Obama and the Contradictions of Oslo
On one level I have to give him credit. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, President Obama confronted the world as it is -- and his policies as they are -- not as we wish they would be. That represented a certain kind of courage. But it missed the point. We need to aspire to eliminate wars, not to manage them better. We may fail in that effort, but we shouldn't give up from the outset.
The backbone of the speech was a defense of the "just war" in Afghanistan. Obama put it in the context of other wars of self-defense that were not amenable to the tools of non-violence, most notably the war to stop fascist aggression.
I have no problem with going after the people who launched the September 11th attacks. But that war is -- or should be -- over with respect to Afghanistan. The numbers of Al Qaeda operatives there can be measured in the dozens, not the hundreds. Using military force in Afghanistan is not going to defend anyone against Al Qaeda at this late date. It is far more likely to serve as a motivator for extremists around the world, most of whom are not based -- or trained, or indoctrinated -- in Afghanistan and never will be. For a more articulate, nuanced version of this argument see my colleague Robert Wright's recent essay in the New York Times.
There is a danger that in focusing on the justification of force in Afghanistan President Obama will sacrifice many of the urgent initiatives he put forward in his speech, from closing Guantanamo to working towards a world free of nuclear weapons. The president's Afghan policy needs to be re-thought, not in the name of more "dithering," as his hawkish critics would put it, but in the name of creating the conditions for peace, however imperfect.
Obama is right that some wars must be fought - evil must be battled, Hitlers must be vanquished. But calling Iraq/Afghanistan just wars reveals only our bottomless capacity for hypocrisy and self-delusion.
December 10, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
War is hell, as Sherman rightly noted. Rather than going around in never-ending and never-endable circles about "just" versus "unjust" versions of hell, a more sensible expenditure of time distinguishes, as Obama himself put it in 2002, dumb from non-dumb wars.
Colin Powell, with interpretive help from 1980s journalists, set forth the criteria for avoiding a dumb war (as Vietnam, notwithstanding rampant Rambo mentalities, manifestly was). It is high time to cease the collective amnesia about this "Powell doctrine" that pervades 99% of the commentary on TPM and elsewhere. Afghanistan, which COULD, though not easily, have been a non-dumb war, became in fact (and probably irreversibly) a dumb war. As we try to be less stupid going out than we were going in, we can also finally realize that the Republican-hypocrite blunderers and their Democratic-coward ass-kissers responsible for this disaster have yet to be called to account.
December 10, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Afghanistan was a non-dumb war when we went in and vanquished the Taliban. Then we should have left after a few months. But no, we decided to turn it into a dumb war by placing a puppet on the throne and leaving our troops there to protect him. Poor Bama, he is just continuing the dumb.
December 10, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are varieties of dumbness. Washing our hands of Afghanistan after the Russians left it was also dumb because it opened up a vaccum by which the Taliban came to power in the first place. You do not "vanquish" a powerful ideology by kicking its most powerful adherents out of one capital city and sending them back to their mountain guerrilla origins. Indeed, like swine flu, astrology, happening excrement and guaranteed-to-instantly-break plastic Christmas toys, perverted religious extremism is probably not something that can be vanquished, only held in check.
My point was not that there was some easier path not taken, but that we ought to be less clumsy at applying the lessons of our mistakes, the first step of which is stop denying them by trying to repackage them into looking like something they are not.
December 11, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"President Obama confronted the world as it is..."
First mistake: Obama didn't "confront" anything. He made a speech with a brigade of bodyguards watching over him.
Second mistake: Obama "justified" slaughtering primitive tribesmen who NEVER attacked the United States or any American soldier or civilian until we invaded their country. Al Qaeda is gone. Our senseless, murderous occupation remains. That's "the world as it is," and instead of "confronting" it, Obama PUKRD A LITTLE SUGAR on his chicken-hawk war, and accepted a medal.
December 10, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, a medal he did not earn and a medal he shows no sign of earning in the future.
December 10, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"President Obama confronted the world as it is..."
First mistake: Obama didn't "confront" anything. He made a speech with a brigade of bodyguards watching over him.
Second mistake: Obama "justified" slaughtering primitive tribesmen who NEVER attacked the United States or any American soldier or civilian until we invaded their country. Al Qaeda is gone. Our senseless, murderous occupation remains. That's "the world as it is," and instead of "confronting" it, Obama PUKED A LITTLE SUGAR on his chicken-hawk war, and accepted a medal.
December 10, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/
December 11, 2009 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's commendable -- I mean that sincerely -- that you take Obama's speech as sincere. But it was -- like his war-mongering policy in Afghanistan -- political theater in an era where Godwin's Law is always the punchline that rings down the curtain on thought. He yelled "Hitler", pocketed the prize and went home to send more Americans and Afghans to their deaths for no other reason than -- despite his campaign promises -- he's rather be a two-term president than anything else.
December 10, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to agree. His speeches follow a pattern - many fine words containing passages which give the listener a feeling of unease about his meaning, and which ultimately serve to obscure a hard kernel of neo-liberal thinking (in this case, American exceptionalism, militarism and hypocrisy). For example,
But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted.
How can those words be uttered with sincerity?
And there is the dissimulation of the following:
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation...
The President takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not the nation. He knows that.
December 11, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you honestly believe that war can be eliminated? Can anybody point to a period of history where there was no war anywhere on Earth? If you believe that we can overcome human nature and all live in peace then you are the delusional ones. Strife and conflict is part of the “human experience” and will always be.
The current administration inherited a war that contained no exit strategy or even thought beyond “go get ‘em boys!” I’m sorry Mr. Jurgenson but Al Qaeda is not gone but alive and well all over the world. The issue is how to combat people who use religion as a cover for power and I do agree that straight on combat is not the answer but sadly the true answer on how to deal with it you are not really prepared to deal with.
How has talking to these “primitive tribesman” worked out so far? Oh also these “primitive tribesman” handle Russia pretty well a few years ago didn’t they?
December 10, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question to ask is not if war can be eliminated but why it is that a superpower with a defense budget larger than the next 10 nations combined must always be at war and must never ever feel it is safe no matter how big the budget, no matter how many troops are deployed, and no matter how many permanent bases are established thousands of miles from the homeland.
The question isn't if war can be eliminated but how it can to be that peace has been eliminated.
December 10, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that is the question.
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/forever-war/
December 11, 2009 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a foolish argument. Of course there will continue to be war but at the same time we should realize that war is exceptional and not the norm. Look at the history of any given country and ask the simple question: what was the probability that any citizen would have a personal experience with war in his or her life time? Take China. On average, major war every 250 years or 10 generations. Thus a 10% chance of experiencing a war. In nineteenth century Europe very few people who lived in that time experienced war.
I have been conscious since the mid fifties and knew veterans from seven major wars. During this time there was dozens other war actions that took less than a month or so. So the question that we are addressing is how do we wean the US off of its unnatural predilection to engage in near continuous war?
December 10, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
War cannot be eliminated by starting a new one or perpetuating an old one.
Eliminating requires elimination.
Peace is not war, war is not peace, except in doublespeak newspeak.
December 11, 2009 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course war will never be eradicated. But we must continue to dream the impossible dream. We must continue to tilt at windmills like idiot savants and try to eliminate them or humanity is doomed. The moment we start talking about 'managing them better' we are admitting that war is an acceptable tool for a government to use to attain their ends.
Bluebell, as always, asks the right questions in her reply to R.Meyers. Why are we constantly on a war footing? What are the existential threats to our republic to constantly be at war? Since WWII we've had the Cold War (which often was very hot) Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, Afghanistan and finally Iraq. I see it as naked imperialist aggression plain and simple. We need to control the resources of many countries in order to provide the American people the lifestyle they are accustomed to. So we go in and take what we need and if a country doesn't like it we either invade or try to use our might to economically destroy them (re: Cuba, Iran and Venezuela). The thing is though that no longer is what we are plundering being shared with the American people in general. I am not saying that providing the American people a better standard of living by exploiting other people and their resources is acceptable in the least but at least in the past there was some tangible benefit for the masses. Right now the only people benefitting are the wealthy.
The argument can be made that exploiting the wealth of another nation is not the reason why are in Afghanistan...unless we are trying to control the poppy trade. I agree that there is no resources in Afghanistan to exploit. But our war in Afghanistan just represents the way the American government deals with the rest of the world. Either you go along with the program or we unleash our war machine on you...militarily and/or economically. We have become what we said we were opposed to in WWII...civilized nations do not try to 'manage' wars, they continually try to eliminate them.
I seriously ask this...have we already (and maybe a loooooong time ago) had a military coup in this country? It seems like no matter who is in power what the military wants in terms of policy the military gets.
December 10, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I seriously ask this...have we already (and maybe a loooooong time ago) had a military coup in this country?"
Yes.
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/he-who-controls-the-past/
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/lies-on-the-horizon/
December 11, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I agree that there is no resources in Afghanistan to exploit."
Chevron seems to disagree:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/
December 11, 2009 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine what have we plundered in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (both times) and now Afghanistan? I do not see Navy ships sailing home with gold and silver, or captured ships, or any “booty”. In answer to Bluebell’s statements practically every nation on Earth is on a “war footing”, it is called having a standing Army/Navy. What has happened to those nations who did not have a standing Army to defend its self or its interests? Oh yeah, they were conquered and absorbed into another nation. I spent many years at those bases around the world, we weren’t there as an occupying force, many times we were there to support that nation in response to a treaty (remember the UN?).
So Libertine and Bluebell what would you do if the major oil producing nations of the world decided to come together and declare “economic” warfare (war isn’t always about combat) on the United States and stop selling oil to us? What would happen to our economy and our way of life here? War is an implement of foreign policy and unfortunately the last administration used it as their primary means of foreign policy. The American public spoke and that administration was removed. It hasn’t even been a year since the current administration has taken office and they will need to time to develop an exit strategy that doesn’t leave Afghanistan crippled (we have already done that in the initial invasion).
I will freely admit that we should not be in either of the countries we are currently fighting in. I am a 21 yr veteran of the armed forces and I currently have family and friends in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Libertine not every “war” is about “naked imperialist aggression” or to collect “booty”, sometimes it is about national security.
December 11, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"... In nineteenth century Europe very few people who lived in that time experienced war...."
It's been a constant joke about US geographic knowledge. I guess we might now have to add history.
Napoleonic wars, Crimean war, Austro-Prussian, Franco-Prussian and Russo-Turkish wars were all major mobilizations. The Finnish war, Serbian rebellion, Polish uprising, Bulgarian revolt, unification of Italy. Not to mention the continuous expansion of everybody's empires and the violence thus entailed, including Africa (Zulu & Boer wars), India (various insurrections) and China (Opium war and Boxer rebellion), as well as sundry S. and Central American events. And I'm sure I missed a few.
It would be fairer to say hardly a generation went by without some experience of war, if not directly then close enough to be aware of the costs.
December 10, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
You do not understand the point at all. Yes there were many war like events. There were a number of revolts and insurrections, but for the most part people who lived in Europe between the Napoleonic wars and WWI (about 1 century) did not experience war. What Finnish war? You made that one up. The Polish uprising? Again a minor event. The Bulgarian revolt was part of a very long process by which those people achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was mostly local and not a war by modern standards. Africa is not Europe. Of course Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany had expeditionary forces in action across the globe, but for the most part there was not a major war (except probably Belgium that likely slaughtered about 10 million Congolese between 1885 and 1910. Very few people living in Europe even knew this was happening)
December 11, 2009 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength and spirit. Love your neighbor as you love your self. On these two commandments rest all the Law and the Prophets.
December 11, 2009 2:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Making "good points" with a false premise can not logically end well, as a matter of convention.
December 11, 2009 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/when-silence-is-betrayal/
December 11, 2009 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
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August 18, 2010 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink