Has the Blobstream Media responded to this part of Biden's speech?

I'm an apologist for Biden because sometimes he blurts out the truth to the American people. I know he's part of the problem, and I respect all of you at C99% who take issue with him. He's not Paul Wellstone, he's not Dennis Kucinich, he's not Tulsi Gabbard, and he sure as hell is not Barbara Lee. But he said this, and I'm wondering if any of you who have the courage to watch the mainstream media have seen any commentary in response to it.

Biden speech transcript: US completes Afghanistan withdrawal | Joe Biden News | Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/31/biden-speech-transcript-us-comp...

... I’m the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war.

When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, I’ve honoured that commitment. It was time to be honest with the American people again.

We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refuse to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.

After more than $2 trillion spent on Afghanistan, the costs the researchers of Brown University estimated to be over $300m a day for 20 years in Afghanistan, for two decades. Yes, the American people should hear this: $300m a day for two decades. You take the number of $1 trillion, as many say. That’s still $150m a day for two decades. What have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?

I refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interests of our people. And most of all, after 800,000 Americans served in Afghanistan. I’ve travelled that whole country. Brave and honourable service. After 20,744 American servicemen and women injured – and the loss of 2,461 American personnel, including 13 lives lost just this week – I refused to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan.

We’ve been a nation too long at war. If you’re 20 years old today, you’ve never known an America at peace. So when I hear that we could have, should have, continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan at low risk to our service members at low cost, I don’t think enough people understand how much we’ve asked of the one percent of this country who put that uniform on, willing to put their lives on the line in defence of our nation.

Maybe it’s because my deceased son Beau served in Iraq for a full year before that. Well, maybe it’s because of what I’ve seen over the years, as senator, vice president, and president travelling these countries.

A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell. Deployment after deployment. Months and years away from their families. Missed birthdays, anniversaries, empty chairs at holidays, financial struggles, divorces, loss of limbs, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress.

We see it in the struggles many have when they go home. We see it in the strain on their families and caregivers. We see it in the strain on their families when they’re not there. We see it in the grief borne by their survivors, a cost of war they will carry with them their whole lives. Most tragically, we see in the shocking and stunning statistic that should give pause to anyone who thinks war can ever be low grade, low risk or low cost.

Eighteen veterans, on average, die by suicide every single day in America, not in a far place but right here in America. There’s nothing low grade or low risk or low cost about any war. It’s time to end the war in Afghanistan.

As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it’s time to look to the future, not the past. To a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure, to a future that honours those who serve and all those who gave what President Lincoln called their last full measure of devotion.

I gave my word with all of my heart. I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision and the best decision for America. Thank you. Thank you, and may God bless you all and may God protect our troops.

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The only sentence that got my attention was the one where Biden said, "No more wars to change countries."

Or something like that.

If only I could believe that Biden or anybody else for that matter, has the ability to end regime change excuses and conflicts for Profit. not gonna happen

At risk of sounding like the cynical person I truly am, the parts you quoted were the Empathetic Everyman from Scranton doing his Misery Porn riff.

Sorry. Not dismissing your take as much as saying I may not be the sole unimpressed member of c99.

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NYCVG

what Biden usually delivers. He might want to consider making more use the that speechwriter.

This is one issue on which Biden has been consistent for a dozen years. He opposed Obama's Afghan surge, and finally having been given the opportunity to overrule Obama and the others, did so. Sadly, this may be the only issue on which Biden has long held an opposing viewpoint from his predecessors and aides.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

As I've said before with regards to others, even career liars will speak the truth when it happens to be convenient to their agenda. I almost never listen to politicians' speeches; that's how they getcha.

It's entirely possible that Biden losing his son could engender some actual sympathy in him, just like former POW John McCain consistently condemned torture (having the integrity to demand PROSECUTING the SOBs is another story, I guess), Dick Cheney was okay with homosexuality because of his daughter, and Dr. Bill Frist (remember him?) stood up to the Bush Regime when it was on the warpath against stem-cell research...BUT would Biden's speechwriters have handed this to him had the Big Media Hydra NOT spent the last few weeks whining about how awful it is to end a war?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

I am anti-war.
I have a concern about the pivot to Asia.
And C. America.
But at least that dumb ass, war crime war is over.
Whomever Biden's handler's are, wrote a good speech for him, and let's see what shakes out.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

lotlizard's picture

now, as the new mission and message replacing Afghanistan.

I always suspected it was only a matter of time before the chorus of the song, hating China and Chinese, came around again on the guitar (sorry for the metaphor, Arlo and Alice).

And Israel is escalating its already ongoing covert and clandestine war on Iran, striving mightily to draw the U.S. in, even as we speak.

So suffice it to say I am not optimistic.

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Bisbonian's picture

...just waitin' for it to come around again.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

and applaud the content of the speech as common sense and overdue.

However, the 1% are wondering ....So, if we're not spending that much in Afghanistan, how much of a tax cut will that be for me? Got to grab it quick before the rabble start talking about funding health care or Social Security.

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ggersh's picture

@Snode https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/01/outrageous-and-shameful-hou...

'Outrageous' and 'Shameful': House Panel Approves $37.5B Boost to Pentagon Budget

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

studentofearth's picture

in past 30 years of my observations since chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee for Clarence Thomas confirmations. Sen. Joe Biden was on the punditry circuit for years during the time I used TV as my primary source for national policy and international news. His positions stated with conviction on film seldom translated into similar action in legislation, or even holding a witness accountable during Senate hearings.

He either has a high capacity for self delusion or is as good a liar as Cheney.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

usefewersyllables's picture

with Eastasia...

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

This speech would be somewhat impressive if it wasn't total bullshit. This man spent his whole career lying about his life and his legislative record, and now continues that tradition with multiple lies concerning Afghanistan.

He continues also to believe his own lies and gets really testy when challenged on them. So far he has blamed Trump, the Afghan government, the Afghan military and just about everyone else except himself and our own military/CIA for this whole debacle. Of course this is what Dems are good at... blaming others for their messes and denying responsibility.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

A get along go along kind of person gets, or is placed, into the top spot, and all of a sudden, realizes hey, I can do what I want here.

Howsomeever, what I think happened here is that around inauguration, either just before or after, Biden got a briefing from JCOS pointing out in stark terms just how overextended our military is and what we actually can and can't afford. Remember that the announcement of no more aid to help the Saudis exterminate Yemen came right after Jan. 20.

Also. I am far from convinced that the top brass was entirely on board with President Trump. A lot of these guys have to meet and interact with foreign counterparts, and I doubt Trump's high handedly cancelling the Iran treaty (in order to please his buddy Netanyahoo) made their jobs any easier.

It looks to me like Joe and JCOS made an end run around both the neo-con and humanitarian, you should excuse the expression, interventionists, which would explain the howls of outrage from both sides. Not, we care about the poor Afghans, which they never have, but we weren't consulted.

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Mary Bennett

gulfgal98's picture

and all of his history in the Senate, it is very difficult for me to believe a single word of this well written speech. Biden has broken nearly every one of his campaign promises to the American people, whether it was raising the minimum wage, alleviating student debt, providing healthcare to all or even giving each person a $2,000 check for COVID relief. Nothing that would actually benefit the real people of this country has been done by Biden since being elected. Instead, the Department of Defense budget was once again increased.

If we are pulling out of this quagmire of a war and supposedly our President wants us to be out of other wars, why do we need such an obscenely high defense budget? Why do we need at least 800 military bases all over the world?

IMHO, this is just another bait and switch ploy by the Biden administration. After pulling out of Afghanistan, we are still bombing and drone striking civilians with impunity. We will still have a skeleton force there and more importantly, contractors (mercenaries). So Biden can say we are ending the war and bringing our troops home, without really ending the war. Meanwhile the wars will move to other more profitable grounds.

I will believe that our powers that be are really serious about ending wars once they defund the Petagon by a substantial amount (at least 50%) and defund the homeland forces (police) by at least that amount.

And yes, I have become extremely cynical. Bottom line, follow the money, not listen to pretty words.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Biden was being allowed to boost his ratings by playing good cop, parroting what people want to hear. None of what he said is truthful. We have the CIA in Afghanistan planning to wreck continuing havoc on the lives of the Afghan people. We don't need the foot soldiers when we have drones and our ability to fund and arm resistance forces.
Does anyone believe for one moment that the USA will reconsider our forever wars? It is the basis of our economy and our plans for world hegemony. We might be moving our chess pieces around the board but that is all.

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it even matters to me that so many of you, so far, think Biden is just a liar, is that, while I think he is a corrupt politician who occasionally blurts out the truth of how corrupt the system is, I also think he blurts it out because the hypocrisy disgusts him. And by that I mean the hypocrisy of his honored colleagues and partners in crime.

I also think he is in a conflict with the CIA. Last week there was the release of a video of his naked son in bed with a naked woman telling her his Russian drug dealers may have stolen a laptop full of video of him having sex with another woman and of him using drugs, specifically saying the laptop could be used to blackmail his father. I can't think the release of that video just before Biden went through with the withdrawal from Afghanistan is just happenstance, just a coincidence. They threatened him with that, and he said, go ahead, do your worst.

So the point I'm trying to make in response to your comments is that I agree that there are people, especially in the military, who think our foreign policy is treasonous, is crap, is just a glory hole for contractors at the expense of young soldiers' lives. And I think Biden essentially agrees with them. And at this point in time, he is speaking for them.

I sense that he may be listening to people in government who are asking the Blinkens and Kagans and Nulands, why would it be a GOOD thing for us to have a nuclear war, why would it be a good thing for us to have World War Four in China, in Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus, in the Arctic? What exactly would we gain from it? I know he's sending gigantic tons of battleships and missile launchers to the Black Sea and the Pacific, flying planes over Latvia and Norway, putting on the show to terrify Putin and the rest of us, but I think that's the war machine doing what they do, trying to destroy life on earth as soon as possible.

In this speech, I think Biden clearly rejects the work of the war machine. I hope you will have hope, and that you will consider this withdrawal from Afghanistan as a step in the right direction, and that you will credit Biden with using words that expose the war machine for the stupid, craven, monstrosity that it is.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@Linda Wood

Ignore what they say, watch what they do.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven

is exactly what Grandma taught me as a child, (in addition to voting No for president,) "Watch what they do, not what they say."

So I'm watching Biden now, and, at this moment, he's ending the war and speaking truth to power. I totally get that the war machine has no intention of having any president get in their way and that in addition to the six ways from Sunday they have to get back at him they run false flag assaults, terrorist mercenary armies and friendly fire, but oddly, what's happening is that the CIA blob-o-sphere is non-stop showing their ass. They're flailing, trying to make a case for ignoring what Biden said and for ignoring what he did. And I don't think it's going to work, at least in terms of public opinion, and ultimately that could make a huge difference.

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ggersh's picture

@Linda Wood

They're flailing, trying to make a case for ignoring what Biden said and for ignoring what he did. And I don't think it's going to work, at least in terms of public opinion, and ultimately that could make a huge difference.

The only good thing about tRump being followed by Joementia is that the empire is crumbling, how soon how fast is the big question. I'm thinking it has a couple of years at best and it could be gone by the midterms should the D's get pulverized.

The SC has gone dark w/decision making leading me to believe they aren't making any decisions

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley