A View of Obama’s UN Speech (Part 2 of 3)
The last post on the topic of President Obama’s UN speech this September dealt with the first half dozen paragraphs. In the seventh, the small matter of Mr Obama’s math is troubling. He says he has been in office for nine months. It seems the days between late January and the Presidential Inauguration to near the same point in the month of September next would calculate to eight months. But that is small potatoes compared to the long list of troubling statements contained in this ‘address’.
In this post the President moves on to his accomplishments in those eight, or nine,months he has been in office.
His next statement is about Gitmo, terrorists and interrogation. He claims there will no longer be torture. The debate on this subject is not closed contrary to what the President suggests. The debate is not closed on what was or is torture except in the minds of those with an opinion to the contrary. In the President’s own words ‘frameworks’ are still being discussed. And his AG’s intent on retribution against those in the opposition party continues.
Gitmo is not closed and may not be for some time if at all. And to claim he will work with members of the United Nations to combat terrorism is as impotent as the record on such things to date. The President ran a campaign that included withdrawal from Iraq and something similar for Afghanistan. They inflamed the antiwar sentiment in cooperation with far left activist organizations as a ploy to win the election. Now they are faced with the grim reality such promises are not so easy and elections have consequences.
So in terms of the eight or nine months, depending on your math skills, that the President has been in office little if anything has been accomplished. Gitmo, Iraq and Afghanistan are still issues in search of solutions. What comes next in the Obama speech just piles on to the misstatements about his time in office.
Eliminating nukes, peace in the Middle East and climate change are the next items the President tries to claim as successful performance. A little premature given the nuke situation regarding Iran and North Korea at least without any discussion of the earliest members of the Nuke Club. Some slack can be afforded the President to any discussion of Middle East peace as many before him have struggled with this issue and there is little optimism his term in office will fare any better. The climate change topic is merely pandering to a particular sentiment not shared by all. It is likely the President and former or current community organizer sees some political value in this pursuit.
The President continues by expressing what he accomplished in terms of the the economic conditions around the world through the G20 and he appears to be again asking forgiveness by emphasizing a ‘re-engagement’ with the UN by joining various groups, offering money and appeasement in general. No wonder those around the planet pleased with his election maintain such an attitude. Any one who will roll over that easily makes their agendas that much easier to advance. This is not a positive sign that Obama intends to defend the interests of the US or the American people.
To this point in the speech transcript the President has accomplished little if anything yet states ‘this is what we have done’. He then goes on to discuss inaction and not getting things done which only serve to strengthen the uselessness of the body he was addressing. Everything that comes out of the UN is worthless. Maybe the President’s strategy was to follow that theme for his address. He mentions the dire circumstances needing attention. Shows that he has done nothing. Claims success for merely mentioning the issues. And encourages others to do something about it. All this and a sprinkling of mea culpas on behalf of the country whose interests he said he would never apologize for defending….. the United States. Is he faithfully executing his oath of office?
Here’s a direct quote from the speech as the final item for this post. It is President Obama speaking about the United Nations.
This body was founded on the belief that the nations of the world could solve their problems together. Franklin Roosevelt, who died before he could see his vision for this institution become a reality, put it this way – and I quote: “The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one Nation…. It cannot be a peace of large nations – or of small nations. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.”
Simply starting an organization based initially on a pleasant sentiment provides no solution without willing participants. It is a little naive to expect world peace from an entity as corrupt as any other on the planet. Whether the UN continues to exist or is abandoned or replaced it is unlikely such efforts will succeed in bringing peace to the world until all the earth’s inhabitants honestly seek this end simultaneously. The probability of that happening any time soon is remote at best.
A call by President Obama for specific remedies to current conflict in the world would be the preferred choice. To present a challenge to other members of the UN to respond properly or risk appearing as co-conspirators to those conflicts may have initiated effective action. But then that is not the aim of the UN or the current American President.
More on this topic in the next post.
Stanford Matthews
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