The Roots of Obama's Rage (26 page)
Read The Roots of Obama's Rage Online
Authors: Dinesh D'Souza
Why then did Obama oppose the Iraq war? He told us quite clearly in his 2002 speech. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war . . . to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income—to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through its worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. . . . A war based . . . not on principle but on politics.”
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Now this is an argument that is lifted right out of Lenin’s
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
. As discussed in an earlier chapter, Lenin’s view was that capitalism is in an advanced stage of crisis, but the capitalists have figured out how to postpone that internal crisis by invading and occupying foreign countries, and stealing their resources. Thus, in Lenin’s view, imperialism is a way to save capitalism and postpone its ultimate collapse. This is also Obama’s argument. According to him, the Bush administration is facing disastrous economic problems at home, and therefore decided to invade Iraq not because of any threat posed by Saddam, but to divert attention from domestic woes and possibly also to ameliorate those woes by seizing Iraqi oil.
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Now this is an argument that is lifted right out of Lenin’s
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
. As discussed in an earlier chapter, Lenin’s view was that capitalism is in an advanced stage of crisis, but the capitalists have figured out how to postpone that internal crisis by invading and occupying foreign countries, and stealing their resources. Thus, in Lenin’s view, imperialism is a way to save capitalism and postpone its ultimate collapse. This is also Obama’s argument. According to him, the Bush administration is facing disastrous economic problems at home, and therefore decided to invade Iraq not because of any threat posed by Saddam, but to divert attention from domestic woes and possibly also to ameliorate those woes by seizing Iraqi oil.
I don’t want to dwell here on the outrageousness of accusing Bush of putting thousands of American lives at risk for the purpose of saving his own political hide. Rather, I want to draw attention to Obama’s anti-colonial rhetoric, to show how in his own words he portrays the Iraq war as a war of imperial occupation. And this, we will see, is Obama’s view of America’s presence in Afghanistan as well. So from the outset Obama has been looking to get America out of those two places. To repeat: this is not because Obama hates America or because Obama wants the Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban to take power. Rather, Obama’s primary focus is to curb the rogue elephant that is America, to bring American power under control. This is how Obama defines success; what else happens in those countries is secondary.
Obama’s anti-colonial mentality is shown in
The Audacity of Hope
, where he writes that “when we seek to impose democracy with the barrel of a gun” we are “setting ourselves up for failure.”
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This is the anti-colonial critique: Western powers should not try to impose their form of government or their cultural norms on other nations—and certainly not by military force or occupation. That’s how Obama views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as colonial adventures inevitably, and rightly, doomed to failure. But most Americans, not thinking in these terms, would recognize that in the aftermath of World War II the United States imposed democracy with the barrel of a gun on Germany and Japan, and the results have been excellent. Even using the colonial model, one could say that former colonies that have democratic governments have them because of the example impressed on them by the former colonial powers; there is no other reason why Kenya should have a parliamentary system of government and judges who wear white wigs. We can debate whether democracy is likely to work in Iraq, but clearly Obama’s historical lesson about the impossibility of forcing democracy on a country is invalid.
The Audacity of Hope
, where he writes that “when we seek to impose democracy with the barrel of a gun” we are “setting ourselves up for failure.”
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This is the anti-colonial critique: Western powers should not try to impose their form of government or their cultural norms on other nations—and certainly not by military force or occupation. That’s how Obama views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as colonial adventures inevitably, and rightly, doomed to failure. But most Americans, not thinking in these terms, would recognize that in the aftermath of World War II the United States imposed democracy with the barrel of a gun on Germany and Japan, and the results have been excellent. Even using the colonial model, one could say that former colonies that have democratic governments have them because of the example impressed on them by the former colonial powers; there is no other reason why Kenya should have a parliamentary system of government and judges who wear white wigs. We can debate whether democracy is likely to work in Iraq, but clearly Obama’s historical lesson about the impossibility of forcing democracy on a country is invalid.
But who cares about these historical facts? Obama certainly doesn’t seem to. From the outset he has been doing everything he can to get American troops out of Iraq. That’s why as a United States senator he opposed General David Petraeus’s “surge” strategy in Iraq and called it a “mistake that I and others will actively oppose.” He termed the Petraeus plan a “reckless escalation” and introduced legislation to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq in May 2007 “with the goal of removing all United States combat forces from Iraq by March 31, 2008.”
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To Obama’s chagrin, his political stance proved to be spectacularly and embarrassingly wrong. The surge worked. And now Iraq has stabilized. Weeks, even months, go by without a single American death in Iraq. Even Saddam’s fellow Sunnis voted in the recent election. The
New York Times
reports that people are now going to the movies once again in Baghdad. Democracy in Iraq remains fragile, but it is working better than many thought it would under such difficult circumstances.
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New York Times
reports that people are now going to the movies once again in Baghdad. Democracy in Iraq remains fragile, but it is working better than many thought it would under such difficult circumstances.
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So Obama’s problem, once he became president, was what to do about Iraq. He recognized that if he precipitously withdrew American troops and Iraq fell back into chaos, then he would get the blame. Consequently he seems to have figured that there might be a better way to get the troops out: wait for Iraq to stabilize, and then say the troops aren’t needed any more. Paradoxically Obama found that the best way for him to achieve his goal of withdrawal was to follow the Bush policy in Iraq and stay for a while. That’s why Obama has continually postponed his date for withdrawal. His current plan is to get around 100,000 troops out in 2010 and the remaining 50,000 or so by the end of 2011.
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This time he may do it. If he does, he is likely to give no credit to Bush, but rather to claim that his own enlightened approach has finally paid off. Can he once again fool the Choir? Count on it!
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This time he may do it. If he does, he is likely to give no credit to Bush, but rather to claim that his own enlightened approach has finally paid off. Can he once again fool the Choir? Count on it!
Afghanistan is a tougher problem for Obama. His challenge can be summarized in this way: how to get out without taking the political heat for perceived failure? Let’s be clear: a victory in Afghanistan would pose serious problems for Obama. For an anti-colonialist like him, winning in Iraq is bad enough, but to win in Afghanistan also would be a nightmare! Think of what two victories in a row would do to America’s arrogance, and to its appetite for further wars of imperial aggression. In Afghanistan, Obama has to figure out how to withdraw American troops in a way that avoids both American victory and Taliban victory.
While Obama may view the Taliban as a resister against American imperialism, it’s obvious he would have no sympathy for the kind of regime they are intent on reestablishing in Afghanistan. So Obama seems to be after a kind of compromise: the administration has already suggested that it maybe open to a negotiated settlement, so that the Taliban can share power with the current regime. Still, Obama knows he can’t appear to be openly pursuing an agreement that permits a substantial Taliban role in Afghanistan’s future.
As we saw in an earlier chapter, Obama limited his options in Afghanistan by portraying Afghanistan as a good war while depicting Iraq as a bad war. Obama insisted that we should get out of Iraq so we can focus on the real threat in Afghanistan. As Obama put it, Iraq was peripheral, but Afghanistan was the nation responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A little scrutiny, however, will expose the fatuity of this argument. How many of those involved in 9/11 actually came from Afghanistan? Not one. 9/11 was primarily a Saudi operation, organized by a Saudi (bin Laden) and an Egyptian (Ayman al-Zawahiri) and carried out by a Pakistani (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and a group of hijackers mostly made up of Saudis. The membership of Al Qaeda is mostly Saudi and Egyptian. So Islamic terrorism is primarily a Middle Eastern operation. Afghanistan only came into the picture because the Taliban contacted bin Laden and offered him free use of the monkey bars. While Afghanistan was indeed the launching pad of 9/11, the toxic fumes of Islamic terrorism are far more concentrated in the Middle East.
Again, none of this seems to matter to Obama. His arguments function as a squid-like cloud of rhetoric, aimed at blinding people from seeing what’s actually going on. If you want to know what Obama really thinks about Afghanistan, listen to this off-the-cuff statement he made during the presidential campaign. He said America should divert its resources from Iraq to Afghanistan “so that we’re not just air raiding villages and killing civilians which is causing enormous problems there.”
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What? Is that what America has been doing in Afghanistan? Not in the least. The raids have been aimed at terrorist targets, and the military goes to great effort to minimize collateral damage to civilians. No American leader, not even during Vietnam, has described the foreign policy of his own country in such a harsh manner. And note that Obama is not talking about Iraq, a war he opposes, but about Afghanistan, a war he supposedly supports.
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What? Is that what America has been doing in Afghanistan? Not in the least. The raids have been aimed at terrorist targets, and the military goes to great effort to minimize collateral damage to civilians. No American leader, not even during Vietnam, has described the foreign policy of his own country in such a harsh manner. And note that Obama is not talking about Iraq, a war he opposes, but about Afghanistan, a war he supposedly supports.
Let’s focus on what Obama has actually done in Afghanistan. Having contrasted the “war of necessity” in Afghanistan with the “war of choice” in Iraq, Obama was from the outset stuck with Afghanistan. How, now, to switch paths and get out? Obama’s difficulty was heightened when the enterprising General Stanley McChrystal proposed his own troop surge to turn things around and win the war. Oh no, Obama was not looking for a way to win. Yet it would look really bad for him to throw out his top general’s victory strategy. Obama didn’t give McChrystal everything he wanted, but he did agree to send 30,000 additional troops. At the same time he announced this surge, Obama pledged a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan starting in twelve months. As David Gergen summarized the logic of Obama’s policy: “The cavalry is coming—but not for long.”
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The reason Obama’s withdrawal announcement was so damaging is that the McChrystal strategy relied on building the confidence of the Afghan people that they could count on the U.S. military to protect them and to restore normality to their lives. Obviously this whole approach is undercut if it has a one-year expiration date. So Obama had figured out a very clever stance. He would seem to be giving victory a chance while maximizing the chances that there would be no victory. McChrystal and the Afghan people saw the futility of Obama’s strategy right away, and this was reflected in comments by Afghan president Hamid Karzai and in McChrystal’s stated frustration with his commander in chief. Obama, however, had no interest in what McChrystal or the Afghans thought; his approach was carefully packaged for the consumption of the American media and the American people.
Around the same time, the Obama administration intensified its campaign to undermine the leadership of Karzai. Obama had been giving Karzai the cold shoulder from the beginning. While President Bush twice a month held a videoconference with Karzai, going over in detail the situation in Afghanistan, Obama decided to stop holding those meetings. In March 2010, as Karzai prepared for a scheduled visit to the White House, he received a note from the Obama administration that his invitation was canceled. White House officials told the press they were monitoring the Karzai regime for corruption, and criticized Karzai for vanity and hypersensitivity. So annoyed was Karzai by U.S. conduct that he invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver an anti-American speech inside Kabul’s presidential palace. Karzai also told members of his parliament that if this harassment and interference continued he would “join the Taliban.”
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Now that would be a big embarrassment for Obama, to have America’s key ally in Afghanistan join the Islamic radicals. So the Obama administration backtracked and brought Karzai to Washington for a fancy state dinner. Obama was less forgiving, however, when McChrystal told
Rolling Stone
what he really thought of the Great One. McChrystal’s publicly expressed frustrations with Obama—revealing for what they show about Obama’s psyche—played into Obama’s hands by giving Obama a good reason to fire McChrystal. Of course Obama had to preserve his political capital by naming a tough replacement. So he settled for Petraeus, while trusting that Petraeus won’t possibly be able to figure out a way to win in Afghanistan in the time Obama has allotted him. And this provides an additional benefit for Obama: if America is defeated, he can hang defeat on America’s most respected general, discredit the idea of “surges,” and thus further discourage American neocolonial wars.
Rolling Stone
what he really thought of the Great One. McChrystal’s publicly expressed frustrations with Obama—revealing for what they show about Obama’s psyche—played into Obama’s hands by giving Obama a good reason to fire McChrystal. Of course Obama had to preserve his political capital by naming a tough replacement. So he settled for Petraeus, while trusting that Petraeus won’t possibly be able to figure out a way to win in Afghanistan in the time Obama has allotted him. And this provides an additional benefit for Obama: if America is defeated, he can hang defeat on America’s most respected general, discredit the idea of “surges,” and thus further discourage American neocolonial wars.
In the White House, Obama is probably even now formulating what he can say next year: “We tried, we really tried. But unfortunately there’s a limit to what American power can do in these faraway countries. I wish my misguided predecessor had realized this. He is the one responsible for this failure, and for the Americans who have died in Afghanistan. It is now time for me to finally bring the troops home. Let’s learn from this and avoid these military misadventures in the future.” That’s how you tame a rogue elephant.
Finally I want to say a few words about the Obama administration’s solicitous treatment of terrorists and Islamic militants who are captured abroad. From the anti-colonial point of view, these terrorists are simply resisting American imperialism. This does not make them virtuous individuals, but it does put them on the “right side of history,” at least from the anti-colonial point of view. Obama has been careful to define Al Qaeda operatives not as terrorists or enemy combatants, as President Bush did, but rather as common criminals. For conservatives, this is a classic case of political correctness, but I don’t think “P.C.” has anything to do with it. Rather, Obama has a deeper, more fundamental reason for making this distinction. By defining the enemy as common criminals, Obama can separate them from the anti-colonial cause and move in good conscience to take action against them. If they were truly soldiers fighting against American imperialism, Obama’s conscience would be tempted to take their side.
But the evidence shows that once these bad guys have been identified, Obama has no hesitation in attacking them. As Jonathan Alter reports in
The Promise
, Obama in his first year ordered some fifty strikes by unmanned CIA drones against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.
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When terrorist suspects are tried and convicted in American courts, Obama is completely in favor of locking them up or even carrying out the death penalty. Obama understands his duty to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, and clearly he has no qualms about putting away people seeking to harm American citizens. Interestingly Obama has approved special scrutiny for people coming to America from fourteen Muslim countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen; he has tried to keep this ethnic and racial profiling policy under wraps; but it shows once again that Obama’s primary concerns have nothing to do with political correctness or even race.
The Promise
, Obama in his first year ordered some fifty strikes by unmanned CIA drones against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.
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When terrorist suspects are tried and convicted in American courts, Obama is completely in favor of locking them up or even carrying out the death penalty. Obama understands his duty to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, and clearly he has no qualms about putting away people seeking to harm American citizens. Interestingly Obama has approved special scrutiny for people coming to America from fourteen Muslim countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen; he has tried to keep this ethnic and racial profiling policy under wraps; but it shows once again that Obama’s primary concerns have nothing to do with political correctness or even race.
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