[Peace-discuss] Obama's foreign policy
Morton K. Brussel
brussel at illinois.edu
Tue Feb 3 17:56:20 CST 2009
I've rarely seen an account in which I'm so much in accord. Good old
Bill Blum! I hope we can get him here sometime.
--mkb
On Feb 3, 2009, at 4:16 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [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.
>
> To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 at aol.com
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>
> (Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)
>
> Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd
> appreciate it if the website were mentioned.
>
> ###
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