The Reality Doesn't Quite Match the Eloquence

Barack Obama's eloquence was on full display yesterday in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, where he extolled the body to work for peace and cooperation. In the area of nuclear disarmament he said, "The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise and that treaties will be enforced." On global peace and security he said ,"All of us must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip service."

But eloquent speech making on nuclear disarmament and global peace and security is one thing. Reality on the other hand is quite another matter.

We are engaged in two premptive wars of choice where there was no imminent threat to the United States which is a clear violation of the U.N. Charter of which we are a signatory. We have committed torture against detainees and held them indefinitely without charging them, violations of our own military code of justice as well as the Geneva Convention on the rules of war regarding prisoners of war.

We are the biggest arms supplier in the world. We have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, armed, ready and capable of hitting anywhere in the world. We have military bases throughout the world and our Defense Department budget dwarfs all other countries combined.

If our actions do not square with our rhetoric, no matter how eloquent it may be, it is our hypocrisy that becomes self evident. That is a sad and ugly truth and we are not facing it.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future