[Peace-discuss] Obama's imperialism

[C. G. Estabrook]

"There's nothing good to be said about dropping powerful bombs on crowds of 
innocent people, invading their land, overthrowing their government, occupying 
the country, breaking down the doors of the citizens, killing the father, raping 
the mother, traumatizing the children, torturing those opposed to all this ... 
Barack Obama has no problem with this, if we judge him by his policies and not 
his rhetoric. And neither does Al Franken, who's about to become a Democratic 
Senator from Minnesota."


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

Much ado about nothing?

What is there about the Iranian election of June 12 that has led to it being one 
of the leading stories in media around the world every day since? Elections 
whose results are seriously challenged have taken place in most countries at one 
time or another in recent decades. Countless Americans believe that the 
presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by the Republicans, and not 
just inside the voting machines and in the counting process, but prior to the 
actual voting as well with numerous Republican Party dirty tricks designed to 
keep poor and black voters off voting lists or away from polling stations. The 
fact that large numbers of Americans did not take to the streets day after day 
in protest, as in Iran, is not something we can be proud of. Perhaps if the CIA, 
the Agency for International Development (AID), several US government-run radio 
stations, and various other organizations supported by the National Endowment 
for Democracy (which was created to serve as a front for the CIA, literally) had 
been active in the United States, as they have been for years in Iran, major 
street protests would have taken place in the United States.

The classic "outside agitators" can not only foment dissent through propaganda, 
adding to already existing dissent, but they can serve to mobilize the public to 
strongly demonstrate against the government. In 1953, when the CIA overthrew 
Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, they paid people to agitate in front 
of Mossadegh's residence and elsewhere and engage in acts of violence; some 
pretended to be supporters of Mossadegh while engaging in anti-religious 
actions. And it worked, remarkably well.1 Since the end of World War II, the 
United States has seriously intervened in some 30 elections around the world, 
adding a new twist this time, twittering. The State Department asked Twitter to 
postpone a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its service to keep information 
flowing from inside Iran, helping to mobilize protesters.2 The New York Times 
reported: "An article published by the Web site True/Slant highlighted some of 
the biggest errors on Twitter that were quickly repeated and amplified by 
bloggers: that three million protested in Tehran last weekend (more like a few 
hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi was under 
house arrest (he was being watched); that the president of the election 
monitoring committee declared the election invalid last Saturday (not so)." 3

In recent years, the United States has been patrolling the waters surrounding 
Iran with warships, halting Iranian ships to check for arms shipments to Hamas 
or for other illegal reasons, financing and "educating" Iranian dissidents, 
using Iranian groups to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran, kidnaping 
Iranian diplomats in Iraq, kidnaping Iranian military personnel in Iran and 
taking them to Iraq, continually spying and recruiting within Iran, manipulating 
Iran's currency and international financial transactions, and imposing various 
economic and political sanctions against the country.4

"I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the 
Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," said 
US President Barack Obama with a straight face on June 23. Some in the Iranian 
government [have been] accusing the United States and others outside of Iran of 
instigating protests over the elections. These accusations are patently false 
and absurd."5

"Never believe anything until it's officially denied," British writer Claud 
Cockburn famously said.

In his world-prominent speech to the Middle East on June 4, Obama mentioned that 
"In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow 
of a democratically elected Iranian government." So we have the president of the 
United States admitting to a previous overthrow of the Iranian government while 
the United States is in the very midst of trying to overthrow the current 
Iranian government. This will serve as the best example of hypocrisy that's come 
along in quite a while.

So why the big international fuss over the Iranian election and street protests? 
There's only one answer. The obvious one. The announced winner, Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad, is a Washington ODE, an Officially Designated Enemy, for not 
sufficiently respecting the Empire and its Israeli partner-in-crime; indeed, 
Ahmadinejad is one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy in the world.

So ingrained is this ODE response built into Washington's world view that it 
appears to matter not at all that Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main opponent in the 
election and very much supported by the protesters, while prime minister 
1981-89, bore large responsibility for the attacks on the US embassy and 
military barracks in Beirut in 1983, which took the lives of more than 200 
Americans, and the 1988 truck bombing of a US Navy installation in Naples, 
Italy, that killed five persons. Remarkably, a search of US newspaper and 
broadcast sources shows no mention of this during the current protests.6 
However, the Washington Post saw fit to run a story on June 27 that declared: 
"the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively 
censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on 
the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms."

Can it be that no one in the Obama administration knows of Mousavi's background? 
And do none of them know about the violent government repression on June 5 in 
Peru of the peaceful protests organized in response to the US-Peru Free Trade 
Agreement? A massacre that took the lives of between 20 and 25 indigenous people 
in the Amazon and wounded another 100.7 The Obama administration was silent on 
the Peruvian massacre because the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, is not an ODE.

And neither is Mousavi, despite his anti-American terrorist deeds, because he's 
opposed to Ahmadinejad, who competes with Hugo Chavez to be Washington's Number 
One ODE. Time magazine calls Mousavi a "moderate", and goes on to add: "It has 
to be assumed that the Iranian presidential election was rigged," offering as 
much evidence as the Iranian protestors, i.e., none at all.8 It cannot of course 
be proven that the Iranian election was totally honest, but the arguments given 
to support the charge of fraud are not very impressive, such as the 
much-repeated fact that the results were announced very soon after the polls 
closed. For decades in various countries election results have been condemned 
for being withheld for many hours or days. Some kind of dishonesty must be going 
on behind the scenes during the long delay it was argued. So now we're asked to 
believe that some kind of dishonesty must be going on because the results were 
released so quickly. It should be noted that the ballots listed only one 
electoral contest, with but four candidates.

Phil Wilayto, American peace activist and author of a book on Iran, has observed:

     Ahmadinejad, himself born into rural poverty, clearly has the support of 
the poorer classes, especially in the countryside, where nearly half the 
population lives. Why? In part because he pays attention to them, makes sure 
they receive some benefits from the government and treats them and their 
religious views and traditions with respect. Mousavi, on the other hand, the son 
of an urban merchant, clearly appeals more to the urban middle classes, 
especially the college-educated youth. This being so, why would anyone be 
surprised that Ahmadinejad carried the vote by a clear majority? Are there now 
more yuppies in Iran than poor people?9

All of which is of course not to say that Iran is not a relatively repressive 
society on social and religious issues, and it's this underlying reality which 
likely feeds much of the protest; indeed, many of the protesters may not even 
have strong views about the election per se, particularly since both Ahmadinejad 
and Mousavi are members of the establishment, neither is any threat to the 
Islamic theocracy, and the election can be seen as the kind of power struggle 
you find in virtually every country. But that is not the issue I'm concerned 
with here. The issue is Washington's long-standing goal of regime change. If the 
exact same electoral outcome had taken place in a country that is an ally of the 
United States, how much of all the accusatory news coverage and speeches would 
have taken place? In fact, the exact same thing did happen in a country that is 
an ally of the United States, three years ago when Felipe Calderon appeared to 
have stolen the presidential election in Mexico and there were daily large 
protests for more than two months; but the American and international 
condemnation was virtually non-existent compared to what we see today in regard 
to Iran.

Iranian leaders undertook a recount of a random ten per cent of ballots and 
recertified Ahmadinejad as the winner. How honest the recount was I have no 
idea, but it's more than Americans got in 2000 and 2004.

By what standard shall we judge Barack Obama?

Many of my readers have been upset with me for my criticisms of President 
Obama's policies. Following my last two reports, more than a dozen have asked to 
be removed from my mailing list. But if you share my view that the numerous 
atrocities US foreign policy is responsible for constitute the greatest threat 
to world peace, prosperity and happiness, then I think you have to want leaders 
who are unambiguously opposed to America's military adventures, because those 
interventions are unambiguously harmful. There's nothing good to be said about 
dropping powerful bombs on crowds of innocent people, invading their land, 
overthrowing their government, occupying the country, breaking down the doors of 
the citizens, killing the father, raping the mother, traumatizing the children, 
torturing those opposed to all this ... Barack Obama has no problem with this, 
if we judge him by his policies and not his rhetoric.

And neither does Al Franken, who's about to become a Democratic Senator from 
Minnesota. The former Saturday Night Live comedian would like you to believe 
that he’s been against the war in Iraq since it began, but he's gone to Iraq 
four times to entertain the troops. Does that make sense? Why does the military 
bring entertainers to soldiers? To lift the soldiers' spirits. Why does the 
military want to lift the soldiers’ spirits? A happier soldier does his job 
better. And what’s the soldier’s job? All the charming things listed above. 
Doesn't Franken know what these guys do? He criticized the Bush administration 
because they “failed to send enough troops to do the job right.”10 What “job” 
did the man think the troops were sent to do that had not been performed to his 
standards because of lack of manpower? Did he want them to be more efficient at 
killing Iraqis who resisted the occupation?

Franken has been lifting soldiers' spirits for a long time. This past March he 
was honored by the United Service Organization (USO) for his ten years of 
entertaining troops abroad. That includes Kosovo in 1999, as imperialist an 
occupation as you'll want to see. He called his USO experience "one of the best 
things I've ever done."11 Franken has also spoken at West Point, encouraging the 
next generation of imperialist warriors. Is this a man to challenge the 
militarization of America at home and abroad? No more so than Obama.

Tom Hayden wrote this about Franken in 2005 when Franken had a regular program 
on the Air America radio network:

     Is anyone else disappointed with Al Franken's daily defense of the 
continued war in Iraq? Not Bush's version of the war, because that would 
undermine Air America's laudable purpose of rallying an anti-Bush audience. But, 
well, Kerry's version of the war, one that can be better managed and won, 
somehow with better body armor and fewer torture cells. This morning Franken was 
endorsing Sen. Joe Biden's proposal to send 5,000 NATO troops to close the 
Syrian-Iraq border, bring in foreign trainers for the Iraqi officer corps, and 
put Iraqis to work cleaning up the destruction of our invasion. ... Now that 
Bush has manipulated us into the invasion, Franken thinks we have no choice but 
to ... stay until we crush the insurgents. It's a humanitarian excuse for 
open-ended American occupation. And it's shared widely by the professional 
political and pundit class who think of themselves as the conscience of the 
American establishment and the leadership of the Democratic Party.12

I know, I know, I'm taking away all your heroes. But such people shouldn't be 
your heroes. You can learn to see through the liberal, Democratic Party 
apologists for the empire. Only a week ago, documents released by the Nixon 
Library in California revealed that five days before US and South Vietnamese 
troops made their surprise invasion of Cambodia on April 29, 1970 -- which 
elicited widespread, angry protests in the US, resulting in the fatal shootings 
by the National Guard of students at Kent State University in Ohio -- President 
Richard Nixon got approval for the invasion from the top Democrat on the Senate 
Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Stennis of Mississippi. Stennis told the 
president: "I will be with you. ... I commend you for what you are doing."13

Long live the Cold War

President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown in a military coup June 28 
because he was about to conduct a non-binding survey of the population, asking 
the question: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 
there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National 
Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?" One of the issues that 
Zelaya hoped a new constitution would deal with is the limiting of the 
presidency to one four-year term. He also expressed the need for other 
constitutional changes to make it possible for him to carry out policies to 
improve the life of the poor; in countries like Honduras, the law is not 
generally crafted for that end.

At this writing it's not clear how matters will turn out in Honduras, but the 
following should be noted:

The United States, by its own admission, was fully aware for weeks of the 
Honduran military's plan to overthrow Zelaya. Washington says it tried its best 
to change the mind of the plotters. It's difficult to believe that this proved 
impossible. During the Cold War it was said, with much justification, that the 
United States could discourage a coup in Latin America with "a frown". The 
Honduran and American military establishments have long been on very fraternal 
terms. And it must be asked: In what way and to what extent did the United 
States warn Zelaya of the impending coup? And what protection did it offer him? 
The response to the coup from the Obama administration can be described with 
adjectives such as lukewarm, proper but belated, and mixed. It is not 
unthinkable that the United States gave the military plotters the go-ahead, 
telling them to keep the traditional "golpe" bloodiness to a minimum. Zelaya was 
elected to office as the candidate of a conservative party; he then, 
surprisingly, moved to the left and became a strong critic of a number of 
Washington policies, and an ally of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of 
Bolivia, both of whom the Bush administration tried to overthrow and assassinate.

Following the coup, National Public Radio (NPR) showed once again why 
progressives refer to it as National Pentagon Radio. The station's leading news 
anchor, Robert Siegel, interviewed Johanna Mendelson Forman, of the conservative 
think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Siegel: "There hasn't been a coup in Latin America for quite a while."

Forman: "I think the last one was in 1983"

Siegel did not correct her.14

This is ignorance of considerable degree. There was a coup in Venezuela in 2002 
that briefly overthrew Hugo Chavez, a coup in Haiti in 2004 that permanently 
overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and a coup in Panama in 1989 that permanently 
overthrew Manuel Noriega. Is it because the US was closely involved in all three 
coups that they have been thrown down the Orwellian Memory Hole?

Notes

    1. William Blum, Killing Hope, chapter 9 ↩
    2. Associated Press, June 16, 2009 ↩
    3. New York Times, June 21, 2009 ↩
    4. See Seymour Hersh, New Yorker magazine, June 29, 2008; ABC News, May 22, 
2007; and Paul Craig Roberts in CounterPunch, June 19-21, 2009 for descriptions 
of some of these and other anti-Iran covert activities. ↩
    5. White House press conference, June 23, 2009 ↩
    6. The only mention is by Jeff Stein in "CQ Politics" [Congressional 
Quarterly], online, June 22, 2009, "according to former CIA and military 
officials". ↩
    7. Center for International Policy (Washington, DC) report, June 16, 2009 ↩
    8. Time magazine, June 29, 2009, p.26 ↩
    9. AlterNet.org, June 14, 2009; Wilayto is the author of "In Defense of 
Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic" ↩
   10. Washington Post, February 16, 2004 ↩
   11. Star Tribune (Minneapolis), March 26, 2009 ↩
   12. Huffington Post, sometime in June 2005, but it may no longer be there. ↩
   13. Washington Post, June 30, 2009 ↩
   14. NPR, All Things Considered, June 29, 2009 ↩

–

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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