By Kenneth J. Theisen, 8/2/07
Many people who are outraged at the Bush regime are relying
on the 2008 elections to change the direction in which Bush has led the
country. Barack Obama has attracted
particular attention and support because he is one of the few leading
candidates that did not vote for the war in Iraq in 2002. (Of course he was not even a Senator so he
could not vote one way or the other at the time.) He wants you to believe that he is the
candidate of change.
But on August 1, 2007 Senator Obama indicated that he is
willing to go Bush one better when it comes to invading countries and ignoring
international law. Obama delivered a major
foreign policy speech at the Woodrow
Wilson International
Center for Scholars so
this was no slip of the tongue. He
stated that he would invade Pakistan
to attack “terrorists” even without the permission of the Pakistani government.
“Let me make this clear. There are
terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are
plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had
a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have
actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President
Musharraf won’t act, we will.”
This speech was made a week after he accused Senator Hillary
Clinton of being “Bush-Cheney lite” because of her vote for the Iraq war. The Bush regime has been a close ally of the
Musharraf regime in Pakistan,
but recently administration officials have floated the possibility of launching
military strikes against “terrorists” in Pakistan. So Obama likes this Bush regime idea
too. If Hillary is “Bush-Cheney lite”
for supporting the invasion of Iraq,
what is Obama if he is willing to violate international law by invading Pakistan?
In his speech Obama tried to differentiate himself from
Bush. He accused Bush of confusing “our
mission” with the war in Iraq.
“By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists
what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation
of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined
consequences.” So what should “our
mission” be according to Obama?
Obama implies he would be a better Commander-in-Chief than
Bush. In his speech he said, “When I am
President, we will wage the war that has to be won.” He would pull troops
out of Iraq and place them where they should be, “on the right battlefield
in Afghanistan and Pakistan”The first step must be getting off the wrong
battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.”
He castigated the Bush regime’s actions in Afghanistan
because that war was not aggressive enough.
“We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan”I was a strong supporter of the war
in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is more violent than it
has been since 2001,” he said. He went
on to say, “As President, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to
re-enforce our counter-terrorism operations and support NATO’s efforts against
the Taliban.”
But lest we think he only wants to attack the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
Obama in his speech also targeted Iran
when he said, “Iran is now
presenting the broadest strategic challenge to the United
States in the Middle East
in a generation. Groups affiliated with
or inspired by al Qaeda operate worldwide. Six years after 9/11, we are again in the
midst of a “summer of threat,” with bin Ladin and many more terrorists
determined to strike in the United States”It is time to turn the page. It is time to write a new chapter in our
response to 9/11.” This is consistent
with past comments when he has said he was open to missile strikes against Iran. With this part of his speech he cleverly links
Iran
and al Qaeda without directly saying they are linked. Does this remind anyone of the tactics of the
Bush regime in linking Saddam, 9/11 and al Qaeda before the invasion of Iraq?
Obama does not appear to want to limit military action to the
above countries. In his speech he
claimed, “I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who
pose a direct threat to America”This
cannot just be an American mission. Al Qaeda and its allies operate in nearly
100 countries”As president, I will create a Shared Security Partnership Program
to forge an international intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure to
take down terrorist networks from the remote islands of Indonesia, to the sprawling cities of Africa.”
So assuming we can survive the Bush regime we will be
rescued by the Democrats, right? Wrong!
We must change the direction of the country and world now and not rely
on false illusions that our saviors will arise from the other imperialist
party. As has been pointed out in other
articles on this site, only a mass movement of millions will change the course
of the Bush regime. If we rely on
candidates such as Obama we will only face more of the same that we have seen
under the Bush regime. Read Obama’s
speech and decide if that is the future you wish.