pause, and heartburn because it perhaps is our own fault for not paying attention for so long: that is,we the voters, the citizens, us.
0 took it over in January 2009.
Obama's visit to the returning deceased occurred because he manages to think that he isn't responsible for the deaths and Bush is.
In fact he already committed more troops. This is escalation #2.
The general is asking for 40,000 so that Obama looks moderate and conflicted when he agrees to 15 or 20 thousand.
Obama has gone on and on about his moral struggle with sending more troops.
He should feel really guilty for not ending the war. Deliberating over the second troop increase puts him in the category of worse than GWB.
Ron Paul would have ended the wars 9 months ago if he were the President.
Or it's a photo-op.
It's a photo op. There he is, he who never did military service, saluting as though he were in uniform. It's his flight-suit-on-aircraft-carrier moment. Officeholders with real military-service experience know that the hand-over-heart salute is used when in civilian clothes.
Exactly.
Here's a chunk of my comment (to a typically moronic David Brooks column) that speaks to this:
• And as regards the "question" of whether Obama possesses "the tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion":
There really is no question about it; Obama obviously has this ability.
I peered long and hard at the video of Obama's pre-dawn visit to Dover Air Force Base. Apart from the salute-- Obama, the meticulous bastard, has obviously studied John-John's heartrendingly poignant salute during JFK's funeral procession-- I could see that Simple Conviction burning behind his eyes, viscerally and unflinchingly, and in lieu of tears: I Am a Two-Term President!
· Yr Obd't Servant
ooOOOoo THAT has a bite! Well done!