From The Times
April 6, 2009

Barack Obama reveals vision for world without nuclear weapons

David Charter in Prague and Tom Baldwin

Fighting a heavy cold that has dogged him throughout his European tour, President Obama had turned in early for the night to get some rest before a big set-piece speech and a third international summit in four days.

His sleep, however, was interrupted. Shortly after 4.30am yesterday he was woken in his Prague hotel by his press secretary, who told him that North Korea had fired a long-range missile.

Although the launch was neither a surprise nor entirely successful, this was the first significant security test of his presidency, and the White House was determined that the world should know that he was treating it as such.

Aides gave briefings on how Mr Obama had spent the next few hours on the telephone to Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, as well as to other military and intelligence chiefs. “Had we determined that this launch posed a threat to the United States of America,” his spokesman said, “we would have taken whatever steps were necessary to ensure the safety and security of the American people.”

Even as he dazzles Europe, inspiring vast crowds and offering disarmament talks with Russia one day, acknowledging past US arrogance the next, the White House is acutely aware that Republicans back home say that he is an innocent abroad who promises too much for too little in return.

Yesterday, only hours before he was due to deliver a speech on his vision of ridding the world of nuclear weapons for ever, North Korea had grabbed the global spotlight and — in the eyes of critics — demonstrated that any sign of weakness from America merely encouraged its enemies.

Yesterday morning, as he addressed more than 20,000 people from Prague Castle, the President declared “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”.

The United States — as the only nation to have used an atomic bomb — had a “moral responsibility” to remove the threat of mass destruction, he said. “I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we . . . must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can’.”

At the end the crowd surged forward to touch him, as they have across Europe in the past few days. Marek Prokes, 22, a student who shook Mr Obama by the hand, said: “For me it was amazing. He is a president who can make a change. It is not just an empty phrase.” Paul Ermite, 61, declared: “That was the greatest speech I have ever heard.”

Mr Obama’s appeal to idealism, however, serves to conceal the hard-headed pragmatism of his purpose. By using a mix of exhortation and humility he hopes to overcome some of the hurdles that have for so long stood in the way of concerted international action, be it on nuclear proliferation, the economy, the war in Afghanistan or even climate change, which he later discussed at an EU-US summit.

The speech contained some important caveats, not least because much of his Czech audience is gazing anxiously at Russia’s efforts to reassert dominance over the “sphere of influence” in Eastern Europe that it once controlled with an iron fist. Mr Obama said: “Make no mistake: as long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defence to our allies.”

He added that the continued threat from Iran, as well as the North Korean test launch, underlined the need for the missile shield that the US, much to the dismay of Moscow, plans to base in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Yet the main thrust of Mr Obama’s nuclear disarmament initiative shows that he is intent on building bridges with Russia, China and, to a lesser extent, European countries such as Germany, which have balked at past American efforts to stop rogue states acquiring such weapons.

Gary Samore, the President’s arms control co-ordinator, said that the US was seeking “the moral high ground” so that other countries could no longer accuse it of double standards.

Mr Obama promised that he would seek immediate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, which the Senate has blocked previously.

In addition to the negotiations that he announced in London for a deal to cut the number of warheads held by Russia and America, he suggested yesterday that he may provide the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the authority that it has lacked.

Mr Obama spoke of the Velvet Revolution in which the Czechs had overthrown communism without a shot being fired. He said: “It proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.”

Later he met Vaclav Havel, the playwright who inspired that movement and became his country’s first leader after the Iron Curtain fell. Mr Havel warned Mr Obama to “be careful” because he knew how idealistic hope could turn to anger. The President replied with a rueful laugh.

BUT, he will get the credit for TRYING.

That is what this is about.

Also: it is pretty obvious which posters here have never worked on an organizational vision statement.

Even after trimming $60 billion from the Pentagon budget, America would spend nearly as much on defense as does the rest of the world combined. We would spend more than triple the amount spent by Russia, China, and the Axis of Evil combined.

Here's what America could accomplish with that $60 billion. We could:

- Provide health insurance to 9 million American kids who lack it
- Rebuild or modernize our public schools over 12 years
- Retrain a quarter million workers
- Cut our reliance on foreign oil in half over 10 years
- Restore recent cuts in life-saving medical research
- Invest wisely in Homeland Security by inspecting cargo containers entering our ports
- Save 6 million children who die of hunger-related diseases in impoverished countries annually
- [Apply it toward] the deficit



From http://www.truemajority.org/csba/priorities.php

It isn't Russia that you should be worried about with nukes. It is Iran, China, Korea, India, Pakistan, and other smaller countries that won't negotiate an arms treatise with the rest of the world.

Also: it is pretty obvious which posters here have never worked on an organizational vision statement.

I had out pieces of music to them, then spend days preaching an impossible goal: these pieces must be PERFECT. There can be no mistakes anywhere, and not just in notes and rhythms.

The problem with your analogy is that you, presumably, don't issue a press release to all students and parents that you're going to produce the perfect musical arrangement.

There, I just saved you 7 paragraphs of bullshit.

It was idealogues that pushed for the Iraq war. "We will be greeted as liberators." Fuck your ideals, right in the ear.

Man you guys are cynical. I don't understand what the problem is with setting high goals (even unrealistically high), and then working to try to achieve them. It's the working part that produces the positive product, and the idealistic goal helps to create the desire to go for it.

When I teach band, we do the same thing, on an obviously much smaller scale. I had out pieces of music to them, then spend days preaching an impossible goal: these pieces must be PERFECT. There can be no mistakes anywhere, and not just in notes and rhythms. There must be perfect dynamics, perfect intonation, perfect phrasing, and perfect tuning. On top of all that, we all must have a perfect understanding of what kind of musical interpretation we want as a group, and work together toward realizing that in every performance.

This is impossible. But in pushing for that kind of standard, the students respond. In fact, they often go beyond what they thought was possible before we set those goals. Time and time again they come back to me at the end of the term and say, "boy, I never thought we could do that much, or be that good." This combats the "it's ok to be mediocre" syndrome that plagued this small town band before I came along.

Why is this a bad thing? I want a leader that inspires us to push beyond what we think is "realistic" and then works toward that vision. Thank god Lincoln didn't say "the elimination of slavery is impossible." Would we have gotten to the moon if JFK had said, "maybe if we work hard, we might get some kind of animal in space some day." Hell no-- he set up the impossible, and pushed for it.

I do not want to be in a world where no one pushes for excellence, because excellence is deemed "unrealistic." We need idealists, to push us cynical folk beyond what we think is possible. We need those idealists to be leading us. If we all sit back and only be "realistic," perhaps the Revolutionary War would have never happened (make war with a bunch of farmers against the superpower of the earth at the time? hell no!). Our founding fathers pushed for the impossible, and got it because they refused to be realistic.

I want people out there looking for the elimination of poverty, disease, war, nuclear weapons, pollution, slavery, child sex trade, and more. Saying, "it will always be there" is a recipe for apathy and stagnation. We need these people to push us, friends. Screw "realistic." I'll take a man with charisma and idealism leading me any day. Let's see where it takes us! Get off your ass, stop complaining, and go out and try to achieve something great.

Neither did he. Read the article. He announced a "vision" of what he was going to attempt. This is exactly the same as what I do in my classroom. I give them the vision of what we are going to attempt, and we set about trying to achieve it.

Fuck you. This is my life work you are talking about, and I refuse to be pulled down by your cynicism/hate.

This isn't even close to the same. The ideal /= the method. If the ideal for Iraq was, "The Middle East will be full of democracies that love us," then that's something we can all get behind. That's a vision that almost none of us would disagree with, much like the idea of a world without any nuclear weapons. The problem with Iraq was the method which was insane from the beginning (and I'm proud to say I've always, ALWAYS said that). In a similar vein, if Obama's method is to simply reduce our own weapons to zero without getting the same from others, or getting rid of them by blowing them all up in New York, well then you might have a point. But I think it's pretty safe to say Obama isn't going to do that.

Defense also isn't just a pool of money. It pays people, gives them insurance, manufacturing jobs, research jobs, college grants, etc. so the gains should be compared to the losses as well.

What's a state going to do when it's losing out in the auto sector and has military vehicle production cut (i.e. Michigan, North Carolina, etc).

- Cut our reliance on foreign oil in half over 10 years

No. The correlation would be if he communicated his vision of zero nuclear weapons in the world to his team of professionals working to achieve that. He didn't. He got up in front of the world and proclaimed it. Please, stop moving the goalposts, again. Did you get up in front of the school and say that you were going to produce the perfect arrangement? If not, why not? It's perfectly acceptable to do so, according to your point of view. So why not put your money where your mouth is. When parents and other educators ask you why you promised something you could not attain, you could show them a printout of your compelling arguments here.

I'm pretty sure no school superintendent has given an interview saying he or she would pass every single child in his school system. If he or she did, they would deservedly get lambasted for it.

You should go back and re-read some of your posts directly to me over the past year.

That was completely incoherent, you know that, right?

That's the difference between you and me. I've sat through 8 years of ideological charades and I'm tired of it. I want to see meat on them bones. His wish for ending dependence on foreign oil in 10 years is another example of that.

His wish of eliminating lobbyists in the white house is yet another.

People like you look at these grandiose promises and actually BUY it. Worse, you praise him for it.

There's no critical thinking going on inside your head whatsoever.

Unfortunately for those of us who are NOT either right-wing fucknuts OR left-wing fucknuts, it's we who are caught in the middle of the two extremes who have to look at stuff like this and see the exact same thing happening all over again, just for a different team now.

How in the hell do you cut your reliance on foreign oil ever if you're not willing to drill here in the United States?

I understand we're trying to come up with new forms of energy, but petroleum is used for a lot more things than just gas for your car. Also take into account that most people won't immediately switch over to a new propulsion system for their cars and it's damn near impossible. Leo, your state is the worst about no drilling off of our beautiful coast.

Yes, thank goodness that Nuclear Arms elimination is just like teaching High School band. You do want to teach perfection teachers are failing where they DON'T demand perfection.

However, they were not impossible and we knew that it could be accomplished because we were in complete control of all the parameters. It would be easy to say "we will eliminate all of our Nuclear Weapons" it would be totally reckless and leave us in a indefensible position. There are too many power hungry dictators that crave that power thinking that it will make the rest of the world pay attention to them. Until there is a global desire to eliminate them, it will never happen.

Apples and oranges again.

Poverty (however failed the way we have been fighting it has been), Disease, pollution, slavery, child sex trade are things that we can combat because the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world wants them eliminate too.

War will never be eliminated. There will always be aggressors and each country will always be and want to be in a position to defend themselves, nuclear weapons are in that boat.

You can dream of a world that it all peace, love, rainbows and hugs but as long as there is more than one person on the planet there will be conflict.

We are supposed to elect a leader that knows the things that they can have an impact on changing (hopefully for the positive).

If you have a dreamer that has no real plan for accomplishment as president then you are putting un-elected people in power because that president isn't a leader that president it off in la-la-land dreaming and getting nothing done.

How in the hell do you cut your reliance on foreign oil ever if you're not willing to drill here in the United States?

'll try to make it more clear. He did not PROMISE that there would be no nuclear weapons. He stated a vision statement.

I don't remember ever attacking your method for doing your job. Hell, I don't even know what your job is.

Why do you have a problem with the VISION?

Again, he's taken steps in this direction. It's only been a few days, and your insistence that these things happen instantly is the true example of unrealistic here.

You'll have to point to a single post anywhere where I said that I believed these things would happen, 100%, 70 days into his presidency. I'm not an idiot, asshole. I like these vision statements because I recognize that the process of moving toward those statements makes us a better country. Are we going to rid the world of nuclear weapons in four years? No, but moving in that direction is a good thing to me. Are we going to end dependence on foreign oil in 10 years? No, but moving in that direction is a good thing for me. Are we going to eliminate lobbyists? No, but moving in that direction is a good thing for me.

Again, you are trying to tell me how impossible the goal may be. I AGREE. It doesn't make the pursuit of that goal worthless.

The thing your brain can't seem to grasp, Fribur, is that the goal isn't even DESIRED. If we do that, what deterrent do we have against invasion or nuclear attack? Who ensures that one of the dozen nuclear countries doesn't have a stockpile? We're in the game and there's no going back. The technology is known and will only become easier to take as more nations proceed towards the INEVITABLE advent of nuclear power.

It doesn't even warrant top 10 on our priority list, since it's not attainable.

Please, in the areas of lobbyists, foreign oil and nuclear weapons, name one thing he has done to advance the cause in any way. I can point you to MANY things that violate those principles in more significant ways.

What steps..? He said those people "will not have a job in my white house." Yet, they have jobs! heh. Please, explain it to me. Use small words. I seem to have a problem with accountability - I like to hold people accountable.

Because, as I've stated in two posts, Obama has a history, already, only 3 months in, of going back on his VISION! Public financing. FISA. Lobbyists. Deficits. I could give you direct quotes stating one thing, then ACTIONS that demonstrate the exact opposite. If we can't judge on actions, what can we judge on? What's the point in waiting 4 years when he's ALREADY violated his promises in so many areas.

Last, but certainly not least, is the sheer NUMBER of unattainable goals the administration has stated. Bearne should appreciate this, since he's such a organizational wizard, but you can't be good at ANYTHING if you're trying to be good at EVERYTHING. This bullshit about eliminating nukes.. who's vision statement is that? It doesn't even warrant top 10 on our priority list, since it's not attainable.

Eliminating nuclear weapons is impossible. Will never happen, and furthermore, research into developing BETTER nuclear weapons will never stop, either. Not one nation that has nukes will eliminate them, and not one nation that DOESN'T have nukes will stop trying to get them. You can't un-invent it.

and wasting time on impossible goals

Which will still be enough for each country to blow up the world a few hundred times over.

There, I just saved you 7 paragraphs of bullshit.

Fuck you. This is my life work you are talking about, and I refuse to be pulled down by your cynicism/hate.

Has he really done anything substantial besides the car emissions stuff, order to eventually close guantanimo, and lobbyist ban that he immediately violated?).

think the order to send an additional 5k troops to Afghanistan was a good move(and he apparently also got NATO to follow suit, good luck Bush doing that).

Getting the plans and preparations to pull out of Iraq is more or less an ongoing process in terms of getting things done, and he's gotten a good start on that.

Some of the bailouts I felt were necessary, that's done for now(plenty of disagreement on that issue of course).

If I recall correctly he also signed an order to ban torture of detainees.

. I was also pleased with the order he signed with regard to presidential records, which undid the crap that Bush did with them(making no time limit for the President to review etc).

I would also call the relaxing of relations with European countries with this recent European visit getting something done, especially given the last 8 years of Bush.

In addition to what Venen has pointed out, I also like the way he's opened dialogue to Iran, giving us a chance to start over.

He's also passed a stimulus package that while I don't like parts of it, also has some things I do like.

But those aren't negative, so therefore Joxur will not bring them up (aside from the one little thread he made just to prove he wasn't one-sided. lolz).

Joxur's right though. I'm "running away." I think my first post about the need for inspirational goals made my point well enough. The rest was me wallowing in the mud, something I regret. It's like talking to a wall. You win, Joxur!

In 1940, our Armed Forces weren't among the twelve most formidable, but obviously we were about to fight a big war. When Roosevelt said the US would produce 50,000 airplanes in the next five years, everyone thought it was a joke, and it was, because it turned out we could produce 100,000 planes to give the Air Force an Armada that would block the sun.

I think giving people a vision of government that's more than Social Security checks and debt reduction is good. I think government should be optimistic.