Repairing The American Brand Abroad

Shaun, you're aware, aren't you that 9 out of 10 Germans have no idea whatever of what policies Sen. Obama supports? They just like the ideas of hope and change.

Good speech.

Dave, what's your point? I'll bet 9/10 Americans have no idea what Obama's policies are. I think you might be jealous that war, tax cuts, and environmental destruction aren't inspirational enough.

Dave_Schuler

How do you know what Germans know. I read a posting on a German website where a woman was saying Americans should read Obama's books.

One of the biggest applauses concerned religious faith - Muslims, Jewish, Christian, etc. As opposed to the people in US, Europeans know the importance of accepting the Muslim people.

I lived in Europe a few years ago. With business associates, I immediate let everyone know that I did not agree with Bush and I did not like him.

When was the last time Europeans waved American flags? Today was a proud day for all Americans, even though I know the media will slice and dice every word to find fault with what Obama said.

I went to university in Europe. I arrived on September 12, 2001 and watched as the love and solidarity Europeans felt toward the US was replaced by mistrust and anger. Watching thousands of cheering Germans wave the American Flag and cheering the thought of meeting the new century by America's side left me crying in my cubicle. God Bless you, Barack Obama, for giving me this moment.

Of course the liberal MSM declined to give as much coverage to McCain's lunch at a German restaurant today.

Of course the Democrats will applaud everything about this trip and the Republicans will try to use anything to tear Obama down to help McCain and the GOP in general. It's politics.

I'm on my lunch break and don't have time to replay or read Obama's speech yet so I can't make opinion if it was good or not.

The cries last night about this speech being "Campaigning Overseas" were premature but I'm sure we'll hear it again today from some on the conservative side.

lurxst,

I do not know your definition of "liberal" MSM, but after Obama's speech MSNBC immediately went to an interview with McCain at the German restaurant to allow him to smear Obama.

CNN had an interview with McCain at the German restaurant.

When is the MSM going to report on CBS editing the interview with McCain to remove his false statements? CBS then added clips from previous interviews. A serious issue of ethics.

All I can say, is look at Mullen’s last post.
If you still choose to listen to him, then that shows your own ignorance.

From the pictures, it looks like a good turnout for the free concert. It was a lucky coincidence that Obama spoke afterwards while the crowd was still milling around.

The Berliners must be relieved that Obama wasn’t the president in JFK’s time. I doubt he would be offering “unflinching support” to any foreign country that wasn’t politically expedient at the moment.

Where were the protesters who want the troops out of Germany? We have been occupying that place for over 60 years.

From the pictures, it looks like a good turnout for the free concert. It was a lucky coincidence that Obama spoke afterwards while the crowd was still milling around.

LOL!!!!! Yup -- kinda like Portland, eh?

"Wow! Great concert! Time to go, though, or we might have trouble with the traffic."

"Oh... wait! Is that a politician I see up there about to make a speech? Let's wait around and see who it is!"

Can't ya just hear it?

Here’s a line that I didn’t hear in Obama’s speech.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Sounds like George Bush, but it was actually John Kennedy. Either way it’s the polar opposite of Obama’s outlook on helping foreign governments achieve democracy.

So let me make sure I understand you correctly, jwest. You are saying that Bush has been channeling Kennedy, and that the Kennedy quote implicitly defends preemptive invasion and war.

Have I got that right?

The invasion of Iraq was the result of over 15 UN resolutions demanding Saddam Hussein reveal all of his weapons of mass destruction. Every intelligence agency in the world agreed he had them.

In the wake of 9/11, the president, both houses of congress and the United Nations all voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force to compel Hussein to comply with the resolutions. He didn’t, so we went in.

Once we (technically) won the war (which use to be defined as defeating the organized enemy forces and displacing their leaders) in 29 days, the U.S. had the obligation to reorganize the country so that it would be a viable nation. Some wanted to just leave and let it become a haven for terrorists, but luckily we had a president who decided to do what was right and not what was politically expedient.

The Kennedy quote implicitly states that the U.S. will stand with those countries striving for democracy, even if it costs lives and treasure. He was morally right then and Bush is morally right now.

Kennedy’s foreign policies, along with his domestic policies on taxes, military expenditures, domestic spending, civil rights and a number of other things mirror the current “neocon” positions. Can you imagine how JFK would be ostracized by the left if he was alive today?

jwest, the problem with your argument is that the United Nations did not vote to authorize the use of force. Had we waited a bit they might have, but they didn't. Even NATO wasn't behind us. Basically, we went into Iraq in violation of the UN -- and used Saddam's previous UN violations to justify it. That always seemed very contradictory to me.

However, I do agree that having invaded we do have an obligation to try to clean up the mess as best we can. And again, while it's impossible to know what would have happened under different circumstances, it's nonetheless hard for anyone to argue that serious mistakes weren't made in the post-invasion period. Well-reasoned decisions that ultimately turn out to be wrong is one thing. But some of what went wrong in the post-invasion period was far more eggregious than that -- and slow to be corrected.

I took a lot of heat from my conservative friends when I criticized what I felt were those mistakes, and fully supported getting rid of Rumsfeld a lot sooner than it ultimately happened. And if we want to talk about jeopardizing a war effort for the sake of an election, the timing of Rumsfeld's "resignation" is a classic case in point. That really pissed me off.

Likewise, I caught a lot of heat from my liberal friends when I supported the surge. I read Kagan's and Keane's treatise on it, as well as Petraeus's counter-insurgency field manual, and I thought it might work. And on this very site I have criticized Obama for his vascillating comments on the surge's effects. In fact, I think it is the pemier example of pandering on Obama's part. But by the same token, I think McCain can be rightly accused of some pandering of his own. These days he claims that he was one of Bush's biggest critics early on. But there are numerous public statements indicating that wasn't true. So there you go.

In the end the essential question is... what do we do now? It's a very tough question. But I for one have no interest in staying in Iraq forever. Sooner or later we are going to have to return Iraq to the Iraqis, and they have to accept responsibility for their own country.

I think it's an interesting disconnect that, on the one hand, many liberals are intrinsically inclined to help the disadvantaged in this country -- which is fine as far as it goes (even great) -- but are at the same time disinclined to require of those who are able to help themselves to do so. But they are ready to require it of the Iraqis. On the other hand, many conservatives are intrinsically inclined to requre everyone in this country to pull their own weight, with little regard to whether they can or not. And yet they don't require the same of the Iraqis.

To me there is a middle point. You do have to help those who can't help themselves, but to require of those who can help themselves to do it. And it's becoming increasingly obvious that the Iraqis are getting close to that point. Obama seems more inclined to push them. McCain, not so much. I also think that Obama is right to consider the broader context. And while I would like to think McCain understands things broadly too, I wish he'd elucidate better what that understanding is. There's still time of course, but IMO several recent developments have left him looking rather tone-deaf.

I guess my point of snarkiness was:

lunch < 200,000 hopeful europeans

Obama drank John McCain's milkshake today, to quote a popular saying.

Leave it to Shaun to describe Obama's good but not outstanding speech as the Sermon I feared someone would stoop to do sooner or later.

"kinda like Portland, eh"

This speech was better than the typical sound bites and fluff he gave people in Portland.

"9 out of 10 Germans have no idea whatever of what policies Sen. Obama supports? They just like the ideas of hope and change."

They really are more like Americans than they otherwise might be led to believe.

"we (technically) won the war"

Of course we did. What has been badly handled has been the _occupation_. What violence we've been facing has been _terrorism_, committed not by "insurgents" as the Left would romanticize these scum, but by _terrorists_, aided by Iran and Syria (and Saudi Arabia in the case of Sunni terrorists, no doubt, to counteract the aggression of Iran). It's nice shorthand to call it "the war" (and note aloud, if you want to undermine the US and the West as did protesters in the Vietnam era, that "the war" is "endless" and that we should withdraw 100% of our forces immediately, etc.). But it helps to be more intelligent than that at least once in a while.

"what do we do now?"

Gradually get out. Obviously we cannot stay there forever, as you already know. We should be giving thought to what is to be done with the oil fields and the oil infrastructure, if we don't want it to be seized someday by terrorists or by Iran.