Weekend Edition
February 6-8, 2009
Change (in Rhetoric) We Can Believe In?
Obama and the Empire
By WILLIAM BLUM
I've said all along that whatever good changes might occur in regard to non-foreign policy issues,
such as what's already taken place concerning the environment and abortion, the Obama administration
will not produce any significantly worthwhile change in US foreign policy; little done in this area will
reduce the level of misery that the American Empire regularly brings down upon humanity. And to the
extent that Barack Obama is willing to clearly reveal what he believes about anything controversial,
he appears to believe in the empire.
The Obamania bubble should already have begun to lose some air with the multiple US bombings of
Pakistan within the first few days following the inauguration. The Pentagon briefed the White House
of its plans, and the White House had no objection. So bombs away — Barack Obama's first war crime.
The dozens of victims were, of course, all bad people, including all the women and children. As with all
these bombings, we'll never know the names of all the victims — It's doubtful that even Pakistan knows —
or what crimes they had committed to deserve the death penalty. Some poor Pakistani probably earned
a nice fee for telling the authorities that so-and-so bad guy lived in that house over there; too bad for
all the others who happened to live with the bad guy, assuming of course that the bad guy himself
actually lived in that house over there.
The new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, declined to answer questions about the first
airstrikes, saying "I'm not going to get into these matters."1 Where have we heard that before?
After many of these bombings in recent years, a spokesperson for the United States or NATO has
solemnly declared: “We regret the loss of life.” These are the same words used by the Irish Republican
Army (IRA) on a number of occasions, but their actions were typically called “terrorist”.
I wish I could be an Obamaniac. I envy their enthusiasm. Here, in the form of an open letter to
President Obama, are some of the "changes we can believe in" in foreign policy that would have to
occur to win over the non-believers like me.
Iran
Just leave them alone. There is no "Iranian problem". They are a threat to no one. Iran hasn't invaded
any other country in centuries. No, President Ahmadinejad did not threaten Israel with any violence.
Stop patrolling the waters surrounding Iran with American warships. Stop halting Iranian ships to check
for arms shipments to Hamas. (That's generally regarded as an act of war.) Stop using Iranian dissident
groups to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran. Stop kidnaping Iranian diplomats. Stop the continual
spying and recruiting within Iran. And yet, with all that, you can still bring yourself to say: "If countries
like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us."2
Iran has as much right to arm Hamas as the US has to arm Israel. And there is no international law
that says that the United States, the UK, Russia, China, Israel, France, Pakistan, and India are
entitled to nuclear weapons, but Iran is not. Iran has every reason to feel threatened. Will you
continue to provide nuclear technology to India, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, while threatening Iran, an NPT signatory, with sanctions and warfare?
Russia
Stop surrounding the country with new NATO members. Stop looking to instigate new "color" revolutions
in former Soviet republics and satellites. Stop arming and supporting Georgia in its attempts to block
the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhasia, the breakaway regions on the border of Russia. And
stop the placement of anti-missile systems in Russia's neighbors, the Czech Republic and Poland, on
the absurd grounds that it's to ward off an Iranian missile attack. It was Czechoslovakia and Poland
that the Germans also used to defend their imperialist ambitions — The two countries were being
invaded on the grounds that Germans there were being maltreated. The world was told.
"The U.S. government made a big mistake from the breakup of the Soviet Union," said former Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev last year. "At that time the Russian people were really euphoric about America
and the U.S. was really number one in the minds of many Russians." But, he added, the United States
moved aggressively to expand NATO and appeared gleeful at Russia's weakness.3
Cuba
Making it easier to travel there and send remittances is very nice (if, as expected, you do that), but
these things are dwarfed by the need to end the US embargo. In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the
United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the almost
forty years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans
and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. We can now add ten more years to all three figures.
The negative, often crippling, effects of the embargo extend into every aspect of Cuban life.
In addition to closing Guantanamo prison, the adjacent US military base established in 1903 by
American military force should be closed and the land returned to Cuba.
The Cuban Five, held prisoner in the United States for over 10 years, guilty only of trying to prevent
American-based terrorism against Cuba, should be released. Actually there were 10 Cubans arrested;
five knew that they could expect no justice in an American court and pled guilty to get shorter sentences.
4 Iraq
Freeing the Iraqi people to death ... Nothing short of a complete withdrawal of all US forces, military
and contracted, and the closure of all US military bases and detention and torture centers, can promise
a genuine end to US involvement and the beginning of meaningful Iraqi sovereignty. To begin immediately.
Anything less is just politics and imperialism as usual. In six years of war, the Iraqi people have lost
everything of value in their lives. As the Washington Post reported in 2007: "It is a common refrain
among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003."5 The good news
is that the Iraqi people have 5,000 years experience in crafting a society to live in. They should be given
the opportunity.
Saudi Arabia
Demand before the world that this government enter the 21st century (or at least the 20th), or the
United States has to stop pretending that it gives a damn about human rights, women, homosexuals,
religious liberty, and civil liberties. The Bush family had long-standing financial ties to members of
the Saudi ruling class. What will be your explanation if you maintain the status quo?
Haiti
Reinstate the exiled Jean Bertrand Aristide to the presidency, which he lost when the United States
overthrew him in 2004. To seek forgiveness for our sins, give the people of Haiti lots and lots of
money and assistance.
Colombia
Stop giving major military support to a government that for years has been intimately tied to death
squads, torture, and drug trafficking; in no other country in the world have so many progressive
candidates for public office, unionists, and human-rights activists been murdered. Are you concerned
that this is the closest ally the United States has in all of Latin America?
Venezuela
Hugo Chavez may talk too much but he's no threat except to the capitalist system of Venezuela and,
by inspiration, elsewhere in Latin America. He has every good historical reason to bad-mouth American
foreign policy, including Washington's role in the coup that overthrew him in 2002. If you can't understand
why Chavez is not in love with what the United States does all over the world, I can give you a long
reading list.
Put an end to support for Chavez's opposition by the Agency for International Development, the National
Endowment for Democracy, and other US government agencies. US diplomats should not be meeting with
Venezuelans plotting coups against Chavez, nor should they be interfering in elections.
Send Luis Posada from Florida to Venezuela, which has asked for his extradition for his masterminding
the bombing of a Cuban airline in 1976, taking 73 lives. Extradite the man, or try him in the US, or
stop talking about the war on terrorism.
And please try not to repeat the nonsense about Venezuela being a dictatorship. It's a freer society
than the United States. It has, for example, a genuine opposition daily media, non-existent in the
United States. If you doubt that, try naming a single American daily newspaper or TV network that
was unequivocally against the US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and
Vietnam. Or even against two of them? How about one? Is there a single one that supports Hamas
and/or Hezbollah? A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a story concerning a possible Israeli
attack upon Iran, and stated: "Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account,
at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing
operations."6
Alas, Mr. President, among other disparaging remarks, you've already accused Chavez of being "a force
that has interrupted progress in the region." & This is a statement so contrary to the facts, even to plain
common sense, so hypocritical given Washington's history in Latin America, that I despair of you ever
freeing yourself from the ideological shackles that have bound every American president of the past
century.
It may as well be inscribed in their oath of office — that a president must be antagonistic toward
any country that has expressly rejected Washington as the world's savior. You made this remark
an interview with Univision, Venezuela's leading, implacable media critic of the Chavez government.
What regional progress could you be referring to, the police state of Colombia?
Bolivia
Stop American diplomats, Peace Corps volunteers, Fulbright scholars, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, from spying and fomenting subversion inside Bolivia. As the first black president of the
United States, you could try to cultivate empathy toward, and from, the first indigenous president of Bolivia.
Congratulate Bolivian president Evo Morales on winning a decisive victory on a recent referendum to
approve a new constitution which enshrines the rights of the indigenous people and, for the first time,
institutes separation of church and state.
Afghanistan
Perhaps the most miserable people on the planet, with no hope in sight as long as the world's powers
continue to bomb, invade, overthrow, occupy, and slaughter in their land. The US Army is planning on
throwing 30,000 more young American bodies into the killing fields and is currently building eight new
major bases in southern Afghanistan. Is that not insane? If it makes sense to you I suggest that you
start the practice of the president accompanying the military people when they inform American parents
that their child has died in a place called Afghanistan.
If you pull out from this nightmare, you could also stop bombing Pakistan. Leave even if it results in the
awful Taliban returning to power. They at least offer security to the country's wretched, and indications
are that the current Taliban are not all fundamentalists.
But first, close Bagram prison and other detention camps, which are worse than Guantanamo.
And stop pretending that the United States gives a damn about the Afghan people and not oil and gas
pipelines which can bypass Russia and Iran. The US has been endeavoring to fill the power vacuum in
Central Asia created by the Soviet Union’s dissolution in order to assert Washington's domination over
a region containing the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world. Is
Afghanistan going to be your Iraq?
Israel
The most difficult task for you, but the one that would earn for you the most points. To declare that Israel
is no longer the 51st state of the union would bring down upon your head the wrath of the most powerful
lobby in the world and its many wealthy followers, as well as the Christian-fundamentalist Right and much
of the media. But if you really want to see peace between Israel and Palestine you must cut off all military
aid to Israel, in any form: hardware, software, personnel, money. And stop telling Hamas it has to recognize
Israel and renounce violence until you tell Israel that it has to recognize Hamas and renounce violence.
North Korea
Bush called the country part of "the axis of evil", and Kim Jong Il a "pygmy" and "a spoiled child at a dinner
table."8 But you might try to understand where Kim Jong Il is coming from. He sees that UN agencies went
into Iraq and disarmed it, and then the United States invaded. The logical conclusion is not to disarm, but
to go nuclear.
Central America
Stop interfering in the elections of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, year after year. The Cold War
has ended. And though you can't undo the horror perpetrated by the United States in the region in the
1980s, you can at least be kind to the immigrants in the US who came here trying to escape the long-term
consequences of that terrible decade.
Vietnam
In your inauguration speech you spoke proudly of those "who have carried us up the long, rugged path
towards prosperity and freedom ... For us, they fought and died, in places like ... Khe Sanh." So it is your
studied and sincere opinion that the 58,000 American sevicemembers who died in Vietnam, while helping
to kill over a million Vietnamese, gave their life for our prosperity and freedom? Would you care to defend
that proposition without resort to any platitudes?
You might also consider this: In all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the three million Vietnamese
suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical "Agent Orange"
have received from the United States no medical attention, no environmental remediation, no compensation,
and no official apology.
Kosovo
Stop supporting the most gangster government in the world, which has specialized in kidnaping, removing
human body parts for sale, heavy trafficking in drugs, trafficking in women, various acts of terrorism,
and ethnic cleansing of Serbs. This government would not be in power if the Bush administration had not
seen them as America's natural allies. Do you share that view? UN Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999,
reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to which
Serbia is now the recognized successor state, and established that Kosovo was to remain part of Serbia.
Why do we have a huge and permanent military base in that tiny self-declared country?
NATO
From protecting Europe against a [mythical] Soviet invasion to becoming an occupation army in
Afghanistan. Put an end to this historical anachronism, what Russian leader Vladimir called "the stinking
corpse of the cold war."9. You can accomplish this simply by leaving the organization. Without the
United States and its never-ending military actions and officially-designated enemies, the organization
would not even have the pretense of a purpose, which is all it has left. Members have had to be bullied,
threatened and bribed to send armed forces to Afghanistan.
School of the Americas
Latin American countries almost never engage in war with each other, or any other countries.
So for what kind of warfare are its military officers being trained by the United States?
To suppress their own people. Close this school (the name has now been changed to protect
the guilty) at Ft. Benning, Georgia that the United States has used to prepare two generations
of Latin American military officers for careers in overthrowing progressive governments, death
squads, torture, holding down dissent, and other charming activities. The British are fond of
saying that the Empire was won on the playing fields of Eton.
Americans can say that the road to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and
Bagram began in the classrooms of the School of the Americas.
Torture
Your executive orders concerning this matter of utmost importance are great to see, but they still
leave something to be desired. They state that the new standards ostensibly putting an end to
torture apply to any "armed conflict". But what if your administration chooses to view future
counterterrorism and other operations as not part of an "armed conflict"? And no mention is made
of "rendition" — kidnaping a man off the street, throwing him in a car, throwing a hood over his
head, stripping off his clothes, placing him in a diaper, shackling him from every angle, and flying
him to a foreign torture dungeon. Why can't you just say that this and all other American use of
proxy torturers is banned? Forever.
It's not enough to say that you're against torture or that the United States "does not torture" or
"will not torture". George W. Bush said the same on a regular basis. To show that you're not
George W. Bush you need to investigate those responsible for the use of torture, even if this
means prosecuting a small army of Bush administration war criminals.
You aren't off to a good start by appointing former CIA official John O. Brennan as your top
adviser on counterterrorism. Brennan has called "rendition" a "vital tool" and praised the CIA's
interrogation techniques for providing "lifesaving" intelligence.10 Whatever were you thinking,
Barack?
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi
Free this Libyan man from his prison in Scotland, where he is serving a life sentence after being
framed by the United States for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in December 1988, which took
the lives of 270 people over Scotland. Iran was actually behind the bombing — as revenge for the
US shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July, killing 290 — not Libya, which the US accused
for political reasons.11 Nations do not behave any more cynical than that. Megrahi lies in prison now
dying of cancer, but still the US and the UK will not free him. It would be too embarrassing to admit
to 20 years of shameless lying.
Mr. President, there's a lot more to be undone in our foreign policy if you wish to be taken seriously
as a moral leader like Martin Luther King, Jr.: banning the use of depleted uranium, cluster bombs,
and other dreadful weapons; joining the International Criminal Court instead of trying to sabotage
it; making a number of other long-overdue apologies in addition to the one mentioned re Vietnam;
and much more. You've got your work cut out for you if you really want to bring some happiness to
this sad old world, make America credible and beloved again, stop creating armies of anti-American
terrorists, and win over people like me.
And do you realize that you can eliminate all state and federal budget deficits in the United States,
provide free health care and free university education to every American, pay for an unending array
of worthwhile social and cultural programs, all just by ending our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not
starting any new ones, and closing down the Pentagon's 700+ military bases? Think of it as the
peace dividend Americans were promised when the Cold War would end some day, but never received.
How about you delivering it, Mr. President? It's not too late.
But you are committed to the empire; and the empire is committed to war. Too bad.
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II,
Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.
He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com
Notes
1. Washington Post, January 24, 2009
2. Interview with al Arabiya TV, January 27, 2009
Gorbachev speaking in Florida, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 17, 2008
3. http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm
4. Washington Post, May 5, 2007, p.1
5. New York Times, January 11, 2009
6. Washington Post, January 19, 2009
7. Newsweek, May 27, 2002
8. Press Trust of India (news agency), December 21, 2007
9. Washington Post, November 26, 2008
10. http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/panam.htm
