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October 9th / 11th, 2009
"Obama the War Monger"
No doubt about it, Barack Obama is a rock star. He is especially loved and
respected in foreign countries, which is a welcomed improvement from how
we were viewed overseas during the torture years of Bush/Cheney. Yet in
many ways, Mr. Obama’s actual foreign policy is no different from that of
George Bush, particularly when it comes to our entanglements in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
One can argue that Obama inherited an immoral war and, thus, cannot be
blamed for any on going damages. Sort of like the relief pitcher in baseball
isn’t responsible for the three runs that score if he serves up a grand slam
homer to the first batter he faces. But make no mistake. Obama knew that
the bases were loaded against him before he entered the game. By the end of
last year, the United States had lost over 3,000 soldiers. Meanwhile, a
team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists had determined that over 650,000
innocent Iraqi citizens had died in the first four years of the war alone. It
’s what politicians and military strategists refer to as collateral
damage. And then there was the economic impact of the war. Obama was serving in
the Senate when a 2007 report was issued by the Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO estimated that if the war lingered into the next decade, it would
cost taxpayers in excess of $2 trillion dollars. That’s about $8,000 for
every man, woman and child in this country. The report was also based on
our maintaining 50,000 troops in Iraq, and 25,000 in Afghanistan through the
year 2017.
Of course, once Obama defeated McCain in November of last year, no one
could imagine a scenario in which those CBO numbers would ever hold up. That’
s because candidate Obama had boasted of his opposition to the war, and of
how he intended to end it if elected. But Mr. Obama has had nine months to
get us out of the war, and instead, he’s done nothing but escalate it.
This month we officially enter the ninth year of the conflict, and Obama wants
to celebrate that anniversary by maintaining 150,000 troops in Iraq, and
increasing our total number of soldiers in Afghanistan to nearly 70,000. The
situation in Iraq is bad enough, but it is the latter figure which is
giving pause to even the most ardent Obama supporters.
After all, Bush’s initial aggression could be explained away as a means of
protecting Iraq’s rich oil reserves, and a desire by Cheney to keep
Halliburton in high cotton. But Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is, by some accounts,
the second poorest nation on earth, trailing only Somalia in gross
domestic product.
To put that into perspective, the country’s total economy is less than
half that of Boise, Idaho. And unlike Boise, Afghanistan’s chief product is
opium.
And to make matters worse, Afghanistan is controlled by a mixture of
Taliban thugs and corrupt politicians. New York Times columnist and author Tom
Friedman explains why Iraq and Afghanistan are different in terms of their
ability to partner with the American military. “It’s that partner who
connects your troops with the ultimate goal. If the partner is rotten to the
core, nothing is going to work. When the President’s brother is accused of
being the leading mafia drug dealer, that’s not a good sign”.
And what is our goal in Afghanistan? According to the White House, we are
there for nation building and to stop the spread of terrorism. But even if
that were possible in the face of a non existent GDP, the Taliban, and a
rotten government, there are other problems with policing and reforming
Afghanistan. Senator John Kerry, himself a war hero, former Presidential
candidate, and supporter of Barack Obama, warns that nation building in Afghanistan
could have dangerous implications for Pakistan, and for stability of the
entire region. Meanwhile, investigative journalist Bob Woodward warns that
Obama wants to increase troop strength in Afghanistan without having an exit
strategy in place. It’s the same mistake that George Bush made with Iraq,
only worse. That’s because Afghanistan is poised to become this generation’
s Viet Nam. Both wars are unwinnable. The only difference between the two
conflicts is that we’ve traded rice paddies and jungles for mountains and
caves.
Congress needs to do to Obama what they wouldn’t do to George Bush – cut
off all military funding for the war, and force the immediate withdrawal of
our troops. Moreover, such pullouts won’t leave us more vulnerable to
terrorist attacks here at home. Just the opposite, because our intelligence
agencies will have more resources with which to thwart the plans of sleeper
cells. And the best part is that if Obama suffers with withdrawal from the
withdrawals, he will still have plenty of wars to wage right here on our own
soil. Those include: the war against unemployment; the war on corporate
greed; the war on racism; the war on the healthcare insurance and
pharmaceutical industries; the war on trade deficits; and, the war on illegal
immigration.
If he can win those domestic wars, President Obama will have earned my
respect.
Until then, he’s just a highly paid relief pitcher who isn’t worried
about running up the score in a game he didn’t start.
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