[Peace-discuss] Obama's foreign policy

[C. G. Estabrook]

[My comment, written in haste, was more garbled than usual.  I've corrected it
below.  --CGE]

Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> 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 -- and 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  
>> by William Blum 
>> February 3rd, 2009
>> 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.
>> 
>> ###