Obama takes some dramatic license in recounting his record:
I have spent this year renewing our alliances and forging new partnerships. And we have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim World – one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict, and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity.
Finally, we must draw on the strength of our values – for the challenges that we face may have changed, but the things that we believe in must not. That is why we must promote our values by living them at home – which is why I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom, and justice, and opportunity, and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the moral source of America’s authority.
It would have been grand had he done all that! But to his credit, he also gives one of his more robust defenses of America’s role in the world:
Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, and the service and sacrifice of our grandparents, our country has borne a special burden in global affairs. We have spilled American blood in many countries on multiple continents. We have spent our revenue to help others rebuild from rubble and develop their own economies. We have joined with others to develop an architecture of institutions – from the United Nations to NATO to the World Bank – that provide for the common security and prosperity of human beings.
We have not always been thanked for these efforts, and we have at times made mistakes. But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades – a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.
For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for – and what we continue to fight for – is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.
More of that would be nice to hear — and when he is talking to other nations, and not just to the cadets at West Point.
Was Calmy-Rey’s veil a designer veil favoured by the likes of Speaker Pelosi?
(At least the European fashion houses will survive when aspects of shari’a – thanks Archbishop Williams – are implemented in Europe – design haute couture veils, hijabs, niqabs etc for the fashionable dhimmi)
when sharia is implemented in europe? it’s already implemented in many ways and Calmy’s behavior is but another evidence of that. what the archdhimmi actually meant is to recognize what is already there.
energy is killing the west, because it funds the jihad against it. had it not been for energy, the arabs and the mullahs would have collapsed a long time ago.
oao
come on – you can’t tell me you don’t appreciate the image of Gaultier designing haute couture niqabs in the Arab Republic of France?
YbA,
Sure I do. The europeans in general and the french in particular deserve nothing better than sharia and niqabs. it’s just unfortunate that the fall of europe is causing damage beyond it.
oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/
Why is anyone surprised by Europe’s submission? The present leaders belong to that generation that put generous social benefits and a six-week vacation every year above all other considerations, including reproduction.