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<font color="#003399" face="Times,Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Obama’s War Record Should Appall Progressives</b></font><br>
<font face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" size="2">by </font>
<a href="http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/sxr.asp">
<font color="#003399" face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" size="2">Sheldon Richman</font></a>,
<font face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" size="2">December 1, 2011</font><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman"><p>“Why are liberals so desperately unhappy with the Obama presidency?” asks <i><a href="http://nymag.com/news/politics/liberals-jonathan-chait-2011-11/">New York Magazine</a></i>’s Jonathan Chait, a self-proclaimed “Obama apologist.”</p><p>He answers his own question: “ Liberals are dissatisfied with Obama
because liberals, on the whole, are incapable of feeling satisfied with a
Democratic president.”</p><p>See? It isn’t Obama’s fault. It’s something in the so-called liberal,
or progressive, psyche. (“Liberalism” originally meant a philosophy of
maximum individual freedom, free markets, and minimum government, not
today’s support for intrusive, comprehensive bureaucratic management.)</p><p>One wades through the 5,000-word essay hoping to witness Chait at
least acknowledge that Obama has let his supporters down with his “war
on terror” policies. But all we get is this:</p>
<blockquote><p>Obama … has enjoyed a string of foreign-policy successes—expanding
targeted strikes against Al Qaeda (including one that killed Osama bin
Laden), ending the war in Iraq, and helping to orchestrate an apparently
successful international campaign to rescue Libyan dissidents and then
topple a brutal kleptocratic regime.</p> </blockquote><p>Excuse me? Progressives — who properly savaged George W. Bush for his
autocratic presidency, civil-liberties flouting PATRIOT Act, undeclared
war on Iraq, use of detention and torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere,
and warrantless surveillance — are supposed to be happy with Barack
Obama, who has essentially carried on most Bush policies, even kicking
them up a few notches?</p><p>If we listen to Chait, there is nothing at all disappointing about
Obama’s expansion of drone attacks in Pakistan and Somalia, with their
routine “collateral damage” to innocents; his flagrant violation of the
War Powers Resolution (not to mention the Constitution and his campaign
promise) with his intervention in Libya; his intensification of the war
in Afghanistan; his sanctions (an act of war) against Iran; his broken
pledge to close Guantanamo; his support of indefinite detention without
charge; his policy of assassinating even American citizens abroad
without due process; his renewal of the PATRIOT Act; his placement of
Marines in Australia with the words, “The United States is a Pacific
power, and we are here to stay”; his failed attempt to lift the UN ban
on cluster bombs; or his invocation of state secrets to keep torture
victims out of court.</p><p>Chait thinks Obama should get credit for “ending the war in Iraq” —
but hold on. The December 31, 2011, withdrawal date is set in the Status
of Forces Agreement negotiated between the Iraqi government and the
Bush administration. Obama tried — but failed — to persuade Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki to let U.S. troops stay longer. As it is, they
will simply be moved down the road to Kuwait, and a large contract
mercenary force will likely be left behind at the humongous embassy in
Baghdad.</p><p>For Chait and his ilk, these all must count as “foreign policy successes.”</p><p>And what about torture? Nothing upset Progressives more during the
Bush years. Toward the end of the administration, the criminal policy
was abandoned and was forsworn by Obama. Yet the detention center at
Bagram airbase in Afghanistan has been called “worse than Guantanamo” by
Daphne Eviatar, an attorney for Human Rights First. Adds John Glaser of
<a href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/11/14/bagram-worse-than-guantanamo-says-rights-attorney/">Antiwar.com</a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>There are now 3,000 detainees in Bagram, up from 1,700 since June (!)
and five times the amount there when Barack Obama took office. Many of
them have not been charged, have seen no evidence against them and do
not have the right to be represented by a lawyer, aren’t given fair
trials, and the U.S. claims it is not even obligated to explain why
these people are caged.</p></blockquote><p>A U.S. special operations “black site” at Bagram features “sleep
deprivation, holding detainees in cold cells, forced nudity, physical
abuse, detaining individuals in isolation cells for longer than 30 days,
and restricting the access of the International Committee of the Red
Cross,” according to Jonathan Horowitz’s investigation for the Open
Society Institute.</p><p>Finally, in a move that bodes ill for the future, Obama refuses to
criminally or civilly investigate Bush administration officials for
illegal torture of prisoners. He won’t even empanel a “truth commission”
to bring the facts before the American people. Future administrations
will thus have little to fear when they break the law.</p><p>Most progressives are silent about Obama’s shameful record. But it may explain the disappointment Chait can’t understand.</p><p><i>Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of <b>Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State</b>, and editor of <b>The Freeman</b> magazine. Visit his blog <b>Free Association</b> at <a href="http://www.sheldonrichman.com">www.sheldonrichman.com</a>. Send him <a href="mailto:sheldon@sheldonrichman.com" target="new">email</a>.</i></p><p><i>*<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>*<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>*</i></p><p><i><div id="box">
<h3><a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/12/03/casualties-in-afghanistan-soar-in-last-two-years/">Casualties in Afghanistan Soar in Last Two Years</a></h3>
<h4 id="pagesub">Most of the American and Afghan killed wounded have occurred after Obama's surge strategy, with little to show for it</h4>
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by John Glaser,
December 03, 2011 </div>
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<div class="entry"><p>In over a decade of war in Afghanistan, about half of all
Americans killed in action and two thirds of those wounded have done so
in 2010 and 2011, <a href="http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/12/02/afghanistan-looks-like-victory-from-here/?xid=rss-topstories">according to a Congressional Research Service report</a>.</p><p>At the time <a href="http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/r41084.pdf">the report</a>
was published on November 16, 1,723 Americans had died for the war in
Afghanistan and 14,837 had been wounded. In just the past two years, 890
have been killed and 10,060 have been wounded.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/afg-casualty-chart.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23800" src="http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/afg-casualty-chart.png" alt="" height="341" width="527"></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">The figures serve as a stark illustration
that President Barack Obama’s decision to surge troops and double down
on the war in 2009 has not been a success. Assurances from
administration officials and military leaders that the war effort is
seeing positive results seem to be belied by the dramatic rise in
American casualties for <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://news.antiwar.com/2011/10/06/nothing-gained-in-ten-years-of-afghan-war/&sa=U&ei=lrLaToS9LIGvgwfB352bCA&ved=0CAYQFjAB&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNEMBh9IVPW8TIf5sseTvDIdA9t0tg">elusive gains</a>.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The report also offers figures of civilian
casualties in Afghanistan, which it says should be thought of as
“guideposts rather than as statements of fact” given the unreliability
of estimates. Attempts to measure Afghan civilian casualties did not
even begin until 2007, but since then the number killed and wounded as a
result of the war – at least those that have been reported – is
approximately 21,844, according to the report (11,007 killed and 10, 837
wounded).</p></div></i></p><p><i><br></i></p><p><i><br></i></p><p><i><br></i></p></font></body></html>