And here is another thoughtful
piece in the Guardian.
And a good
essay by Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch.
And finally
one by Paul Craig Roberts.
Sorry, just found
one that echoes my sentiments exactly:
Quote:
After all the months of lead-up and hype, few could have imagined that this speech would contain nothing of substance. Surely Obama would feel the need to announce some new initiative on at least one of the major matters of concern to the Muslim world...
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Quote:
Surely he had to have some hopeful surprise up his sleeve. Wrong. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
There were, of course, many eloquent mood-music paragraphs and a smattering of quotes from the Holy Quran (as well as the Bible and the Talmud). Obama obviously believes that America's unchanged objectives with respect to the Muslim world are more likely to be pursued successfully by being polite and complimentary than by being rude and intentionally insulting. But the mood-music paragraphs dealt with atmospherics or the past. When it came to the present and the future and to concrete matters of American objectives and policies, there was nothing new. Nothing hopeful. Nothing.
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