Obama at the UN: A Speech That Had Nothing to Do With Either His Policies or the Real Middle East
President Barack Obama’s UN speech is a fascinating document. The theme is this: absolutely nothing can go wrong with political change in the Middle East, and the United States helps moderate forces, defined as anyone who isn’t actively trying to kill Americans. The fact that some to many of those revolutionary forces favor killing Americans is outside his purview. And the fact that his policy has supported militantly anti-democratic groups far more than the (far weaker) moderate ones is airbrushed away.
That’s not to say there weren’t good-sounding formulations in his speech. Either due to a learning process, the impact of events, or — most likely — the immediacy of an American presidential election, the voters of which he is actually addressing, Obama hit some of the right notes. The problem is the isolation of this soaring rhetoric from his actual policies. That’s what’s important here — not the discussion about the video and its relationship to the rioting, which has drawn literally all of the attention in analyzing the speech.
(By the way, what’s really amazing and what no one has noted is that almost every word of the speech could have been given by President George W. Bush. Obama has totally accepted the dangerous “neo-conservative” approach to the region, despite the fact that this label makes his supporters foam at the mouth.)
In basic terms, Obama urged the world to support the good people and not the bad people. Why should the U.S. ambassador to Libya be killed? After all, Obama claims that “he supported the birth of a new democracy” and was allegedly in Benghazi to review plans for a new cultural center and a modernized hospital. “Chris was killed in the city he helped to save,” said the president.
Yet the most powerful force in the Middle East views his actions not as saving the city, but as delivering it to U.S. control.
The anti-American riots? Obama described them as follows:
An assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded — the notion that people can resolve their differences peacefully; that diplomacy can take the place of war; and that in an interdependent world, all of us have a stake in working towards greater opportunity and security for our citizens. … Today, we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our United Nations.
That passage is unintentionally funny.
For decades, violence and intolerance have been central at the UN, and this will continue to be true. Indeed, the Obama administration has supported many of these forces of violence and intolerance, and in other cases not stood up to them. After all, the minister of railroads in Pakistan, a country which has received billions in aid from the Obama administration, has just offered a reward for murdering an American citizen without fear of any consequences for his regime. Amidst a thousand other examples, that gives a sense of the reality of the contemporary situation compared to Obama’s rhetoric.
The man who accepted a Nobel Peace Prize which he could not possibly have earned bloviates on a gathering storm, speaking therapeutic words to court the distracted masses. Is this why he receives praise for being “a politician of exceptional composure”? Are we all stoned?
Has he also been vaccinated against reality, or is he seeing himself as a prophet? Giving so much power to a man of such deficient character has happened many times before in history, and it has never been a good omen.
yes, americans are drugged, depressed, violent and undereducated. obama has violated everything americans hold dear. he is no different than the pathological iranian leadership, the powermad morsi in egypt, or any of the rest of muslim culture and society. backwards, medieval, feudal and for the people, short, brutish lives.
democracy has lost its currency. the republic is no longer free to speak and write and film and dissent or even satarize. Israel, has been attempting desperately on its own, with the help of just a few good leaders like harper of canada, to save this, the freedom of speech, our noblest of all ideals.
the evil of islam has oozed into our american life. and, we are drowning in it.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s speech was nothing short of detached from the facts of the ground. However, unlike Barry, this blogger ascribes different motives to his overall actions.
Barry tends to give the POTUS the benefit of the doubt, leaning more towards a grave misreading of the region. With all due respect, it is apparent that the opposite is the case. He knows exactly what he is doing, and aniticipates the results which are unraveling. He is pleased as punch, all his feigning aside.
2012/09/25/the-ties-that-bind-the-islamist-in-chief-to-sunni-islam-making-sense-out-of-a-potus-bowing-to-a-saudi-monarch-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
2012/08/30/tangible-lethal-military-related-results-from-the-redgreen-alliance-via-the-corrosive-influence-of-an-islamist-in-chief-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
More often than not, what appears to be the case IS the case, as uncomfortable as it is to admit. After all, who wants to believe the leader of the free world is Allah-bent on ushering in anti-American results? In other words, if one is doing the polar opposite of what would normally be prescribed, surely there is another program at play.
Again, the facts on the ground tell (most of) the tale.
All this tells me is that we need to start drilling for oil immediately. Especially if it’s true that there is a two to three lag between drilling and production. Additionally, there are some defense industries such as the ammunition and artillery shell makers that need to ramp up production. If the speech at the UN and the events since 9/11 do anything, it will be to unleash the Brotherhood against Israel.
Not only does Obama have the spine of wet noodle he isn’t even one of our wet noodles.
Tragically America deserves what it gets.
That said contest time! Everyone try and think of a nickname for this generation.
How about:
The gimme generation (I want it all and now or I will cry)
The feel good about itself generation (as in vote for a zero because he is so sexy)
generation zero (reference to the national IQ)
generation last (as in this is the last generation to experience the freedoms we take for granted)
generation end of the story (as in Post-America America)
the dumbest generation (self explanatory)
Bob, how about the “D-Generation”? Short for dumb, deficient, defective, deluded, damned, and degenerate.
“True democracy demands that citizens cannot be thrown in jail because of what they believe, and businesses can be opened without paying a bribe. It depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear; on the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people.
Feds arrest Mohammed filmmaker on probation violation…he used his computer to go on the Internet… in order to produce a film about what he believed
George Kaiser is a major bundler and fundraiser for President Obama. He and his investors were placed ahead of us taxpayers and will recoup at least 50 percent of their investment. Argonaut Ventures, the investing part of the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), was, in violation of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policy in case of bankruptcy, placed ahead of us. Argonaut invested $271 million in Solyndra. GKFF invested $50 million in Solyndra. The American taxpayer has been bypassed as a creditor
Obama ignored the Senate’s constitutional role in the appointment process in order to place partisans in key positions that regulate labor and financial markets. To do so, he took the unprecedented position that he could make a so-called ‘recess’ appointment even when the Senate, by its own rules, was not in recess.
In the Fast and Furious matter where the government was involved in illegally allowing guns to be sold to drug cartels and exported to Mexico resulting the in the death of US Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexican nationals Obama invoked an executive privilege that did not and does not exist.
Whither goest free speech, freedom of religion, businesses safe from the iron fist and brutish force of government, due process, respect for rules, laws, regulations and our Constitution? Into the abyss of prettified words safe harboring the cynical rhetoric of a would be king?
The fork-tongued UN is the perfect place for such deception. It is a viper pit of lies, slander and corruption. For years its treatment of Israel has been a global disgrace.
This President rose from his empty chair to deliver empty words into the empty souls of those whose hate promotes the destruction of the entire world to glorify their bloodlust. He won’t meet with them or anyone. His teleprompter diplomacy is all he has and/or is willing to muster. Off to The View and Letterman and skipping briefings and meetings and other trivialities…like producing a budget or securing the borders or protecting an embassy.
Whither goest America? Into the abyss. And, the vacuum produced may bring down the world with her. Weep not for us, but for your children.
You’ve said it all. BHO promised Hope & Change, and delivered Rope-a-Dope and Mange. And about half the voters are still with him. Talk about ‘stuck
Vote early and as often as you are able.
I was saying, ‘stuck in stupid’, to paraphrase General Russell Honore.
what do you mean vote as often as possible? you can only vote once dummy.
Actually Obama’s words were perfectly suited to the UN General Assemby. The speech was a coagulation of half truths, historical distortions, abject pandering, and flat out bullshit. What better venue than the United Nations, once a noble enterprise, now a degenerate institution that thrives on lies, distortions and pure bullshit. It was a wedding made in heaven; an ugly bride and a stupid, ignorant groom.
I have a collection of old TV shows and their pilots. While watching the pilot for Irwin Allen’s “Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea” there is a scene where they are at the UN. As a kid, I remember when I got to actually visit the UN on a field trip and how amazed I was to understand that leaders of nations came there to discuss things. I thought it all quite impressive and when I originally saw the pilot flick, thought it a powerful bit that lent gravity to my then 9-year-old mind.
Nowadays, I have watched that same pilot and aside from Walter Pigeon’s good acting and the lovely Barbara Eden’s first full motion picture roll (wow), the UN scene makes me laugh thinking how they would deal with it now. Oddly, I think similarly since logic and reason and the mathematics of it all escaped them and they chose the fool’s dice instead.
The UN…coming to the US to yell at us for decades now.
Heres a quote from Obamas UN speech-
” Among Israelis and Palestinians, the future must not belong to those who turn their backs on a prospect of peace. Let us leave behind those who thrive on conflict, those who reject the right of Israel to exist. The road is hard, but the destination is clear — a secure, Jewish state of Israel and an independent, prosperous Palestine. Understanding that such a peace must come through a just agreement between the parties, America will walk alongside all who are prepared to make that journey.
In Syria, the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people. If there is a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, peaceful protest, it is a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings. ”
The Palestinians in Gaza are also torturing children and shooting rockets at apartment buildings but they get a pass and Obamas support.
One mouth, two sides, both lying.
The first sentence provides proper guidance, that is, all Israelis AND Palestinians should turn their backs on the Palestinians. The Palestinian governments and rioters and torturers and jihadists want only coercive power and death of those who don’t believe as they do.
“It is guaranteeing a Syria in which Alawites and Christians will be massacred; in which Kurds will face an assault on their region;”
I often wonder about what will happen to the Kurds. I think it will be ironic if, one day, we will have to institute yet another “No Fly Zone” over the Kurds just to protect them from another attempted genocide, like the one Saddam Hussein tried to impose on them. Think about it, if we have to do that, we’ll be right back in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton had to enforce the first No Fly Zone to protect the Kurds. We would actually be going backwards in time and I wonder if Obama would be as interested in protecting the Kurds as Clinton was.
Seems like the best course of action in that part of the world is just to leave. We will always be seen as outsiders, infidels, and “colonialists” in that part of the world, and nothing is going to change it. If we really did something stunning, like develop our own oil and energy resources here at home and became energy independent, it really wouldn’t matter what happened with the Arabs. They could go back and do what they have been doing for centuries, and that is slaughter each other. We could simply support the only real democracy in the area, Israel, and tell the rest of those people who are determined to live in the 14th century “Goodbye and Good Luck.”
There are many parts of the world we really don’t care about. When was the last time anybody cared about what happened in Papua New Guinea or Madagascar? Nobody. If it wasn’t for oil, do you really, honestly, think we would have anything to do with a backward bunch of tribesmen like the Saudis? Other countries trade in the region, like Japan, but don’t feel compelled to overthrow governments, support dictators and monarchs, or pick winners and losers in that pathetic part of the globe. Sunni and Shias have literally been killing each other for centuries. Time to get out of the way and let them have at it. We will win no victories there and I really question what influence we do have in the region, especially after four years of Obama.
So let’s become really energy independent, develop all of our own oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources, and tell those bedouin bastards to drop dead. That would be a refreshing change, but it will never, ever, happen.
“The implication is that Obama believes that all change is good; that nothing can be worse in the region.” I think the assumption underlying this is that history is inevitably moving in a “progressive” direction. Progressives are so confident that the future will look the same as they want it to look. Therefore any change will mean progress towards this end. It’s incredibly daft but it’s a very widespread assumption on the Left. This is why he keeps repeating his other meme about history: “they [the Right] are on the wrong side of history”.
Excellent analysis by Barry and the commentators about the content of Obama’s UN speech. As someone who was actually working in the GA at the time, I was struck by the president’s lackluster tone and the equally lackluster applause from the delegates. Everyone knew it was just so much hot air.
the guy sounded like Arafat only in English. sweet words that would give me chills down my leg… more like smoke being blown up my leg. he can’t hide his record and yet, to quote Eminem, “i am what whatever i say i am”.
Did he prepare his own speech, or was he just reading out aloud his “neo-conservative” advisors’ words and thoughts? He is an excellent speaker, smart in rhetoric — give him the credit. (vzc1943)
“…Obama has totally accepted the dangerous “neo-conservative” approach to the region…”
No, he has not. He is simply speaking neo-conservative rhetoric. How long will it take for people to learn this?
He says what he thinks people want to hear, then goes out and plays with matches anyway.
I pay no attention to what he says. I stopped listening to him five minutes after I first started hearing him speak. He is a liar. A pathological liar. I thought I’d never again witness a liar like Clinton and indeed I have not. Obama is so far beyond the lies of Bill-Jeff that it has opened up a whole new floor on the dishonesty building.
He also uses a lot of words to explain simple concepts. He also answers questions by explaining something that has nothing to do with the question. Maybe this is why the left-wing fruitbats think he’s so “brilliant” because he never actually directly addresses an issue.
This is the new age of pseudo-intellectualism. Like the guy on youtube explaining the BS machine and its BS functions by using a bunch of made up words. Funny there, but in the real world, gluing words together to make a sing-songy statement that doesn’t answer the question but instead stimulates emotions, is crap.
He’s a bullsh*tter, plain and simple. In my world he’s as welcome as a tornado siren or a test of the emergency broadcast system (another expensive “gift” of the socialist party).
I’d like to say he’s so full of it, his eyes are brown. But his eyes are brown.
So he said some high-meaning words at the UN. Even a busted clock is right twice a day but I wouldn’t count on it to be useful.
HE
IS
A
LIAR!
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In the same speech, he stated that “The future does not belong to those who would disrespect the Prophet”, or words to that effect.
So, while calling for tolerance, he simultaneously states that if you disagree with any Muslim dogma, you will be punished. Because under sharia law, that’s what “disrespecting the Prophet” boils down to.
Obama thinks he’s a prophet. Except when he believes himself to be a god.
In either case, there’s no point in wondering if he will ever see the MidEast, or indeed the world, as it really is. He’s about as reality-based as Hitler was, Godwin’s Law be damned. And like Herr Schickelgruber, this soi-disant “Lightworker” and poor excuse for a POTUS has apparently been that way since he was born.
You can talk to him all you please, about anything. But what he says, and does, tells you that he’s only listening to the voices in his head.
And they are telling him how great he is.
clear ether
eon
Obama can’t lose; the program guarantees he will be the face to push the communist agenda as president of U.S. or leader of the U.N.
It’s not just this UN speech Obama gave, it’s all his speeches. They are much ado about nothing. We have a Seinfeld Presidency, no plot and alot of talk, at least Jerry’s show was funny, Barry’s is frightening. Hope we can change the channel this November, I hate reruns.
What did the “Prophet” prophesy?
Is the Prophet to be respected for his acts of torture, rape, and murder?
Obama has supported a nuclear Iran from the beginning: sanctions have merely been his means for covering this. It was obvious at least from the time he sat out the Iranian version of the “Arab Spring” in 2009, if not before.
He supports Iran having nukes as a matter of “fairness,” but primarily has always hoped to use the threat of Iranian nukes, from which “he alone can save Israel,” as a means to force Israel to grant ruinous concessions to the Arabs.
Professor Rubin’s analysis is a devastating, on-point critique of President Obama’s feckless mismanagement of foreign policy in the Middle East. In addition Barry Rubin patiently and powerfully critiques Mr. Obama’s doublespeak: Mr. Obama’s tendentious misleading aimed at papering over the emptiness, inept passivity, and real dangerousness of his foreign policy “accomplishments.”
Thanks for this excellent article.