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Obama UN speech:anybody care to explain this passage.

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War.

complete speech transcript

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjU5YWQzZDdmYTc2ZmE0MGJmY2Y3ZGMzODYwOWNmNzc=
 

Buckeye

Well-known member
Some guy named Paul has a pretty good take on it.


Obama's sophomorically utopian oration

September 23, 2009 Posted by Paul at 1:21 PM

Earlier today, I was mildly critical of the suggestion that President Obama is our worst president ever when it comes to foreign policy. I noted, however, that Obama certainly has the potential to earn that distinction.

Today, that potential was fully on display before the assembled thugs and hypocrites that make up the U.N. General Assembly. At the risk of offending my own prejudice against categorical assertions of "worst president" status, I will venture that no American president, and probably no world leader, has ever poured more nonsense into one speech.

The worst of it, in my view. is contained in this passage:

Barack Hussein Obama said:
In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War.

"In an era when our destiny is shared. . ." In what sense do nations share each other's destiny? If Iraq descends into chaos, will Iran follow as a result? Of course not, which is why Iran has endeavored to destabilize Iraq. Will the U.S. suffer materially if Iraq descends into chaos? If so, then maybe we should rethink Obama's troop withdrawal decision. If Israel is attacked by nuclear weapons, will Europe be? Of course not, which is why Europe doesn't care very much whether Iran develops nuclear weapons.

"[P]ower is no longer a zero-sum game." What does this mean? Has every situation in the world magically become win-win? Or was this always the case and it simply took Obama to understand it?

What does Obama mean by "power," anyway. Traditionally, power means the ability to cause other actors to conform to one's wishes. Does every nation have wishes so benign that its neighbors will benefit (or at least not suffer) when they are caused to conform?

"No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation." The "should" part goes without saying and Obama looks embarrassingly naive saying it. The "can" part is demonstrably false, and Obama looks embarrassingly stupid saying it. A nation can dominate another nation by conquering it or, in some cases, by credibly threatening to conquer it.

If the U.S. could be counted on to take on nations that conquer their neighbors, as we did in the first Gulf war, it might then be true that no nation can dominate another nation. But hardly anyone, and least of all Obama, believes that the U.S. should assume that role across-the-board.

"No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed." So only a world order in which all nations and groups of people have equal status can succeed? There has never been such a world order, so it must follow that no world order has ever succeeded. Does Obama define "succeed" as "last forever." If so, his statement is true, but so is the statement that "no world order that doesn't elevate one nation or group of people over another will succeed." If not, what does he mean by "succeed."

The current world order elevates certain nations and groups of people over other nations and groups. Does this mean that Obama will attempt to dismantle the current world order? Will he begin by trying to abolish the U.N. Security Council or to eliminate the concept of permanent membership? Or is Obama just, you know, turning a phrase?

"No balance of power among nations will hold." More gibberish, that. A balance of power, more or less by definition, holds for a while and then is replaced, after a period of relative chaol, by another. Otherwise, the world would be in a permanent state of chaos. The U.S. and large chunks of the world have avoided that fate. One of Obama's goals should be to keep it that way. That goal did not make into his "four pillars" of American foreign policy.

"The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War." By the "north-south" division, I assume Obama means "rich-poor." But why does Obama believe that "interconnectedness" has abolished that divide? Is the internet really that powerful? The American population is truly (not just rhetorically) interconnected, yet divisions remain between rich Americans and poor Americans, a fact Obama knows well, having worked so hard to exploit them.

As to "alignments" rooted in the Cold War, why does Obama believe that the end of the Cold War less than 20 years ago entirely negates (or even should entirely negate) the alignments that existed during that era. History shows that national affinities and animosities persist over many decades and even through the centuries. Indeed, our alignment with Great Britain during the Cold War was not "rooted" in the Cold War at all; it had deeper roots.

This may make "no sense" to Obama, who sees himself as unbound by history. For better or for worse (I think, on balance, for better), the rest of the world doesn't view matters that way. I assume that its assembled representatives had a good inward laugh at our president's sophomorically utopian oration.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
"No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed." So only a world order in which all nations and groups of people have equal status can succeed? There has never been such a world order, so it must follow that no world order has ever succeeded. Does Obama define "succeed" as "last forever." If so, his statement is true, but so is the statement that "no world order that doesn't elevate one nation or group of people over another will succeed." If not, what does he mean by "succeed."

It's never happened before? I guess we will need a "New World Order" then.

But that would be a Conspiracy theory.

So I'm sure it will never happen.
 

Buckeye

Well-known member
This Paul guy is on a roll.


Obama takes the supplication of America to a disgusting new level
September 23, 2009 Posted by Paul at 8:51 PM

Conservative commentary on President Obama's U.N. speech has correctly taken note of the extent to which Obama once again has apologized for America. What struck me as new, though, was extent to which he begged his audience to award the U.S. brownie points for his good acts. The one form of supplication follows from the other. Obama isn't just saying that the U.S. has been a bad boy in the past; he's also saying that we're a good boy now:

Barack Hussein Obama said:
We know the future will be forged by deeds and not simply words. Speeches alone will not solve our problems -- it will take persistent action. For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

Obama then listed a series of decisions that he hoped might placate the assembled thugs, dictators, and hypcrites -- a crowd from which he feels compelled to seek approval on behalf of the United States. Obama noted that he has banned torture, closed Gitmo, moved to end the war in Iraq, moved towards disarmament, attempted to advance the ball on creating a Palestinian state, "re-engaged the United Nations, paid our bills, joined the Human Rights Council."

So here was the president of the United States doing everything but getting down on his hands and knees before the representatives of every wretched regime in the world to plead that the U.S. has turned over a new leaf and, in effect, become harmelss.

Does Obama believe that anything positive will come of this stomach-turning spectacle. Or does he just like to bask in the glow of applause for the proposition that the U.S. was a pretty rotten place until he assumed control, without worrying about who it is that's applauding?
 

Buckeye

Well-known member
And Scott has a pretty good take on things, too:


All he is saying
September 24, 2009 Posted by Scott at 6:24 AM

There is much that is objectionable, offensive and off-base in President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. The United States was a pretty sorry place before he became president nine months ago, but he is delivering a remarkable messianic redemption. He is redeeming the United States and he has come to redeem the world. Like Jesus, he is conscious of his divinity and aware of his mission.

All he is saying, with his peculiar animus and ignorance, is give peace a chance. That much I understand. What I don't understand is this:

Barack Hussein Obama said:
Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people, and - in the past - America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy. But that does not weaken our commitment, it only reinforces it. There are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self evident - and the United States of America will never waiver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny.

While these statements can be explained away in some sense, like other axioms of Obama's foreign policy, they are demonstrably untrue. In the past century the United States imposed democracy "from the outside," at great expense of American life and treasure, on countries including the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan. Why does Obama deny the role of American arms in imposing democracy on America's former enemies?

Even in this otherwise mysterious paragraph, Obama is clear on one point. He doesn't think very highly of the United States Before Obama: "America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy." Here President Obama reveals the time warp (identified here by Michael Barone) in which he is caught. He is a victim of the reigning leftist academic cliches reigning on campus in the years he spent at college and in law school.

To the extent the United States tolerated and supported dictatorships during the Cold War -- the let-wing critique to which Obama seems to be alluding -- it did so to advance the interests of the United States in opposing the Soviet Union. Obama's betrayal of democratic forces in Honduras, Iran and elsewhere is ongoing, and taken with a hand far freer than those wielded by America's Cold War presidents.

We know that American history was a paltry thing in the era Before Obama, but President Obama also appears to feel free blatantly to misrepresent it, or not to be very familiar with it.
 
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