[Peace-discuss] US war policy, at home and abroad

[C. G. Estabrook]

President Obama is clearly committed to the long-term and invariant US policy of 
controlling the energy resources of the Middle East. And the strategy has been 
clear for two generations: military power, exerted directly by the US or by its 
clients -- Iran (1953-79), Israel (from 1967), the "moderate" Arab regimes 
(Saudi Arabia, Egypt after 1979, Iraq until 1990).

The policy faces opposition from two groups: the American people, who are 
reluctant to go to war; and the people of the region, who are reluctant to be 
colonized.  In a devastating guerrilla raid in that war, a resistance group 
killed thousands of Americans in the home country on 11 September 2001.  Al 
Qaeda said that they did it because of (a) the murderous sanctions on Iraq, (b) 
the oppression of the Palestinians, and (c) the American military presence in 
the Muslim holy places. American strategists used it to overcome the reluctance 
of Americans to make war against the Middle East.

In his campaign for president, Obama proposed to deal with the two groups by 
killing  the latter ("take them out," in a favorite phrase of his) and 
persuading the former, the American people -- whom he took to be the greater 
danger.  In his audition piece for the US elite, the well-named "Audacity of 
Hope," he advertised his ability to co-opt them. In that book Obama wrote -- 
setting aside three million dead and a devastated country -- that "the biggest 
casualty of [the Vietnam] war was the bond of trust between the American people 
and their government."

He presented himself as the agent to restore that "bond of trust" – i.e., to 
convince the bulk of the American population that their interests coincided with 
those of the elite policy-makers, when in fact it was clear that they were 
directly opposed.  In this case Americans' opposition to going to war clashed 
with the elite desire to control the Middle East -- and there was no draft to 
rely on, because the US conscript army had revolted during the war in Vietnam. 
And the greatest anti-war demonstrations in history had occurred around the 
world before Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Obama demonstrated his ability to co-opt the US anti-war movement by convincing 
Americans that he was the "peace candidate."  But in office, he has shown 
himself "more aggressive and violent than Bush," as Noam Chomsky points out, 
from Palestine to Pakistan.  He has so far been more adept that Bush in 
implementing that constant policy, at home and abroad.

--CGE