The Hidden Obama Speech to the UN: It's About US (and Al Qa'eda)

We'll have a full analysis of President Obama's speech tomorrow, but I thought this quick intervention might be useful.

Useful because the media is too busy gushing and sucking up the White House spin to note the key under-messages in the address. Just now the BBC has wet itself becuase supposedly Obama gave the speech that "British Prime Ministers dream of", committing the US to work with the UN and the international community.

Really? Hate to be a downer, boys, but you might want to think a bit about Obama's only two references to the US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama's first sweeping statement was this declaration: "We have set a clear and focused goal: to work with all members of this body to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies – a network that has killed thousands of people of many faiths and nations, and that plotted to blow up this very building. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, we – and many nations here – are helping those governments develop the capacity to take the lead in this effort, while working to advance opportunity and security for their people."

Later in the speech, Obama developed this with, well, another sweeping declaration: "We will permit no safe-haven for al Qaeda to launch attacks from Afghanistan or any other nation. We will stand by our friends on the front lines, as we and many nations will do in pledging support for the Pakistani people tomorrow."

So let's review. In a speech which.was supposedly about America's leadership of international co-operation (and was on subjects from climate change to reductions in nuclear arsenals), Obama snuck in a reference to perhaps the most immediate crisis, given the escalating US military presence, with the assurance that the US was "work(ing) with all members of this body to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies".

Really? Where are all those countries flocking to put in military personnel to whip up on Osama bin Laden? Where are the pronouncements that Afghan and Pakistani economic development and governancee are primarily about wiping out extremists who are plotting another 9-11? Seems to me that the international assistance and efforts, for all their difficulties, were looking for some kind of stability first and foremost for the populations of these countries.

Where are those people in Obama's speech? They are pawns and bystanders who come after the priority of the showdown with big bad guys (even if Al Qa'eda is no longer in Afghanistan).

Co-operation indeed.