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WPost Sees Neocon Hope in Obama
When reading Washington Post editorials, one often is reminded of the famous question from "Shawshank Redemption": "How can you be so obtuse?"
Of course, in the movie, the warden wasn't being "obtuse" as much as he was obfuscating and obstructing. And similarly, one has to wonder if the Post's apparent obtuseness is really something willful, that there is a method to the maddening stupidity.
Such was the case with the Post's lead editorial on April 4, "New Words of War," in which the newspaper's neoconservative editorial writers equate ex-President George W. Bush's "global war on terror" with President Barack Obama's more targeted strategy against al-Qaeda.
The Post apparently still won't accept that Bush's blunderbuss GWOT against "every terrorist group of global reach" was a geopolitical and constitutional disaster. Instead, by cherry-picking a few words here and there, the Post argues there's no real difference between Bush's conflict against all "terrorists" everywhere and Obama's targeted assault on al-Qaeda and its allies along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
In criticizing the Obama administration for allegedly playing word games by dropping the GWOT phrasing, the Post was itself playing word games.
"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently confirmed that the Obama administration has dropped the phrase ‘global war on terror,'" the Post wrote, adding:
"She didn't say why. ‘I think that speaks for itself. Obviously,' was her elaboration. That raised a few obvious questions: Does the new administration believe the fight against al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamist groups doesn't amount to war? Is the threat to the U.S. homeland less, in President Obama's estimation, than that perceived by President George W. Bush? And does the United States still expect its NATO military allies to join in this newly unnamed, speaks-for-itself endeavor? "
But is the Post really that obtuse? What the change in wording means is that the Obama administration doesn't buy into Bush's apocalyptic vision that terrorism represents some new global phenomenon that requires waging endless war and obliterating the U.S. Constitution.
The new words mean that Obama is defining the threat from al-Qaeda in a much more limited way, thus offering a better prospect of victory without the sacrifices of blood, treasure and liberties that Bush's grandiose concept required in pursuit of some phantom security.
However, the Post editorialists drew other conclusions, citing Obama's comments April 3 at a NATO summit in Strasbourg, France.
"I think it's important for Europe to understand that even though I'm now President and George Bush is no longer President, al-Qaeda is still a threat," Obama said. "We believe that we cannot just win militarily [in Afghanistan and Pakistan]. But there will be a military component to it, and Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone."
To the Post's neocons, this statement was Obama channeling their hero, Bush, though they complained of the unjust result - that Obama won praise while Bush would have only encountered disdain.
"George W. Bush might have spoken those words, but Mr. Obama, in contrast to how his predecessor might have been received, was greeted with applause by his European audience," the editorial said.
No Change?
The Post then summed up its case for believing that the anti-terrorist strategies of Obama and Bush were the same, except for the terminology.
The Post said officials of the Obama administration have acknowledged that there is a threat from al-Qaeda, that it has a "global" component, and that it "requires a military response, with NATO's participation." Thus, the Post concluded, "It seems the ‘global war on terrorism" will continue - only without the name."
But that is a sophomoric - and obtuse - analysis. The Post ignores crucial elements of Bush's GWOT that looked far beyond the threat from al-Qaeda to seeing endless threats from militants, revolutionaries and "rogue states" around the world.
The core problem of Bush's GWOT wasn't that it sought to neutralize al-Qaeda's murderers but that it used Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as an excuse to implement murderous strategies against people who had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks, for instance, the bloody invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Beyond forcing "regime change" in Iraq and seeking it in other "axis of evil" countries, Bush's GWOT envisioned an endless "war" against insurgents from Colombia to the Philippines to Central Asia that would involve sending U.S. Special Forces and CIA hit teams to capture or kill troublesome foreign leaders and militants. Bush even vowed to continue this fight until he had eliminated "evil" itself.
The GWOT also was the rationale for imposing long-held right-wing theories about an imperial Presidency that could override federal laws and the U.S. Constitution, essentially establishing a "permanent Republican majority" that would snuff out the American Republic.
Indeed, by 2002, Bush's GWOT had become the justification for administration lawyers to craft legal opinions that asserted that the President, as Commander in Chief, possessed "plenary" or total power for the duration of the never-ending "war on terror."
Justice Department lawyers like John Yoo tossed away U.S. constitutional rights almost casually. The GWOT meant scrapping habeas corpus, the ancient right to challenge arbitrary arrests. Out, too, went the First, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth and the Eighth Amendments.
The needs of the GWOT took precedence over U.S. treaties and other legal commitments, opening the door to the torture of detainees in U.S. custody and to Bush's assertion that he could wage war without congressional consent.
New Direction
So, Obama's narrower strategy of defeating al-Qaeda and its allies in a regional conflict is not just semantics. It represents a significant repudiation of Bush's grandiose GWOT, albeit not a totally new direction.
There are residual components from Bush's approach that have carried over into the Obama administration, such as excessive claims of state secrets and long-term detentions in Afghanistan as well as the year-long phase-out of the Guantanamo prison and the three-year pull-out from Iraq.
The Post's neocons also find themselves sharing common ground with some American leftists in treating Obama's approach as essentially the same as Bush's. Their reasons, however, differ.
The Post wants to pretend that Obama is vindicating the Bush/neocon position by keeping its substance although changing its name. Leftists are pushing the line that Obama is no different from Bush, that Obama is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.
But neither position recognizes that Obama has abandoned key components of Bush's GWOT, particularly its infinite nature, both in time and space. Obama has transformed the GWOT into a much more focused and conventional conflict, targeting a specific terrorist group and its allies.
By narrowing the scope of the conflict, Obama also has implicitly rejected Bush's corollary, that the GWOT requires a suspension of American liberties. Neither of these shifts is insignificant - and to ignore them is obtuse.
29 Comments so far
Show AllJust because it sounds "more limited" doesn't mean it is. But its easy to think its different when you're arguing for a "limited war on terror" instead of Bush's "global war on terror." But what does it mean to "target Al-Qaeda?" Isn't it global? And finally can't Obama's words mean whatever he wants them to mean? Can't he say one thing and do another?
I think Obama's continuation of the War in Iraq, escalation in Afghanistan/Pakinstan, and cotinuation of U.S. Empire are very similar to Bush.
Of course, I'd hate to say that the Washington Post is right, but...
Yes, I am disappointed with the normally astute Parry on this one. It is as if he really wants to believe that Obama is pushing a substantially different foreign policy when evidence shows he isn't.
The Wash. Post is probably correct on this one - it really is just word play. As the escalation in the drone attacks show, the same old program will continue or even be escalated.
I agree. Unfortunately, I think it is Robert Parry who is being obtuse. Under Obama I see the powers of BIG BROTHER still gathering steam and building on the "in-your-face" abuses of the Bush regime, only in a slightly more subtle and slimy manner. Bush flaunted the destruction of the rule of law. Obama may throw up a cosmetic screen of reversing those abuses, but the basic agenda is still in motion for a New World Order fronted now by Obama. War abroad, and War on the people of the U.S. Obama's history is a pattern of lies, half-truths, and obfuscation.
Parry refers to "Obama's narrower strategy of defeating al-Qaeda and its allies in a regional conflict." While I wouldn't argue against the "obtuseness" of the Washington Post or any MSM outlet, in the U.S. or abroad, I would argue that this quote demonstrates plenty of Parry's own "obtuseness" in defending Obama's current plans for Afghanistan. The truth, as has been argued by so many, is that the "defeating" of al-Qaeda is hardly a "narrow strategy." Even if the contemplated military operation were confined to Afghanistan (or even to Pakistan as well), the prospect of "defeating" al-Queda is poor indeed. And even if the "terrorists" are put on the run from these two countries, there are plenty of alternative locales for the "global war on terrorism" that will pop up in, say Indonesia, India, Iraq again, or any one of another dozen places. Obama can "narrow" the strategy as much as he wants but the result of attempting to defeat an enemy with such world wide reach will be as futile for Obama as it was for Bush, and the net result of the Obama "change" will be that "the more things change, the more they are the same." Until we begin to address seriously the root causes of terrorism, as opposed to stamping out the consequences of those causes, we're in for an endless "global war on terrorism" or whatever PR cosmetics our current leaders and their media syncophants choose to put on it.
Even if the strategy is "more limited," shooting missiles at civilians in hopes of hitting "militants" remains wrong, just as "ordinary renditions" rather than "extraordinary renditions" remains fundamentally wrong.
It is the empire itself which is destructive in all its structures, as the attempt this past week to shore up the International Monetary Fund showed. The IMF has been doing for decades what our policies & remote weaponry has been doing for decades.
WAPO is a fun diversion at times but I don't look at WAPO expecting anything particularly progressive or real. After WAPO broke the Watergate story they were successfully targeted and infiltrated and are now a lackey of the corporate machine. It's actually laughable to me for anyone to expect anything else from WAPO. They are like NPR and PBS, whores to the death dealers.
On CD today is posted another story, a news report that perhaps as many as a million people have fled the drone attacks on Pakistan that resumed if they didn't begin on the very day of Obama's auguration. Following a stream of anguished comment responses, I posted the following, which seems to be as relevant to this article as to the one for which the comment was posted.
...........................
This article, and nearly every comment so far, puts to the lie the assertion of Robert Parry in another CD post today that Obama's war strategy is so much better than that of Bush because he adopts the "narrower strategy" of defeating al Qaeda. How "narrow" can your strategy be when, in the interest of supposedly defeating al Qaeda, it causes a MILLION people in Pakistan to flee their homes to avoid the drone attacks? I sincerely believe that Mr. Parry should read this article and the accompanying comments and then retract his assertion about Obama's as a "narrow" strategy...or else he should visit those refugee camps in Pakistan to explain to them how they are simply victims of a "narrow" military strategy, and then write another article about the matter.
There is NeoCON Hope for Obama. This said as a neocon hating Obama sometimes-appreciater. -Kristol, the FPI & McCain articualted a few nights ago, they desire to burn AfPak to ashes. Obama is setting a lot of fires there too. Killing.
However, although Obama's strategy of failure in AfPak is a NeoWetDream and NOT Narrow(er) than anything, Mr. Parry IS correct that BO is NO Bush (or McCain)-the heat is turned down, we are talking to Iran, & Russia-who see better relations w/ us now, US bellicosity is radically minimized in words & actions, AfPak a most horrible exception.
But the GWOT, US naked aggression and hateful posturing IS narrower world-wide,
Sure as Hell not in AfPak though. I assume no one here has a solution, or they would have implemented it. None of us like things as they are.
To dialectics. US Blues.
Between the WaPost and St Louis Dispatch, I'd never see much difference. I gave up subscribing to national newspapers a long time ago. I'd subscribe to my local newspapers if there was anything worth reading there these days.
hope and change.
the changes are merely semantic.
the hope is that the Homevolk won't notice.
Excellent article.
"The Post's neocons also find themselves sharing common ground with some American leftists in treating Obama's approach as essentially the same as Bush's. Their reasons, however, differ.
The Post wants to pretend that Obama is vindicating the Bush/neocon position by keeping its substance although changing its name. Leftists are pushing the line that Obama is no different from Bush, that Obama is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing."
CD is rife with left wing Obama condemnations along with some dedicated Republican shillery. It's obvious that right wing conservatives and left wing conservatives are authoritarian birds of a feather. But many liberals and progressives are becoming genuinely disenchanted with some of Obama's policies in Iraq, AfPak, the WOD, the bailouts, political appointments, support for nuclear power, his rants against Chavez, Iran and N.Korea, his needless bipartisanship, etc.
I suspect that Obama is a progressive trying survive in a tank of conservative sharks, or is now like a bird in their gilded cage so I've given him the benefit of the doubt. Because of his situation and as he hinted in his Prague speech, he needs for Americans to hit the streets en masse and help him overcome the conservative Washington establishment like the people in the Czech Republic did with their failing conservative government.
Thanks for a necessary article Robert Parry.
Mr. BHO has no intention of passing Card Check, Single Payer, or out of Iraq/AfPak. Period Full Stop. In the meantime he has every intention of killing the $$, emptying the Treasury into the pockets of richfilth animals you wouldn't leave alone with a 5 yr old, while killing SSI/Medicare ("Sorry folks, no money left, I gave it all to the richfilth.").
This is now baked into the cake. I don't care what "Partaaay" he says he is from. BHO is there to play Overseer and rape us to death for his Master. That's his job and he's going to do it unless WE, US, the working folks, the "little people" who produce the "wealth", stop him and his animals: Summers, Geithner, et al.
Can anyone seriously believe this man intends to do anything but rape us to death?
Whenever there is a reactionary right, an equally bilious and murderous reactionary left has always risen to counter it. But while conservatives send our kids to kill for fun and profit, they destroy the world we share.
Conservatives are not the answer. Conservatives are the problem.
Liberals?
There are liberals in this nation? The nation governed by the one-party system with two right wings?
Please....someone tell me where I can find these "liberals." Because every time I look at Washington, I see nothing but the sort of "consensus" that the WaPo is describes.
>> "So, Obama's narrower strategy of defeating al-Qaeda and its allies in a regional conflict is not just semantics. It represents a significant repudiation of Bush's grandiose GWOT, albeit not a totally new direction."
What a laugh! I you get blown to bits by a Predator drone, does it really matter weather Obombem ordered the "targeted" strike, or Bush did? Either way, you're still dead, even if it is "not a totally new direction."
Puke. What rubbish.
Thanks for reviewing this sorry history of "liberals" in periods of right-wing reactionary dominance---and for educating those not familiar with this history. A further example is how the civil rights movement, including MLK and the SCLC "went along" with McCarthyist hunters for "communists" in the movement and purged many "liberal" elements in the movement. (and the Americans for Democratic Action did the same thing.)
Sioux Rose
DAVE B: Perhaps I am confusing progressives with liberals, but it seems that in some of the historical instances you pointed out, the right did a hatchet job on potential leaders of the left by "disappearing them" or murdering them outright. The right seems to have no problem with the use of direct violence and skoffs at the concept of fair play. Many on the left tend to be pacifists by nature, and less comfortable using violence as their weapon of choice or pre-emptive strategy. What liberals may be left having witnessed hundreds, perhaps thousands of their friends rounded up and slaughtered, could well be easily pacified at that point.
I am NOT defending Obama, and I realize that some liberals have in fact gone along with his policies, but I would say they are superficial sorts who see in a change of label and exterior product, genuine change. That is they mistake the artificial for the real thing! So many have been so long programmed by advertising (msm) that they no longer CAN tell the difference! By the time reality catches up with their perceptions, the momentum of a variety of absolute evils furthered by Bush will have been given greater expansion by the enabler Obama. Indeed, the times are tragic and too many blinded by the stagelights... unable to SEE the big picture.
well said Sioux!
"- What he's implying there is that "the Left is just as bad as the Right (and both of them are equally murderous extremists)." He's pushing the idea that the "correct" position is to be "liberal," which he sees as neither Left nor Right, but happily in the middle. He sees "liberals" as being virtuous (like Jesus, MLK & Gandhi, see his 4/6 post below). (Actually, MLK was becoming a leftist radical -- he was no "liberal." The cases of the other two would require lengthier discussion, but they were also pretty radical.)"
That's condescending, but partly accurate. There isn't much difference between a fascist and a Stalinist. They are both conservatives to a greater degree, just as liberals like Jesus, MLK and Gandhi were liberals to a greater degree. All three were consummate liberal pacifists, two of which were murdered by conservatives. By all means, give us your lengthy discussion on why you think they were radicals (conservatives). Or the "Jesus kicked the money-changers out of the temple and that makes him a conservative", theory.
"The correct generalization is that "when conservatives send our kids to kill for fun and profit," liberals cheerfully go along with it, either because they too suddenly become conveniently "patriotic," or simply because they're too gutless & unprincipled to stand against it."
Liberals are non-violent. Violence is in our conservative side. It takes much courage to put your body in harms way like the liberals Jesus, Ghandi or MLK did than to react like a coward and turn someone else's kids into cannon fodder. And since in war, nobody wins, in the end it is more effective.
I remember just a few years ago that Afganistan was a "good" war, it was Iraq that was bad. That at least was the argument from the Nation and most others.. What happened there?
Oh Thomas, let me help you out here. A good rule of thumb to follow is if sources such as the Nation and Center for American Progress never mention a progressive independent except in negative light, chances are they're plain partisan. Expecting "The Nation" to be consistent is like trying to expect Faux Noise to be truly fair and balanced.
Bring America Back !!!!...................Parry has made the point about the Wash Post==obtuse & obstructive. The Post has not done any investigative
journalism since Watergate, and they rode the coat-tails of the work of
Woodward and Bernstein far, far too long !!
****Since then they have become embedded with the Neocons==far right wing
Repubbys ! Wars, Global Domination, and little sister Israel make far too
good Newsprint to get back to left wing causes, complaints and grassroots !
****The Post is part of Big Bailout, Wall Street==not Main Street and is highly
protective of the Neocon Hegemony given to us by Bush and Cheney war criminals.
****The Post claimed to have a picture on it's website of the Jet that
allegedly flew into the Pentagon on 9/11==take a look==ain't no Jumbo Jet in
that unverified Photo !!! Do we still believe the moon is made of green cheese ?
****Recently, the Post just did a multi-installment re-hash of the Chandra
Levy abduction...pure nonsense and full of unsubstantiated conjecture in
defiance of the real facts of that crime !!! Since the DC Police blew that investigation so badly, why would the Post see a Need to rehabilitate the
Force a couple years later ????
Obama, accustumed to adoring fans, rapturous over his worn soundbites and empty feel-good platudes, desperately trolled for an applause line in front of the unresponsive French.
Once he slipped and said since becoming president he had lost his 'autonomy', when he meant to say 'anonomity'. And he actually claimed that addressing the I\P situation or "being nicer" to Muslim countries wouldn't have any influence on the ambitions of these terrorist associations. He is filling Bush's shoes with ease, and perhaps Bush will be proven right when he predicted history would be kind.
There was mention on Bill Moyers that the ruling elites were starting to question whether Obama is up to the task.
That didn't take long.
Sounds like Parry is yet another change smoking hope fiend. There's more truth behind what the WAPO says then the dribble that Parry spouts in his final two paragraphs. Obama has renamed the War do that the word War isn't used. He hasn't changed a SINGLE action. He's expanded the illegal and immoral war so that it now INCLUDES Pakistan. The illegal bombings in Pakistan have INCREASED since O-bomb-ya has come to office. Don't be surprised if we start something with Korea and/or Iran before Obama is done.
'Don't get fooled again' - Pete Townsend
The Obama administration may not use the phrase, "global war on terrorism," but that doesn't mean that the policies have changed between the two administrations.
Once again, ask if Obama is actually doing anything different than Bush.
* Iraq war - continued
* Afghanistan war - escalated
* Pakistan war - escalated
* South Korean hegemony - continued
I despise the neocons as much as Parry, but unfortunately their point is true in this case. Obama's policies tow the line of the old Bush administration.
Torture is also officially denied, but it's also being studied under the Obama administration to see if it's effective. Extraordinary rendition is continued unaltered from the Bush administration. Habeas corpus rights continue to be violated. There have been no speeches about restoring lost Constitutional rights under the Obama administration, and Obama himself voted to let the telecom companies and the Bush administration off the hook for violations of the Fourth Amendment (domestic spying).
Robert Parry just may be having a bad day reading neocon trash to think clearly. He needs to look for true breaks from the Bush past to prove his point. I recall just one: rescinding the ban on international aid for abortion. I can't think of anything else that Obama's done that's different from Bush and I don't see a list from Parry either. How about some evidence?
There's a big difference between the positions of the left and the neocons, and I think it's absolutely obtuse to think that they are the same. The WaPo, in this case, is just observing Obama's behavior - and they like it. I'm dumbfounded that Parry thinks there's some objective to the Afghanistan war escalation and killing al Qaeda. He sounds like a neocon when he says that.
-TIA