I guarantee you from personal experience that these cadets were warned explicitly not to disrespect the Commander in Chief in any way. As it should be. Even Old Grads were getting shouted down in a Facebook post from the Association of Graduates regarding the event. Sheesh.

But you weren’t going to see any outbursts of excitement like you would have with Bush or another CinC that is not a surrender-monkey.

.. hardly denotes a commitment to “victory”:

“The phased approach will also allow the president to cancel some of the additional reinforcements if the counterinsurgency strategy advocated by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, does not show results or if the Karzai government does not meet goals for stamping out corruption and providing for the Afghan people, WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS SAID.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/28/AR2009112802454.html

And this was revealed to us SUNDAY.

This means the speech was meant for an entirely different purpose — as appeasement to leftist radicals, his base, dems, our enemies AND our bankers in China..

Do a search on references to “economy” in his speech and note the ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS devoted to his excuses.

…and those dems on the hill are just show-boating about cost. They’ve seen the polls on public support for more troops and they know Obama is bleeding independents.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124490/In-U.S.-More-Support-Increasing-Troops-Afghanistan.aspx

Remember — he’s sending in 10K, then RE-EVALUATING over the next 12-18. All this was masked in his speech, tho.

He will dither and find yet another excuse to reduce the number of forces YET AGAIN .. or not send them at all.

Satisifies his base, luring back independents, letting creditors know he’s concerned “loading up this nation with debt” (member that Fox/”not news” interview?) = purpose of his crummy speech. Case closed.

I wasn’t required to memorize General Douglas MacArthur’s farewell address to the cadets at West Point, but I was required to be very familiar with it as it was published in our “Bugle Notes” plebe handbook which contained much of the “poop” we would have to, in some cases, memorize and, in all cases, be quizzed on. Also, plebes were required to listen to an audio tape of the speech.

Compare Teleprompter Boy’s speech at West Point to the remarks of this soon-to-die WWII hero from West Point in 1962, making his farewell speech to his alma mater on the occasion of accepting the Sylvanus Thayer award given annually to the most distinguished graduate. After MacArthur outlined how, in 1962, the world was changing for American fighting men and the officers who would lead them, MacArthur continued, stressing, unlike Obama, the cadets’ future mission to WIN America’s wars and that, in war, there is no substitute for victory:

>>>

And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.

Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.

These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.

The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

<<<

My favorite passage, among many, in MacArthur’s speech, came earlier in it:,

“Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.”

You can hear it here:

Here’s a link to the complete text:

http://www.keytlaw.com/Greatwords/macarthur.htm

Hat tip to Cargosquid for posting and analyzing what Teleprompter Manchild’s handlers told him to read: http://www.redstate.com/cargosquid/2009/12/02/text-of-obamas-speech-no-mention-of-victory/#comment-30

Thank you.
ColdWarrior

I really thinking that he should take an audio recording of himself and see were he’s going wrong. I hope it would work but I’m not so sure with him.

When he talks about talking over the healthcare system or slapping the global warming handcuffs on America.

context of talking about himself, I counted 54 uses of “I”. And, I agree with Spartan4Life, the worst makeup job I’ve ever seen. It looked like they painted his hair to get rid of the gray, and made him up to emphasize his non-whiteness.

If the government in Afgahnistan keeps acting like the Dems in congress,
we wont support them and then we will withdraw?

don’t know if I should put LOL or not,
because its not funny

That we would give it 18 months and then the heck with the result?
That is not how you fight a war.
Imagine if FDR on Dec 8, 1941 had said – we will send troops to Europe but withdrawl by the summer of 1943??

Here’s the money quote from the speech: “So as a result, America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict.” (Hat tip to Cargosquid for posting and analyzing the diatribe here: http://www.redstate.com/cargosquid/2009/12/02/text-of-obamas-speech-no-mention-of-victory/#comment-30 )

We now know that under Obama, America will no longer fight to win wars, but rather to “successfully end them,” whatever that means. America also will “prevent conflict.” In other words, America will “prevent conflict” by not fighting for its, or its allies’, vital national interests.

In the case of Afghanistan, the Obama Doctrine will be to surrender, which will be defined as a “successful end” to the war from the Libtards’ perspective. And America will, in general, no longer fight. Period.

“Just words. Just speeches.”

Thank you.
ColdWarrior

It is sad to hear Field Marshall 0bama comment on 8 years of war. So sad he intentionally ignores we have been at war with Islam for hundreds of years. The radical Muslims, the Jihadis merely opened a new front and did so in January of 1993, not 8 years ago. How many people are paying attention in history class. In fact, the radical Islamists started the war in 1979 by attacking our embassy in Tehran when the democrat Carter was in power and coincidentally when Saddam Hussein came to power.

he will not be riding around theater in HMMWV’s anymore from what I am hearing of the scuttlebutt from a 3-Button. Let him know I am doing my best to get him counterinsurgency-EoF and force protection gear as fast I can in this bureaucracy.