Photo Ops, History, Terrorists, OH MY!
www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/28/obama.afghanistan/index.html
Well Mr. President, I have to say this. You're certainly a sneaky one. This is your second unexpected and unannounced visit to Afghanistan since you became a blip on the political radar and I must say you've done this one smashingly. Not even a week after you've signed a health care bill that has raised general mayhem in America you're off to visit dear old President Karzai, and for the first time since you've gotten elected no less! Was America just a bit too hot at the moment? But I digress- President Obama is in Afghanistan currently sending out a strong message that the partnership between Afghanistan and America will indeed continue.
Translation: "Yes guys, we're still in this country, although the last guy in office made us run to Iraq, and we're still here although we're in trillions of dollars of debt."
Lovely message there. "We can still be the world's policemen when our budget is under severe cuts."
Though to give the man a speck of credit, what else can he really do? Mr. Bush was the one who threw him into the whole mess, threw the economy into a deficit, and the last two presidents have had to deal with chaotic first years- Mr. Bush with 9/11, which anyone above the age of 13 remembers vividly, and President Obama with a crippling recession right after he took office.
He's not a god, he's a politician. Be thankful that he hasn't pulled a Brian Mulroney (and for anyone who happens to be reading this, I'll let you look up that little tidbit of Canadian history). Could you do better? Could you really do better? Now answer me this; could you do better with his amount of education?
Personally, I think not. There's still that 45% or so that disagreed with Obama and thought that he was nothing more then a dolt who didn't know what he was talking about. I'm not saying that I think that in the least however I'm only stating fact.
Again I digress from the point, and the point that I'm trying to make is that this visit stinks of photo op to me. One could call me crazy (I would call me crazy if I had to live with me... oh wait) but as I read that article today, all I could think about was a rant done by Rick Mercer on a show up here in Canada called the Rick Mercer Report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjhwdvubJLw (Unfortunately I apparently can't URL that.)
Up here in Canada, to have a political figure go to Afghanistan basically means that they're going to 'up troops morale'- oh no, wait, they're going to look good. Obama's latest visit stinks of this. "I'm going to go over to Afghanistan and visit a president that I haven't visited since my election, lecture him on his corrupt government and the scandal around him, talk to some troops, get some photos and good publicity after my party have been getting violent threats all week over a bill I signed, oh, and did I mention that I'm going to brush off Indonesia and Australia by saying health care and Afghanistan are more important?"
That may not be what he's saying, but that certainly is the image the man is giving off. No matter what he seems to have people pissed off at him wherever he goes. This is why I would never want to run for politics; the disapproval ratings and the boos would drive me up the wall on a world scale.
Some Republicans are saying that it's laughable; "This, from the most corrupt American president in history. Beyond laughable." Oh, so sorry my mistake, BEYOND laughable.
Did you miss his job description? Again, refer to Brian Mulroney, compare him to other politicians. Yes politicians are scum, or at least are considered so by most of the general populace, but who isn't? They just get to be scummy for a camera. It's a challenge to find a non-corrupt politician within the last fifty years, Canadian or American; remember, it was Pierre Trudeau who enacted the War Measures Act during the year of 1970 when the FLQ kidnapped two government officials (one British, one Canadian) and murdered one of them. He actually enacted this act to give the government the right of arrest and detention without trial during this span of emergency. He took away our rights for a fair trial. Were Obama to do that, he would be shot, make no mistake of it. Trudeau went on to make the Constitution Act in 1982 (effectively making it an independent nation from Britain in name and policies), made both English and French the official languages of Canada, and you want to know what he said as he activated his state of emergency to protect the people against terrorists?
"Just watch me." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_watch_me
Another situation of where if Obama did the right thing and then used that phrase, he would be shot.
And that's yet another point. Obama is America's Trudeau; he is making changes (as he promised, after all, his whole freakin' campaign was about change). Yes you're allowed to cry if you didn't vote for him but at the same time, if you threw away your vote or you voted for him and then you're crying?
No. You're not allowed. You didn't vote/voted for him/voted for the other guy just because you didn't agree with him. You have no right to complain.
I'll admit it; during the 2008 campaign, I knew many 18-23 year olds who did not know where to place their vote, and I joked with them that they should vote for Obama, because America could do with some changing. I don't necessarily think that this is the appropriate time to put in a major health-care bill persay, but some change after America is stabilized is desperately in order.
For instance, give a start with no violence against those that disagree with you. Don't try to tell me that "it's the American way". The FLQ disagreed with our government and some still to this day want separation. We don't refer to them as 'the Canadian way'. We refer to them as terrorists. We refer to those who would strike at our politicians as terrorists. Even if they are our own countrymen, they are still causing terror.
That's the thing that infuriates me the most. Up here when democracy is threatened by our own, they are called terrorists and they are dealt with (in extreme circumstances of course). In America, that just seems to be the daily cup of Starbucks coffee to have death threats when you disagree with someone.
But, when in Rome, do as Romans do. If I have the gall to ask Ann Coulter (along with about 90% of my countrymen) to not spout hate speech because it breaks our laws, then I guess that as the good little Canadian I am, I have to sit down and shut up while a guy I haven't even heard of that voted for the bill gets a rock thrown through his window.
So that's the basic summary of the week. Obama goes to Afghanistan at the outrage of several critics (what else is new), I think back to Trudeau and Mulroney (shocker) and then I reference on how the extreme acts of those against the health-care bill seem like borderline terrorism.
Let's just hope to whatever deity we believe in that the angry people don't become organized.
But hey... at least the press are keeping busy on the American side.
Well Mr. President, I have to say this. You're certainly a sneaky one. This is your second unexpected and unannounced visit to Afghanistan since you became a blip on the political radar and I must say you've done this one smashingly. Not even a week after you've signed a health care bill that has raised general mayhem in America you're off to visit dear old President Karzai, and for the first time since you've gotten elected no less! Was America just a bit too hot at the moment? But I digress- President Obama is in Afghanistan currently sending out a strong message that the partnership between Afghanistan and America will indeed continue.
Translation: "Yes guys, we're still in this country, although the last guy in office made us run to Iraq, and we're still here although we're in trillions of dollars of debt."
Lovely message there. "We can still be the world's policemen when our budget is under severe cuts."
Though to give the man a speck of credit, what else can he really do? Mr. Bush was the one who threw him into the whole mess, threw the economy into a deficit, and the last two presidents have had to deal with chaotic first years- Mr. Bush with 9/11, which anyone above the age of 13 remembers vividly, and President Obama with a crippling recession right after he took office.
He's not a god, he's a politician. Be thankful that he hasn't pulled a Brian Mulroney (and for anyone who happens to be reading this, I'll let you look up that little tidbit of Canadian history). Could you do better? Could you really do better? Now answer me this; could you do better with his amount of education?
Personally, I think not. There's still that 45% or so that disagreed with Obama and thought that he was nothing more then a dolt who didn't know what he was talking about. I'm not saying that I think that in the least however I'm only stating fact.
Again I digress from the point, and the point that I'm trying to make is that this visit stinks of photo op to me. One could call me crazy (I would call me crazy if I had to live with me... oh wait) but as I read that article today, all I could think about was a rant done by Rick Mercer on a show up here in Canada called the Rick Mercer Report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjhwdvubJLw (Unfortunately I apparently can't URL that.)
Up here in Canada, to have a political figure go to Afghanistan basically means that they're going to 'up troops morale'- oh no, wait, they're going to look good. Obama's latest visit stinks of this. "I'm going to go over to Afghanistan and visit a president that I haven't visited since my election, lecture him on his corrupt government and the scandal around him, talk to some troops, get some photos and good publicity after my party have been getting violent threats all week over a bill I signed, oh, and did I mention that I'm going to brush off Indonesia and Australia by saying health care and Afghanistan are more important?"
That may not be what he's saying, but that certainly is the image the man is giving off. No matter what he seems to have people pissed off at him wherever he goes. This is why I would never want to run for politics; the disapproval ratings and the boos would drive me up the wall on a world scale.
Some Republicans are saying that it's laughable; "This, from the most corrupt American president in history. Beyond laughable." Oh, so sorry my mistake, BEYOND laughable.
Did you miss his job description? Again, refer to Brian Mulroney, compare him to other politicians. Yes politicians are scum, or at least are considered so by most of the general populace, but who isn't? They just get to be scummy for a camera. It's a challenge to find a non-corrupt politician within the last fifty years, Canadian or American; remember, it was Pierre Trudeau who enacted the War Measures Act during the year of 1970 when the FLQ kidnapped two government officials (one British, one Canadian) and murdered one of them. He actually enacted this act to give the government the right of arrest and detention without trial during this span of emergency. He took away our rights for a fair trial. Were Obama to do that, he would be shot, make no mistake of it. Trudeau went on to make the Constitution Act in 1982 (effectively making it an independent nation from Britain in name and policies), made both English and French the official languages of Canada, and you want to know what he said as he activated his state of emergency to protect the people against terrorists?
"Just watch me." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_watch_me
Another situation of where if Obama did the right thing and then used that phrase, he would be shot.
And that's yet another point. Obama is America's Trudeau; he is making changes (as he promised, after all, his whole freakin' campaign was about change). Yes you're allowed to cry if you didn't vote for him but at the same time, if you threw away your vote or you voted for him and then you're crying?
No. You're not allowed. You didn't vote/voted for him/voted for the other guy just because you didn't agree with him. You have no right to complain.
I'll admit it; during the 2008 campaign, I knew many 18-23 year olds who did not know where to place their vote, and I joked with them that they should vote for Obama, because America could do with some changing. I don't necessarily think that this is the appropriate time to put in a major health-care bill persay, but some change after America is stabilized is desperately in order.
For instance, give a start with no violence against those that disagree with you. Don't try to tell me that "it's the American way". The FLQ disagreed with our government and some still to this day want separation. We don't refer to them as 'the Canadian way'. We refer to them as terrorists. We refer to those who would strike at our politicians as terrorists. Even if they are our own countrymen, they are still causing terror.
That's the thing that infuriates me the most. Up here when democracy is threatened by our own, they are called terrorists and they are dealt with (in extreme circumstances of course). In America, that just seems to be the daily cup of Starbucks coffee to have death threats when you disagree with someone.
But, when in Rome, do as Romans do. If I have the gall to ask Ann Coulter (along with about 90% of my countrymen) to not spout hate speech because it breaks our laws, then I guess that as the good little Canadian I am, I have to sit down and shut up while a guy I haven't even heard of that voted for the bill gets a rock thrown through his window.
So that's the basic summary of the week. Obama goes to Afghanistan at the outrage of several critics (what else is new), I think back to Trudeau and Mulroney (shocker) and then I reference on how the extreme acts of those against the health-care bill seem like borderline terrorism.
Let's just hope to whatever deity we believe in that the angry people don't become organized.
But hey... at least the press are keeping busy on the American side.