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TechnoratiObama Has to Pay for Eight Years of Bush's Delusions
He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths
American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of "raw" reports from American spies and their "assets" around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia.
That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the "war on terror" shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a "terrorist", that Arabs are "terrorists", that they can be executed, that living "terrorists" must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records "which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden". There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.
But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once said that "the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war". After Bush's fear-mongering and Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown's enthusiasm to Hoover up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair's sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?
Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He's got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the "change" he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America's borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole "war on terror". He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America's massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.
Indeed, there's a growing concern among America's allies in the Middle East that the US military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus' original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the "surge" than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush's policies. There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned byWashington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.
But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.
There is just one little problem, though, and that's the "missing" prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.
51 Comments so far
Show AllI always enjoy reading Mr Fisk.
If this is true:
"Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do."
I would like to know, how the hell they got away with it? Sick isn't the word...
In the final analysis; Monsters can't defend, civilisation.
I love your work, Robert Fisk, but this is a bet essentializing some of the deeper problems of American politics which are certainly not Republican generated. If anything, the Democrats have advanced some of the most dangerous economic policies and as well much of what Bush was able to do in the post 9/11 era was allowed largely by Clinton's apartheid 1996 Immigration Act which set into place a two tier system of justice in the USA.
And let's be really honest with ourselves: Obama supported much of what has put into action these past few years. I don't think it is practical nor honest to view Bush as separate from ourselves. Indeed, as I think of all my friends who voted for Obama, each and every one, after the invasion of Afghanistan, the trial of John Walker (an casuality of huge injustices in our country) and the second invasion of Iraq, remained silent.
People think Obama is going to change things, when he simply will not. If it is change we want, then the people need to take to the streets, petition their congress people and senators and just stop paying taxes. Obama has made clear what he intends in his first few months and it reeks of the same old same old: closing Guantanamo to have a "different" penal system put into place; "ending" the war in Iraq but keeping the troops there and starting a new war in Afghanistan; invading Pakistan and threatening Iran. I see no difference in his plans from this regime.
If the criminal architects of 911 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are not brought to trial for their crimes, the USA will never live down it's shame.
Those mass murderers must stand trial at the Hague for their monstrous crimes.
Until then the flag of the USA will continue to burn in infamy.
Before the meltdown and election, I used to post this little nugget. Now, as we watch the bit play out, it seems even more relevant:
Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.
For a time in the world some force themselves ahead
And some are left behind,
For a time in the world some make a great noise
And some are held silent,
For a time in the world some are puffed fat
And some are kept hungry,
For a time in the world some push aboard
And some are tipped out:
At no time in the world will a man who is sane
Over-reach himself,
Over-spend himself,
Over-rate himself.
(LaoTzu #29 600 BC)
Maybe we'll make it.
Ahh. Breathing is a bit easier, now, yes?
"He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going
to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk
to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief
of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv
called him this week – Obama will toe the line."
What else is there to say. Different president - same masters.
Bush's delusions have punished the American people, and countless others, abroad and at home.
Here in the US, Bush's veto of health care for children--SCHIP--was a testament to his delusion that private corporations were providing affordable health care coverage to children of the working poor. I considered this among the most reprehensible of his actions.
Even Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch supported extending SCHIP!
Instead of closing Guantanamo, ship the entire Bush regime there and in their orange suits, let them enjoy the tropical breezes. Why is Obama surrounding himself with all white people? Not a single Afro-American would qualify for any job? So where is the much hyped change? Same old same...just in a different colour: Obama's.
Unfortunately Barack Obama is the best the Democratic party could produce. If he was any farther to the left we would have had a McCain/Palin Presidency and a third war with Iran would have become not only possible but likely. Even if Obama is a far to the left as the conservative media seeks to portray him as (unlikely) then he still just a shill of the elite. However, I still beleive that he is our best hope at the moment to
a.) Increase the amount of union membership to pre-Reagan levels.
b.) Withdraw troops from Iraq
c.) At least stem the upward flow of wealth that is destroying the middle and working class.
There will still be a great deal of things in this country to be rectified, but electoral politics was never meant to be revolutionary.
"If he was any farther to the left we would have had a McCain/Palin Presidency and a third war with Iran would have become not only possible but likely. Even if Obama is a far to the left as the conservative media seeks to portray him as (unlikely) then he still just a shill of the elite."
That is nothing but utter cowardice and a lame excuse to pander to the right for political expediency.
"However, I still beleive that he is our best hope at the moment to
a.) Increase the amount of union membership to pre-Reagan levels.
b.) Withdraw troops from Iraq
c.) At least stem the upward flow of wealth that is destroying the middle and working class."
He isn't going to do any of those unless he were to move to the left.
If Barbara Bush knew her son would turn out to be the worst president in US history, would she still have insisted that Papa George buy the presidency for their idiot son?
Jeb Rancid Bush would've put a gun to Mommy's head and dragged her to a back alley with a coat hanger in his hand and done the deed himself. I know Jeb is younger than George Wanker but in Bushland, anything is possible.
Of course. Daddy George and Barbara think history will remember their idiot son as one of the great presidents.
ROFL! The Pedophile and Bovine-Barbara should realize history all ready judges them and their IDIOT spawn for the MONSTERS that they truly are.
.Somehow I thing George the 41st is rather ashamed of George the 43rd.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
They both suck, Bush 41 and Vichy-bush. Barack Obama will really be the 43rd President of the USA- IF the bushitters truly vacate the scene.
Obama is not the answer, it's the american voter who year after year send the same bunch of sell-outs and scum-bags back to Washington. After Obama got done sucking up to the Zionists at the AIPAC convention, he,Obama, was off to suck up to the Cuban terrorists in Miami Florida. This is change you can believe in?
Obama will do a few good things, but we will not be leaving Iraq anytime soon, the killing in Afghanistan will continue and the Zionists will not stop the theft and murdering of the land and people of Palestine.
This is America if Obama doesn't want a one way ride to Dealey Plaza, than he will follow the script of the money changers. So America meet the new boss same as the old boss.
.Absolutely correct. The ultimate solution is also the biggest problem, the antipathy of the American public and its inability to see that we need to change a system gone rancid with greed and corruption.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The world issues that America has itself entrenched in will be difficult to resolve.
But just as great are the issues at home ,for the network of power that has been built by Bush/Cheney is truly frightening.
The unchecked warrant less surveillance network is doing all they can to destroy the very people that will dismantle them.
This is an unconstitutional lawless bunch sick with unbridled power.
They operate above the law because of the immunity granted to them by congress.
This cancer needs to be identified and cut out of our system of law enforcement before it is too late.
Obama needs a strong Attorney General that will reinstate the Constitution as law of the land and remove the Patriot Acts immediately.
If Obama does nothing regarding the Patriot Acts, then he is one of them, controlled by the ruling elite that want to destroy the America that was built by the constitution.
BornFreeMen
"If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a "terrorist", that Arabs are "terrorists", that they can be executed, that living "terrorists" must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America."
Every despot in every modern state that is eventually plundered from its guts out (the eyes go last) has cultivated this kind of delusional thinking: from Stalin to Hitler to Papa Doc Duvalier to Franco to Mao to Pinochet. We may call this kind of thinking deliberate "Misinformation", but it is less purposefully misleading than (and this is the most telling perhaps) it is sworn upon and believed in by those who employ it to reinforce their tragic legacies of mass destruction on all levels, from bombs and mass graves, torture and ghetto prisons and Gazas, to economic self-immolation through an anarchistic adherence to deregulation.
These despots seem never to have difficulty gathering a corps of believers, people to whom belief in very clear and uncomplicated lies soothes the fears of the necessity of living in a state of enlightened ambivalence, as well the absolute requirement of all thinking people: you will have to make choices out of a sometimes terrifying lack of alacrity. That is the cost of commitment to democratic ideals and an authentic belief in equality and freedom of thought, expression and a search for meaning for all. Such decisions require a deep level of willingness to be educated and to cultivate innate human skills of discrimination; discrimination between what is the music of healthy chaos and what is the deadly racket along the road to self-defeat. This is why such death-dealing despots have no compunction about undermining the education of the population from whom they require unwavering worship, even if it is the kind of enforced worship that produces the very life-sustaining movements that always succeed in outshining them, if not over-throwing them in very literal ways.
By the way... this was another article from Fisk that did not appear in my morning Independent email newsletter. Hmmmmmm.
Sioux Rose
BOB V: Profound, right-on analysis.
He'll have to do a lot more than that! Of course he won't be able to.
He'd also have to admit that the only reason we are still in Iraq is to secure control of Iraqi oil production - meaning recreating the Saudi Arabian model in Iraq. The neocon wet dream of partitioning Iraq in three seems to be over, but that simply means that the standard U.S. foreign policy of the early 1970s to the present won out over "the crazies".
Saudi Arabia is a client state of the U.S. that works on the principle of petrodollar recycling, for those who don't know. Global consumers deliver billions in U.S. dollars to the Saudis, and the Saudi preferentially invest that money in the U.S. and London banking systems, as well as in arms purchases from the U.S., engineering contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton and Vinnell, the latter being interesting: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vinnell_Corporation
That's the model that is intended for Iraq: a centralized dictatorial government with an authoritarian religious police, and a locked-in economic petrodollar recycling scheme called "privatization of all state-run programs", which means that everything from electricity to cell phones to agriculture is now run under contract with private industry, thanks to the early actions of Paul Bremer and the CPA.
Is Obama going to discuss all that? Of course not! Did any third party candidate discuss this? Well, I saw one: Cynthia Mckinney went on Al Jazeera and said something similar. Will the U.S. press run stories on this? Not really.
Then, you have the issue of the withdrawal of troops, the fact that the "Iraq Governing Council" is still the same U.S.-appointed puppet government that it was in 2003, more or less, and the permanent military bases in Iraq. Those bases had been intended to project U.S. influence into Iran and Syria, along with other bases in the Caspian/Central Asian countries to the north. That was to be the basis of "A New American Century" under the plan of the PNAC, which Cheney and Rumsfeld both were involved in.
Remember? We were going to be greeted as liberators, and the whole thing would be done in less then a year, and the cost? Look at right-wing papers in the U.S., c. 2002.... here's CNN:
"In September 2002, former Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey said war could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, speculation that was immediately dismissed by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels."
"Daniels himself said in December that war could cost between $50 billion and $60 billion, but quickly clarified that it was impossible to tell how much the war might cost and that he was simply trying to compare a new war with its only close historical precedent, the first Gulf War, which cost about $60 billion."
http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/17/news/economy/war_cost/
Aggressive military invasion of a foreign country in order to depose its leader and seize control of its natural resources is a crime under international law, EVEN IF that leader is a brutal murderer who should have been deposed long ago.
This is particularly true if that brutal leader, one Saddam Hussein, was the recipient of U.S. and European largess during the Iran-Iraq war, including everything from satellite recon to hundreds of millions in U.S loans to equipment for biological and chemical warfare facilities.
It is even more true if, after invading the country and deposing the leader, you make life for the people of that country even more difficult than it was under their old tyrant - which is what we've done in Iraq.
Meanwhile, we get politicians and pundits who rely on one-line wonders, repeated endlessly with breathless enthusiasm: "The surge is working! Iraqis love us! Conditions here are better than they've ever been!".
Fisk, as usaul, nails it. Simply the finest Western reporter in the Middle East, he has no equal. He is telling his us in his normal, calm way, what is coming, and Obama supporters may be surprised and dismayed. I am an Obama supporter but I am also not naive, things may not be as the "faithful" want it to be.
I am no blind admirer or Robert Fisk and I have had reservations about his style of writing in the past. However, I have no reservations in saying this article is 100 % true and hit the nail on the head. Obama truly will have his hands full undoing his predecessor's pernicious legacy.
This article is totally incoherent.
Brian, "This article is incoherent," is a loose generalization.
I'm looking at the same article and see it as succinct, supported by the facts as i know them and presented by a respected scholar of IR.
Can you maybe cite-quote one small incoherent statement made by Professor Fisk?
Thank You for illuminating myself and Bob Fisk.
With your coherence.
Can you be specific?
After all the "Obama has got to ...", it would have been useful to have Fisk write about, "Or what?" What will be the consequences of his failure to do what he "has got to?"
That would have provided the wrapping-up closing paragraph, rather than the "Just one little problem ..." diversion, which explained neither why it was "one" or "little".
I think you completely missed the point. Fisk is itemizing what Obama has to do to clean up the mess left behind by the moronic, incompetent Bush crew. Think of a house in terrible shape from neglect, and a very knowledgeable contractor gives you a list of what you must do to repair it and bring it back to liveable shape. What happens if you don't do all those repairs??!! It obviously stays in the same sorry shape it's in right now!! No mystery there. And certainly no explanation required.
Fisk gives the list of messes that are there for people to see, open to the world. In the last paragraph, he points out that there's something else that is going to be a terrible problem (and he uses understatement and irony...): thousands of people secretly kidnapped and spirited away to secret prisons. As part of the clean-up operation, Obama has to deal with this atrocity, having no idea at all what awaits him, as opposed to the other obvious messes mentioned.
BTW...(The following is not directed at Brian Brademeyer, but at whoever reported Brian's post) Flagging that post is ridiculous. I totally disagree with Brian's post, but there's nothing insulting or otherwise untoward about it; it's just his opinion. Flagging is for objectionable posts (personal insults, abusive language towards other posters, etc.. we all know what that is). You don't flag something because you disagree with it; you debate if you disagree!! This is a great site, with lots of room (literally and figuratively) to vent and debate, and we're given lots of freedom to self-police. Flagging something because you disagree is extremely weak and completely against the very idea of a site like this, which is about exchanging ideas and debating. Not running to teacher when you disagree. Come on, let's be more mature than that.
Bob's Sarcasm was lost on you in that closing paragraph; 20,000 missing/dead U.S. kidnapees is no 'little' matter, and no one who has read Fisk doubts his morality.
Thank You for your response though; It is okay if we see things differently; that is what 'open discussion,' means.
Peace Out from Norcal
You mean it is inconsistent with your world view?
No, I mean it is incoherent. Several paragraphs of "Obama must do ...", followed by "Obama won't be able to...", with a follow-up nonsequiter paragraph about "disappeared prisoners."
Incoherent.
Brian,
You explained it yourself: first he says what the new President must do; then he demonstrates evidence that the new President will not do these things. What do you find incoherent about that?
As for the tag about the disappeared persons: a writer can say more than one thing, and a reader can follow it. It is not even a separate thing, is is directly related to the rest of the article.
Are you especially grumpy today?
and the delusions continue:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7728551.stm
if they know so much, how come they can't find him???.........
...because they know that Osama bin Laden has been dead since not that long after 9-11. Some reports suggest he died from an ongoing struggle with kidney failure, but there is also the reference by Benazir Bhutto in an interview with David Frost in 'o7 that Osama bin Laden had been assassinated by Omar Shiek, a comment that was interestingly glossed over by Frost with no follow-up. Videotaped messages of bin Laden over the past several years have been pretty much discredited as productions of our CIA or vendors of the CIA. Osama bin Laden has been nothing more than a patsy for the false-flag 911 operation in the establishment of the "War on Terror" and the assault on the Middle East, not to mention the solidification of the Police State in our "Homeland".
George doesn't want to find him. Where would he find another better boogieman?
Not only that...Imagine putting him on trial!! It would be a bigger media event than the Olympics, and OBL (and his 'ideology') would be the star. What fun he'd have to explain how the CIA helped him get going in the 80s to hound the USSR in Afghanistan. It would be such a bonus for him that I'm totally surprised he hasn't simply walked into a the US embassy in Pakistan and turned himself in.
but he'd still take the rap for everything though.............
G.W. Bush makes Nixon look like a moral man; hopefully, Mr. Obama does not make Mr. Bush look moral, but it is looking like Mr. Obama is just another shill of the ruling elite.
He hasn't taken office yet for Christ's sake.
"He hasn't taken office yet for Christ's sake."
My feelings exactly. Perhaps we could hold off on the criticism until after the new President takes office. I find that articles expressing doubt on President-elect Obama's ability to govern receive much support by many here on cd. Give the new president a chance.
"Politics is the skillful use of blunt tools." (Lester B. Pearson. Prime Minister of Canada,1963-1968. [Nobel prize for peace, 1957])
...and Henry Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize in '73. Can't criticize that!
"...and Henry Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize in '73. Can't criticize that!"
Was Dr. Kissinger also Prime Minister of Canada? You comment makes no sense.
I merely pointing out who the man I quoted was. Are you suggesting that because they were both Nobel peace prize winners that they are the same type of personality? Or were you really just trying to be rude? What was the point of your comment?
Some Obama critics have a point, obviously, but others!!!??? Shades of that right-wing loudmouth windbag, Limbaugh, who told his radio audience of 15 million to 20 million on Thursday: "The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen."
The Obama 'phenomenon' is extremely interesting in terms of the kinds of criticisms it provokes, and from whom.
That FAT, drug addicted, bag of wind can not fool ANYBODY. EVERYONE with a wee bit of gray matter knows that this mess (economic, military, current state of the union, etc.) is all bush-it.
Why have the Dems been so willing to wallow in it, then?? What has been apologetically called "strategy" has resulted in "s-tragedy" through complicity.
.Just because there are criticisms does not mean we shouldn't think on them and decide which have merit.To so easily dismiss such criticisms and those who speak them , as many seem ready to do, is counter productive.
I made my opinion of the path an Obama Presidency would probably take very clear prior to the election. The appointment of Rham Emmanel seems to make my prediction more valid now. The oath of office has not been administered of course and those who speak to giving the new administration a chance to steer a course have an undeniable validity. But that doesn't mean we should wear blinders or don gags for the next two months either.
"Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society."
Earl Warren
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?"
It's a long way to Tipperary - sorry, that's a song I sang in my childhood that's been playing in my head. What I meant was that it's a long while to January 20th, and we may just discover that we can indeed still be surprised.
It isn't really the time to January that should be worrying you. What should worry you is that after the 20th, there is still a firm supporter of Israel in the White House, there will still be troops in Iraq. There will be more troops in Afganistan. There won't be a single payer health insurance scheme. The Banks and the Automakers will have their bailouts and we as progressives get? What?
Whoever posts that this is Camelot needs to watch The Holy Grail again.
I don't think it's Camelot; it never will be, but Obama needs encouragement AND direction from you and me.
Was it FDR who, right after his election, listened to a supporter lay out a list of the right things to do? And his reply was something like, "I agree with you on everything you've said, now make me do it."
That may be what happened to the Impeachment...Pelosi asked for 10,000 hand written letters of support, but evidently, didn't get them.
Then, again, perhaps only a few Germans wrote letters to dump Adolph in 1937...
W has been the most successful Resident the rich have ever had (at least until this "meltdown", or "lootdown" threatened to knock the wheels off the apple cart). The gov is wrecked except as a rubber stamp for corporations, and wealth has been moved to the top more effectively than at any time in history, i would guess.
BHO has shown signs of dealing with some of this. Let's give him some time, guidance, letters and "watch his 6".