ltstanfo said:
Well, time to eat crow Democrats. You were able to enjoy bashing Bush for his initial handling of the 911 horror (recall reading the book to kids and then the prolonged silence...). Now Obama has given his critics his equivelant:
What? Dereliction of duty? You mean he stayed out of the loop during a national emergency involving multiple aircraft hijackings (which was a situation that had already begun before president entered the school) at a time when intelligence agencies from around the world had been warning the US that an attack was imminent and that the US intelligence services knew was imminent and likely to involve aircraft and that the intelligence agencies had briefed the president on months before to which he responded "OK, you've covered your asses"?
It's equivalent to that?
I happened to be watching the news yesterday with my father and we were both amazed at Obama's apparent lack of speaking priorities and (initial) concern... I'm glad to see that the country finally got to see the president's priorities.
Soldiers are just assets, and cheap and replaceable assets too; cheaper than a lot of other military assets. A single Tomahawk missile costs as much as a Private's salary for 31 years (but only 5 years of a General's pay).
Of course the ruling classes don't care about soldiers. You can't get too emotional about people you send off to get killed for your own personal gain. As Kissinger said - "Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." If they were truly a defense force then they would operate only within US borders ready to expel attackers. Instead they are used to take and hold ground overseas in strategic and resource rich locations.
Politicians always like to tell us that the soldiers are fighting for "our" way of life and protecting "our" freedoms - but we always assume that when they say "our" it means them and us and it doesn't. The soldiers belong to the ruling classes (meaning are "owned by" not "part of")and protects their freedoms and their way of life. If a few of them get broken along the way it's no big deal because there are plenty more cattle where they came from, and if you need more, just crash the economy so that the forces becomes the only job you can get (the armed forces IS communism - it's a command economy with autocratic leadership and all vital needs covered by the state - and Americans' love it).
Military deaths are just not that important unless they become strategically significant. Hasn't watching politicians for your entire adult life already opened your eyes to this? Do you think that when Obama goes the next in will be any different at all?
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And, for the record, it didn't take that long to reach the media's interest point, Obama addressed his hosts first, it was their venue, their conference, it was wholly appropriate - and his remarks addressing the incident were also wholly appropriate. The article mischaracterizes the video. If a mistake was made then it was a technical mistake in switching to the presidents feed too soon.
That said, my remarks above still stand.
