Excerpts/edits: Obama’s Bad War Victor Davis Hanson, blogging on National Review
Obama Afghanistan Speech:
Obama offers us, “But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.” That thought of the perfectibility of the human condition, in lieu of deterrence and military preparedness, throughout history has gotten millions killed. The human condition can be improved, but only by acknowledgment of the lethal propensities of some — and by readiness to prevent those propensities’ becoming manifest. Most of the great wars of the 20th century were fought against those who were convinced that “the human condition can be perfected.”
Other tidbits from the speech:
Verbosity (4,000 words plus!)
I/me (34 times)
The straw man: on the one hand there are realists, on the other idealists, and I Obama singularly reject this either/or dichotomy (as if no one else does as well)
Veiled attacks on the previous administration
Reference to his own unique personal story
Good-war/bad-war theory of Afghanistan and Iraq
Hopey-changy rhetorical flourish
No mention the word “Iraq”
No word of praise for the U.S. soldiers
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