Obama against all odds to end U.S. occupation

Dec 06, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
This last week, U.S. President Barack Obama faced a barrage of staid criticisms on his proposal to institute sustainable security through a surge of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan; making it clear that the era of blank checks were now a thing of the past, and pronouncing on a cogent plan for switching responsibility to Afghan security forces by mid 2011.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama spoke about finishing the job in Afghanistan where al Qaeda had its roots, attacking al Qaeda bases in Pakistan, and not to deflect U.S. military assets from Afghanistan to the Iraq War; but today, this deflection of U.S. assets worked to strength the force of Taleban resurgence in Afghanistan.
And Obama is only too aware that deployment of these additional troops is his last Afghan hurrah to shore up domestic support for an unpopular war, to institute a constitutional government, eliminate President Karzai’s network of corruption, and restore security in Afghanistan; thus, his proposal to finish the job and withdraw the troops within 18 months. Also, keep in mind the President’s plan to withdraw most of the troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010.
And his plan to remove all vestiges of U.S. troops by 2012 in Afghanistan is a clear signal that Obama is intent upon reducing U.S. occupation around the world. Most American Presidents, in their quest to sustain American imperialism, followed Senator Beveridge Posture, Truman Doctrine, and Eisenhower Doctrine.
Senator Albert Beveridge in 1898 articulated the rationale for this kind of imperialism, thus: “American factories are making more than the American people can use. American soil is producing more than they can consume.
Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be ours…We will establish trading posts throughout the world as distributing posts for American products. We will cover the ocean with our merchant marine. We will build a navy to the measure of our greatness.
Great colonies, governing themselves, flying our flag and trading with us, will grow about our posts of trade…And American law, American order, American civilization, and the American flag will plant themselves on shores hitherto bloody and benighted…” (Greene, p.105)
Former American President Woodrow Wilson promoted the idea of imperialism, too, thus: “…Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused” (Parenti, p.40).
President Harry Truman added his piece, thus: “…the whole world should adopt the American system…the American system could survive in America only if it became a World system…”
“Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state…” (U.S. Department of State).
These Doctrines all support American interventionism globally. However, Obama’s philosophy of U.S. foreign policy does not pursue the rationale for imperial conquest, quite the opposite of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld drumming. Wolfe pointed out that from 1789 to the start of World War II, US troops occupied foreign countries 145 times without authorisation from Congress. And the U.S. intervened in 70 countries between 1945 and the late 1990s.
And so with this surge of an additional 30,000 troops, we may want to rush to label Obama a ‘war President’; but let’s not forget that he inherited both wars – the American War in Iraq and the Afghan War.
Let’s remind ourselves that Obama opposed the Iraq war in 2002, alerting the American people to “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences.” And in January 2007, Obama presented legislation in the U.S. Senate to judiciously terminate the war in Iraq, with a phased withdrawal of troops.
He was absolutely on the ball, as the Iraq War is still in session after six years; today claiming the lives of over 1,284,105 Iraqi civilians, 4,367 U.S. military personnel, and 179 U.K. troops. And, U.S. taxpayers continue to provide funding for the war, to the tune of $706 billion today.
And more recently, as a way to understand Obama’s attempts to humanize American foreign policy, look at his response to Iran’s election violence.
The Obama Administration’s response was cautious with the intent of not wanting to induce any unwanted escalation amid a furor of anti-U.S. sentiments; intimating, too, Obama’s concerns about the election violence; and with the historical Iranian acrimony against the US, Obama pointed out that he would not allow the US to develop into a ‘handy political football’ in the current ‘post-election’ upheaval in Iran.
President Obama has a huge mandate and political capital to radically change the long-standing inhumane US policy in the developing world.
Prem Misir

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