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[bacasper]

This author didn't research this article very well. O'Bomber's hawkishness did not just begin two weeks ago.

Is It Time for the Peace Movement to Start Protesting Senator Obama?

by Kevin Zeese / April 3rd, 2008

In the last two weeks Senator Obama has been sounding rather hawkish. Perhaps he believes he has the Democratic nomination wrapped up and now can start running to the center-right. The peace movement needs to let him know his positions are not acceptable.

Some peace advocates had already given up on Sen. Obama because of his record since he came to the U.S. Senate. His voting record on Iraq and foreign policy is very similar to Sen. Clinton. Obama did make a great speech before the war began, saying much the same thing that peace advocates were saying, but that seems to have been the peak of his peace advocacy. Indeed, Black Agenda Report described how Obama took his anti-war speech off his website once he began running for the senate. And since coming to the senate he has voted for Iraq funding, giving Bush hundreds of billions of dollars. Further, he is calling for nearly 100,000 more U.S. troops as well as keeping the military option on the table for Iran.

But in the last two weeks he has moved to the right. On April 1, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewed Obama about what type of U.S. residual forces he would leave behind in Iraq. First, Obama acknowledged combat troops would be left behind as �a strike force in the region.� Where would this strike force be based? Obama said �It doesn�t necessarily have to be in Iraq; it could be in Kuwait or other places.�

Of even greater concern was the 140,000 civilian troops � the private security forces that some describe as mercenaries � who are in Iraq. With regard to these Obama said: �we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can�t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops.� When Goodman pressed him on whether he would support a ban on private military forces Obama said �Well, I don�t want to replace those contractors with more U.S. troops, because we don�t have them, alright?�

Obama seems to be choosing his words very carefully when he talks of his Iraq plan. He always talks in terms of only �withdrawing� �combat� troops and ending �the war.� Withdrawal is not the same as bringing troops home as it could mean moving the troops somewhere else in the region and into Afghanistan. Combat troops are a minority of the 150,000 troops in Iraq. And, ending the �war� is not the same as ending the occupation. Indeed, Obama plans to keep the massive U.S. Embassy as well as the long-term military bases being built in Iraq. No wonder he does not talk about ending the occupation as it does not seem that is his intent.

What are the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the Iraq war and want to see U.S. forces brought home to think? It sounds like Obama would leave more than 100,000 and perhaps even more than 200,000 public and private military troops in Iraq. And, he would leave strike forces in the region �not necessarily in Iraq� who could strike in Iraq when needed. Is this what he means by withdrawal?

The other important speech that Obama gave focused on his broader approach to foreign policy. In this speech, given on March 28th, Obama praised the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush. Obama described his foreign policy as a traditional U.S. approach � certainly not the �change� he promises in his big campaign speeches saying �my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush�s father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan.�

There is lot to unravel in the foreign policy of these former presidents. While these X-President�s are much more popular than the current occupant of the White House, which is why Obama believes tying himself to those will garner votes, each of their foreign policy strategies relied heavily on the use of the U.S. military.
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And Kennedy also gets credit for taking the initial steps that ended up with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In 1963 Kennedy backed a coup against the Iraqi government. The CIA helped bring the Baath Party to power. The CIA provided the new Iraqi government with a list of suspected Communists to kill. Saddam Hussein was one of those who carried out the killings which included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers, Iraqi professionals and officials. The U.S. began to arm the Iraq regime with weapons they used against the Kurds, and U.S. and British oil companies began profiting from Iraqi oil.

No doubt Senator Obama is well-aware of this history, so what did he mean when he said his foreign policy would emulate these three? Are we to expect more coups of regimes we don�t like? The arming of future adversaries? Illegal actions to circumvent the Congress? Now that Sen. Obama has tied himself to Kennedy, Reagan and H.W. Bush he needs to clarify whether this Hall of Shame history of bi-partisan U.S. foreign policy is what he intends to emulate.

Senator Obama clearly thinks he can take the peace movement for granted.

Full article

[stillnotking]

Yes, this is a serious problem for me too. Obama is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an anti-war candidate.

However, this must be balanced against the fact that a genuine anti-war candidate would have no chance of being elected in a country that loves war, and also that Obama is running against a genuinely pro-war nutcase.

[Kuros]

[stillnotking]

[Kuros]

[stillnotking]

Joke, Kuros. Joke.

I was, in fact, talking about McCain, and am duly chastised by your observation that the primary isn't over yet.

[Kuros]

[bacasper]

[Kuros]

[bacasper]