President Obama Afghanistan Speech West Point New York (December 1, 2009) [2/4]

[GeRzAwN]

I didn't know Kevin Garnett was in the armed forces. You can see him at 0:21. How does he juggle the military and the NBA at the same time?

[Gonji]

Body count in counting. Another 30,000 of talented people sent off to die for a lie. Obama you idiot.

[iansw07]

Obama = murdering scum just like those before him! And a coward!

[sparkleblack62]

you should be ashamed mr. obama. ashamed at best. sign your letter of condolance to those families now...I'm sure it makes a guge difference. pathetic. lawyer=lier. just like all of your other "promises". I HOPE this country wakes up in 2013.

[mojoidol]

If Obama was auditioning for a movie role, he blew it.

[highstakes78]

I like to flogg my baby-sized penis while smearing kittens blood on my face when I listen to Obama speak. Merry Christmas!

[hoffmom77]

"I've seen firsthand the terrible wages of war." What a presumptuous remark. REALLY? He's seen the carnage, firsthand? He's been on the front lines? He's never SERVED, never even been at the front of the CHOW line!! But he's "seen firsthand the terrible wages of war" because he's seen a few flag-draped caskets and scrawled his name on condolence letters. Stupid ass. And I say that with all due respect.

[bobklahn]

@hoffmom77

GW Bush never saw a battle. Dick Cheney never served. Yet they got 4000+ of our troops killed for oil. Bush signed up, took the oath, then failed to even show up for a full year of his commitment.

Where were you when Bush was sending our people off to die for oil and Bush glory?

[hoffmom77]

Not gonna get into the "blood for oil" debate; although facts do not support that argument, it has nothing to do with my remark.

On my remark: I don't recall Bush or Cheney asserting that they'd "seen the terrible wages of war firsthand." (Although Cheney's seen more carnage on a HUNTING TRIP than Obama's EVER seen! ;-) I've never served either, and having attended a soldier's memorial doesn't qualify me to state that I've "seen firsthand the wages of war." That's all I'm saying.

[bobklahn]

Seeing the dead returning is seeing the wages of war. I did serve but not in battle, so I would not say I have seen war, as Bush did. I have seen the results, I have seen the wounded. I have seen people I knew as healthy young men at the military hospital after they came back.

You are saying he hasn't seen the "wages of war". I am asking where were you when Bush sent our people to die in Iraq.

The dead and wounded are the wages of war. The oil is the profit of war.

[hoffmom77]

During the first Gulf War I was in the 8th grade, singing "Give Peace A Chance." Since then I've learned to evaluate facts. For example, the fact that it would cost less money and blood to drill for oil on our own soil, but guess whose party prevented THAT. Regardless, we do not control Iraq's (or Kuwait's) oil supply, and we don't own a seat in OPEC's boardroom, so how is this about oil? If Saddam had not thumbed his nose at the entire world, we would not be in Iraq today.

[hoffmom77]

I'm not necessarily defending the war with Iraq, although at the time even most democrats supported the move. But we're STILL in Iraq which, frankly, is Obama's best decision to date. He's taken a much more measured approach than what he indicated during his campaign, and I give him credit for that.

I don't know why it matters "where I was when...". If Bush had made the statement Obama did, he'd have been a presumptuous ass, also. In fact, he WAS one, on many occasions. Better now?

[bobklahn]

Bush said he had seen war. Obama only said he saw the wages of war. The dead *ARE* the wages of war.

We need to be out of Iraq. 6 years or so ago 70% of the troops in Iraq said we should be out in a year. That was published in the Marine Times service newspaper.

Iraq is wiping out America's power to act in the world, and our credibility. Obama needs to get us out soon.

Or, we could reinstitute the draft. You for that?

We have no military ground power available for almost anything.

[bobklahn]

During the first Gulf war I was out of the military by nearly 20 years. We stopped singing "Give Peace a Chance" twenty years before that war.

The oil companies don't care how much blood it costs, it's not their blood.

Your mistake is in thinking big oil wants cheap oil. They want expensive oil. The Iraq invasion of 2003 added trillions to the value of big oil's reserves. The increase in the price of oil made big oil richer than ever.

[bobklahn]

"Regardless, we do not control Iraq's (or Kuwait's) oil supply, ..."

Don't need to. All that is necessary is to cut down the production. That keeps prices up, where big oil wants it. And Bush did that very well indeed.

[LordotheMorning]

Oil? That's nothing more than a conspiracy theory. WE HAVE NOT GOTTEN ANY OIL FROM THE WAR. If we had, we would be moving in there to stay, and maybe colonizing the middle east like Europe back in the 17th century, but we're not are we? The press would be all over the U.S. government building oil rigs, and taking over other one's by force in the middle east, but it's not, is it? Most of our oil is domestic, and the primary source of oil imports is Canada. Please, get off the bandwagon.

[bobklahn]

Umm... that's about what I said.

We are not getting more oil from the Mid East after the invasion. Big oil doesn't want more oil from Iraq.

Yes, most of our oil is domestic, but a 10% cut in supply multiplies the out of the ground price. IOW, less oil means more money.

I did not disagree with you.

[LordotheMorning]

Okay, then. Sorry to rage at ya.

[bobklahn]

No biggie.

[gringodeltoro1]

That's great, then you're spending billions for nothing... too bad people are loosing their homes while guys are more preoccupied by terrorizing the lives out of the Arabs. Well done !!

[LordotheMorning]

We're spending billions so we don't get blasted again by sick fundamentalists. The 9/11 attacks alone did between billions and trillions of dollars in damage. The Taliban, a regime that sympathizes with Al Qaeda, is an insurgent group that is trying to usurp the current government in Afghanistan. The plan is to work WITH Afghan security forces and help them ELIMINATE the threat for our MUTUAL safety... We're not running around torching houses and shooting everything that moves.

[gringodeltoro1]

By next year, your schools, police forces, hospitals will probably be slashed in half. Your taxes are going to go up, unemployement will soar, food prices as well. You will then learn that you're not special, that your country doesn't need to "save" the world, and you will be wondering if anybody out there is actually willing to save you. You think the United States will survive the economic crisis? Think again.

[LordotheMorning]

Because we haven't been involved in a war already for 8 or 9 years, and staying in for any additional time will slash the government's budget for everything else in half? FYI, our current national debt is about 60-80% of our national GDP. This percentage has been MUCH higher in the past, as high as 120% during FDR's presidency, and the US came out of WWII as a dominant world power. And you expect me to believe that we can't even SURVIVE a much lower debt? Get some facts, you have nothing.

[LordotheMorning]

This has nothing to do with "saving the world". This is a question of national security. Taliban presence in Afghanistan poses a direct threat to western civilization as a whole. We cannot allow a regime that sympathizes with terrorist actions to gain any sort of influence in the middle east. The Taliban was the group that had power in Afgh. during the initial 9/11 attack, and allowing them to stage a coup to will have disastrous results for anyone who isn't in the extremists good graces.

[gringodeltoro1]

If the Talibans have any powers it's because your fucking administration armed them during the 80's when they were fighting the Russian invasion. Get some facts yourself !!

[LordotheMorning]

I think you are a very bitter person and I'm starting to lose interest in replying to you. The question of who armed them is completely irrelevant. Even if it was a mistake, that should not effect the decision to eliminate a threat in any way. Sorry ,but apparently our administration isn't blessed with the ability to see the future the way yours obviously is. *sarcasm*

By the way, it's "The Taliban", not "The Talibans".

[LordotheMorning]

By the way, I've noticed how quick you've been to change the subject whenever I make a point that you can't refute. That's not good debate practice, and you should concede to the point if you have nothing else to say. Otherwise, you'll cast a pretty bad image of yourself.

[ghemminger1]

@LordotheMorning

What's sad is that the rest of the world is equally affected by terrorism, yet rides our coat tails when action is needed. Then, when things don't go as planned (which in military operations, happens), they throw mud at us...

we live in an ungrateful world for what the US has ALWAYS given the opportunity to others: freedom. Sounds cliche, I know, but what other Nation has sacrificed so many of its own citizens for the good of others?

None...

[hoffmom77]

LOL!! Girl at :08, practically dead center of the screen, nodding off, and we're nine minutes into the speech. Classic! :-D

[WordsMoveNations]

Lets kill those who kill to show that killing is wrong!! You can bomb a country into pieces but you cannot bomb a country into peace...A war tax?

[RedWhiteandBetrayed]

He says I a lot... Is he the only one making decisions? We are so fucked people!!!

[bobklahn]

@RedWhiteandBetrayed

Bush said, "I am the decider". Like it or not, that's true.

Bush got people killed for his glory and Cheney's oil buddies.

It's time to drop your irrational hate, and look at reality.

[g00se99]

you can't fix the economy until the infection is cleaned out. End the Fed.

[Khamomil]

Obaùa is the man for whom Tupac Shakur was killed because he couldn't have been elected while the rap artist was alive and challenging him.

[sdpicoult]

obama is the wrong man. he no more than announced that he is sending 30K troops overseas and then the very next sentence says after 18 months the troops will begin to come home. what kind of plan for security is that??

[bobklahn]

@sdpicoult

Compared to Bush sending 150,000 when the military told him he needed well over 300,000? It's the plan we needed in Iraq. That is if we couldn't avoid the unneeded invasion in the first place.

[dtingas610]

obama is the man