[Peace-discuss] Economy & war not under control

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This is the third of a series of pieces I wrote for CommonSense, a 
student-faculty publication at the University of Notre Dame, that's been around 
for some 20 years. I'd appreciate comments.  --CGE]



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	THE ECONOMY AND THE WAR ARE NOT UNDER CONTROL
	=============================================


	"It's a sobering thought that the guys you went to high school with
	are running the world."  --Kurt Vonnegut


In a three-part festival of negativity, I've brought CommonSense readers 
articles that argued that the presidential election did not take place, that the 
inauguration was not a new beginning, and now that the economy and the war are 
not under control.  Throughout I've suggested that the new administration 
presents a strategic continuity with past administrations, both domestically and 
in the matter of killing foreigners.  President Obama, having presented himself 
as "a blank slate on which supporters could write their wishes," is pursuing the 
traditional American policies of war and the enrichment of the few. Now to 
complete the series I suggest that the two great issues facing the new 
administration -- the financial crisis and war from the Mediterranean to the 
Indus -- are slipping from its timorous grasp.


The war and the economy were not campaign issues, because our political system 
insulates government policies from politics.  The "the war on terrorism" is not 
a new, post-9/11 phenomenon, but simply the current phase of the generation-long 
American war against the Middle East.  The disappearance of communism and the 
advent of terrorism has meant merely an adjustment of the facade of US 
propaganda.   As Clinton imitated Reagan (and Blair imitated Thatcher), so Obama 
imitates Bush Jr. and Clinton.  I've argued that Obama is “Nixon without the 
liberalism" – which after all was forced on the Nixon administration.  But I'm 
afraid we may not be so lucky with Obama.


The policies being implemented by the Obama administration are at base the 
result of two factors:

     [1] the interests of the American elite – profit and geopolitical control 
in aid of profit – are contradictory to the interests of the vast majority of 
the American (and world) populace, who want (and have a right to) life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness; and

     [2] Obama is working for that elite.


We've been told that no one can serve two masters, and Obama obviously learnt 
that, whether from Rev. Wright's tutelage or elsewhere.  He recognizes it 
clearly in his audition piece for the role of Chief Magistrate of the United 
States – his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the 
American Dream.”  That book was addressed primarily to those in whose gift the 
Presidency lay – the American elite.  In it he argued that he could weave the 
dreams of Americans in such a way that the contradiction of interests could be 
covered over, and a significant part of the populace could be brought to support 
elite interests rather than their own.


In his book Obama was proposing a solution (himself) for what he argued 
undoubtedly correctly was the perennial problem of American politics.  For 
example, in his discussion there of the Vietnam War, he wrote

     “...perhaps the biggest casualty of that war was the bond of trust between 
the American people and their government [sic! – not the deaths of millions and 
the destruction of a land] – and between American themselves … Increasingly, 
many on the left voiced opposition not only to the Vietnam War but also to the 
broader aims of American foreign policy.  In their view, President Johnson, 
General Westmoreland, the CIA, the 'military industrial complex' [inverted 
commas in the original], and international institutions like the World Bank were 
all manifestations of American arrogance, jingoism, racism, capitalism and 
imperialism.”


Obama would restore that “bond of trust” – but in pursuit of elite goals.  (A 
tribute to Obama's mesmerism in action was found in right-wing talk radio during 
the campaign, where it was argued that Obama actually had some power of 
hypnotizing crowds...)


Of course, there was nothing particularly new in the nature of Obama's 
candidacy.  Presidential candidate have almost always proposed something of the 
sort.  The vast political distraction of the last year and more illustrates Gore 
Vidal's remark, "Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are 
held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."  What 
differentiated Obama were his personal circumstances – and the heightened 
urgency of the problems of the economy and war that confronted his government.


     THE POST-INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY


In regard to the financial crisis and the economy, as Alex Cockburn says, "the 
sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost.”  The current crisis has been 
prepared for a generation.  Noam Chomsky argues that “the breakdown of the 
Bretton Woods system [the regulation of international finance that grew out of 
the Second World War] in the early 1970s is probably the major international 
event since 1945, much more significant in its implications than the collapse of 
the Soviet Union.”  It ushered in the “era of neoliberalism,” in which American 
economic policy insured that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer in the 
US and the world and at an accelerating rate through the last thirty years and more.


And Doug Henwood, writer/editor of the excellent “Left Business Observer” points 
out that Democrats were at least as responsible for the present mess as 
Republicans.  “Wall Street's own dedicated Senator, Charles Schumer [D-NY], did 
everything he could to forestall regulation. And Wall Street loved him for it! … 
While he was in the House, Schumer got more than three times as much cash as the 
next guy on the list. In the Senate, the top recent recipients are Kerry, 
Schumer, Lieberman, Dodd, and Clinton. And this is the gang that's going to 
re-regulate Wall Street?”


“Emily Dickinson once advised, 'Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.' Evidently 
the New York Times’ headline writers are taking advice from the enigmatic poet. 
The headline on the story on how the Obama administration will be going easy on 
banks and bankers getting bailout money blamed it all on the Treasury Secretary: 
'Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout.' In internal administration 
battles, Geithner 'successfully fought against' stricter rules on executive pay, 
and beat back the attempts to replace top management.  Of course, to say that 
Geithner won these battles is to say that Obama agreed with him. Once again, the 
embodiment of hope and change went with the status quo when he didn’t really 
have to. There would have been little political price to pay for putting the 
screws to the banksters.”


It's remarkable how much agreement now exists on what Henwood says is the 
unavoidable solution.  “At this point, the only thing that makes any sense is to 
nationalize the weakest banks, kick out management, wipe out the shareholders, 
clear the decks, and start over with a tightly regulated system. This isn’t even 
all that radical a position anymore -- and it may be inevitable, if these sick 
and devious 'public-private partnership' schemes don’t work out, which seems 
likely … [The Obama administration] botched the stimulus, and they’re botching 
the financial rescue. They’re worse than I expected, and I wasn’t expecting much 
in the first place.”


     THE SOUTHWEST ASIAN WAR


     "...I think Obama looks more aggressive and violent than Bush. The first 
acts to occur under his administration were attacks on Afghanistan and in 
Pakistan, both of which killed many civilians and are building up support for 
the Taliban and terror. He wants to extend the military side of the war ... 
Pakistan, by now, is partially under the control of the radical Islamist 
elements that Reagan helped install there. It’s an extreme danger for Pakistan 
and actually for the world, since Pakistan has nuclear weapons." (Noam Chomsky)


The new administration is expanding the killing in what they call "the central 
front of the war on terrorism" -- Afghanistan.  The war is an example of what 
the Nuremberg Tribunal called the "supreme international crime" (i.e., worse 
than terrorism), an aggressive war.  While the US press publishes thumb-suckers 
(journalese for will-he-or-won't-he think pieces) on the war in Afghanistan, the 
man whom Obama chose to run his administration's policy in the crucial theater 
of the SW Asian war makes clear the administration's plans: Obama's (really 
Hillary Clinton's) Man on the Scene, Richard Holbrooke, writes that "Americans 
should be told the truth: [the war in Afghanistan] will last a long time -- 
longer than the United States' longest war to date, the 14-year conflict 
(1961-75) in Vietnam" -- and it will be “much tougher than Iraq.”


Comparisons between Vietnam and AfPak have come thick and fast ever since. We 
should be careful of those comparisons. The situations are quite different. For 
one thing, SW Asia -- because of energy resources -- is far more important to 
the US than SE Asia ever was, and so far we've only killed in the former a 
fraction of the number of people we killed in the latter. Our leaders think 
there's a huge upside to the deaths we can cause.


Nevertheless the comparisons are instructive, if we get the history right.  For 
example, remember that the SE Asia war was primarily against *South* Vietnam -- 
we dropped roughly three times the ordnance there that we did in the North 
(several times what was used in all of WWII).  And why? Because the South 
Vietnamese didn't have the good grace to accept the government that the US had 
picked out for them. So we destroyed their country (and hence won the war, even 
if we didn't achieve our maximum war aims).  This generation should take the 
lesson.  (E.g., Hamid Karzai looks a lot like Ngo Dinh Diem to me; see the 
account of that victim of the Kennedys in Tim Weiner's important new book, 
"Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA.")


But the principal objection to the war in Afghanistan is not that there's "no 
prospect of victory": it's that it's an international crime, an aggressive war 
for geopolitical control, that Obama justifies with an even more ridiculous 
excuse than Bush used for aggression against Iraq. When George Bush said that 
the War on Terror let him kill people, liberals frowned.  When Barack Obama says 
that the War on Terror lets him kill people, liberals applaud.  That's talent.


Meanwhile the White House and the Pentagon agree that they will "withdraw" from 
Iraq only to the extent compatible with effective control. Their prevarication 
keeps the matter unclear.  Under Obama, the US war in the Mideast is 
"repackaged," as a matter of mendacious PR, and expanded.


Perhaps the most successful tactic of the Obama campaign was the co-option of 
the antiwar movement.  The remnants of that movement should be demanding that 
the US end its war in Iraq and Afghanistan; pay reparations through the UN or 
other international agency; and prosecute those US officials responsible for 
illegal war.  That should be part of the general demand that the US end its war 
for control of energy resources in SW Asia and remove its troops (and NATO 
troops) from the region.


Obama was also responsible for Israel's massacre in Gaza -- which Israel 
carefully timed between Obama's election and his inauguration.  He was 
responsible in the sense that he could have stopped it -- more than anyone else, 
including the outgoing president, could have stopped it -- and chose not to. 
There's no reason to doubt that we see here the settled Obama policy in regard 
to Israel and the Palestinians.


     THE PROSPECT


Sixteen years ago, at the beginning of the first Clinton administration -- when, 
like today, a putatively liberal Democrat was President after years of a 
Republican White House -- Alexander Cockburn wrote presciently as follows:

     "Soon Clinton's first 100 days will be up.  What will the record show? Sold 
out the Haitian refugees; let a Bush [I] appointee run Africa policy, 
essentially giving a green light to Savimbi in Angola to butcher thousands; put 
Israel's lobbyists in charge of Mideast policy; bolstered the arms industry with 
a budget in which projected spending for '93 is higher in constant dollars than 
average spending during the cold war from 1950; increased secret intelligence 
spending; maintained full DEA funding; put Wall Street in charge of national 
economic strategy; sold out on grazing and mineral rights on public lands; is 
pushing NAFTA forward and is now neutering side agreements that as a candidate 
he proposed would protect workers and the environment; and, with Mrs. H.R.C. at 
the wheel, ignores the desire of about 60 percent of Americans for a 
single-payer national health insurance, opting instead for some version of 
'managed competition' that leaves the insurance companies in charge of the show. 
  (I know.  He's no friend of the unborn and unwanted, and that's enough to keep 
some liberals happy.)"


Plus ca change, plus la meme POSE...



[C. G. Estabrook, who taught history at Notre Dame in the dark backward and 
abyss of time, presents a weekly hour of political commentary, "News from 
Neptune" <www.newsfromneptune.com> on Urbana (IL) Public Television and soon 
online; he can be contacted at <galliher at illinois.edu>.]


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