By Tom KandoI am worried about the Obama Presidency. Its foreign policy is endangering its economic policy. The latter should be the paramount concern. America is a sick baby. Depleted, exhausted, as the Dutch NRC Handelsblad describes us. President Obama has focused on the economy, of course, and his first 100 days have been great, BUT...But, there is this nagging problem - the Middle East - including the two wars inherited from the Bush Administration. Obama’s initial stance has been: (1) de-escalate our involvement in Iraq, and (2) escalate the war in Afghanistan. I already had a problem with that. But now, there is a 3rd country for which we are assuming increasing responsibility - (3) Pakistan!
I am aware of all the reasons given for continuing to fight, and to fight even more, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan: The Taliban are monsters, Pakistan has nukes, the world is a global village, if we don’t beat terrorism there, we won’t be safe at home, the world’s oil supply and commerce must be safeguarded, etc., etc.
But here are reasons for NOT continuing to fight those wars: (1) We will NEVER win. No one has ever won in Afghanistan, not Alexander the Great, not the British Empire, not the Soviet Union, not us. (2). There is token support from a few Europeans (for example, so far 19 Dutch soldiers have died in Afghanistan), but by and large the rest of the world doesn’t give a damn. We carry 95% of the burden. (3) America should not feel responsible for all the troubles of the world. Those countries are on the other side of the GLOBE, for crying out loud. We have drug wars on our own borders, spilling over into Texas and California, killing twenty times more people!
Here is a scary analogy: When Lyndon Johnson came to the Presidency in 1963, he was a good and promising man. His agenda was labeled the Great Society. This was a wonderful and progressive package of policies, including a War on Poverty, tremendous progress on the Civil Rights front, Medicare, aid to education, and much more.
And then, you know what happened? The Johnson Administration got bogged down and totally sidetracked in the Vietnam War. By 1969, the Great Society agenda was in tatters. Johnson had spent most of his presidency escalating and running the Vietnam war, influenced by the bad advice of his generals (William Westmoreland), and of his Secretary of Defense (Robert McNamara).
In 1969, President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election, which was tantamount to an ignominious resignation and an admission that his presidency was a failure. The Great Society had been sacrificed to the Vietnam war, a war which was lost anyway. Was that stupid or what?
It’s too bad if the Taliban wants to take that part of the world back to the 5th century. Yes, they are monsters. Yes, what they do to women is monstrous. But we can’t prevent any of that. It’s too bad if we never capture Bin Laden. But we can’t.
We couldn’t win in Vietnam, and we certainly won’t win in Afghanistan, much less be able to control Pakistan (a country of 170 million people!). It would be nice if we could, but we don’t have the strength, the resources, the capability.
Let others, closer to the region, do what they can. Maybe India can play a role. Or some of the Middle Eastern countries. Or even the Europeans, who have a lot more at stake there.
President Obama: Please don’t become another Lyndon Johnson.leave comment here
4 comments:
Tom,
I agree with your perspective, and I have read this comparison between Barack Obama and Lyndon Johnson in other blogs. But your piece begs the question: WHY? Why would Johnson put the war above and beyond the interests of the American people, a priority that would cause the demise of his administration? And why would someone as wise and practical as Obama repeat such a fatal political error? It's because it's not up to them. Sure, they are Commanders in Chief, but what a lot of people don't realize are the forces behind American wars: that HALF of our federal taxes go to military spending; that the business of war is obscenely profitable to big defense contractors like Lockheed, Boeing, KBR et. al.; that their lobbyists hold sway over the politicians in Congress; that the Pentagon budget is an example of 'revolving door syndrome' (Pentagon officials leave to join the high ranks of those same corporations, and vice versa); that Obama is surrounded every single morning with his security team, who convinces him of all the reasons why he needs war to prevent another 9/11 on his watch; the military members of his security team operate on self-interest (if they were pacifists, they'd lose power); and every representative in Congress is strongly influenced by the military -industrial complex because it provides a huge percentage of jobs all across America. Although the President does have quite a bit of power, he is not more powerful than the monied interests of our "military-industrial complex." Eisenhower coined this term and warned us that the military could become too powerful, and undermine our democracy. It's in his final speech just before he left office, featured in the film "Why We Fight." (I rented it last year from Netflix.) That film exposes the real reason why we fight: corporate greed, which is implemented via the corruption of our political process: corporations are more strongly represented (by lobbyists) than voters. It has become a seemingly insurmountable problem post WWII, with no end in sight.
Wow, that was a fast response! Thanks.
The Military-industrial complex exists, of course, but I believe that you exagerate its conspiratorial role.
Our military budget, while enormous and equal to all the money spent on the military by the rest of the world combined, still only makes up 3% of our GDP (less than half a trillion), and less than 20% of the federal budget.
While the sinister forces you mention do exist, I believe that American foreign and military policy is driven by other factors as well. We feel responsible for the world, we feel compelled to crusade for democracy, we want to save the world. it's not just about $$$$$.
After all, aren't we going broke trying to police the world? I believe that we are also motivated by a misguided idealism.
Hi Tom,
From Friends Committee on National Legislation:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=3553&issue_id=19
"Based on that estimate, we calculate that 43.4 percent of your 2008 tax dollars were spent on the military, both for current military programs and past military spending.
29.8 percent is the portion estimated to be spent on current military programs -- the Pentagon, nuclear weapons, foreign military training and assistance.
13.6 percent is the portion estimated to be spent on the cost of past wars and military spending -- a calculated percentage of the interest on the federal debt, nuclear weapons clean-up, support for veterans and related costs."
To answer your question, "Aren't we going broke trying to police the world?" my answer is: "Yes and No." WE, the taxpayers are going broke, but not the big war-profiteering corporations I mentioned. Since Reagan, our gov't has regulated them less and less. Perhaps the American people are largely idealistic, but not the power brokers who sell the wars to us like our military generals, CEOs and media moguls. And if our foreign policy is driven by idealism, as you assert, and not by corporate greed, then why do we let certain areas slide like Darfur, and go after an oil-rich country like Iraq instead? The more I read, the more I discover that money is the most influencing force in the U.S. today. Anecdotally, a American friend just returned to NYC from living in England for several years, and she's struck by how stressed out everyone seems. Our system is sucking us dry! As you well know, in Europe, you start out after college without being $50K or more in debt to the banks; when you have young children, it doesn't cost more than your salary to put them in daycare; and you have universal health care. So OF COURSE we are stressed out! Statistics prove that the middle class has shrunken dramatically since the 70s, while fewer than 2% of Americans now hold most of the wealth. Since then, costs have risen much faster than salaries because corporate power far outweighs governmental controls. And the war machine is no different. There has been much propaganda to 'sell' wars to the taxpayers. "Making the world safe from communism" during the Vietnam era; "We need to end the war" when bombing Hiroshima (turns out it was really a test for the nuclear bomb; the Japanese were prepared to surrender anyway), and so forth. Just because those ideals are spouted doesn't mean they are the true reason behind the war madness. And, to be clear, I do not see our wars resulting from any concerted 'conspiracy,' but rather an emanation of a system in which profit-making corporations have gained WAY too much power. They have enjoyed the legal rights of "personhood" for over 100 years in our legal system. The 14th Amendment, which was meant to protect the voting rights of freed slaves, has been used far more often by corporations than by people of color, to defend itself against "discrimination" when communities try to regain control over "the commons" that corporations readily usurp. Represented by lobbyists, they now have more power than citizens.
You raise a lot of deep points that make sense but logistically it will take time for the U.S. government to sort out all the pros and cons of the wars that it has engaged. I know that we have plenty of good historical examples to learn from and thus,prevent the terrible mistakes that are being made to restore peace, but do we ever learn from history? History just repeats itself. Perhaps I am a bit pessimistic but with the way the economy is going if we dont pull out of the wars overseas we may become a third world country ourselves one day. I think we are in a big mess and President Obama may take the blame for all of this in the end. I certainly hope not.
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