Beacon Street Journal

Let’s give him credit: Obama gives a good speech. His cadence and rhythm of delivery is excellent. But, his abilities in this regard are overrated. If one strips bare all the stock, and by now, predictable platitudes that form the basis for his orations, what one finds is a lot of cheerful, but empty sloganeering that often times seeks to reconcile the irreconcilable (Philadelphia speech) or that in the end, reveals that there is no unifying or meaningful theme throughout, but rather, the presence of a lot of syrupy, mellifluous mush. Thus, a common reaction among many ordinary folks after hearing Obama’s lofty rhetoric is: What does it all mean? Obama’s Berlin speech will be familiar to many Americans, for it contained a lot of his trademark bromides, similar platitudes and vacuous but empty sermonizing. 

I think the favorable review given by many commentators confuses the size and ebullience of the crowd in Berlin with the profundity or intellectual depth of the message delivered. Unlike great statesmen who have preceded Obama at the same venue, it was not a response to a critical historical conflict or challenge (save for, in his own eyes, his candidacy), rather it was largely a solipsist discourse, whose principal utility, was the anticipated favorable images it would convey back home with hopes of elevating his stature. Obama’s speech was a Kumbaya moment delivered on a continent that, blissfully relieved of bearing the responsibilities and shouldering the commitments of superpower status, lives in a Kumbaya world.

The grandiloquent and feel-good themes interlaced throughout his address, are very much indicative of a man who, despite his intelligence, has an appalling ignorance of history. Obama’s weaving of the “wall” metaphor throughout his speech was historically unintelligible and seemed odd given the locus of his speech. Without the construction of the Wall in the early 1960’s, East Berlin would have been a ghost-town, as residents of that city sought to flee the yoke of Communist oppression. By his speech, Obama seems to have forgotten that it was the Soviet Union who built the wall, and it was the determination and resolve of the United States that was largely responsible for its destruction. 

Barack Obama’s speech found a receptive audience amongst the citizens of Berlin because he is a fellow traveller. With his calls for less unilateralism, more international cooperation; the naive belief that more “diplomacy” is the answer to the resolution of all intractable conflict, in conjunction with his call for the redistribution of wealth between nations, Obama, is at heart, a European Socialist. His speech was a clarion call for the exercise of more “soft power.” Obama knew his target audience well, for in a very real sense, they live in a world of make believe: an Alice-in-Wonderland world where power finds its expression in the belief in the rectitude and necessity of transnational institutions from The Hague to individual courts in Belgium, who seek to expand their influence and power by exercising “universal jurisdiction” over United States citizens for their purported involvement in war crimes.

The reality is that without the exercise of American military power, the decades old conflict in the Balkans would never have been ended. So too, the establishment in its aftermath, of the war crimes tribunal, one of the transnational institutions of which Europeans are so fond, would never have been convened had it not been for the application of American military force in the region — a region that, although in Europe’s backyard — Europeans proved incapable of acting in concert to stem the genocide.

Precisely because they have chosen to apply their resource to increase social welfare spending to the detriment of maintaining even a marginal military capability, there is an infatuation amongst many Europeans for international treaties, and transnational organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, that through the application of “international law” seek to abrogate the sovereignty, and constrain the influence and power of the United States. Of course the Germans loved his speech, it provided comfort and solicitude to those who have benefited greatly, but who have at the same time, been absolved for the last half-century, of the great and sometimes onerous burdens and responsibilities of being the worlds superpower. This helps explain why those mushy and pollyannish portions of Obama’s speech that called for more “understanding”, for the tearing down everywhere of “walls” that separate and divide us, evoked all the applause. Whereas, the one moment in the speech that was tethered to reality, wherein Obama called on the Germans to assume more of the combat responsibilities in thwarting the imminent dangers of Al Queda terrorists in Iraq, elicited no cacophony of approval. In this regard, the reaction of the otherwise adoring crowd, was telling by its silence.

The predominantly young crowd in Berlin that found Obama’s words so soothing, like Obama, need to study their history more diligently. For how soon they forget. Obama’s characterization of the Berlin blockade as a moment when Berliners stood firm tells only part of the story. By not crediting the decisive role of the United States in that struggle, Obama committed academic malpractice. Why no mention of the fact that the only instrument that broke the Soviets stranglehold over the city, was the application of American ingenuity, tenacity of purpose and resolve. American military cargo planes flying non-stop relief missions were responsible, albeit with the assistance of the citizens of Berlin, for breaking the Soviet blockade. Why did Obama find it so hard to pay respects to his own nation that acted as a bulwark during the cold war to check a rapacious Soviet foreign policy?

Perhaps Obama did not want to trouble the young people in the crowd with the painful historical reality of the cold war and the central and prominent role the United States played in winning that conflict. Indeed, it would have been very sobering for the cheerful crowd to have been reminded, that not too long ago, the only thing that kept the 50 Soviet Divisions, coiled like a spring at the heart of then West Germany, from crossing the Elbe, was the presence of the American trip-wire troops on the front lines as well as the shield of our tactical nuclear deterrent umbrella. 

Like his much ballyhooed speech on race in Philadelphia, the key premise of which was rendered inoperative a few weeks later, the speech in Berlin will be forgotten shortly. It will largely become a footnote to a successful PR campaign in which he engaged to shore up his foreign policy credentials. Barack Obama may have pleased the crowd, but, essentially, he said nothing of consequence. In stark contrast to the moral imperatives and clarion call for resoluteness contained within the epoch speeches of Kennedy and Regan who preceded him, it was an oration singularly lacking in historical moment precisely because of its vacuity and historical relativism and revision.