{"id":207105,"date":"2015-12-08T19:38:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T19:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/translating-obamas-speech-into-candor\/"},"modified":"2015-12-08T19:38:20","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T19:38:20","slug":"translating-obamas-speech-into-candor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/translating-obamas-speech-into-candor\/","title":{"rendered":"Translating Obama\u2019s Speech into Candor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"141.34853760446\">\n<p>President Obama\u2019s primetime speech on terrorism sought to calm a jittery nation, but by omitting\u00a0relevant\u00a0details, he left\u00a0many thoughtful Americans\u00a0scratching their heads. To clarify the unspoken parts of Obama\u2019s speech, Norman Solomon has translated the speech into the language of candor.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16568\"\/>By Norman Solomon<\/p>\n<p>Here is a condensed version of President Obama\u2019s speech from the Oval Office on Sunday night, unofficially translated into plain English:<\/p>\n<p>I kind of realize we can\u2019t kill our way out of this conflict with ISIL, but in the short term hopefully we can kill our way out of the danger of a Republican victory in the presidential race next year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9985\" style=\"width: 212px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/barackobama-44.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9985\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?a9b630\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/barackobama-44.jpg\" alt=\"President Barack Obama.\" width=\"202\" height=\"221\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9985\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/barackobama-44.jpg\" alt=\"President Barack Obama.\" width=\"202\" height=\"221\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As a practical matter, the current hysteria needs guidance, not a sense of proportion along the lines of what the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0just mentioned in passing: \u201cThe death toll from jihadist terrorism on American soil since the Sept. 11 attacks \u2013 45 people \u2013 is about the same as the 48 killed in terrorist attacks motivated by white supremacist and other right-wing extremist ideologies. \u2026 And both tolls are tiny compared with the tally of conventional murders, more than 200,000 over the same period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While I\u2019m urging some gun control, that certainly doesn\u2019t apply to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs and their underlings have passed all the background checks they need by virtue of getting to put on a uniform of the United States Armed Forces.<\/p>\n<p>As much as we must denounce the use of any guns that point at us, we must continue to laud the brave men and women who point guns for us \u2013 and who fire missiles at terrorists and possible terrorists and sometimes unfortunately at wedding parties or misidentified vehicles or teenagers posthumously classified as \u201cmilitants\u201d after signature strikes or children who get in the way.<\/p>\n<p>We can\u2019t see ourselves in the folks we kill. But I\u00a0know that we see ourselves with friends and co\u00adworkers at a holiday party like the one in San Bernardino. I know we see our kids in the faces of the young people killed in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>Also I know we don\u2019t see ourselves in the blameless individuals who have been beheaded by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.accuracy.org\/release\/saudi-arabia-death-for-apostasy-u-s-weapons-fueling-wars\/\"><u>our ally Saudi Arabia<\/u><\/a>, which has executed 150&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/12\/08\/translating-obamas-speech-into-candor\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama\u2019s primetime speech on terrorism sought to calm a jittery nation, but by omitting\u00a0relevant\u00a0details, he left\u00a0many thoughtful Americans\u00a0scratching their heads. To clarify the unspoken parts of Obama\u2019s speech, Norman Solomon has translated the speech into the language of candor. By Norman Solomon Here is a condensed version of President Obama\u2019s speech from the Oval [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}