© Real Time with Bill Maher / YouTube U.S. President Barack Obama
Comment: America's indispensable and exceptional legacy under Obomber:
The assertion came during Obama's sit in with HBO's Real Time show host Bill Maher on Friday. The interview was focused on the president's political legacy and domestic problems, but the commander-in-chief also shared his thoughts on why the US needs a military that costs over $600 billions a year, according to Maher's count.
"The US having the most powerful military on Earth... helps up check the impulses of some other bad folks," Obama said, giving North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his country's nuclear weapons program as an example.
Comment: More like check the impulses of any leader thinking about doing anything good for their country and their people. Case in point: The truth about Gaddafi's Libya, NATO's bombing, and the Benghazi 'consulate' attack
The Pentagon stages annual military exercises with its ally, South Korea, to prepare for a possible conflict with North Korea. South Korea is the world's tenth biggest defense spender, investing about $34 billion in its military annually, compared to North Korea's estimated $10 billion. Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to deter possible military aggression from the US.
Obama said the US has a natural inclination to intervene globally, though sometimes things go "haywire."
Comment: A 'natural' inclination based on domination and greed rather than humanitarian concerns. Which is why when the US intervenes in a country all hell can, and usually does, break loose.
"Bad things happen around the world and our natural instinct is - we should do something. There are times where our intervention makes a difference, but there are a lot of times where the unintended consequences can result in more problems when we intervene. And sorting out where those issues play out is, I think, one of the biggest challenges that any president has," he said.
While the president didn't elaborate on which of his decisions to employ America's military might had caused unintended consequences, the destruction of Libya in 2011 may come to mind first. NATO's bombing campaign helped rebels topple the country's government, and, five years on, Libya is a fractured nation over which competing militant groups, terrorists, and criminals run rampant. In his earlier interviews, Obama said that he regretted not having a plan of action for after the intervention.
Comment: The chaos created by the NATO bombing of Libya wasn't an unintended consequence, it was the goal. The West needed to splinter the unity of the tribal governments and peoples and destroy the country's infrastructure in order to render the Libyans incapable of standing up against Western influence. After all, Gaddafi was only a symbolic figurehead of the government and held no real power, so there was no reason for NATO to intervene in the country except to open it up for exploitation.
Yet Obama said he still believes the US and its military should continue to play a major role in the world.
"As flawed as our foreign policy can be, and whatever blind spots we have, we really are the indispensable nation," he bragged.
Comment: Indispensable from the point of view of the pathocrats and corporations looking to pillage the world for their own selfish and greedy purposes, but superfluous to anyone who wants a better world for the average person.
American troops are heavily involved in providing humanitarian relief after natural disasters occur or when diseases break out, Obama explained, mentioning the Ebola virus outbreak of 2014. The Pentagon has infrastructure in place for rapid response and can often act before anyone else.
America's important role goes beyond its military presence, however.
"There is not an international meeting I go to in which, if we were not sitting at the table, nothing gets done. For the most part, other countries don't have either the capacity or the inclination," he said.
Comment: Well, he's right. Most other countries don't have the capacity or inclination to become a global hegemon.
"When you have a bunch of authoritarian governments out there and a creeping authoritarian impulse around the world, we also are the ones who are pushing back - imperfectly, but most effectively - against locking up journalists and killing human rights activists and making sure that poor people get food and dealing with health crises," he said.
Comment: What a load of deluded lies. Take this statement, turn it on it's head, and that's the reality we live in.
While Obama didn't elaborate on how successful America was in pushing back against Turkey's impulse to arrest journalists or Saudi Arabia's executions of human rights activists, for example, he insisted that the world needed America's influence.
"Our values and our ideals actually matter. We do a lot of good around the world. There are some things that we do that are either ineffective or imperfect, but there is a lot to be proud of," the president said.
The interview came a week ahead of the US presidential election. Before wrapping up, Obama reiterated his call to vote for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Reader Comments
Actually, the whole world can get along very well without the United States. There's nothing worth having that can't be made or found in some other place. The U.S. doesn't make anything at all that is needed or can't be made of traded for by other parties. The unique things that the U.S.makes like war machines, GMOs, stupid drugs, video crap - we all would be better off without.
Let us in the rest of the world build a great big wall around the U.S. and let them kill themselves off in side while everybody else gets on with life.
as 'Prez' have to be a reminder to everyone that 'American is an indispensable nation' tells us that the end of the American regime is near.
As I again feel the need to fairly frequently point out, the world is awash with people who desire or believe in some way, that the earth's entire resources, its great majesty and actual wealth, be placed in the hands of those who 'know best how to distribute it' (the earth's resources, majesty and actual wealth). This desire is truly bizarre if one takes the time to think about it--but who does? Everyone is insane..
This is the government-minded fallacy, the bureaucratic, centralized and monolithic endeavor. It is also the distinct result of the lang-standing global (not just the US) education system and of course of the result of technology, as it now thrust upon all throughout the entire globe--animals, plants, places and people alike. All exist under this spell.
And those who 'know best how to distribute it' (in the above manner--the larfe and great and good government fallacy) never fail to distribute it to themselves, and their best cronies.
And this is why we will all die in agony in the most profound and harshest sense.
If not in this lifetime, then in one yet to come.
For this is modernism and the thought process that created it.
And it is the karma (the necessary reaction or truthful outcome to any action) that we now have so deeply imbedded within our midst.
I think you should all think about this.
AND STOP THE FUCKING LYING.
Thank you.
ned, out
I'm not sure what larfe is, my wife was talking to me, just as she is now. We have a lost dog. I guess I meant large.
Anyway, whatever. Gotta go, have a grrrrrrrrrrreat day.
ned