Morton Doodslag wrote:
Borders? Tear down those walls!
The Cold War? Our bad. And I thought the Cold War was over! Silly me. Sure, all that candy/airlift/food drop thing was cool, but all that other bad stuff our side did really put a crimp in world peace. Time for it to end.
The Poor of the word? Our fault. We owe them everything.
Nukes? All our fault — and if they didn’t exist, the world would be paradise.
Islamic terror? Our bad. We haven’t done enough to win their hearts and minds.
I think your interpretention is very biased, and judging on the lukewarm response from the Berlin audience (I was there), they agree with me. You read everything he says, and puts it like it is some kind of attack on America, when infact it is the very opposite.
The way he praised the American effort to save Berlin and fight communism, the way he demonized the communist blockade of Berlin….how you could possibly read that as an attack on American cold war policy is beyond me…
And quotes like this, while they might seem to be anti-american (that´s why the crowd cheered), is not:
“In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe’s role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth – that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.”
Anyone who don´t see the obvious critizism of Europe here should work on their reading comprehension.
Now Obama did not “blame” the US for anything, he just said that it cannot meet all the challenged of the globalized world alone.
“Now the world will watch and remember what we do here – what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words “never again” in Darfur?”
And again, I´m not really an Obama fan. But I just don´t understand how any of you can be “boiling” after this speech, that was just full of conventional American thinking.
