During president Obama's address last night regarding the current conflict with the extremist Islamic group called ISIS, he discussed the war in overoptimistic ways. Although this may have been justified so that the general population could have understood the current situation, I think that he left a lot of information out, particularly about the crisis itself. As I was watching it with my sisters next to me, my little sister continued to ask questions about the war in general and my older sister had many specific questions about it. All of these conflicts in the Middle East are very complex and hard to understand because of all of the religious, social, and political factors, but I thought that he could have done a much better job of explaining it so that the people (like my sisters) who haven’t studied all of the different events in the Middle East which played into it could have better understood who exactly we are going against, and exactly who we are trying to help, because this address should be for the whole nations understanding.
Although I think that Obama could have done a better job in his speech with clarifying the situation, I also think that he did an excellent job in terms of the format of his argument so that it would appeal to both the humanitarians and the patriots. He talked about all of the innocent people who are being killed in the Middle East because of ISIS which evoked a sense of empathy in me and brought out the desire to fight back in the humanitarian side of me. In addition, he also invoked a sense of patriotism in me when he said how they had threatened the United States. Obama had a well-crafted argument which could have won over many people, but may have assumed the American people had more previous knowledge than they did.
Jane, I completely agree that Mr. Obama was incredibly vague, it seems he was effective in all persuasive categories however left the American public asking more questions than before.
ReplyDeleteI thought he was good at going strait to the point. I liked how he listed out the steps of the plan. I agree that he was vague on reasons to go back into war, especially since there are certain audience members who may not get the whole picture.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I thought that his argument was well-formatted and that he did a good job of appealing to both people's sense of patriotism and humanitarianism. I also agree that he could have been much more specific about the conflict itself to help people who haven't studied the middle east understand whats going on, but I thought that he did a good job of making the points he wanted to make even if he wasn't that specific.
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