Obama's war speech was ok as far as it went. But it did seem like he was trying to play to all constituencies. Maybe that was all he could do. Still, the outcry against escalating was strong from the left, as was the perceived delay from the ever-ready-to-judge right wing. Too bad in many ways Obama has no ability to try to make sense of another form of courage as Herbert suggests. I suppose the archetypal nature of the American presidency is that you have to make bold moves and be perceived as strong and militaristic. Bush's swaggering 'Mission Accomplished' was probably the ultimate in presidential performance art and was entirely based on a dissembling that should be embossed in modern history. Remark was made that Obama has learned a good military salute, which was on display when he greeted returning bodies at Dover. Interesting that we have had recently presidents without military experience, including Clinton, Bush-Cheney, and now Obama. I can see perhaps the 'terrible love of war' that Hillman and others have written about as having a kind of sentimental psychic factor for people elected to the office. One wonders what Hillary Clinton would have done with these leftover wars. Probably would have gone along with the generals or with Gates. The transitional figures in the administrations--Gates, Patraeus, et. al., I suppose were helpful in getting Obama up to speed after a militarist run that even sadly created Iraq, which we now know to have been premised on bogus notions. Still, I like Kucinech's idea of a Dept. of Peace, and I think we could find relevant persons to man or woman it and not lose any international respect. Obama has gone out of his way to play diplomat to Bush's operational war-mongering, but even with the Nobel Peace Prize, he has to look militarily cool. An interview with a cadet at West Point revealed that the know-nothing military mind is intact, 'don't tell me about the intellectual equivalences for dispute about what we are doing, me and my fellow soldiers are serving our great country and will be ready when called up to fight when and where we are directed.' Perhaps ultimately there are too many forces, too many conflicting ambivalences to find the moral equivalent of a peace that might be established with diplomacy and negotiation. Still, those of us who are veterans of the years when Vietnam was a continuing dark spasm of misguided use of  human potential, can see there is much to be said for staying the course for Peace, which paradoxically involves stillness and inner work and not reaching for guns or certainties.