[Peace-discuss] ‘Progressive’ Warmongers

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From the paleoconservative editor of the excellent web-site <Antiwar.com>, an 
honest assessment of the USG propaganda for its war policy.  Raimondo's views 
are not unarguable -- I don't think for example, that the "obvious motive for 
Obama’s war is simply satisfying the desire of the American people for revenge." 
  But then neither does Raimondo, because he makes fun of a liberal think-tank's 
fatuous invocation of an "arc of instability," which "defines the geographical 
extent of U.S. intervention in the region from the end of World War II to the 
present. If any single factor contributed to the instability permeating this 
arc, then it is the one constant factor in the equation, which has been the U.S. 
presence and efforts to dominate the region." Obama's apologists have to pretend 
he's doing something new, when he isn't.  --CGE]


	‘Progressive’ Warmongers
	Liberals rally 'round Obama's war
	by Justin Raimondo, April 08, 2009

As President Barack Obama launches a military effort that promises to dwarf the 
Bush administration’s Iraqi adventure in scope and intensity, the "progressive" 
community is rallying around their commander in chief as obediently and 
reflexively as the neocon-dominated GOP did when we invaded Iraq. As John 
Stauber points out over at the Center for Media and Democracy Web site, the 
takeover of the antiwar movement by the Obamaites is nearly complete. He cites 
MoveOn.org as a prime but not sole example:

    "MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then 
supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader 
supporting Obama’s policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. 
Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and 
sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so."

Picking up on this in The Nation, John Nichols avers that several antiwar groups 
are not toeing the Afghanistan-is-a-war-of-necessity line, including Peace 
Action, United for Peace and Justice, and the American Friends Service 
Committee, yet there is less to this than meets the eye. Naturally, the Friends, 
being pacifists, are going to oppose the Afghan "surge" and the provocative 
incursions into Pakistan: no surprise there. Peace Action is not making a whole 
lot of noise about this, in spite of the issue’s relative importance. They are 
confining their opposition to an online petition. As for UFPJ, their alleged 
opposition to Obama’s war is couched in all kinds of contingencies and ambiguous 
formulations. Their most recent public pronouncement, calling for local actions 
against the Af-Pak offensive, praises Obama for "good statements on increasing 
diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan." Really? So far, this 
"diplomacy" consists of unsuccessfully finagling the Europeans and Canada to 
increase their "contributions" to the Afghan front – and selling the American 
people on an escalation of the conflict...

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/07/progressive-warmongers/