Taking a short break from his daily golfology program, Obama’s principal statement in his address to the Marine Corps base was, “Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country. …. We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again. …. The world is better, it’s safer, it’s more peaceful, it’s more prosperous.”
He plays to the immediate audience of dedicated military personnel and pretends to praise them, so how could anyone think he didn’t really mean the rest of what he said? Surely the American people automatically accept whatever follows a pat-on-the-back of their military service men and women. Hopefully, not any longer. Therein lies the insidious nature of this President’s addresses to his public. He uses plucking at heart-strings of a generous Nation to deliver his real message.
He has not demonstrated respect for America’s military and has in fact resented it, and apologized for it to the point where only 15% support their CIC. Pandering to his supporters he asserts that “We are safer” and the world is “peaceful.” How? Where? The world is in turmoil. America is in turmoil. The Middle East is ablaze. The Obama broadcast hightailing strategy out of Iraq has encouraged chaos and slaughter throughout that country. ISIS buries whole villages alive, when it isn’t busy beheading children and recording some of the worse atrocities ever perpetrated on innocents in history. Iran has been negotiated right into nuclear powerdom. Syria is no longer a country. The Taliban controls Afghanistan and wreaks havoc on Pakistan. Putin is threatening Europe and the U.S. Most countries are experiencing serious economic trauma. Statements containing claims of “safer,” “peaceful,” and professing that Afghanistan will not be a source of terrorism, are imaginary ramblings which are dangerous to the American public if they are believed.
Such illusions can be perilous. Are these appropriate statements from a CIC? Are they intended to make America complacent? Perhaps they are simply intended to mesmerize an MSM that will rephrase, convert and gloss these lies into consumable and digestible banalities which the supportive statists will uncritically consume. Only the faithful can possibly believe. Only the devoted can accept being told that “more prosperous” is a reality.
Nevertheless, lies are lies. But why?
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.