In zijn studie Projecting The End of the American Dream. Hollywood's Visions of U.S. Decline (2013) wijst de Amerikaanse hoogleraar Liberal Arts, Gordon B. Arnold, erop dat na 1945:
victory came [with] a distinctly national point of view about the rightful place of the United States in world affairs. Succes in the war further reinforced American exceptionalist self-perceptions, of the nation's role as special outlier (unieke uitzondering. svh) in world history with a rightful place at the head of nations. For many Americans, the leading role of the United States was (and is) a moral right, based on the idea that the American brand of democracy has innate virtues that are self-evident and self-justifying. Some people took his reasoning further, suggesting that the United States' place as world leader is a divine right, sanctified by God.
Gezien vanuit het blanke, christelijke superioriteitsdenken is die Amerikaanse houding geenszins uniek geweest. De Europese kolonisten in de Nieuwe Wereld waren niets anders gewend, ze gebruikten exact dezelfde gewelddadige genocidale politiek als de Europese koloniale machten al eeuwenlang toepasten in de hele wereld. De enige rechtvaardiging die de Europeanen zichzelf hadden verschaft, was de overtuiging superieur te zijn aan de 'primitieve' volkeren elders. Hun superieure witte huid, hun al even superieure blanke God, en hun superieure technologie gaven hen het goddelijk 'recht' om over de mensheid te heersen. In dat opzicht had de vooraanstaande Amerikaanse neoconservatieve politicoloog, wijlen Samuel P. Huntington, volkomen gelijk dat '[p]ower remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate,' en dat '[t]he West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.' De -- inherent --corrupte macht dient een rechtvaardiging te verzinnen voor haar terreur elders anders speelt het geweten teveel op. Daarbij is allereerst een vijand noodzakelijk, die het voortbestaan van de 'onschuldigen' bedreigt. Professor Huntington gaf daarvan een kenmerkend voorbeeld toen hij in 1981 schreef:
you may have to sell [intervention or other military action] in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting. That is what the United States has been doing ever since the Truman Doctrine,
die het begin van de Koude Oorlog inluidde. Vanuit het besef dat een staat, zeker als die in een langdurige crisis verkeert, alleen door het creëren van een externe vijand de interne cohesie kan bewaren, is het geenszins verbazingwekkend dat na de val van de Sovjet Unie, gevolgd door een kort durende periode van vreedzame coëxistentie en zelfs vrede, het Westen de Koude Oorlog heeft hervat. En wie zijn beter geschikt om deze waanzin aan de massa te verkopen dan gerespecteerde opiniemakers als in Nederland Henk Hofland en Geert Mak, de één bejubeld door de zelfbenoemde 'politiek-literaire elite' en de ander een bestseller-auteur, wiens populistische opvattingen door een mainstream-publiek worden verslonden? Vanwege hun kleinburgerlijke opvattingen zijn zowel Hofland als Mak niet in staat door de mythes heen te prikken. In tegenstelling tot professor Gordon Arnold:
Indeed, winning World War II significantly added to and enhanced the American narrative, providing a heroic dimension to the existing American myth. In some ways, the story that Americans told themselves about their nation was a story of the United States the good, the United States the just…
Germany and Japan were seen as enemies that presented clearly existential threats to the survival and well-being of United States. This conceptual framework, with its stark moral divide between the United States as a force of good and its enemies as the embodiment of evil, reinforced a conceptual dynamic that persisted long after World War II.
Dit nu is precies de reden waarom Geert Mak, ondanks de miljoenen doden tijdens de Vietnam-oorlog en het ten val brengen van democratische regeringen, anno 2012 nog steeds beweert dat de VS na 1945 ‘decennialang als ordebewaker en politieagent [fungeerde] – om maar te zwijgen van alle hulp die het uitdeelde,’ en waarom Henk Hofland onweersproken kan spreken van 'het vredestichtende Westen.' De in hun ogen superieure blanke cultuur met als hoekstenen democratie en mensenrechten moet wel 'a force of good' zijn en daarmee 'its enemies the embodiment of evil.' Alleen een idioot begrijpt dit niet. Nogmaals de Amerikaanse hoogleraar Gordon Arnold in de rol van 'idioot':
Much political rhetoric in the years since has tended to define the United States' moral character by comparing the United States to what it is not. In this way, powerful enemies have been important instruments in the creation and maintenance of American self-perceptions.
Thus consensus perceptions of the United States World War II enemies as embodiments of danger and evil helped further a widespread feeling of unity among Americans. The threat of these external foes provided a compelling reason for Americans to largely set aside — or at least minimize attention to — many of their differences and instead join together in a spirit of camaraderie. Indeed, enemies can serve important political purposes. They can have the effect of uniting nations and driving national consensus. As political scientist Murray Edelman has written: 'In constructing such enemies and the narrative plots that define their place in history, people are manifestly defining themselves and their place in history as well; the self-definition lends passion to the whole transaction.'
Als zodanig verwerft opiniemaker Henk Hofland, voor wie de eerste Koude Oorlog het hoogtepunt in zijn carrière was, zich nu opnieuw een plaats in de 'geschiedenis' door Het Kwaad in 'Poetin' te projecteren. Zonder een zorgvuldig gekweekte vijand is zijn rol als vooraanstaand opiniemaker namelijk uitgespeeld. Dus terwijl Washington, Wall Street en hun NAVO druk doende zijn Rusland te omsingelen met militaire bases, beweert Hofland
Het is dus noodzaak voor het Westen om grenzen aan de Russische expansie te stellen. We naderen het stadium waarin van Poetin alles te verwachten valt.
Kenmerkend was Geert Mak's reactie op 5 mei 2014, toen de mainstream-journalist in het televisieprogramma Eén op Eén de huidige situatie in de EU met die in de VS rond 1861 vergeleek:
Als je kijkt naar Amerika, dat heeft ook in zo'n soort fase gezeten, vlak voor de burgeroorlog. Nou wil ik niet gelijk met oorlog beginnen hoor, maar…
Toen programmamaker Sven Kockelmann hier onmiddellijk gretig op insprong door op te merken:
U zegt het, daar was een burgeroorlog nodig om een federatie tot stand te brengen. Wij hebben toch geen burgeroorlog gehad?
Als in een reflex antwoordde Mak:
Nou, wij hebben nu meneer Poetin bijvoorbeeld, hė!
Met zijn eurocentrisch, blank, christelijk wereldbeeld en zijn 'stark moral divide between the United States as a force of good and its enemies as the embodiment of evil,' toonde Mak zonder het te beseffen aan welke rol 'meneer Poetin' in de westerse propaganda speelt. De president van de Russische federatie 'dwingt Europa om meer aan defensie uit te geven,' aldus de nationale 'chroniqueur' van 'onze' tijd. En dit alles in de 'hoop' dat er door het creëren van een externe vijand een eind zal komen aan de interne problemen van de failliete pro-Atlantische Europese Unie, met haar NAVO, die nu onder leiding van de VS de hele wereld als potentiële vijand beschouwt en als offensieve geweldsorganisatie overal kan worden ingezet. Gordon Arnold:
A wartime foe that represents a different a different way of life or a different set of interests can instantly allow a people to see themselves as a people and to view conflict through a lens of good and evil. Political leaders have long recognized the power of conceiving things in this way. They have often relied upon the popularity of the war metaphor in American politics (.e.g., 'war on drugs,' 'war against poverty') in order to add clarity (perhaps not always successfully) and a moral dimension to otherwise complex problems.
Van complexiteit moeten de Hofland en Mak niets hebben, dat verwart hun publiek alleen maar, en schaadt daardoor hun reputatie en inkomen. Temidden van de chaos die beiden 'orde' betitelen, moet er een haarscherp kunstmatig onderscheid worden gemaakt tussen de 'good guys' en de 'bad guys.' Het simplistische christelijke manicheïsme is daarbij al millennia-lang een redding. Zoals in elke religie wordt logica daarbij genegeerd, het zijn juist de ressentimenten die in de strijd worden geworpen. Professor Arnold:
The call to war, whether in a real or metaphorical sense, also heightens the stakes at an emotional level. It is not a call to examine some problem; it is a call for decisive action. The language of war is therefore useful for mobilizing citizens who might otherwise be content to let some situation stand as it is. But the heightened emotional stakes in war rhetoric can be used for less than noble purposes, as well. In the frenzy before and during war, rationality can take a setback, and the potential for manipulation can be very real.
Enemies also serve potent ideological and national purposes… Enemies provide a counterpoint that helps confirm national identity. They are negative examples that demonstrate to a people, as well as to other members of the world community, who they are by showing who they are not. From one perspective, then, enemies are a vital part of modern political culture. So, while a people may yearn for peace and tranquility both within and outside national borders, there is nonetheless a cultural usefulness for opponents, the existence of which can draw people together and help a people define who they are.
En als de hetze niet lukt dan concludeert Henk Hofland in De Groene Amsterdammer teleurgesteld dat 'in West-Europa een populistisch alarmisme wortel heeft geschoten. Het zaait angst, maar het heeft geen uitvoerbare oplossing.' In zijn optiek en die van de macht, is alleen het grootscheepse NAVO c.q. Amerikaanse geweld een 'uitvoerbare oplossing,' zoals de totale chaos in Afghanistan, Irak en Libië hebben aangetoond. Op zijn beurt was Geert Mak gedwongen in te zien dat '[h]et Europese project als geheel nu al zwaar [is] beschadigd,' een feit dat vroeger de macht als het ware 'dwong' een oorlog te beginnen. Vandaar dat Mak naderhand verklaarde dat 'meneer Poetin' met zijn 'expansionisme' het Europa van de NAVO 'dwingt om meer aan defensie uit te geven.' Nog meer dus dan de huidige uitgaven aan het westers militair industrieel complex, uitgaven die in NAVO-verband nu al ruim 11 keer hoger zijn dan die van Rusland. Mak en Hofland zijn voor de oorlogsindustrie hun gewicht in goud waard. En zo zien 'we' een herhaling van zetten. Nogmaals een fragment uit Projecting The End of the American Dream:
Thus, in the period immediately following World War II, the external threats that Germany and Japan represented during the war was soon replaced by the USSR… It would not be long until this enemy would be regarded as even more dangerous than the enemies that had come before. Over time, the identification and positioning against enemies helped Americans reinforce their ideas about themselves and their nation… what increasingly was seen was the threat of a mysterious and ominous enemy… and when this enemy on the outside seemed poised to threaten the United States internally and existentially, it shook the confidence that otherwise characterized the United States' view of itself. This anxious feeling was evident throughout the cultural landscape… World War II presented the nation with a frightening, existential threat. The nation's enemies seemed to have global ambitions that would crush all who stood in their way. These background elements helped frame American experience (and Hollywood's subsequent reflection of it) in ways that emphasized stark choices of good versus evil. And they helped pave the way for imagining that there might be dire consequences if the United States were to succumb to either the internal threat of immorality or the external dangers of communism.
En nu het heersende kapitalistische hedonisme -- al dan niet met geweld -- is geglobaliseerd, en er dus geen economische vijanden meer zouden moeten zijn, blijkt steeds meer dat het neoliberale systeem onhoudbaar is geworden als gevolg van de groeiende kloof tussen arm en rijk, de klimaatverandering, de dreigende uitputting van de grondstoffen, de toenemende concurrentie van de BRIC-landen op de voorheen door het Westen gemonopoliseerde wereldmarkt en de bevolkingsexplosie. In een werkelijkheid die 85 miljardairs zo obsceen rijk heeft gemaakt dat ze inmiddels evenveel bezitten als de helft van de hele mensheid is de kapitalistische vooruitgangsmythe vanzelfsprekend ongeloofwaardig geworden. De armen en berooiden op aarde, die ieder voor zich met één of hooguit twee dollar per dag, moeten zien te overleven, zijn gaan beseffen dat het kapitalistische neoliberalisme hen bewust heeft afgeschreven. En hoe hard en langdurig de Hoflanden en Makkianen hun propaganda ook blijven verspreiden, dit feit verdwijnt niet langer meer achter een mist van woorden als democratie en mensenrechten en consequentie-loze goede bedoelingen. In toenemende mate blijkt hoe leeg Hoflands en Mak's woorden en gebaren zijn. In plaats van beschaamd te zwijgen zijn ze evenwel zo verslaafd aan alle aandacht die ze krijgen dat ze doorgaan met hun krankzinnig gezwets. Tot straks de geschiedenis ook hun voordeur binnenmarcheert. Misschien ontsnapt de hoogbejaarde Hofland net op tijd, maar van Mak ben ik het niet zo zeker. Als hij net als zijn vader 83 wordt, dan heeft hij nog 15 jaar te gaan. Ik vrees dat de wereld tegen die tijd ingrijpend is veranderd, mede door de onnozelheid van 'onze' bewierookte opiniemakers als Geert Mak en Henk Hofland.
http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2014/07/24/dont-blame-putin-for-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17/
JUNE 17, 2015
Carter Takes Over
Seven Days in May?
“Since its founding, the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals, first on the North American continent, then in the Western hemisphere, and finally globally.” Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J.Tellis, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China, The Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, March 2015“It is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia and uphold the security of Asia.” Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
The United States will do whatever is necessary to maintain its dominant position in the world. Less than two years ago, no one thought that Washington would topple a regime on Moscow’s doorstep, insert a US-backed stooge in Kiev, arm and train neo-Nazi extremists in the Ukrainian Army, instigate and oversee a vicious war of aggression in the East, threaten to deploy NATO to within five hundred miles of the Russian capital, reassemble the Iron Curtain by building up forces, weaponry and missile systems in E. Europe and the Balkans, and repeatedly provoke a nuclear-armed adversary (Russia) by launching asymmetrical attacks on its economy, its financial system and its currency. The reason Washington pursued such a risky strategy is because EU-Russian economic integration posed a direct threat to US global hegemony, so steps had to be taken to thwart the project. The US used all the tools at its disposal to drive a wedge between Brussels and Moscow, to sabotage the plan to create a free trade zone from “Lisbon to Vladivostok”, and to prevent the emergence of a new rival. Washington powerbrokers did what they felt they had to do to preserve their lofty position in the current world order. Now their focus has shifted to the Asia-Pacific where they intend to take similar action against another potential rival, China.
According to the Economist, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will surpass that of the United States by 2021. In other words, if present trends persist, China will become the world’s biggest economy in less than a decade. But what are the chances that present trends will continue if Beijing is embroiled in a conflagration with the US; a conflagration where the US turns China’s trading partners against Beijing like it did with Moscow, a conflagration in which more of China’s resources are devoted to national defense rather than economic growth, a conflagration in which oil shipments from the Middle East are interrupted or cut off completely?
If any of these things were to happen, China would probably slip into recession dashing its chances of becoming the world’s biggest economy. The point here is that China’s rise is not inevitable as many people seem to think. It depends on things that China cannot completely control, like Washington’s provocations in the Spratly Islands which are designed to slow China’s growth by isolating Beijing and drawing it into a confrontation that saps its energy and depletes its resources.
There was an interesting article on the US Naval Institute’s website titled “Asymmetric Warfare, American Style” that explains in part what the Pentagon may be trying to achieve by harassing Beijing over its harmless land reclamation activities in the Spratlys. Here’s a clip from the article:
“In the nuclear age, guarding the homeland from an unlimited counterstroke is about more than merely preventing invasion. Forestalling nuclear escalation means keeping the scope and duration of combat operations low enough—and thus unprovocative enough—that Beijing would not countenance using doomsday weapons to get its way. It is important, then, for Washington to limit its efforts through the type and amount of force deployed, staying below the nuclear threshold. American strategists’ goal should be to design operations that insert “disposal” forces….to support allies while making life difficult for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA)” (Asymmetric Warfare, American Style, Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, US Naval Institute)
This, I imagine, is the objective of the current policy; to inflict maximum punishment on China without actually triggering a nuclear war. It’s a tightrope act that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter feels he can manage judging by the way he has gradually increased the pressure on China and then watched to see what the reaction is. And there are indications that the Carter method is working too. On June 16, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that it planned to complete land reclamation projects within days. While the announcement is a clear stand-down on Beijing’s part, it did include one face-saving proviso that “China would follow up by building infrastructure to carry out functions ranging from maritime search and rescue to environmental conservation and scientific research.” The carefully-worded statement will be taken by Washington as a sign that Beijing is looking for a way to end the crisis without appearing like it’s caving in. China’s reaction is likely to convince Carter that his approach is working, that China can be bullied into making concessions in its own backyard, and that more pressure can be applied without risking a nuclear war. Thus, rather than ending the dispute, the Foreign Ministry’s announcement has paved the way for an escalation of hostilities.
Carter’s approach to China is not particularly unique, in fact, it has a lot in common with the Soviet containment strategy propounded by the late George F. Kennan who said: The U.S. “has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the breakup or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.”
While it’s clear that US policy relies heavily on coercion, the US is being far more reckless in its dealings with China than it was with the Soviet Union. Sec-Def Carter made his demands on China (to end all land reclamation activities) without ever seeking a settlement through normal diplomatic channels. This suggests that the US doesn’t really want peace, but wants to use the Spratly’s for some other purpose, as a pretext for ratcheting up the tensions, for demonizing China in the media, for cobbling together an anti-China coalition in the region, and for encircling China to the West.
Keep in mind, that the so called pivot to Asia –which President Obama referred to as the United States “top priority”– is, at its heart, a plan for economic supremacy. The foofaraw in the Spratlys is just the military component of the broader “Grand Strategy” which is aimed at dominating the prosperous Asian markets for the next century. Carter admitted as much in a speech he gave at the McCain Institute earlier in the year where he said the rebalance was about “access to growing markets” ..”to help boost our exports and our economy”…”and cement our influence and leadership in the fastest-growing region in the world.” These are Carter’s own words, and they help to explain why the US is hectoring China. Washington needs an excuse for intensifying hostilities in the South China Sea so it can use its military to achieve its political and economic goals. At the same time, any retaliation on China’s part will be used as a justification for upping the ante; for deploying more troops to the region, for enlisting proxies to challenge Beijing in its own territorial waters, and for tightening the naval cordon to the West.
The Obama administration is fully committed to the new policy, in fact, there was an interesting report in last week’s Washington Times about the sacking of high-ranking government officials who were insufficiently hostile towards China. Here’s a clip from the article:
“The Obama administration appears to be in the early phase of a policy shift on China. Tougher rhetoric and policies, most recently demonstrated by remarks in Asia from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, coincide with the departures of two key officials long known for advocating more conciliatory policies toward Beijing…Paul Heer, who for years held the influential post of national intelligence officer for East Asia….was known for a steadfast bias that sought to play down the various threats posed by China in favor of more conciliatory views (while) A second major personnel change was the departure last week of the White House’s senior China specialist, Evan Medeiros, who ….was regarded by critics as among the most pro-China policymakers in the White House’s highly centralized foreign policy and national security power structure.” (Ashton Carter’s remarks suggest an Obama policy shift on China, Washington Times)
This is what’s going on behind the scenes. The doves are getting their pink slips while the hawks are sharpening their knives. If it looks like the uber-confident Carter is setting policy, it’s because he is. Obama seems to have been sidelined while the Pentagon is calling the shots. Does the name “Seven Days in May” ring a bell?
So what can we expect now that foreign policy is in the hands of a hawkish neocon who believes that the US must preserve its dominant position in the world by quashing all potential rivals?
What we can expect is more military adventurism, more needlessly provocative displays of force which increase the probability of another world war. Carter’s belief that the military can be used to achieve political objectives suggests that he would not be opposed to implementing a risky plan to lure China into a conflict that would exhaust its resources while “tying down significant portions of its war-fighting capacity”. Authors Yoshihara and Holmes describe this very scenario in the piece sited above. Check it out:
“Landing forces in China is a clear nonstarter, but introducing ground troops at select points along Asia’s offshore island chain or in continental Southeast Asia would help fulfill Washington’s modest goals. A limited maritime campaign would afflict China with a nagging “ulcer,” much as the Duke of Wellington’s 1807–14 campaign in Portugal and Spain…inflicted on France what Napoleon termed a “Spanish ulcer.”…Consider one scenario–The Ryukyu Islands, a chain stretching from Japan’s Kyushu Island to Taiwan, stand out as a prime candidate for waging war by contingent. The islands straddle critical sea lines of communication connecting the Yellow and East China seas to the open waters of the Pacific…..the archipelago’s strategic location offers the United States and Japan a chance to turn the tables on China. By deploying anti-access and area-denial units of their own on the islands, American and Japanese defenders would slam shut an important outlet for Chinese surface, submarine, and air forces into the Pacific high seas. Effective blocking operations would tempt PLA commanders to nullify these allied disposal forces. Such exertions, however, would tie down significant portions of China’s war-fighting capacity while depleting manpower and matériel…Abundant, survivable, inexpensive weaponry such as the Type 88, then, could coax China into exhausting expensive and scarce offensive weapons for meager territorial gain and uncertain prospects of a breakthrough into Pacific waters. Relatively modest investments in disposal forces could spread Chinese forces thin—helping the allies reclaim command of the commons as envisioned by AirSea Battle…In the best case from Washington’s standpoint, Beijing might desist from ever attempting to upend the U.S.-led order in the region…The allies’ capacity to foreclose Chinese military options—and give China a debilitating ulcer—offers perhaps the surest way of deterring Chinese aggression before it happens…
Would a puffed-up neocon like Carter be willing to initiate a plan that would weaken China militarily while forcing it to “desist from ever attempting to upend the U.S.-led order in the region” again?
You bet he would.
MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2015
King John Might Envy President Obama
King John of England, who 800 years ago this week was forced at Runnymede to affix his Great Seal to Magna Carta -- which at least in theory subordinated his power to law -- might have envied President Obama.
Sure, Obama also pays lip service to idea that the executive is subject to law. But what happens when he acts like an autocrat? Nothing. King John had to contend with rebellious barons who resisted his taxes to finance losing wars and other impositions. Obama has no effective opposition to contend with. He is free to fight wars as he pleases, never worrying that he might be deprived of the revenues he needs to engage in his far-flung killing.
We like to believe we’ve come a long way in those 800 years, but in important respects we have not. We’ve regressed, not the least in the sense that people no longer show an interest in resisting tyranny even through nonviolent noncooperation.
Observe what Obama is up to in the Middle East.
Marissa Taylor and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy recently noted, “As U.S. military operations against the Islamic State approach the one-year mark, the White House has failed to give Congress and the public a comprehensive written analysis setting out the legal powers that President Barack Obama is using to put U.S. personnel in harm’s way in Iraq and Syria.”
That’s right. Obama has been at war with the Islamic State for a year, and his administration won’t even do us the courtesy of spelling out his legal authority in detail. Lately, Obama has been intensifying his intervention in the areas that were formerly part of Syria and Iraq. He’s setting up a new base in Iraq’s Anbar province, which the Islamic State largely holds, and he’s increased the number of so-called advisers and trainers. The force that we know of is up to about 3,500.
Obama has not been totally silent about his legal authority. “The only document the White House has provided to a few key lawmakers comprises four pages of what are essentially talking points, described by those who’ve read them as shallow and based on disputed assertions of presidential authority,” Taylor and Landay write (emphasis added). Note: "to a few key lawmakers" -- not to the public. I suppose the administration doesn’t want us to worry our little heads over this.
Taylor and Landay speculate that “by not setting out its legal case in public documents, Obama may be trying to preserve his flexibility to authorize new operations against the Islamic State or other extremist groups elsewhere, unfettered by constraints that could be imposed by Congress.”
Yet again, Obama sinks beneath George W. Bush. At first Obama invoked the allegedly inherent war powers of the presidency, ignoring the Constitution’s delegation of the war power to Congress. (Important figures in early American history, notably John Quincy Adams, regretted that clause.) Then Obama claimed the 2001 and 2002 resolutions authorizing military force in Afghanistan (against those who carried out the 9/11 attacks) and Iraq as authority. But this has been ably rebutted by various people, who point out that the Islamic State is an enemy of, not associated with, al-Qaeda; had nothing to do with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein; and did not even emerge until long after those resolutions were passed.
To complicate things, while Obama asked for congressional affirmation, he claimed he could legally fight his war without it. Congress’s ineptitude in getting itself together on the question, with Democrats and Republicans having different reasons for not coalescing, suits Obama just fine.
Of course, what the country needs is not a declaration of war from Congress, but a demand that Obama stop fighting wars without it. Fat chance of that happening, though. Few members of Congress want the responsibility of blocking a war.
Obama’s rationalization for autocratic military action is a license for unchecked global war. And that’s what we’ve seen throughout his tenure in the White House. His administration brags that airstrikes recently killed terrorist leaders in Libya (maybe), where Obama helped overthrow a government four years ago, and Yemen, where Obama ordered even American citizens killed.
Where are the protests? Where are the organized tax strikes? King John would be green with envy.
Sheldon Richman keeps the blog "Free Association" and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society.
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