Monday, May 23, 2011

All the context you need.

So American President B. Obama gave a rather 'important' policy speech last week at the U.S. State Department about all things Middle East...

Conspicuous in its absence was any notable applause, even during pauses in the speech intended for such.

Most of it was a restatement of other pronouncements and some dollar figures on how much support the reformist+military governments in Egypt and Tunisia are in line to get. These things are expensive, after all. (More expensive if we don't, the West drops the ball and lets a one-man/one-vote/one-time Islamist regime form.)

A little bit of it was free anti-totalitarianism. Picking on Qaddafi and Assad is pretty easy stuff these days, after all.

But then, someone let their preferences override good sense and statesmanship...

...and the next day got schooled for saying said nonsense.

This is all the context you need to know to understand how Mr. Obama could say what he said, and why Mr. Netanyahu needed to say what he said in reply.

The pity of it all is that the damage is done.

The only question is when the next war starts.

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Personal Note: This author, at roughly the time both photos were taken, went to a university with lots of the type on the right, got spit on by some of them, and elsewhere worked with the type pictured on the left. Based on that experience, I to this day choose to associate with the latter. If that is an editorial bias, so be it. My basement; my rules.

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edit: photo link corrected.

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