Even in the run-up to the election, Obama repeatedly made clear that his differences with Bush were of a tactical rather than a strategic or principled character.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5980
Bill Van Auken
President-elect Barack Obama appeared Sunday on the CBS program “60 Minutes” for his first televised interview since his November 4 election victory.
He covered a wide range of subjects with a lack of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6037 and a placid tone that suggested someone who had read through stacks of briefing books, but had few defined positions of his own and was above all anxious to offend no one.
When asked what he had been “concentrating on” in the past week, however, his answer was unhesitating: “Number one, I think it’s important to get a national security team in place because transition periods are potentially times of vulnerability to a terrorist attack. We want to make sure that there is as seamless a transition on national security as possible.”
A “seamless transition on national security” is well worth pondering, given the strategy and policy pursued by the administration that will be http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4904 to an incoming Obama administration.
The Bush administration enunciated a clear national security policy that became known as the Bush Doctrine. Essentially, it proclaimed the “right” of the US government to attack preemptively any country it believes might pose a military threat to the United States. Underlying this formally stated policy of aggressive war lay the determination of the US ruling elite to advance its monopolization of wealth and power through war abroad and repression at home.The Bush doctrine was the political expression of an explosion of American militarism, leading to the continuing wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a series of military strikes against a number of other countries, including Pakistan, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
“National security” and the “global war on terrorism” were likewise invoked as the justification for criminal policies that have included kidnapping, extraordinary rendition, torture and imprisonment without trial.
Obama’s determination to effect a “seamless transition” in this area would appear to http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5662 of the fact that his electoral victory is owed in large measure to the popular revulsion aroused by these policies. If there were anywhere that the electorate might expect to see “seams”—i.e., disparities, interruptions and discontinuity—it would be here.
Yet, even in the run-up to the election, Obama repeatedly made clear that his differences with Bush were of a tactical rather than a strategic or principled character. He tacitly embraced the policy of preventative war, implying that he would employ it both to strike at targets inside Pakistan and to preempt Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons.
And as the transition process advances, it is becoming increasingly clear that—tactical differences over US foreign policy notwithstanding—the pursuit of the global strategic aims of America’s financial oligarchy by means of military aggression and international criminality is not about to come to end when Obama enters the White House in January.
Rather, the change in administrations is seen within the ruling establishment as a means of bringing about changes that will make American militarism more effective while providing, in the person of Obama, a better political cover for the pursuit of American capitalism’s worldwide interests.
In his interview Sunday, Obama reiterated his determination to “draw down” troops in Iraq, but only in order to “shore up” the US war in Afghanistan. He declared that his “top priority” is to “stamp out Al Qaeda once and for all,” making it clear that the “global war on terrorism” will not only continue, but may well be escalated.
The real shape of the military agenda that will likely be pursued under Obama was spelled out in some detail Sunday in a lead editorial published in the New York Times, a paper whose views reflect close association with the Democratic Party establishment figures setting policy for the incoming administration.
Titled “A military for a dangerous new world,” the editorial presents a chilling blueprint for the building up of US armed forces in preparation for multiple wars on a scale that will dwarf anything seen in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It begins by lamenting the fact that the protracted war and occupation in Iraq have left US “troops and equipment … so overtaxed” that they are not prepared to confront the supposedly necessary escalation in Afghanistan or the “next threats.”
In addition to fighting to “defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan” and “pursuing Al Qaeda forces around the world,” the Times argues, the US military must prepare to confront “Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an erratic North Korea, a rising China, an assertive Russia and a raft of unstable countries like Somalia and nuclear-armed Pakistan.”
The paper repeats Obama’s own call for adding nearly 100,000 more soldiers and marines to American ground forces—bringing the total to 759,000 active duty forces. It goes on to assert, however, that, while this “sounds like a lot,” it really remains inadequate.
Declaring that the military has been “badly stretched” by the Iraq war, the Times concludes, “The most responsible prescription for overcoming these problems is a significantly larger ground force.”
Where and how is an Obama administration to procure these “significantly larger” numbers of troops? The Times does not say. One logical conclusion, however, is that if such a significant change in the size of the US military is to be effected it will likely mean the reinstitution of conscription—bringing back the draft. Obama’s repeated invocation of “national service” and “sacrifice” in his campaign for the presidency has laid the ideological foundations for once again rounding up tens of thousands of American youth to serve as cannon fodder in US imperialism’s militarist adventures.
http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=6894