read it yourself | President Obama addresses the nation on Syria

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

September 10, 2013

East Room

9:01 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  My fellow Americans, tonight I want to talk to you about Syria -- why it matters, and where we go from here.

Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has turned into a brutal civil war.  Over 100,000 people have been killed.  Millions have fled the country.  In that time, America has worked with allies to provide humanitarian support, to help the moderate opposition, and to shape a political settlement.  But I have resisted calls for military action, because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The situation profoundly changed, though, on August 21st, when Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children.  The images from this massacre are sickening:  Men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas.  Others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath.  A father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk.  On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off-limits -- a crime against humanity, and a violation of the laws of war.

This was not always the case.  In World War I, American GIs were among the many thousands killed by deadly gas in the trenches of Europe.  In World War II, the Nazis used gas to inflict the horror of the Holocaust.  Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them.  And in 1997, the United States Senate overwhelmingly approved an international agreement prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, now joined by 189 governments that represent 98 percent of humanity.

On August 21st, these basic rules were violated, along with our sense of common humanity.  No one disputes that chemical weapons were used in Syria.  The world saw thousands of videos, cell phone pictures, and social media accounts from the attack, and humanitarian organizations told stories of hospitals packed with people who had symptoms of poison gas.

Read it for Yourself | Barack Obama on the components of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, May 23, 2013

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 23, 2013

Remarks by the President at the National Defense University

National Defense University

Fort McNair

Washington, D.C. 

2:01 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, everybody.  Please be seated. 

It is a great honor to return to the National Defense University.  Here, at Fort McNair, Americans have served in uniform since 1791 -- standing guard in the earliest days of the Republic, and contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.

For over two centuries, the United States has been bound together by founding documents that defined who we are as Americans, and served as our compass through every type of change.  Matters of war and peace are no different.  Americans are deeply ambivalent about war, but having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for freedom.  From the Civil War to our struggle against fascism, on through the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, battlefields have changed and technology has evolved.  But our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war, and every war has come to an end.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a new dawn of democracy took hold abroad, and a decade of peace and prosperity arrived here at home.  And for a moment, it seemed the 21st century would be a tranquil time.  And then, on September 11, 2001, we were shaken out of complacency.  Thousands were taken from us, as clouds of fire and metal and ash descended upon a sun-filled morning.  This was a different kind of war.  No armies came to our shores, and our military was not the principal target.  Instead, a group of terrorists came to kill as many civilians as they could.

Coldplay | Violet Hill

There is no high ground. But there could be.

Martin Luther King | April 30, 1967

For the troops to fall into line is a noble thing; for civilians to fall into line is shameful.
— Garrison Keillor, Salon, Theirs Not To Reason Why , April 2, 2008

the business of war | free enterprise at its worst

What the hell is wrong with us? Seriously.

strange bedfellows | Opium, Afghanistan + the US

According to US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood, Afghani growers are having a record-breaking year, harvesting 457,135 acres of opium poppies — compared to 407,715 acres last year.

A report by the Associated Press says:

Afghanistan last year accounted for 92 percent of global opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. With the higher yields, global opium production increased 43 percent between 2005 and 2006.

Is it just me or . . . Never mind, it's probably just me.

[photo by SuperFantastic]

the weapons trade, for what it's worth

Today ends the IDEX 07 armament show in Abu Dhabi. The Associated Press reports an estimated 900 weapons manufacturers and security firms came anticipating over two billion dollars in contracts; with helicopters and electronic warning sensors expected to do particularly well.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Camp Pendleton Crossing

Northbound Surfliner,
Upper deck.
Rain on sprouting field
Separates track from sea.
Attack helicopter traces the shore,
Churning,
Climbing.
Guy across from me dozes, beer wedged between his thighs;
Half past ten;
Doesn't mean he won't be thirsty
When he wakes.
A girl talks loud on her phone:
"Are you gonna get kicked out?"
Landing craft takes a run at the beach, flanked by rubber Zodiacs.
Dark copter edging away,
Toward something I cannot see.
"I'm sorry you're sad," the girl says to her phone.