[Peace-discuss] Who's against the war?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[While many people who formerly identified with the anti-war movement are now 
delivering "critical support" to Obama, clear anti-war positions come from other 
points on the political spectrum.  Here's an example. --CGE]


	Obama, Like Bush, Just Doesn’t Get It
	by Jacob G. Hornberger

President Obama is in Cairo to deliver a major address to the Muslim world, 
which no doubt will explain that the U.S. government loves the people of the 
Middle East and is doing all sorts of good things to them.

Alas, President Obama, like his predecessor, just doesn’t get it. The reason 
that people in the Middle East are angry at the United States is because the 
U.S. government is over there. If the U.S. government wasn’t involved in the 
Middle East, that would bring an end to the U.S. foreign-policy woes in that 
part of the world.

Or as Ron Paul put it so succinctly, “They attack us because we’ve been over 
there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East ... 
I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they 
did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there.”

On the eve of Obama’s visit to Egypt, which one of the U.S. government’s 
authoritarian torture partners, Osama bin Laden released an audiotape warning of 
future terrorist attacks on the United States. In that tape, did bin Laden say 
that such attacks would be motivated by hatred for America’s freedom and values?

No. He said that such attacks would be motivated by the U.S. government’s 
occupations and interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which continue 
to kill, maim, and destroy.

Obama, like President Bush, thinks that it’s all just a public-relations 
problem. We just have to get the message out that U.S. officials love Muslims. 
Once they get the message, the U.S. Empire will be able to impose its will 
throughout the Middle East.

And that’s the core of the problem facing the American people. What business 
does the U.S. government have imposing its will on people who live thousands of 
miles away?

Indeed, what right did the U.S. government have to oust the democratically 
elected prime minister of Iran and replace him with an unelected dictator, the 
Shah of Iran?

What right did the U.S. government have to support Saddam Hussein and deliver 
weapons of mass destruction to him so that he could use them to kill Iranians?

What right did the U.S. government have to intervene in the Persian Gulf War, 
especially after signaling to Saddam Hussein that the United States had no 
interest in the border conflict between Iraq and Kuwait?

What right did the U.S. government have to impose brutal sanctions that took the 
lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children?

What right did the U.S. government have to establish “no-fly zones” over Iraq, 
which killed even more Iraqis?

What right did the U.S. government have to invade and occupy Iraq, killing 
hundreds of thousands of more Iraqis, exiling millions more, and destroying the 
country?

This is what it’s all about. This is what Americans are sacrificing their 
rights, their freedom, and their financial and economic well-being for — the 
“right” of the U.S. Empire to impose its will on people thousands of miles away.

That’s also what the kidnapping, the torture and sex abuse, the renditions, the 
secret prison camps, the kangaroo prosecutions, and the torture-partners are all 
about.

How can Americans honestly believe that it’s worth it? Is empire so important 
that everything that Americans hold dear must be sacrificed to maintain it?

If Americans want perpetual war, perpetual fear, perpetual loss of liberty, 
perpetual terrorism, and perpetual economic and financial chaos, then all they 
have to do is continue supporting a pro-empire, pro-interventionist foreign policy.

On the other hand, if Americans wish to restore freedom, prosperity, and harmony 
to our land, the solution is there: immediately withdraw all imperial troops 
from around the world, especially in the Middle East, bring them home and 
discharge them, and restore a limited-government constitutional republic to our 
land. And free the American people — i.e., the private sector — to trade and 
interact with the people of the world, including those in the Middle East.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-06-04.asp