Category: War

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Stealth Imperialism

I continue to read through Chalmers Johnson’s excellent book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. As many of you may know, this book was widely read during the 2008 campaign thanks to the influence of Dr. Ron Paul. The book is a thorough assessment of America’s military involvement in different parts of the world and as a major contributor to many of its own woes. Namely, a blowback. The only thing that has changed since the writing of the book is that instead of Japan being the second largest economy in the world (84), China has now assumed the privileged spot. Beyond that, all remains the same. The US, who accounts for 80 percent of the world’s total military spending (86) continues to be the leading arms supplier in the world. In 1995, the United States was “the source of 49 percent of global arms exports. It shipped arms of various types to some 140 countries, 90 percent of which were either not democracies or were human rights abusers (88).” This latter fact is merely one of many, which prove the theory of Blowback. As Johnson observes:

Arms sales are, in short, a major cause of developing blowback world whose price we have yet to begin to pay (89).

Saddam Hussein’s case is perhaps one of the more famous examples of this.  In the 1980’s he was an outstanding customer with an almost “limitless line of credit because of his country’s oil reserves (89).” Many, like former CIA  director James Woolsey, were aware of the potential consequences of this selling game, yet these voices are quickly silenced.

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Warren Gage on War

Warren Gage in his latest article The Crisis in Protestant Biblical Theology writes of the conspicuous influence of the Reformation on the western world. In a footnote he observes:

It is a measure of the loss of an awareness of their own unique history in the early years of the 21st century that American evangelical Protestants would so naively subscribe to the idea that the Iraq War could transplant authentic democratic regimes to feudal and fissiparous Middle Eastern countries with no history of contact with the Reformation.

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Raimondo on Coulter

Raimondo seems hopeful that Ann Coulter’s piece against the neo-cons might be a sign that things are changing in the Republican party. One can only hope so.

What we may be witnessing is the birth of anti-interventionism on the right, or, rather, the rebirth of the Old Right. Ron Paul was the trailblazer who endured the yammerings of Rudy Giuliani, and the catcalls of the neocons, calmly and clearly making the case against the empire, and for a foreign policy that puts America – the territory and people of the United States – first.

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Obama’s War in Afghanistan

Bob Herbert’s op-ed piece in the New York Times is devastating. President Obama will announce this evening that he plans on sending thousands of American troops to Afghanistan. According to Herbert, this is a war that “has lasted most of the decade and has long since failed. ” Anti-War Democrats who thought Obama was the Messiah of peace have now discovered that he is as intensely hawkish as the Bush administration. While Obama supporters praised Obama for deliberating, seeking advice from others before making a wise decision, Obama proved that his deliberation stemmed from answering the question “What is more politically expedient?”

Herbert writes:

It would have been much more difficult for Mr. Obama to look this troubled nation in the eye and explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime.

Obama is no ideologue. Bush was. Bush was a warmonger and he liked being one. Obama compromises. After all, with 2010 elections coming along, being truthful and honorable is not a political characteristic. Herbert is right: “Politicians are seldom honest when they talk publicly about warfare.” No doubt invading Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001 was right and proper, but that “war was botched and lost by the Bush crowd, and Barack Obama does not have a magic wand now to make it all better.” As Herbert concludes:

We still haven’t learned to recognize real strength, which is why it so often seems that the easier choice for a president is to keep the troops marching off to war.

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To War or not to War?

This is Obama’s question. David Brook’s op-ed piece in the New York Times questions Obama’s fundamental commitment to the Afghanistan war. He poses at one point that Obama accepted the premise of the Afghan war in order to sound hawkish, thus gaining the reputation of a tough president. Whether this is true or not, Bill Maher was right when he said that Obama needs a little more of George W. Bush.

My own perspective is that Obama was hawkish from day one of his presidency. He may not have the tenacity of the former president, but he has neo-conservatism running through his blood. As Brooks writes:

So I guess the president’s most important meeting is not the one with the Joint Chiefs and the cabinet secretaries. It’s the one with the mirror, in which he looks for some firm conviction about whether Afghanistan is worthy of his full and unshakable commitment.

Luke Russert from MSNBC said on Morning Joe that progressives have no interest in the Afghan war. They are tired of the similarities to the Iraq war. They fear blood on their hands, as the Republicans had in Iraq. While 2010 seems ripe for a Republican take-over, the Democrats are scrambling to find a suitable message to the American people. They know they need bi-partisan support, but their sophisticated constitutional scholar commander-in-chief  is losing his charm. As David Gregory said: “The yes we can is becoming maybe.”

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Ron Paul on the House Iran Resolution

Ron Paul spoke today against the House resolution on Iran.

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama’s cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.

I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.

{HT:Antiwar.com}

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Scott Horton Interviews Chalmers Johnson

Chalmers Johnson, author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, discusses the enormous and expanding U.S. defense budget amidst a general economic collapse, the army of defense lobbyists ready to fight against any spending cuts, how military spending diverts economic resources away from beneficial uses and how defense contractors make the largest and most dubious defense projects into sacred cows by spreading production to as many congressional districts as possible.

Interview on audio.

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A war Israel cannot win…

Israel’s war against Hamas is a non-win situation. One would think that Israel learned her lesson after the disastrous 2006 Lebanon war, but now Israel is committed to defeating, yea, annihilating Hamas. As John J. Mearsheimer has written: ” Israel’ s strategic goal is the creation of a ‘Greater Israel.'” Ultimately, Israel wants control over Palestine like bees control their bee hives. The Palestinians would have limited autonomy with little room to move.

Unfortunately, those who expected a more decent foreign policy from Obama will be shocked at how identical his policies are to Bush. Obama’s own spokesman Robert Gibbs affirmed that, as under Bush, “all options remain on the table” with regard to Iran. In one sense, Obama’s foreign policy might even go a step further than Bush’s.  Jeremy Sapienza writes: “And depending on whom you ask, Obama might want to ramp up military activity in Afghanistan — one area where Bush’s policy wasn’t quite forceful enough for the new president.”

According to Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader: ” …there is no difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush when it comes to Israel, and that the new U.S. administration has so far shown full support for the Jewish state — Hezbollah’s archenemy.” As long as there is ample support from American leaders for the Israeli’s unjust wars, there will be what Chalmers Johnson has called, Blowback. Mearsheimer concludes:

The bottom line is that no matter what happens on the battlefield, Israel cannot win it swar on gaza. I nfact, it is pursuing a strategy–with lots of help from its so-called friends in the Diaspora–that is palcing its long-term future at risk.

Our support for Israel at all costs, without counting the consequences, may be Israel’ s self-destruction.