Center for a Stateless Society » Bush

Appena tre anni dopo aver ridotto la sua presenza in Iraq, gli Stati Uniti stanno mandando nuovamente le truppe. In risposta alle conquiste fatte dal gruppo jihadista Isis nella sua ultima offensiva, il presidente americano Barack Obama sta mandando in Iraq 275 soldati per “fornire supporto e sicurezza al personale e all’ambasciata americana di Bagdad.”

In un comunicato della Casa Bianca del 13 giugno, Obama evidenziava che “noi non manderemo nuovamente soldati a combattere.” Alcuni osservatori speravano che Obama evitasse gli errori commessi dal suo predecessore. Ma il lunedì seguente Obama, in una lettera allo speaker della camera John Boehner, annunciava: “stiamo spiegando questa forza, equipaggiata per combattere, con l’obiettivo di proteggere cittadini e beni americani” (corsivo aggiunto).

Parole evasive. L’Isis ha fatto capire che non si fermerà davanti a nulla, meno che mai davanti all’uccisione di 275 soldati americani, per prendere il controllo dell’Iraq. Il presidente lo sa. L’invio di truppe ha più probabilità di aggravare il conflitto che di attenuarlo. Obama sta mandando questi soldati a combattere, non importa cosa sostiene in pubblico. Se Obama vuole proprio difendere l’ambasciata americana a Bagdad, propongo che ci vada lui in persona.

Prenda un fucile e si metta davanti all’ambasciata, signor presidente.

Cosa è successo alla dichiarazione “non manderò truppe a combattere”? Sono bastati quattro giorni perché Obama cambiasse idea. Obama ha poi aggiunto: “Questa forza rimarrà in Iraq finché le condizioni della sicurezza non si evolveranno al punto che la sua presenza sarà superflua.” Come farà a capire che sarà superflua non l’ha specificato.

È improbabile che l’Isis smetta casualmente di fare violenza in tutto l’Iraq. Questo è un gruppo così estremista che è stato espulso dalla rete globale di al Qaeda. Cacciato via da al Qaeda! E ora sta sistematicamente e violentemente prendendo il controllo dell’Iraq, e il piano di Obama prevede l’invio di un contingente militare “finché le condizioni della sicurezza non si evolveranno al punto che la sua presenza sarà superflua”. Come se 275 soldati fossero sufficienti a fermare l’Isis. Come se l’Isis non fosse un’organizzazione irragionevole e assassina che continuerà i suoi attacchi alla faccia di quei 275 soldati.

Nessun calendario delle operazioni. Nessuna dichiarazione sulla missione. Nessuna strategia d’uscita. Vi ricorda qualcosa?

Spesso Obama parla come un presidente non-interventista. A volte parla come un leader che ama la pace. Ha anche ricevuto il premio Nobel per la pace. Ma le sue azioni dicono più delle sue parole. E le sue azioni sono semplicemente una rielaborazione delle politiche precedenti, dall’intensificazione degli attacchi con i droni ai colpi di mano in Afganistan alle scuse inventate per uccidere cittadini americani all’estero alle accresciute violazioni dell’intimità personale a casa con la scusa dell’antiterrorismo. Il secondo mandato di Obama è in realtà il quarto di Bush.

Invece di mandare quasi trecento soldati incontro al rischio secondo un “piano” malaccorto e miope, il presidente dovrebbe essere abbastanza coraggioso da andare lì di persona. Ehi, se le truppe hanno soltanto “compiti di supporto e sicurezza” (qualunque cosa significhi), come ha detto l’addetto stampa, qual è il problema?

Dopo la lettera di Obama a John Boehner, l’ufficio stampa ha rilasciato una dichiarazione che diceva: “l’ambasciata americana a Bagdad resta aperta, gran parte del personale resta sul posto e l’ufficio sarà equipaggiato con l’occorrente per la sua missione di sicurezza nazionale.”

Ma perché abbiamo un’ambasciata a Bagdad? Invece di mandare altre persone a proteggere l’ambasciata contro terroristi violenti, il presidente dovrebbe riportarle a casa, queste persone. Dovremmo chiudere l’ambasciata e smettere di ficcare il naso negli affari iracheni.

Meglio ancora, se si riportano a casa tutte le truppe e le si esonera dal servizio, e il complesso industriale militare viene drenato di tutte le risorse che ha rubato, l’imperialismo americano brutale e senza fine cesserebbe. Se la difesa fosse affidata ad associazioni volontarie e a ditte che operano sul mercato, tutte le inutili interferenze negli affari di altri paesi cesserebbero. Quando rispondono ai consumatori e ai loro proprietari, le organizzazioni, a differenza dello stato, non intervengono perché sarebbe troppo costoso e controproducente.

Venerdì tredici giugno, Obama giustamente ha detto: “in ultima istanza, spetta all’Iraq come nazione sovrana risolvere i suoi problemi.” Ora, se solo Obama ascoltasse l’Obama di venerdì.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Defend the Embassy Yourself, Mr. President

Cory Massimino — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 18:00:27 +0000

Just three years after winding down its presence in Iraq, the United States is sending troops back in. In response to the gains made by jihadist group ISIS in its recent offensive, US president Barack Obama is sending 275 troops to Iraq to “provide support and security for US personnel and the US Embassy in Baghdad.”

In a White House statement on June 13, Obama stressed, “We will not be sending troops back into combat.” Observers hoped that Obama would avoid the mistakes of his predecessor. But on the following Monday, Obama announced in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, “this force is deploying for the purpose of protecting US citizens and property, if necessary, and is equipped for combat.” [Emphasis added]

That’s meaningless evasion. ISIS has shown it will stop at nothing, let alone at killing 275 American troops, to take over Iraq. The president must know this. Sending troops is more likely to escalate the conflict than calm it. Obama is sending these troops to fight, no matter what he publicly claims he’s doing. If Obama wants to defend the United States Baghdad embassy so badly, I propose he go there himself.

Pick up a gun and stand in front of the embassy yourself, Mr. President.

What happened to “not sending troops into combat?” It only took four days for Obama to change his mind. Obama continued, “This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed.” How that will be determined he did not specify.

ISIS is not likely to randomly stop its rampage across Iraq. This is a group so extreme that it was expelled from al Qaeda’s global network — kicked out of al Qaeda! Now this same group is systematically and violently taking over Iraq, and Obama’s plan is to send in a military force “until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed.” As if 275 troops will be enough to make ISIS stop. As if ISIS wasn’t an insane, murderous organization that will continue its attacks in the face of these 275 soldiers.

No timetable. No mission statement. No end-game. Does this sound familiar?

Obama often sounds like a non-interventionist president. He sometimes sounds like a peace-loving leader. He even received the Nobel Peace Prize. But his actions speak louder than his words. And his actions are merely a re-hashing of previous policies, from increased drone strikes abroad to troop surges in Afghanistan to manufactured justifications for murdering US citizens in foreign countries to ramped up domestic, counter-terrorism privacy violations. Obama’s second term is basically Dubya’s fourth.

Rather than sending nearly 300 soldiers into harm’s way in a misguided, short-sighted “plan,” the president ought to be courageous enough to go himself. Hey, if the troops will merely be in a “support and security role” (whatever that means), like the press secretary said, what’s the big deal?

Following Obama’s letter to John Boehner, the press secretary released a statement saying, “the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad remains open, and a substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place and the embassy will be fully equipped to carry out its national security mission.”

Why do we have an embassy in Baghdad anyway? Rather than sending more people to protect the embassy in the face of violent terrorists, the president ought to bring people back home. He should close the embassy and stop meddling in Iraq’s affairs.

Better yet, if all the troops were brought home and relieved of duty, and the military industrial complex was drained of all its stolen resources the endless, evil imperialism by the United States military would cease. If defense was left to voluntary associations and firms in a competitive marketplace, this needlessly meddling in other country’s affairs would cease. Organizations that are held accountable to consumers and proprietors, unlike the State, would find it entirely too costly and counterproductive.

On Friday, June 13, Obama correctly stated, “ultimately it’s up the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems.” I just wish Monday’s Obama had listened to Friday’s Obama.

Translations for this article:

Italian, Si Difenda l’Ambasciata da Solo, Signor Presidente.

The Weekly Libertarian Leftist And Chess Review 36

Natasha Petrova — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 23:00:20 +0000

Ivan Eland discusses why there should be no more U.S. intervention in Iraq.

Sheldon Richman discusses how the non-interventionists told you so about the Iraq War.

Vijay Prashad discusses the ISIS folks in Iraq.

Charles Hugh Smith discusses why George W. Bush and Obama’s presidencies are the two most destructive in U.S. history.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses nation-building with a national-security state.

Robert Scheer discusses Bush’s horrific Iraqi legacy. It’s a bit too Obama friendly but still good.

Sami Gillette discusses the movie, Dirty Wars.

David S. D’Amato discusses why government is not just what we do together.

Roderick Long presents the abstract for a paper on left-libertarianism.

Simon Jenkins discusses further military intervention in Iraq.

Ivan Eland discusses the worst effect of the Afghan War.

Justin Raimondo discusses whether the neocons will get away with more military intervention in Iraq.

William Loren Katz discusses the forgotten fight against fascism.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the Baghdad fear index.

Marjorie Cohn discusses Obama on the brink of war or peace.

The Daily Take Team from The Thom Hartmann Program discusses why Cheney should be rotting at the Hague rather than writing editorials.

Stephen Cox discusses isolationism and Iraq. I am not an isolationist, but this has some good points.

Laurence Vance discusses the “libertarian” statism he sees behind the proposal for a basic income.

Matt Zwolinski discusses the libertarian case for a basic income. This is provided to provide a contrast to the position above. You can judge for yourself.

Nick Gillespie discusses whether anyone will really miss Eric Cantor.

Gene Healy discusses why don’t do stupid stuff is smart foreign policy advice.

Gina O’Neil-Santiago discusses what libertarian socialism is.

Dan Sanchez discusses how statism drove Iraqis into the arms of terrorists.

John Knefel discusses the War on Terror.

Corey Robin discusses feelings about humanitarian intervention, imperialism, and militarism.

William Pfaff discusses Iraq.

Justin Dolittle discusses Gitmo and liberals.

Patrick Cockburn discusses how Obama wants the Iraqi prime minister to leave.

Savielly Tartakower defeats Geza Maroczy.

Johannes Zukertort beats Joesph Henry Blackburne.

Obama’s Iraqi Fairy Tale

Sheldon Richman — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:00:34 +0000

I promised myself that I would no longer comment on what Barack Obama has to say, because it’s just not worth the time and effort. Obama’s public remarks are comprehensible only if you keep one thing in mind: he, like other politicians, thinks most people are morons.

I am so appalled by what Obama said in Europe the other day, however, that I must break my promise. In his speech he said, regarding events in Crimea, that

Russia has pointed to America’s decision to go into Iraq as an example of Western hypocrisy. Now, it is true that the Iraq War was a subject of vigorous debate not just around the world, but in the United States as well. I participated in that debate and I opposed our military intervention there. But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could make decisions about its own future.

It is hard to believe that a presidential speechwriter could manage to pack so many lies into so few sentences. But the speechwriter could only compose the sentences. Obama chose to deliver them, and for that, he should be indicted for gross deception with malice aforethought. (Need I say this is not unique to Obama? Virtually all politicians are demagogues. Obama’s distinguishing trait is his smoothness.)

Let us count the lies.

The Iraq War was a subject of vigorous debate not just around the world, but in the United States as well.

Note he did not say “honest debate,” for how honest can a debate be when the government fills the mostly willing media with lies about WMD and suggestions that Saddam Hussein was connected to the attacks on 9/11? Every top member of the Bush administration having anything to do with “national security” lied to the public at one time or another. People who questioned the “slam-dunk” intelligence were dismissed as pusillanimous or soft on Saddam. If that counts as open debate, then there is no difference between the Bush administration and any outright autocratic regime.

America sought to work within the international system.

Really? In terms of international law, Bush was not allowed to launch a war against Iraq, which had threatened no one, until he secured another resolution from the Security Council (the 18th or 2nd, depending on how you count). That resolution was proposed but then withdrawn when Bush realized it would be vetoed. So he ignored the UN rules, which prohibit launching a war unless it’s in self-defense or authorized by the Security Council, and invaded on his own say-so, after Congress rubberstamped his discretionary “authorization for the use of military force.” Yes, he dragged some other governments’ forces along for cover, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, 3 members of which — out of 48 — actually sent some troops. (The Bush administration was good at coming up with Orwellian names for things.)

We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain.

No, they didn’t, but in many respects the Bush administration sure tried. America’s savvy rulers long ago realized that old-style empire building was passé. Subjugated populations wouldn’t stand for it, and that raised the already considerable costs of empire maintenance. So a new, softer imperialism was born. No more annexations. No more UN mandates or protectorates. No more de jure colonies. But this says nothing about de facto control, which was the Bush regime’s objective in Iraq from Day One.

The presumptuous whiz-kid bureaucrats sent in after Saddam fell were armed with plans to remake Iraq right down to its traffic lights and flag. The oil resources were to be “privatized” and parceled out to crony American companies. (Remember the promises that oil revenues would pay for the costly war? Didn’t happen.)

Billions of dollars ostensibly spent to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by American bombers (beginning in 1991) ended up lining the pockets of contractors, subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors (ad infinitum) — with little to show for it. Iraqis to this day suffer from inadequate public services like water, electricity, sewerage, and medical care.

The Bush administration also expected to have some three dozen permanent military bases (with lots of American firms granted lucrative business concessions), and an embassy the size of the Vatican.

Few of these plans came to fruition — but only because Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who wasIran’s handpicked candidate for prime minister, wouldn’t permit it. To be sure, the U.S. government did not gain territory or grab resources — but not for lack of trying.

We ended our war and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state that could make decisions about its own future.

The war indeed ended in 2011. But let’s not forget that before (most of) the troops left, Obama begged al-Maliki to let U.S. forces stay beyond the deadline set in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Al-Maliki — who didn’t need the United States when he had Iran in his corner — demanded conditions so unacceptable to Obama that most forces were withdrawn as scheduled. (SOFA was signed by Bush, but that doesn’t stop Obama from claiming credit for “ending the war.”) The U.S. government continues to finance, arm, and train al-Maliki’s military, which represses the minority Sunni population.

What was left to Iraq’s people was a catastrophe, as already indicated. Peter Van Buren, a State Department officer who oversaw reconstruction in two eastern Iraqi provinces, calls the Iraq War “the single worst foreign policy decision in American history.” There can hardly be a better example of blind ambition. Take the deadly siege of Fallujah in 2004. Journalist Dahr Jamail writes,

According to the Bush administration at the time, the siege of Fallujah was carried out in the name of fighting something called “terrorism” and yet, from the point of view of the Iraqis I was observing at such close quarters, the terror was strictly American. In fact, it was the Americans who first began the spiraling cycle of violence in Fallujah when U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division killed 17 unarmed demonstrators on April 28th of the previous year outside a school they had occupied and turned into a combat outpost. The protesters had simply wanted the school vacated by the Americans, so their children could use it. But then, as now, those who respond to government-sanctioned violence are regularly written off as “terrorists.” Governments are rarely referred to in the same terms.

The architects of the catastrophe had a plan, and the welfare of Iraqis would not be allowed to get in their way. As Van Buren points out,

All that was needed [the Americans thought] was a quick slash into Iraq to establish a permanent American military presence in the heart of Mesopotamia. Our future garrisons there could obviously oversee things, providing the necessary muscle to swat down any future destabilizing elements. It all made so much sense to the neocon visionaries of the early Bush years. The only thing that Washington couldn’t imagine was this: that the primary destabilizing element would be us.

The invasion unleashed a conflagration of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiites, unseen during Saddam’s tenure and consciously facilitated by the U.S. government. Most Sunnis were cleansed from Baghdad. Countless were killed and maimed; millions more became refugees. The fire burns out of control to this day, fueled by the oppression and corruption of al-Maliki, who’s earned the moniker “the Shia Saddam.” Van Buren writes,

As part of the breakdown, desperate men [in the Bush administration], blindsided by history, turned up the volume on desperate measures: torture, secret gulags, rendition, drone killings, extra-constitutional actions at home. The sleaziest of deals were cut to try to salvage something….

The mind boggles at the sheer evil the Americans, who expected gratitude, did there. The result? Van Buren notes:

Even the usually sunny Department of State advises American travelers to Iraq that US citizens “remain at risk for kidnapping … [as] numerous insurgent groups, including Al Qaida, remain active” and notes that “State Department guidance to US businesses in Iraq advises the use of Protective Security Details.”

That is what has been left to the Iraqi people by the benevolent power of the United States of America. As for the U.S. government’s respect for Iraq’s sovereignty, the Obama administration is pressuring al-Maliki to stop allowing Iraq’s ally Iran to fly through Iraqi airspace to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his civil war. So much for Iraqi sovereignty.

This highlights just one of the many absurd features of U.S. policy (if you can call it that): while Obama helps al-Maliki fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, the United States also helps al-Qaeda affiliates fight Assad in Syria. (For the record, al-Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq before Bush invaded.) Again, the mind boggles.

The upshot is that one need not condone Vladimir Putin’s ham-handedness to see that Obama has no leg to stand on when he contrasts Russia’s essentially bloodless and provokedannexation of Crimea with America’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq. Unfortunately, the Americans who committed this cold-blooded mass murder and societal destruction are less likely to face justice than Putin is for his crimes in, say, Chechnya.

(Thanks to Scott Horton for his helpful suggestions.)

Translations for this article:

Portuguese, O conto de fadas iraquiano de Obama.

Empire On Their Minds

Sheldon Richman — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 19:00:40 +0000

The conflict in Ukraine has prompted several level-headed commentators to point out that, of all governments, the U.S. government is in no position to lecture Russia about respecting other nations’ borders. When Secretary of State John Kerry said on Meet the Press, “This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext.… You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests,” one of those commentators, Ivan Eland, responded,

Hmmm. What about the George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq after exaggerating threats from Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and dreaming up a nonexistent operational link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. And what about Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983 to save U.S. medical students in no danger and George H.W. Bush’s invasion of Panama because its leader, Manuel Noriega, was associated with the narcotics trade?… More generally, Latin America has been a US sphere of influence and playground for US invasions since the early 1900s — Lyndon Johnson’s invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and Bill Clinton’s threatened invasion of Haiti in 1994 being two recent examples.

Indeed, Russia isn’t the only country that has brutally regarded its “backyard” as its sphere of influence and playground. This doesn’t make it okay for the Russian government to behave as it has, but as Adam Gopnik observes,

Russia, as ugly, provocative, and deserving of condemnation as its acts [in Crimea] may be, seems to be behaving as Russia has always behaved, even long before the Bolsheviks arrived. Indeed, Russia is behaving as every regional power in the history of human regions has always behaved, maximizing its influence over its neighbors — in this case, a neighbor with a large chunk of its ethnic countrymen.

Eland of course only scratches the surface in mentioning the U.S. government’s unceasing program to control events in its sphere of influence. Some people understand that this program preceded the 20th century; it did not begin with the Cold War. The Spanish-American War, 1898, may come to mind, but I’m thinking further back than that. How far back? Roughly 1776.

Even the government’s schools teach, or at least taught during my 12-year sentence in them, that America’s Founders had — let us say — an expansive vision for the country they were establishing. Historian William Appleman Williams’s extended essay, Empire as a Way of Life, provides many details. Clearly, these men had empire on their minds. Before he became an evangelical for independence from Great Britain, Benjamin Franklin proposed a partnership between England and the American colonists to help spread the enlightened empire throughout the Americas. His proposal was rejected as impractical, so he embraced independence — without giving up the dream of empire in the New World. George Washington spoke of the “rising American empire” and described himself as living in an “infant empire.”

Thomas Jefferson — “the most expansion-minded president in American history” (writes Gordon S. Wood) — set out a vision of an “Empire of Liberty,” later revised as an “Empire forLiberty,” and left the presidency believing that “no constitution was ever before as well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.” As Jefferson wrote James Monroe in 1801, Jefferson’s first year as president,

However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, & cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, & by similar laws.

Indeed, in the eyes of the Founders, the American Revolution was largely a war between a mature empire and a nascent one. (Many — but assuredly not all — Americans of the time would have cheerily agreed.) Their goal was to bring civilization (which was still identified with England and many of its institutions) to the New World’s benighted.

As Jefferson indicated, this vision was more than continental, because South America was never regarded as permanently off limits. If expansion required conflict with the French and Spanish also, so be it.

The Indian Wars were among the first steps in empire building. The unspeakable brutality and duplicity — the acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as we say today — were crimes, not merely against individuals, but also against whole societies and nations. “Imperialism” was not yet a word in use, but that’s what this was, as were the designs and moves on Canada (one of the objects of James Madison’s War of 1812), Mexico, Cuba, Florida, the Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana, the Northwest, and the Pacific coast (the gateway to Asia). The wishes of the inhabitants — who were “as yet incapable of self-government as children,” as Jefferson said of Louisiana’s residents — didn’t count. (Lincoln’s war is thus understood as an exercise in empire preservation.)

A good deal of this program was tied up with trade. For libertarians, trade far and wide is a good thing, but one must keep in mind that the expansion of trade in those days (as in these) depended on how strong the government was. By hook and crook, a constitution that denied the national government the powers to regulate trade and to tax — the Articles of Confederation — had been exchanged for one — the U.S. Constitution — that authorized both powers. (The libertarian Albert Jay Nock called the federal convention in Philadelphia a coup d’état. See my video lecture.) Trade meant trade policy, and that meant government activism, which included selective embargoes, such as those imposed by Jefferson’s program of “peaceful coercion.”

The Articles of Confederation were a poor platform for empire building; not so the Constitution. “Both in the mind of Madison and in its nature,” Williams wrote, “the Constitution was an instrument of imperial government at home and abroad.” (See my “That Mercantilist Commerce Clause.”)

I don’t mean to say that the liberty of Americans was of no concern to their rulers. I do mean, however, that liberty was to be subordinated (only to the extent necessary, of course) to national greatness, which was America’s destiny. (I first heard the words “Manifest Destiny” in a government school. Do kids hear it today?)

Americans sensed that something exceptional was happening. And indeed it was, as Gordon Wood explains in his masterful The Radicalism of the American Revolution. To the dismay of the dominant Federalists, average Americans, exemplified by those whom Wood calls “plebeian Anti-Federalists,” saw the revolution as having overturned hierarchical and aristocratic colonial society in favor of a democracy that facilitated personal and commercial self-interest. (This did not sit well with those who wanted America to be, per Wood, “either a hierarchy of ranks or a homogeneous republican whole.”)

But even well-grounded exceptionalism can quickly turn dark by the perceived duty to enlighten — or , if necessary, exterminate — the benighted. And that’s what happened. The Indian Wars were popular; so were the other imperial exploits. (This is not to say there were no dissenters.)

Williams notes that exceptionalism came with a feeling of aloneness. Thus, the quest for security and tranquility for the new nation — invoked in precisely those words — fueled these imperial exploits. The national-security state is nothing new; only the technology has changed.

Some American figures glimpsed that empire and liberty might not so easily fit together. (The unabashed empire builders were convinced that freedom at home required empire.) The problem was that even many who opposed empire, sometimes quite eloquently, wanted ends that only an empire could procure. Williams puts John Quincy Adams in this small camp. Secretary of State Adams’s July 4, 1821, speech, declaring that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” was “thoughtful, powerful, and subversive,” Williams writes. “But for the time Adams remained enfolded in the spirit of empire and was unable to control the urge to extend America’s power and influence.” (As secretary of state, he supported Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson’s seizure of Florida from the Spanish.)

Adams was the main author of the Monroe Doctrine, which announced not only that the United States would stand aloof from Europe’s quarrels, but also that the Western Hemisphere was exclusively the U.S. government’s sphere of influence: “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers,” for any such extension would be taken as “dangerous to our peace and safety [i.e., our national security].”

So keep out of our backyard, Europe, and we’ll keep out of yours. Except, Williams adds, that President Monroe “then asserted the right of the United States to support Greek revolutionaries.”

This history doesn’t excuse Russia, but it does put Putin’s actions in perspective. It also accounts for the less-than-awed reception for President Obama’s and Secretary Kerry’s sanctimonious utterances. To the extent that Obama and Kerry imply that Russia threatens our “peace and safety,” they look like fools. “The worst pretense of empire,” Adam Gopnik writes, “is that every rattle on the edges is a death knell to the center.”

True Justice Must Be Served For Guantanamo Detainees

Ryan Calhoun — Mon, 27 May 2013 22:00:02 +0000

President Barack Obama lifted a moratorium on transfers of Guantanamo bay detainees to Yemen – a moratorium he put in place. Why Obama put this moratorium into place after vowing, on a multitude of occasions, to do whatever he could to restore justice and shut down Gitmo is neither here nor there. I don’t intend to speculate on his reasons for taking so long, but I will say that this is one step forward after 3000 steps back.

But of course, this step is only a drop in the bucket representing justice for those jailed indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. Now that Obama has made a meaningful step forward toward ending Gitmo, we must put pressure on the executive to see true justice is served. So what will true justice look like for those innocent individuals jailed at Guantanamo? Surely justice would not be to merely release these prisoners into Yemen, where they may very likely meet their end in death-by-drone at some later date.

First, we must look at compensation. In half of the union’s states, compensation is due to those who have wrongfully been imprisoned. Federal statute stipulates $50,000 per year of imprisonment, and $100,000 for those on death row. But of course, for far too many at Gitmo, their wrongful caging goes beyond the standard state or federal case. For example, many were never formally charged with a crime. Many were stripped from their homeland and brought to a foreign island. Many were either tortured directly or force fed during a heroic and continuing hunger strike. All were forced to live under the constant threat that any privileges afforded to them can be stripped away, if they ever refused to comply with the demands of guards. And lastly, many have been known to be innocent for years.

For all of these reasons, we must consider that due compensation far exceeds that of the average wrongfully imprisoned American. I do not mean to speak softly of the plight of your average American prisoner. Practice of solitary confinement has been found by human rights watchdogs to be nothing less than torture. But issues of solitary confinement at Guantanamo are even worse than your average federal supermax. As of 2009, a majority of Gitmo detainees were being held in solitary confinement, often deprived of sleep and beaten for the slightest deviations of prison protocol according the Center For Constitutional Rights.

The issue of compensation is then a difficult one to calculate. There are no standards one can abide by. I might suggest a lump sum of $2m for each innocent detainee, along with either continued compensation from their torturers or even a shifting of the torturers’ wages and benefits to those who should be freed. The same will go for any other prisoner who, in the past or in the future, will be proven innocent of crimes they have never even been accused of formally.

There is also the concerning issue of releasing detainees into Yemen, where I earlier half-jokingly referred to their possible fate of being bombed by the same government that at one time imprisoned them. President Obama, in the same recent speech that he addressed the issue of Guantanamo, also hinted that the drone policy of his administration is going to be made permanent and even be pursued to new degrees. Perhaps instead we should allow the detainees to be freed into the U.S., into any area of their choosing. Anthony Gregory has suggested Pennsylvania avenue as a possible relocation for them, but that might not be in the cards. I think that they should at least be given the option of living in America, as opposed to Yemen or other countries. Perhaps we can even get them on a path to U.S citizenship? This might, quite ironically, be the safest place for them.

And then there is the issue of future justice. Justice can not truly be served while the practices that led to their wrongful imprisonment are still being carried out. We must arrest their torturers and those responsible for implementing, endorsing and enforcing their torture. This includes both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, along with a lengthy list of top military brass. They, like all others, are entitled to a trial. Those found guilty must pay restitution. We must end the unjust occupations that made such black-bagging of individuals seem necessary. End our campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and all other nations under attack by the U.S government. End government secrecy. Allow free and open journalism about war crimes the U.S has committed. We must make a solemn promise to never allow such a travesty of justice to occur ever again.

Finally, there is the issue of legacy. Many of those detained unjustly have acted as noble heroes worthy of reverence. Their hunger strike forced the issue, laying bare the injustice of their imprisonment. As such, a memorial is in order. Perhaps we can set aside a space in the heart of Washington D.C, alongside those who seek to emblazon the injustice of Japanese internment camps, where family, friends and supporters can set up such a memorial. To create a memorial for all those innocent victims of a racist United States military.

We must honor, revere and restore as much justice as possible to these innocent victims. We must never forget.

State Violence Limited Only by Capacity

Kurt Padilla — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:00:50 +0000

Recently, I read a Center for a Stateless Society tweet linking to an interactive map on Slate.

The map compares the drone campaigns waged by the Bush and Obama administrations. Its description contends that “Obama has ratcheted up his predecessor’s tactic of deploying unmanned aircraft into Pakistan and Yemen to kill supposed terrorists …”

In replies to that tweet, I suggested that the alleged “five to one” increase in drone attacks comes not from a difference in policy between the two administrations but from an increase in drone production and deployment capacity. In other words, if W could have conducted as many attacks, he would have.

The number of drones in service over time corroborates my analysis. As of 2009, “… the total number of military drones has soared to 5,500, from 167 in 2001.” As of this year, the US drone fleet has grown to 7000 and Pentagon officials want $5 billion from Congress to buy more.

That comes to a 130% increase, but not all of those are attack drones. I am not sure exactly which models would qualify as such, but I think we can safely assume that the Predator and Reaper models constitute the bulk of them. In 2009, the Air Force owned 195 Predators. In 2010, that number increased by 137% to 268. In 2007, the Air Force owned nine Reaper drones. In 2010, 57 Reapers. That’s roughly a six to one increase.

So, not only do we see an increase in drone capacity, but we also see an enhancement in capability, as 2011 marked the last Predator delivery and its succession by the Reaper, which can deliver more ordinance and has longer range. And I think we can safely assume that the military has come into more attack drones by now. This six to one increase in Reapers obviously exceeds the five to one increase in drone attacks under Obama, and it does so for practical reasons.

Firstly, workers with the training to operate these drones were in short supply, at least as of 2009.

Secondly, it would appear that drone attacks don’t take place without some sort of diligence in terms of target selection. Or, perhaps we can just chalk it up to a shortage of targets. The Disposition Matrix should eventually fix that.

These drones do not and cannot come into the possession of the military at the whim of any president. Large military contracts take time to fulfill and contractors rarely deliver on schedule. And that comes on top of decisions and investments made well before Obama’s inauguration.

So, we ought not to draw a conclusion pertaining to Obama’s war policies and how they compare to W’s in terms of viciousness. Rather, these administrations share a more fundamental policy of class preservation, of maintaining the status quo. The defense contractor and military elites depend on their budgets and must constantly buy and deploy new toys to perpetuate that funding, and thereby their purpose as a class.

What we have often heard before from military-first proponents, that we must devise new weapons and procure more of them in order to preempt and counter our enemies’ countermeasures, does not work for drone warfare as we currently wage it. These proponents cannot make that excuse this time around. The likes of al-Qaeda have no means to counter drones beyond employing better operational security and adhering to it more strictly. What we have is simply blatant rent-seeking behavior.

If you found my previous arithmetic somewhat tenuous, that’s okay. I never intended to establish a strong correlation between the size of the attack drone fleet and the number of attacks. Obama simply has more attack drones at his disposal as well as a more developed means of producing them than his predecessor, so what else would he do? I suppose that if he really wanted, he could either let the drones sit idle or devote them entirely to the humanitarian/rescue missions that the industry never fails to mention in its public relations material.

But relegating to either fate an attack drone, something engineered as a weapon, would make it pointless. And that is one of the greatest threats to authority, that the people should realize that its stately investments are pointless, that the emperor wears no clothes. In one of my favorite films, Cube, the characters debate over the purpose of the terrible machination in which they find themselves trapped. One of them provides a succinct and chilling answer: “Because it’s here. You have to use it or admit it’s pointless.” Sadly, I have yet to hear a more apt analysis for Obama’s escalation of drone warfare.

The Joke of Democratic Accountability

Kevin Carson — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:00:22 +0000

Back in 2008, now-president Barack Obama ran against the Bush administration’s runaway national security state, created partly via legislation like USA PATRIOT and partly via executive practices like warrantless wiretapping, waterboarding and the like. One of Obama’s biggest applause lines was “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States; and in the Red States we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries.” Obama strongly suggested — in vague but quite vehement language — his intention of rolling back this national security state. And besides that, he promised “the most transparent administration in history.”

I, cynical anarchist that I am, considered it entirely plausible that we might expect as vigorous a rollback of executive power under Obama as the Church Commission carried out after Watergate.

So much for that theory. Obama may actually be telling the truth about ending torture at Guantanamo. But he still explicitly supports so-called “extraordinary rendition,” by which “terror suspects” are handed over — with a wink and a nudge — to allied regimes that do practice torture. He claims to have shut down so-called “Black Ops” sites where the military and CIA practiced torture under Bush — although there’s no way of verifying this. And Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield (aka Guantanamo East), where we have no idea what still goes on, is still very much in business.

Obama’s attitude toward torture and illegal surveillance by the Bush administration, in every case, has been to use the full power of his office to prevent prosecution of Bush era officials for their crimes against humanity. For this, Obama should personally apologize to the families of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg.

As for Obama’s promises of transparency, in office he has in fact pursued whistleblowers with a level of vindictiveness unprecedented in recent years. He’s actually resurrected Wilson-era legislation like the Espionage Act — originally used against Wobbly and Socialist political prisoners who opposed WWI as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” — to go after those who’ve exposed the sordid workings of his national security apparatus. Nixon would be proud.

On virtually every aspect of his 2008 promises to scale back Bush’s executive power grabs and restore civil liberties, Obama has proven to be an out-and-out liar. Far from undoing Bush’s police statism, in the words of Rehoboam, Obama’s little finger has been thicker than Bush’s loins. Whereas Bush chastised us with whips, Obama has chastises us with scorpions.

The remedy for this sort of thing, as it’s presented in the civics texts, is to punish such betrayal by voting against the betrayer next time. But thanks to the “lesser of evils” dynamic inherent in America’s two-party system, this is impossible.

An entire community of “Pragmatic Progressives” have circled their wagons in defense of Obama (or PBO, as they call him) against left-wing critics who might weaken him against Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Some, like leading PragProg Scott Finley, have actually resorted to baiting left-wing critics of the American security state for their lack of patriotism, making tactical alliances with right-wing troglodytes like Todd Kincannon to harass them. A movement founded on the unum necessarium of defending Obama against the GOP at all costs has gradually slipped down the proverbial slope, now actually allying itself with the GOP to suppress Obama’s left-wing critics.

Mainstream “Progressives,” the most vocal opponents of the Imperial Presidency during Republican administrations, become a captive clientele — no matter how egregious the executive power grab — when a Democrat’s in power. Because, you see, now matter how disappointing they may privately concede Obama’s performance on civil liberties has been, Romney would be even worse! And believe me, his frustrated supporters’ sense of nowhere else to go isn’t lost on hacks like Obama. So in practice, the lesser of evils seems to get a little more evil with each election cycle. And the repressive apparatus of the state ratchets ever upward.

Even when you get an ideal “Progressive” candidate who says all the things that make your heart go pitty-pat, you have absolutely no way of knowing until he gets elected whether he’s a damned liar. And once he’s in there, you’ve got nowhere else to go — because the other guy’s always worse.

All this should be more than sufficient as an object lesson on the futility of political reform in ending economic exploitation and state repression. Any movement that seeks social justice through political involvement and attempting to hold public officials democratically accountable is doomed to failure. The only real way to achieve social justice is by bypassing the state, treating it as irrelevant, and building the kind of society we want without the government’s permission.

We can always use your help.

You can help support C4SS by purchasing a zine copy of Kevin Carson’s “No Matter Who You Vote For, The Winner Is Always The Government“.