"Our Nation Is at War"

Thursday’s televised debate in Texas between the Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, like all such events, was directed at two basic audiences—the voting public and the corporate-financial elite that controls both major US parties.

Obama seized the opportunity to assert his credentials as the future commander in chief and leader of American imperialism. “I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I was prepared to be commander in chief,” he declared.

“And my number one job as president will be to keep the American people safe. And I will do whatever is required to accomplish that, and I will not hesitate to act against those that would do America harm. Now, that involves maintaining the strongest military on earth...”

This response, no doubt prepared in advance, was calculated to reassure the ruling elite that his opposition to the US invasion of Iraq and his call for more flexible diplomacy are entirely from the standpoint of the defense of the interests of American imperialism.

He underscored this point by attacking Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq as a blunder on “the single most important foreign policy decision of this generation,” mainly because it “diverted attention from Afghanistan” and resulted in the strengthening of Al Qaeda.

To emphasize his support for the so-called “war on terror,” Obama began his opening remarks by declaring that “our nation is at war.”

Both candidates continued to pose as opponents of the war in Iraq, and were not challenged by the questioners on their repeated votes to fund the US occupation and their earlier pledges to keep thousands of “non-combat” troops in Iraq for an indefinite period.

On another foreign policy issue, the US response to Castro’s retirement, Obama reiterated his earlier statements that he would be willing to meet as president with the leaders of countries with which the US is at odds.

He said he would be prepared to meet with the putative new Cuban leader, Raoul Castro, without preconditions, while Clinton insisted that the Cuban regime would first have to meet certain benchmarks, including releasing political prisoners and “opening up the economy.”

Defending his tactical difference with Clinton, Obama said, “I do think this is important, precisely because the Bush administration has done so much damage to American foreign relations that the president should take a more active role in diplomacy than might have been true 20 or 30 years ago.”

Here Obama was speaking for those forces within the US foreign policy establishment who have swung behind his campaign because they see him as a figure who could help change the image of the United States around the world.

It has been badly damaged by the policies of the Bush administration. Obama's backers want him to reverse Washington’s isolation and declining political and diplomatic influence, and promote US interests with a more judicious mixture of diplomacy and military force.

Obama: Imperialism Lite

Barack Obama’s most recent attempt to prove his Harvard-certified safety to the doctrinal gatekeepers of the U.S. foreign policy establishment ought to make it clear once and for all that he is what the Maoists used to call a "running dog lackey of United States imperialism."

Obama’s "doctrine" gives people and states beyond U.S. borders strong reasons to fear the prospect of a United States with running dog Obama at the helm.

“The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew,” Obama proclaims, adding that “we must lead the world by deed and by example” and “must not rule out using military force” in pursuit of “our vital interests.”

The last three words harken back to another Democratic imperialist’s “Carter Doctrine” (which updated the Monroe Doctrine for the global petro-capitalist era to include the Persian Gulf region in the United States’ inviolable sphere of special interest and unilateral action) and are a code phrase for other nations' oil, located primarily in the Middle East.

“A strong military,” Obama says, “is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace,” echoing George Orwell’s fictional totalitarian state of Oceana, which proclaimed that “War is Peace” and “Love is Hate.”

We must “revitalize our military” (to foster peace), Obama declares, partly by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines.

Do not rule out future overseas occupations carried out in the name of the “war on terror” by an Obama White House. “We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests,” Obama pronounces.

“But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.”

Reassuring the bipartisan imperialist establishment that he will not be hamstrung by international law and civilized norms when “our vital interests” (other peoples’ petroleum, primarily) are "at stake," Obama says that “I will not hesitate to use force unilaterally, if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests wherever we are attacked or imminently threatened.”

Prepare to take cover, if you can, subject peoples of the oil-rich periphery!

And do not rule out pre-emptive and even so-called preventive wars with Obama at the helm.

“We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense,” the junior Senator who would be Emperor declares, “in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities.”

Sound familiar?

tags: obama  imperialism  president  2008  

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