[Peace-discuss] Obama's foreign policy

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A brilliant account -- are perfectly obvious, were it not occluded by those 
Blum calls Obamaniacs.  Unfortunately, they're out in force now, frantically 
trying to explain away the meaning of Obama's initial executive orders on 
continuing the war on terror, as it was revealed in an LA Times article last
week. See, I'm sorry to say, 
<http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/02/renditions/index.html>.]

	The Anti-Empire Report
	February 3rd, 2009
	by William Blum
	www.killinghope.org

Change (in rhetoric) we can believe in.

I've said all along that whatever good changes might occur in regard to 
non-foreign policy issues ... the Obama administration will not produce any 
significantly worthwhile change in US foreign policy; little done in this area 
will reduce the level of misery that the American Empire regularly brings down 
upon humanity. And to the extent that Barack Obama is willing to clearly reveal 
what he believes about anything controversial, he appears to believe in the empire.

The Obamania bubble should already have begun to lose some air with the multiple 
US bombings of Pakistan within the first few days following the inauguration. 
The Pentagon briefed the White House of its plans, and the White House had no 
objection. So bombs away — Barack Obama's first war crime. The dozens of victims 
were, of course, all bad people, including all the women and children. As with 
all these bombings, we'll never know the names of all the victims — It's 
doubtful that even Pakistan knows — or what crimes they had committed to deserve 
the death penalty. Some poor Pakistani probably earned a nice fee for telling 
the authorities that so-and-so bad guy lived in that house over there; too bad 
for all the others who happened to live with the bad guy, assuming of course 
that the bad guy himself actually lived in that house over there.

The new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, declined to answer questions 
about the first airstrikes, saying "I'm not going to get into these matters."1 
Where have we heard that before?

After many of these bombings in recent years, a spokesperson for the United 
States or NATO has solemnly declared: “We regret the loss of life.” These are 
the same words used by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on a number of occasions, 
but their actions were typically called “terrorist”.

I wish I could be an Obamaniac. I envy their enthusiasm. Here, in the form of an 
open letter to President Obama, are some of the "changes we can believe in" in 
foreign policy that would have to occur to win over the non-believers like me.

Iran

Just leave them alone. There is no "Iranian problem". They are a threat to no 
one. Iran hasn't invaded any other country in centuries. No, President 
Ahmadinejad did not threaten Israel with any violence. Stop patrolling the 
waters surrounding Iran with American warships. Stop halting Iranian ships to 
check for arms shipments to Hamas. (That's generally regarded as an act of war.) 
Stop using Iranian dissident groups to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran. 
Stop kidnaping Iranian diplomats. Stop the continual spying and recruiting 
within Iran. And yet, with all that, you can still bring yourself to say: "If 
countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an 
extended hand from us."2

Iran has as much right to arm Hamas as the US has to arm Israel. And there is no 
international law that says that the United States, the UK, Russia, China, 
Israel, France, Pakistan, and India are entitled to nuclear weapons, but Iran is 
not. Iran has every reason to feel threatened. Will you continue to provide 
nuclear technology to India, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty, while threatening Iran, an NPT signatory, with sanctions and warfare?

Russia

Stop surrounding the country with new NATO members. Stop looking to instigate 
new "color" revolutions in former Soviet republics and satellites. Stop arming 
and supporting Georgia in its attempts to block the independence of South 
Ossetia and Abkhasia, the breakaway regions on the border of Russia. And stop 
the placement of anti-missile systems in Russia's neighbors, the Czech Republic 
and Poland, on the absurd grounds that it's to ward off an Iranian missile 
attack. It was Czechoslovakia and Poland that the Germans also used to defend 
their imperialist ambitions — The two countries were being invaded on the 
grounds that Germans there were being maltreated. The world was told.

"The U.S. government made a big mistake from the breakup of the Soviet Union," 
said former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last year. "At that time the Russian 
people were really euphoric about America and the U.S. was really number one in 
the minds of many Russians." But, he added, the United States moved aggressively 
to expand NATO and appeared gleeful at Russia's weakness.3

Cuba

Making it easier to travel there and send remittances is very nice (if, as 
expected, you do that), but these things are dwarfed by the need to end the US 
embargo. In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion 
in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the almost forty 
years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 
3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. We can now add ten 
more years to all three figures. The negative, often crippling, effects of the 
embargo extend into every aspect of Cuban life.

In addition to closing Guantanamo prison, the adjacent US military base 
established in 1903 by American military force should be closed and the land 
returned to Cuba.

The Cuban Five, held prisoner in the United States for over 10 years, guilty 
only of trying to prevent American-based terrorism against Cuba, should be 
released. Actually there were 10 Cubans arrested; five knew that they could 
expect no justice in an American court and pled guilty to get shorter sentences.4

Iraq

Freeing the Iraqi people to death ... Nothing short of a complete withdrawal of 
all US forces, military and contracted, and the closure of all US military bases 
and detention and torture centers, can promise a genuine end to US involvement 
and the beginning of meaningful Iraqi sovereignty. To begin immediately. 
Anything less is just politics and imperialism as usual. In six years of war, 
the Iraqi people have lost everything of value in their lives. As the Washington 
Post reported in 2007: "It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that 
things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003."5 The good news is that 
the Iraqi people have 5,000 years experience in crafting a society to live in. 
They should be given the opportunity.

Saudi Arabia

Demand before the world that this government enter the 21st century (or at least 
the 20th), or the United States has to stop pretending that it gives a damn 
about human rights, women, homosexuals, religious liberty, and civil liberties. 
The Bush family had long-standing financial ties to members of the Saudi ruling 
class. What will be your explanation if you maintain the status quo?
Haiti

Reinstate the exiled Jean Bertrand Aristide to the presidency, which he lost 
when the United States overthrew him in 2004. To seek forgiveness for our sins, 
give the people of Haiti lots and lots of money and assistance.

Colombia

Stop giving major military support to a government that for years has been 
intimately tied to death squads, torture, and drug trafficking; in no other 
country in the world have so many progressive candidates for public office, 
unionists, and human-rights activists been murdered. Are you concerned that this 
is the closest ally the United States has in all of Latin America?

Venezuela

Hugo Chavez may talk too much but he's no threat except to the capitalist system 
of Venezuela and, by inspiration, elsewhere in Latin America. He has every good 
historical reason to bad-mouth American foreign policy, including Washington's 
role in the coup that overthrew him in 2002. If you can't understand why Chavez 
is not in love with what the United States does all over the world, I can give 
you a long reading list.

Put an end to support for Chavez's opposition by the Agency for International 
Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other US government 
agencies. US diplomats should not be meeting with Venezuelans plotting coups 
against Chavez, nor should they be interfering in elections.

Send Luis Posada from Florida to Venezuela, which has asked for his extradition 
for his masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airline in 1976, taking 73 lives. 
Extradite the man, or try him in the US, or stop talking about the war on terrorism.

And please try not to repeat the nonsense about Venezuela being a dictatorship. 
It's a freer society than the United States. It has, for example, a genuine 
opposition daily media, non-existent in the United States. If you doubt that, 
try naming a single American daily newspaper or TV network that was 
unequivocally against the US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, 
Grenada, and Vietnam. Or even against two of them? How about one? Is there a 
single one that supports Hamas and/or Hezbollah? A few weeks ago, the New York 
Times published a story concerning a possible Israeli attack upon Iran, and 
stated: "Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this 
account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration 
officials, to avoid harming continuing operations."6

Alas, Mr. President, among other disparaging remarks, you've already accused 
Chavez of being "a force that has interrupted progress in the region."7 This is 
a statement so contrary to the facts, even to plain common sense, so 
hypocritical given Washington's history in Latin America, that I despair of you 
ever freeing yourself from the ideological shackles that have bound every 
American president of the past century. It may as well be inscribed in their 
oath of office — that a president must be antagonistic toward any country that 
has expressly rejected Washington as the world's savior. You made this remark in 
an interview with Univision, Venezuela's leading, implacable media critic of the 
Chavez government. What regional progress could you be referring to, the police 
state of Colombia?

Bolivia

Stop American diplomats, Peace Corps volunteers, Fulbright scholars, and the 
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, from spying and fomenting subversion 
inside Bolivia. As the first black president of the United States, you could try 
to cultivate empathy toward, and from, the first indigenous president of 
Bolivia. Congratulate Bolivian president Evo Morales on winning a decisive 
victory on a recent referendum to approve a new constitution which enshrines the 
rights of the indigenous people and, for the first time, institutes separation 
of church and state.

Afghanistan

Perhaps the most miserable people on the planet, with no hope in sight as long 
as the world's powers continue to bomb, invade, overthrow, occupy, and slaughter 
in their land. The US Army is planning on throwing 30,000 more young American 
bodies into the killing fields and is currently building eight new major bases 
in southern Afghanistan. Is that not insane? If it makes sense to you I suggest 
that you start the practice of the president accompanying the military people 
when they inform American parents that their child has died in a place called 
Afghanistan.

If you pull out from this nightmare, you could also stop bombing Pakistan. Leave 
even if it results in the awful Taliban returning to power. They at least offer 
security to the country's wretched, and indications are that the current Taliban 
are not all fundamentalists.

But first, close Bagram prison and other detention camps, which are worse than 
Guantanamo.

And stop pretending that the United States gives a damn about the Afghan people 
and not oil and gas pipelines which can bypass Russia and Iran. The US has been 
endeavoring to fill the power vacuum in Central Asia created by the Soviet 
Union’s dissolution in order to assert Washington's domination over a region 
containing the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in 
the world. Is Afghanistan going to be your Iraq?
Israel

The most difficult task for you, but the one that would earn for you the most 
points. To declare that Israel is no longer the 51st state of the union would 
bring down upon your head the wrath of the most powerful lobby in the world and 
its many wealthy followers, as well as the Christian-fundamentalist Right and 
much of the media. But if you really want to see peace between Israel and 
Palestine you must cut off all military aid to Israel, in any form: hardware, 
software, personnel, money. And stop telling Hamas it has to recognize Israel 
and renounce violence until you tell Israel that it has to recognize Hamas and 
renounce violence.

North Korea

Bush called the country part of "the axis of evil", and Kim Jong Il a "pygmy" 
and "a spoiled child at a dinner table."8 But you might try to understand where 
Kim Jong Il is coming from. He sees that UN agencies went into Iraq and disarmed 
it, and then the United States invaded. The logical conclusion is not to disarm, 
but to go nuclear.

Central America

Stop interfering in the elections of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, year 
after year. The Cold War has ended. And though you can't undo the horror 
perpetrated by the United States in the region in the 1980s, you can at least be 
kind to the immigrants in the US who came here trying to escape the long-term
consequences of that terrible decade.

Vietnam

In your inauguration speech you spoke proudly of those "who have carried us up 
the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom ... For us, they fought and 
died, in places like ... Khe Sanh." So it is your studied and sincere opinion 
that the 58,000 American sevicemembers who died in Vietnam, while helping to 
kill over a million Vietnamese, gave their life for our prosperity and freedom? 
Would you care to defend that proposition without resort to any platitudes?

You might also consider this: In all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the 
three million Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US 
sprayings of the deadly chemical "Agent Orange" have received from the United 
States no medical attention, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and 
no official apology.

Kosovo

Stop supporting the most gangster government in the world, which has specialized 
in kidnaping, removing human body parts for sale, heavy trafficking in drugs, 
trafficking in women, various acts of terrorism, and ethnic cleansing of Serbs. 
This government would not be in power if the Bush administration had not seen 
them as America's natural allies. Do you share that view? UN Resolution 1244, 
adopted in 1999, reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the 
former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to which Serbia is now the recognized 
successor state, and established that Kosovo was to remain part of Serbia. Why 
do we have a huge and permanent military base in that tiny self-declared country?

NATO

 From protecting Europe against a [mythical] Soviet invasion to becoming an 
occupation army in Afghanistan. Put an end to this historical anachronism, what 
Russian leader Vladimir called "the stinking corpse of the cold war."9. You can 
accomplish this simply by leaving the organization. Without the United States 
and its never-ending military actions and officially-designated enemies, the 
organization would not even have the pretense of a purpose, which is all it has 
left. Members have had to be bullied, threatened and bribed to send armed forces 
to Afghanistan.

School of the Americas

Latin American countries almost never engage in war with each other, or any 
other countries. So for what kind of warfare are its military officers being 
trained by the United States? To suppress their own people. Close this school 
(the name has now been changed to protect the guilty) at Ft. Benning, Georgia 
that the United States has used to prepare two generations of Latin American 
military officers for careers in overthrowing progressive governments, death 
squads, torture, holding down dissent, and other charming activities. The 
British are fond of saying that the Empire was won on the playing fields of 
Eton. Americans can say that the road to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram 
began in the classrooms of the School of the Americas.

Torture

Your executive orders concerning this matter of utmost importance are great to 
see, but they still leave something to be desired. They state that the new 
standards ostensibly putting an end to torture apply to any "armed conflict". 
But what if your administration chooses to view future counterterrorism and 
other operations as not part of an "armed conflict"? And no mention is made of 
"rendition" — kidnaping a man off the street, throwing him in a car, throwing a 
hood over his head, stripping off his clothes, placing him in a diaper, 
shackling him from every angle, and flying him to a foreign torture dungeon. Why 
can't you just say that this and all other American use of proxy torturers is 
banned? Forever.

It's not enough to say that you're against torture or that the United States 
"does not torture" or "will not torture". George W. Bush said the same on a 
regular basis. To show that you're not George W. Bush you need to investigate 
those responsible for the use of torture, even if this means prosecuting a small 
army of Bush administration war criminals.

You aren't off to a good start by appointing former CIA official John O. Brennan 
as your top adviser on counterterrorism. Brennan has called "rendition" a "vital 
tool" and praised the CIA's interrogation techniques for providing "lifesaving" 
intelligence.10 Whatever were you thinking, Barack?

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi

Free this Libyan man from his prison in Scotland, where he is serving a life 
sentence after being framed by the United States for the bombing of PanAm flight 
103 in December 1988, which took the lives of 270 people over Scotland. Iran was 
actually behind the bombing — as revenge for the US shooting down an Iranian 
passenger plane in July, killing 290 — not Libya, which the US accused for 
political reasons.11 Nations do not behave any more cynical than that. Megrahi 
lies in prison now dying of cancer, but still the US and the UK will not free 
him. It would be too embarrassing to admit to 20 years of shameless lying.

Mr. President, there's a lot more to be undone in our foreign policy if you wish 
to be taken seriously as a moral leader like Martin Luther King, Jr.: banning 
the use of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, and other dreadful weapons; joining 
the International Criminal Court instead of trying to sabotage it; making a 
number of other long-overdue apologies in addition to the one mentioned re 
Vietnam; and much more. You've got your work cut out for you if you really want 
to bring some happiness to this sad old world, make America credible and beloved 
again, stop creating armies of anti-American terrorists, and win over people 
like me.

And do you realize that you can eliminate all state and federal budget deficits 
in the United States, provide free health care and free university education to 
every American, pay for an unending array of worthwhile social and cultural 
programs, all just by ending our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not starting any 
new ones, and closing down the Pentagon's 700+ military bases? Think of it as 
the peace dividend Americans were promised when the Cold War would end some day, 
but never received. How about you delivering it, Mr. President? It's not too late.

But you are committed to the empire; and the empire is committed to war. Too bad.

Notes

    1. Washington Post, January 24, 2009 ↩
    2. Interview with al Arabiya TV, January 27, 2009 ↩
    3. Gorbachev speaking in Florida, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 17, 2008
    4. http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm ↩
    5. Washington Post, May 5, 2007, p.1 ↩
    6. New York Times, January 11, 2009 ↩
    7. Washington Post, January 19, 2009↩
    8. Newsweek, May 27, 2002 ↩
    9. Press Trust of India (news agency), December 21, 2007 ↩
   10. Washington Post, November 26, 2008 ↩
   11. http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/panam.htm ↩

–

William Blum is the author of:

     * Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
     * Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
     * West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
     * Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at 
www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

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