I made it clear in recent diaries that I would be challenging the sacred cows of the democratic party. Recently, a diary ran on Booman that reprinted in its entirety, what I would call a propaganda piece on Obama.
Although the diarist did not name the author, I will. That piece was written by Daniel Widome, appeared on SFGate.com, and, in my view, attempted to smooth over any lingering doubts about Obama’s foreign policy proposals.
For example, the column attempted to placate any fears over the saber rattling going on right now about al Qaeda in Pakistan. Several candidates have said they are willing to go into Pakistan with planes to bomb the hiding places of Bin Laden and al Qaeda.
The columnist attempted to cast Obama in a more enlightened light, because, while Obama has said he is willing to invade Pakistan with fighter planes to fight al Qaeda, he is not willing to use nuclear weapons in doing so.
I’ll distinguish between propaganda and true analysis in this way: Widome’s piece offered no analysis or even speculation as the possible ramifications of a fighter plane invasion of Pakistan, except this:
The area in which Osama bin Laden is suspected of hiding – in the rough terrain bordering Afghanistan – is a veritable no-man’s land, nominally part of Pakistan, but in reality beyond any state’s control. For more than a decade, U.S. policy has held that al Qaeda targets in such regions were fair game for attack. President Bill Clinton launched cruise missiles against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, and President Bush used a missile-carrying drone to destroy a vehicle carrying an al Qaeda leader in Yemen in 2002. Obama’s position, then, was more sensible than revolutionary, as the subsequent concurrences of his fellow Democratic candidates only confirmed.
The above quote in bold is potentially reckless in its assumptions: that Pakistan would not feel its borders violated by U.S. fighter plane attacks, because it would be in an area in which there has been little government control. This might be the stated reaction or policy of the dictatorship of Pakistan, but what about the people of Pakistan? Also, Widome offered no evidence that any of those pre-emptive strikes by Clinton and Bush proved effective in diminishing the strength and recruiting capabilities of al Qaeda.
Glen Ford with Black Agenda Report, in a piece titled “Barak Obama Ain’t Nothin’ but a War Ho”, has a lot of concerns about the willingness to invade and bomb with fighter planes a sovreign nation, particularly one whose government the U.S. and others have propped up for a number of years, and whose people would like nothing more than an excuse to get rid of the U.S.- propped dictator.
Osama bin Ladin, it is universally agreed, lives in Waziristan, in western Pakistan. Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Sen. Obama launched what he considers a bold new foreign policy initiative: invade Waziristan. Obama was clearly attempting to place himself on the hawkish side of opponent Hillary Clinton, mouthing war-mongering language designed to position him as a warrior-statesman. “When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Obama told the foreign policy establishment. The sovereignty of Pakistan will not be respected, under an Obama presidency. “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”
If it weren’t enough to propose the invasion with fighter planes of a military dictatorship, propped up with the huge assistance of the U.S., according to Ford, Obama has actually proposed regime change in Pakistan.
“We must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair – our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan,” said Obama, “it is a democratic ally.” That is a call for regime change. Pakistan is a nation of 165 million people, created in 1947 out of the wreckage of British India, to become a Muslim State, with a Muslim atomic bomb. Obama has no idea how to impose a new regime, that would be more friendly to the United States. Instead, he proposes that western Pakistan be invaded in the search for bin Ladin – a move that would unite both the Right and the secular Left in opposition to the fragile military government.
Smell like Iraq all over again? Regime change so that democracy may bloom? It’s as if the last five years never happened, in Obama’s world, or, he simply isn’t capable of learning the hard lessons. Ford thinks Obama, probably like most of the candidates, are simply too insulated to get a grasp on things.
Obama is a confused man, driven by consultants and no common sense. The United States has coddled and put cash in the accounts of the Pakistani military for two generations, as a bulwark against socialist India, also a nuclear power. The Americans’ Saudi surrogates financially supported the religious schools in western Pakistan that gave birth to the Taliban, and took over Afghanistan. Obama now proposes that the U.S. fund an alternative school system in Pakistan – but under what regime? He has no idea, and not a clue about how to secure The Bomb.
Ford doesn’t mince words, and we would do well to consider his thoughts.
So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it. The problem is, Osama bin Ladin does not have The Bomb, but the Pakistani military does. Senator Obama would destabilize a regime that is a nuclear power, and has nothing to say except that he would establish schools to replace tens of thousands of maddrassas. What a fool.
I don’t claim to have all the answers folks, but we’d better look carefully at the stated thoughts of those who do claim to have the answers.
The Black Agenda Report also this issue has this excellent article, by Bruce Dixon, ‘”Terror War” Terrorizes Spineless Dems’:
With Congressional poll numbers nearly as low and the president’s the gap between Democratic office holders and Democratic voters has never been wider. At the same time, corporate donations to Democratic candidates are higher than ever. These are two sides of the same coin. The Democratic establishment’s uncritical embrace of the so-called “global war on terror” is exposing for all to see the widening fissure between the two Democratic parties — the Democratic party of voters who are called out once every year or two, and the permanent Democratic party of consultants, pundits, lobbyists and wealthy campaign contributors. It is this gap between the expectations of voting Democrats and the will of donors and leading Democrats that prompted Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate President Harry Reid to avoid last weekend’s Yearly Kos, where they would have faced pointed questions on impeachment, war and peace, or domestic policy from an ordinarily tame crowd of Democratic bloggers, consultants, campaign staffers and wannabees. Pelosi and Reid know who their real base is.
My vote is for diplomacy, and de-emphasizing the military to solve any of our national or international problems. We might want to look at the small problem of economic justice, as a way to attack issues at their root cause.
