Overview of the Article Obama the Neocon - Research Paper Example

?Topic: Obama the Neocon On March 31st, the Washington Times published an editorial d “Obama the Neocon,” where the newspaper d: “Thepresident is using force he disdained as a senator.” (Washington Times, 2011) The Washington Times has a conservative editorial bias, and the paper’s staff was clearly pleased with the direction that the policy was taking, as well as the obvious sense of hypocrisy that it created for the President. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama has never renounced war or made any attempts to scale down the American use of violent force around the world. Rather, he has increasingly stylized it and masked it through covert operations, the use of “Predator” drones, cruise missiles, and airstrikes which inevitably minimize U.S. casualties while maximizing destruction and death abroad. That Obama was elected through the use of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ in his moral rhetoric makes the use of violent force in government policy problematic. For example, if we are to ask whether these teachers accept the use of deadly force and violence as a means to solve political problems or social issues, the answer would be an unequivocal no – not in any instance. It can be further argued that by invoking MLK, Gandhi, his Christian faith, and his unique family history, the President communicated a point of view to the electorate that was expressive of his moral sense of identity. If Obama as President continues to pursue what the Washington Times describes as “neoconservative policies” through military action abroad, he is indeed going against the moral tone that he communicated to his base in seeking election and should be held accountable in the upcoming 2012 election for it. The Washington Times (2011) writes in the editorial: “Mr. Obama’s experiment in using covert action to take down Libya’s government may bring to mind similar CIA efforts against Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953, or Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. But in spirit, the operation has much more in common with the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq. At this point, the most significant difference is that there are no - or at least much fewer - boots on the ground. For now anyway. Mr. Obama’s motive - trying to dislodge an authoritarian regime in the name of the Libyan people - are solidly within the neoconservative framework.” (Washington Times, 2011) The article is limited in space but could have clearly noted that Obama has pursued the “Just War” doctrine through his policy of escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan while drawing down in Iraq, and Libya is the latest example of that policy. President Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech can be seen as one of the main locations where he develops the “Just War” doctrine and with it his reasons why he cannot or will not implement a purely pacifist foreign policy as advocated by Gandhi and MLK particularly. (NYT, 2009) What the Washington Times suggests is that at heart Obama is no different that Nixon or Eisenhower, who like the majority of Americans would “believe in” Christianity and not see it as inconsistent with war. Yet, the Washington Times is not writing the editorial to advocate the position of MLK and Gandhi in politics, they are writing to exult with glee as Obama again sells these principles out and the “moral Left” writhes in agony. The implication of this tone is happier still in that the writers expect that Obama will likely lose the election, having sold out his moral base continually throughout his administration. Following the Washington Times arguments, it is easy to view the Obama administration’s economic policies as no real change from the neo-conservative Bush administration. President Obama continued the Wall St.“bailout” policies enacted by the Bush administration as well as expanding them. President Obama’s majority-led Congress extended the Bush tax cuts in another example of neo-conservative policy. The Obama administration authorized a “surge” in Afghanistan and sent the top U.S. general from Iraq, Petreaus, to implement the same military policy in Afghanistan that Bush had implemented in Iraq. (Cooper & Sanger, 2010) In his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, President Obama stated: “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this. The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.” (Zeleny, 2009) What the Obama administration states through its actions and policies is that whatever the mistakes of the past, no matter how many violent and innocent deaths, no matter how many lives lost, no many how many lies, covert operations against foreign governments, foreign wars like WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, it will all continue as it has because we are Americans. American fights and defends liberty in this manner as it is representative of mainstream public belief in a democracy and late-capitalist society, or as MIT philosopher Noam Chomsky points out, as it “manufactures consent” through the media and the electoral process. Chomsky is also correct in seeing a continuation of neo-conservative policies in the Obama administration in the continuation of the war on terror, the homeland security policies of the Patriot Act, the suspension of civil liberties through unwarranted wiretaps in mass-population surveillance, “top secret” government that hides all of the important information and decisions from the public. In this way, the Chomskian critique of the left is in agreement with the Washington Times editorial stating that Obama is pursuing neo-conservative policies, only the moral tone of the two arguments is completely different. The consequence of this discussion is vital because it highlights what many other newspapers, magazines, and blogs have reported in a mass feeling of dissatisfaction in the policies of the Obama administration in the base that provided him support both domestically and internationally. Leaders may have many reasons and justifications of war, but pure non-violence advocates such as King, Gandhi, and Jesus are unequivocal. It is absurd to do as Obama did in India, visiting the birthplace of the foremost teacher of non-violence in the 20th Century and then selling weapons State-to-State in the afternoon. Similarly, Dr. Martin Luther King’s entire ministry was devoted to serving the poor, not only in America, but the global poor, which affected King profoundly in his own pilgrimage to Gandhi’s India. The Obama administration is clearly in the service of Wall Street, having funneled trillions of U.S. tax dollars to bailout the banking institutions in society that are controlled by the richest of the rich, yet has not raised its voice at all in the tradition of Dr. King and Gandhi to be concerned with the global poor and Millennium Goals. Obama plays golf and basketball regularly with the most popular celebrities, sports heroes, and pop-stars who arguably represent an elite that cannot understand the suffering of the 3 billion people living without access to a basic education, clean drinking water, healthcare, or even basic nutrition and sustenance. This in itself is similar to the way the neo-conservative Bush administration was fully in service of Wall Street and the big banks of corporate finance. The Washington Times (2011) writes in the editorial: “The problem is that as a novice neocon, Mr. Obama has made some rookie mistakes. His ‘coalition of the willing’ is smaller than the ones assembled by President George W. Bush; in fact, he has the weakest international support for any combined kinetic operation since the end of World War II. His United Nations mandate is much weaker than that enjoyed by his predecessor and of questionable legality. Mr. Obama’s leadership style - imploring other countries to get involved so he can hastily bow out - leaves much to be desired. Agreeing to arm and train the rebels before anyone outside of Libya knows exactly who they are is sloppy... Mr. Obama is also hobbled by the fact that he refuses publicly to embrace his inner neocon and act more decisively.” (Washington Times, 2011) To be clear, the Washington Times is exuberant over the fact that the Obama has chosen to “arm and train” the rebels in Libya, but predictably, they want stronger leadership, more escalation, and greater action by the military. Someone who may have voted for Obama believing in his anti-war policies, as evidenced by the references to Dr. King and Gandhi in the election, would surely be disappointed to learn that Obama is following policies that are directly from the Reagan playbook. The Reagan administration bombed Libya with cruise missiles just as Obama has, and also believed that the covert arming of rebels in order to promote regime change, either in Nicaragua, Iran, or Afghanistan, was legitimate. It may bear repeating that Gandhi and Dr. King both saw violence as cyclical and becoming ever greater as it cycled out of control. When the Obama administration uses armed violence as a solution in politics, such as in Libya, it is delightful to neo-conservatives such as those writing at the Washington Times, who see it as their own policy. Similarly, this is anathema to followers of Dr. King and Gandhi morally who seek to base society on an entirely different pattern of reconciliation than selling weapons and spreading violence in the name of political ideologies. In this manner, the Obama administration is clearly enacting policies both domestically and abroad that support the Washington Times editorial view that Obama is a neocon. Yet, the outcome that the neo-conservative newspaper is cheering for is “a bloodbath” of regime change. “If Mr. Obama had the diplomatic dexterity to convince the international community that Mr. Gadhafi is a legitimate target for the kind of missile strikes currently raining down on terrorist targets in the hinterlands of Pakistan, regime change could come with a bloodbath of one.” (Washington Times, 2011) The foundation of all morality is in the tolerance and respect of the golden rule, as it is necessary to act and give towards others in the same manner that one would have them return good sentiment. Gandhi and Dr. King saw in views such as the Washington Times’ editorial wishing for a “bloodbath” the ugly sentiment of mass media that whips populations up into war unreasonably, and that furthers the cycle of violence by wishing death upon others. There comes a time in civilization when humans will no longer accept the killing of other humans over political goals and ideologies, however powerful and important that they may be, because what is based upon violence will have an extremely difficult time preserving itself indefinitely through violence. That the U.S. could morally consider the production of 30,000 nuclear weapons, equal in number to destroy the entire earth, all just, in order to preserve to economic and political power of a minority interest is exemplary of the extremes that these policies can take in the U.S. if they are not analyzed critically and morally. Critics like Chomsky state that the U.S. government in this manner act no different from a terrorist state, as the fundamental morality is the same. Gandhi and Dr. King show how these policies only increase the cycle of violence and perpetuate it historically. Jonathon Freedland, in an article titled “Homeland Insecurity” reviewing Chomsky’s work in the New York Times, writes: “And if a rogue state is defined by its defiance of international law, then the United States, Chomsky says, has long been the rogues' rogue. It has ignored the Geneva Conventions by its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and of Iraqi civilians in Falluja; violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by its development of new weapons when it should be making good-faith efforts to get rid of the old ones; flouted the United Nations Charter, which allows the use of force only when the ‘necessity of self-defense’ is ‘instant’ and ‘overwhelming,’ standards hardly met by the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and defied the World Court, which in the 1980's held Washington guilty of ‘unlawful use of force’ against Nicaragua, a ruling the United States simply rejected. Scholars like to speak of American exceptionalism, but with Chomsky the phrase takes on new meaning: America exempts itself from the rules it demands for everyone else. This is not a double standard, but flows from what Chomsky, quoting Adam Smith, calls the single standard: the ‘vile maxim of the masters of mankind: . . . All for ourselves, and nothing for other people.’ ” (Freedland, 2006) In this perspective, the Obama administration pursues the traditional policies of “American exceptionalism,” serves the interests of the Military-Industrial Complex and Wall St. finance interests, selling weapons and implementing violent political solutions abroad, standing itself above the law that it expects all other nations to follow. The Chomsky critique and the Washington Times editorial agree that Obama is following and implementing neo-conservative policies, in Libya and across his administration, but the first opposes this from a moral standpoint, while the second is more far-right and blood-thirsty. It can be said that everyone is entitled to express their opinions in editorials, but when those such as the Washington Times wish a “bloodbath” upon Gaddafi, this is not a sustainable practice of civil discourse but one that favors the increase of the cycle of violence, as predicted by Dr. King and Gandhi. Where Obama and other American Presidents continue to enact neo-conservative policies such as these that contradict the moral awareness that Dr. King and Gandhi taught, the world will ever be condemned to continuing war in the name of peace, and control in the name of freedom. Sources Cited: Cooper, Helene and Sanger, David. E.. Obama Says Afghan Policy Won’t Change After Dismissal. New York Times, June 23, 2010. Web. 24 April 2011. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/politics/24mcchrystal.html ›. Freedland, Jonathon. 'FAILED STATES,' BY NOAM CHOMSKY - Homeland Insecurity. New York Times, June 25, 2006. Web. 24 April 2011. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/books/review/25freedland.html ›. NYT. Obama’s Nobel Remarks. New York Times, December 10, 2009. Web. 24 April 2011. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.text.html›. The Washington Times. EDITORIAL: Obama the Neocon. The Washington Times, Thursday, March 31, 2011. Web. 24 April 2011. ‹http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/31/obama-the-neocon/›. Zeleny, Jeff. Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Offers ‘Hard Truth’. New York Times, December 10, 2009. Web. 24 April 2011. ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.html›. Read More