Pack Up Your Troubles and Celebrate the Hegemony

President Obama is still trying to pretend that Iraq isn't kicking him in the tush on his way out. How serendipitous that he actually kept a campaign promise for a change, though! He vowed we'd get out of there, and so we are. But he desperately, desperately wanted to stay. As Marie Burns puts it on Reality Chex, he delivered one of those Friday news dumps in order to deflect probing questions from the sponges of the Washington press corps.


And instead of using his weekly radio address to sound the alarm about a growing humanitarian crisis here at home, he trumpets his bellicosity and crows about his security state creds. It really is kind of jarring, in light of the fact that thousands of his own desperate people are demonstrating in the streets.


Speaking of dumps, I haven't rooted around in the bottom of the White House dumpster for awhile in search of discarded versions of presidential speeches that accidentally speak the truth in their first drafts.  But after hearing more bullshit than usual from Dear Leader this morning, I could not resist. Here is the original transcript, with his redacted truthy notes in parentheses:

This week, we had two powerful reminders of how we’ve renewed American leadership in the world.  I was proud to announce that—as promised—the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of this year.  And in Libya, the death of Moammar Qadhafi showed that our role in protecting the Libyan people, and helping them break free from a tyrant, was the right thing to do.

(If I looked a little haggard and unlike my usual frosty self at my press con, it was because I had just spent the whole damn morning begging -- yes, I was reduced to begging -- President Al Maliki to let me keep just one teensy base there.  But no--o-o-o-o!  After all the years and all the billions we spent, and all the death and destruction in the name of freedom -- they were ungrateful and would not give us immunity in case Blackwater/Xe went on another one of its rampages.  I didn't get my way.  America is not unconditionally loved or feared.  The Iraqis can't forget Abu Ghraib.)

In Iraq, we’ve succeeded in our strategy to end the war.  Last year, I announced the end of our combat mission in Iraq.  We’ve already removed more than 100,000 troops, and Iraqi forces have taken full responsibility for the security of their own country.  Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, the Iraqi people have the chance to forge their own future.  And now the rest of our troops will be home for the holidays.

(Failure is success. The troops are being evicted and we'll pretend it's gonna be a Holly Jolly Christmas. But not for long!  If we keep 'em home, the unemployment rate will skyrocket to 25 percent. Plus there's Afghanistan.... and Libya....and the rest of Africa under the pretext of fighting in Uganda for humanitarian reasons after 20 years of ignoring some sadistic sect.  However, some of the troops must remain in the Homeland to protect our own endangered species: The One Percent.)

In Libya, our brave pilots and crews helped prevent a massacre, save countless lives, and give the Libyan people the chance to prevail.  Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives.  Soon, our NATO mission will come to a successful end even as we continue to support the Libyan people, and people across the Arab world, who seek a democratic future.

(The brave grunts sitting in Nevada trailers who operated the Drone Missiles saved countless lives by killing countless collateral "targets" thousands of miles away. We will continue to support the Libyan people and other oil-rich peoples who seek a democratic future by extracting oil concessions for my billionaire campaign contributors.)

These successes are part of a larger story.  After a decade of war, we’re turning the page and moving forward, with strength and confidence.  The drawdown in Iraq allowed us to refocus on Afghanistan and achieve major victories against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.  As we remove the last of our troops from Iraq, we’re beginning to bring our troops home from Afghanistan. 

(We are turning the page and looking forward, not backward. There will be no prosecutions of the Bush War Crimes. We have squandered trillions of dollars on a bloated defense budget. We're temporarily bringing some troops home, but they are forever troops for our endless wars.  We have the confidence to believe that the American people will never find out exactly how we decide to kill people on foreign soil... even American citizens, even teenage sons of American citizens.  This is the larger story. Shelve it in the horror section. We will continue to obfuscate, prosecute whistleblowers and subpoena journalists, and spy on you).

To put this in perspective, when I took office, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in these wars.  By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and an increasing number of our troops will continue to come home.As we end these wars, we’re focusing on our greatest challenge as a nation—rebuilding our economy and renewing our strength at home.  Over the past decade, we spent a trillion dollars on war, borrowed heavily from overseas and invested too little in the greatest source of our national strength—our own people.  Now, the nation we need to build is our own. 

(Just not quite yet. First we have to ship 250,000 of your jobs to South Korea.
 But keep calling Congress and donate to my grassroots campaign and pretend that I'm not being financed by Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex.)

We have to tackle this challenge with the same urgency and unity that our troops brought to their fight.  That’s why we have to do everything in our power to get our economy moving again.  That’s why I’m calling on Congress to pass the American Jobs Act, so we can rebuild our country – our schools, our roads, our bridges – and put our veterans, construction workers, teachers, cops and firefighters back to work.   And that’s why I hope all of us can draw strength from the example of our men and women in uniform.

(I just promised huge tax breaks to anti-union corporations like Walmart and McDonald's, and factory farm conglomerates like ConAgra and Tyson Foods if they will only hire my leftover psychologically and physically damaged returning vets at low wages. This corporate welfare check will further bloat the profits of the folks who hire undocumented immigrants, so it's a win-win for my battleground state contributors. Plus, I must try to appease the vets, a third of whom say the wars weren't worth it. Look at the men and women in uniform. I'm trying to make you civvies feel guilty, because you don't have it as bad as they do.  Celebrate my War Machine, Occupiers.  Ask not what your country can do for you if you're not willing to die for the MIC).

They’ve met their responsibilities to America.  Now it’s time to meet ours.  It’s time to come together and show the world why the United States of America remains the greatest source for freedom and opportunity that the world has ever known.

(Don't expect jobs, health care or change for the better any time soon. Slavery is freedom. Unemployment is opportunity. Despair is hope. Rejoice in the One Percent Nation.  Can you chip in $5 to my grassroots campaign?)

Update:  Glenn Greenwald is bemused by Obama's recent celebratory rhetoric.