The Empire President: Jeremy Scahill on Obama’s "Neo-Con" Doctrine of Military Force in U.N. Speech
GUESTS
Jeremy Scahill, National Security correspondent for The Nation. He is the producer and writer of the documentary film, "Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield," and also the author of the book by the same name.
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In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama openly embraced an aggressive military doctrine backed by previous administrations on using armed force beyond the international norm of self-defense. Obama told the world that the United States is prepared to use its military to defend what he called "our core interests" in the Middle East: U.S. access to oil. "[Obama] basically came out and said the U.S. is an imperialist nation and we’re going to do whatever we need to do to conquer areas [and] take resources from people around the world," says independent journalist Jeremy Scahill. "It’s a really naked declaration of imperialism ... When we look back at Obama’s legacy, this is going to have been a very significant period in U.S. history where the ideals of very radical right-wing forces were solidified. President Obama has been a forceful, fierce defender of empire."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the great Somali-Canadian rapper, K’naan. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I am Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to turn back to President Obama’s address at the U.N. General Assembly. During a speech Obama told the world the US is prepared to use its military to defend what he termed “our core interests in the Middle East,” that is US access to oil.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: The United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests in the region. We will confront external aggression our allies and partners, as we did in the Gulf War. We will ensure the free flow of energy from the region to the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was President Obama speaking yesterday at the U.N. General assembly. Jeremy, your response to what Obama said in his speech.
JEREMY SCAHILL: During this section of the speech my jaw sort of hit the floor. He basically came out and said the United States is an imperialist nation and we are going to do whatever we need to conquer areas to take resources from around the world. I mean, it was a really naked sort of declaration of imperialism, and I don’t use that word lightly, but it really is. I mean, he pushed back against the Russians when he came out and said I believe America is an exceptional nation. He then defended the Gulf War and basically said that the motivation behind it was about oil and said we are going to continue to take such actions in pursuit of securing natural resources for ourselves and our allies. I mean, this was a pretty incredible and bold declaration he was making, especially given the way that he has tried to portray himself around the world. On the other hand, you know, remember what happened right before Obama took the stage is that the president of Brazil got up, and she herself is a former political prisoner who was abused and targeted in a different lifetime, and she gets up and just blasts the United States over the NSA spy program around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: We have President Dilma Rousseff in her address to the U.N. General Assembly.
PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF: We are a democratic country, surrounded by democratic, peaceful countries that respect international law. We have been living in peace with our neighbors for more than 140 years. Like so many other Latin Americans, I, myself, fought on a first-hand basis against arbitrary behavior and censorship, and I could therefore not possibly fail to uncompromisingly defend individuals’ rights to privacy and my country’s sovereignty.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the Brazilian president openly criticizing U.S. spying on her government, the news that just broke from the Edward Snowden releases that was released by Globo Newspaperin Brazil by Glenn Greenwald, U.S. journalist who lives in Brazil. Jeremy, you are headed down there for the opening of your film, “Dirty Wars” this week.
JEREMY SCAHILL: I was there when this story was breaking. It is a major, major scandal in Brazil. It was such a major scandal that the president canceled her state dinner with President Obama. This was not just like sitting in the Oval Office or something. This is a thing where they create a huge menu and they invite all these people and it was meant to sort of secure this relationship of these 2 huge western hemisphere powers. Brazil is a rising power in the western hemisphere and this was to be a very important moment in the history of relations between the U.S. and Brazil and for the Brazilians to cancel it just shows you the severity of this scandal. I mean, all around the world right now in the aftermath of the Wiki leaks, cables being revealed, now you have the Edward Snowden documents. People around the world have access to documentation that in some cases is bolstering what people already thought was going on, but in other cases it is revealing the extent of dirty tricks that the United States is playing on other nations around the world, not to mention its own citizens.
We are at this moment where President Obama appears at the U.N. and only made passing reference really to the NSA scandal. My understanding is that he was in the car when the President of Brazil was speaking and I don’t know if he heard her speech or not. Maybe they already had access to it because they are all up in her e-mails; but at the end of the day you have this democratic president who won the Nobel Peace Prize who then goes and stands in front of the United Nations and basically stakes out a neo-con vision of American foreign policy and owns it and kind of wraps it in this cloak of democratic legitimacy. I think when we look back at Obama’s legacy, this is going to have been a very significant period in U.S. history where the ideals of very sort of radical right wing forces were solidified and continued under Mr. Constitutional Law Professor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner. It is really kind of devastating what is going on right now and I think if you take the long view of it or you step back and look at it and don’t just see the tress but look at the forest, President Obama has been a forceful, fierce defending of empire and I think that is going to be the enduring legacy of his presidency is that he was an empire president.
AMY GOODMAN: We also just had the latest news out of Pakistan of a drone strike. The drone strikes that are continuing?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Both in Yemen and in Pakistan the U.S. is continuing forward with its not so covert war and I think, remember President Obama in May gave this big speech at the National Defense University where he owned the fact that they had killed 4 American citizens and then asserted that the United States is going to continue to do this, this is going to go on and on. This isn’t stopping any time soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, we want to thank you for being with us, National Security Correspondent for The Nation, correspondent also for Democracy Now!, producer and writer of the documentary film “Dirty Wars: The War is a Battlefield” and also the book by the same name. This weekend the films has its South American premiere at the Rio International Film Festival in Brazil where Jeremy Scahill with joint Glenn Greenwald for a discussion afterwards. On October 15 “Dirty Wars” will be released in the United States via Netflix and Itunes as well as on DVD.
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