opinion
Obama’s War Record Fuels Leftist Critics
“W
hy are liberals so
desperately unhap-
py with the Obama
presidency?” asks New York
Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, a self-
proclaimed “Obama apologist.”
He answers his own question:
“Liberals are dissatisfied with
Obama because liberals, on the
whole, are incapable of feeling
satisfied with a Democratic presi-
dent.”
See? It isn’t Obama’s fault. It’s
something in the so-called liberal,
or progressive, psyche.
(“Liberalism” originally meant a
philosophy of maximum individ-
ual freedom, free markets, and
minimum government, not today’s
support for intrusive, comprehen-
sive bureaucratic management.)
One wades through the 5,000-
word essay hoping to witness
Chait at least acknowledge that
Obama has let his supporters
down with his “war on terror”
policies. But all we get is this:
Obama … has enjoyed a string
of foreign-policy successes—
expanding targeted strikes against
Al Qaeda (including one that
killed Osama bin Laden), ending
the war in Iraq, and helping to
orchestrate an apparently success-
ful international campaign to res-
F uture oF F reeDoM
Sheldon Richman
cue Libyan dissidents and then
topple a brutal kleptocratic
regime.
Excuse me? Progressives —
who properly savaged George W.
Bush for his autocratic presidency,
civil-liberties flouting PATRIOT
Act, undeclared war on Iraq, use
of detention and torture at
Guantanamo and elsewhere, and
warrantless surveillance — are
supposed to be happy with Barack
Obama, who has essentially car-
ried on most Bush policies, even
kicking them up a few notches?
If we listen to Chait, there is
nothing at all disappointing about
Obama’s expansion of drone
attacks in Pakistan and Somalia,
with their routine “collateral dam-
age” to innocents; his flagrant vio-
lation of the War Powers
Resolution (not to mention the
Constitution and his campaign
promise) with his intervention in
Libya; his intensification of the
war in Afghanistan; his sanctions
(an act of war) against Iran; his
broken
pledge
to
close
Guantanamo; his support of indef-
inite detention without charge; his
policy of assassinating even
American citizens abroad without
due process; his renewal of the
PATRIOT Act; his placement of
Marines in Australia with the
words, “The United States is a
Pacific power, and we are here to
stay”; his failed attempt to lift the
UN ban on cluster bombs; or his
invocation of state secrets to keep
torture victims out of court.
Chait thinks Obama should get
credit for “ending the war in Iraq”
force will likely be left behind at
the humongous embassy in
Baghdad.
For Chait and his ilk, these all
must count as “foreign policy suc-
cesses.”
And what about torture?
Nothing upset Progressives more
during the Bush years. Toward the
end of the administration, the
criminal policy was abandoned
and was forsworn by Obama. Yet
the detention center at Bagram air-
base in Afghanistan has been
Most progressives are silent about
Obama’s shameful record. But it may
explain the disappointment Chait
can’t understand
— but hold on. The December 31,
2011, withdrawal date is set in the
Status of Forces Agreement nego-
tiated between the Iraqi govern-
ment and the Bush administration.
Obama tried — but failed — to
persuade Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki to let U.S. troops stay
longer. As it is, they will simply be
moved down the road to Kuwait,
and a large contract mercenary
called “worse than Guantanamo”
by Daphne Eviatar, an attorney for
Human Rights First. Adds John
Glaser of Antiwar.com,
There are now 3,000 detainees
in Bagram, up from 1,700 since
June (!) and five times the amount
there when Barack Obama took
office. Many of them have not
been charged, have seen no evi-
dence against them and do not
have the right to be represented by
a lawyer, aren’t given fair trials,
and the U.S. claims it is not even
obligated to explain why these
people are caged.
A U.S. special operations “black
site” at Bagram features “sleep
deprivation, holding detainees in
cold cells, forced nudity, physical
abuse, detaining individuals in
isolation cells for longer than 30
days, and restricting the access of
the International Committee of the
Red Cross,” according to Jonathan
Horowitz’s investigation for the
Open Society Institute.
Finally, in a move that bodes ill
for the future, Obama refuses to
criminally or civilly investigate
Bush administration officials for
illegal torture of prisoners. He
won’t even empanel a “truth com-
mission” to bring the facts before
the American people. Future
administrations will thus have lit-
tle to fear when they break the law.
Most progressives are silent
about Obama’s shameful record.
But it may explain the disappoint-
ment Chait can’t understand.
Sheldon richman is senior fel-
low at the Future of Freedom
Foundation (www.fff.org) and edi-
tor of the Freeman magazine.
Standing with the Occupy Wall Street Movement
I
have been noticing a number
of commentaries that in look-
ing at the Occupy Wall
Street/Occupy Together move-
ment (OWS for short) conclude
that African Americans are not
particularly interested, or that this
movement is irrelevant to the
Black Experience. I disagree.
The OWS movement has been
an exciting development on the
US political stage. It has shaken
this country in ways that it needed
to be shaken raising the matter of
wealth and income inequality and
the depravity of the rich. It has
called into question the policies of
Wall Street, but also the political
allies of Wall Street—both
Republican and Democrat—who
are more concerned with protect-
t raNS
a FriCa
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
through which they participated in
the student movement and/or the
anti-war movement.
Where I have seen this play out
differently, however, is in some
sections of organized labor. I
have seen some serious trade
union demonstrations and actions
that are very multi-racial/multi-
ethnic. But part of what makes
this possible is
that there is a crit-
ical mass of a par-
ticular group—in
our case, African
Americans—who
can see them-
selves in the
actions. In other
words, when they
look at an action,
they see a critical
mass of us.
In OWS many of us, regardless
of whether we support the cause,
do not necessarily see ourselves
represented. While some of us
will nevertheless participate, oth-
ers will sit back and support from
the sidelines. My suggestion is
that we need to organize our par-
ticipation. Here are a few exam-
ples. We could ask our minister,
priest, Imam, etc., to organize a
delegation from our religious
institution to participate. What
the OWS is doing is completely
consistent with religious doctrines
that overwhelmingly speak to the
poor and the dispossessed. A sec-
ond thing would be to have one of
It has shaken this country in
ways that it needed to be
shaken raising the matter
of wealth and income
inequality and the
depravity of the rich
ing the rich than they are with the
common person.
Yet, it is true that these “actions”
have been largely white. My first
response: so what? I am actually
quite pleased to see white people
challenging a system that is crush-
ing us all.
But my second response is a bit
different. The reality is that spon-
taneous movements in the USA
tend to be unbalanced racially.
The student movement against the
Vietnam War in the 1960s, for
instance, was very white. This did
NOT mean that Blacks were
absent. What it often meant, how-
ever, is that African Americans
formed their own organizations
our organizations, such as the
NAACP, a black student union or
a chapter of a labor union in which
we are active, to participate
together.
There is something else that we
can do. We can organize our own
actions that protest not only the
income inequality but the growing
RACIAL inequality that is crush-
ing working people of color.
Let’s stop worrying about
whether white people reach out to
us. We have our own reasons to be
integrally involved in movements
like OWS.
Sound like a plan?
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior
Scholar with the institute for
Policy Studies, the immediate past
president of transafrica Forum,
and the co-author of “Solidarity
Divided.”
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December 7, 2011 The Portland Skanner page 5