Obama issues order for escalation in Afghanistan

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Obama issues order for escalation in Afghanistan
1 December 2009

At a White House meeting with military leaders on Sunday, President
Barack Obama formally issued the order to send at least 30,000
additional US troops to Afghanistan. Underscoring his contemptuous
attitude toward popular opposition to the war or any other democratic
considerations, Obama did not wait to issue the order until he had
offered his explanation for the escalation to the American people in
tonight’s nationally televised speech.

The new “surge” follows the 21,000 additional troops Obama ordered to
Afghanistan in the first weeks of his administration. It will bring
the total US troop deployment to 100,000—the highest since the
invasion eight years ago.

In escalating US violence in Afghanistan and threatening more direct
military involvement in Pakistan, the administration is defying public
opinion in the two countries, where popular opposition to US military
operations is pervasive, and in the US itself, where opinion polls
show that a majority of the American people is opposed to the war.

In its contempt for the will of the people, as in its policies on the
economy, war and democratic rights, the Obama administration is
continuing without a hitch the basic policies and methods of the Bush
administration, which were repudiated by the electorate when it voted
for Obama on the basis of his claim to be the candidate of “change.”

It is highly significant that, after the manner of his predecessor,
Obama has chosen the US Military Academy at West Point as the venue
for tonight’s nationally televised speech. He is not speaking as the
civilian president from the Oval Office, as is traditional for major
presidential policy statements, or going before the elected
legislators in Congress.

Instead, he has chosen to address the officer corps who will be
entrusted with carrying out his orders. He will speak as a military
figure—the commander in chief—before a captive audience, outlining
policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan that were set by the top military
brass.

Obama’s choice of venue demonstrates that the main constituency to
which he is appealing is the military. The more the administration
pursues right-wing, unpopular policies—whether bailing out the banks,
attacking civil liberties, or escalating the war—the more it seeks to
base itself on the military and the national security apparatus.

The increasingly open and powerful role of the military in US
political life has reached the point where the formal trappings of
democracy have become almost irrelevant. Obama is signaling that the
military represents an independent constituency, separate and apart
from the people, whose approval must be secured, regardless the
sentiments of the population.

This shift in civilian-military relations is long in the making, but
the weight of the military in political matters has in recent years
reached unprecedented proportions. Nearly half a century has passed
since President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned of the
growing power of what he called the “military industrial complex.”

The intervening years have seen an eruption of American militarism,
which has grown ever more virulent as the US ruling class has sought
to offset the decline in its global economic position by exploiting
its military supremacy to pursue its strategic aims. The erosion of
the constitutionally mandated subordination of the military to
civilian authority is one of the hallmarks of the decay of American
democracy.

It would have been inconceivable, for example, for John F. Kennedy to
have delivered his address to the nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis
before a military audience. US imperialism at that time was still
compelled to adhere, at least publicly, to constitutional norms
regarding the deference of the military to civilian rule.

The White House no doubt calculates that a speech by the commander in
chief to a friendly audience, replete with military trappings, with
the president flanked by military brass, will help whip up patriotism
and intimidate those opposed to the war.

Less than one year after his inauguration, the candidate of “change”
is aping his predecessor, who delivered his major policy speeches
almost exclusively before military and national security audiences.

Obama has essentially adopted the position of Bush, who told a press
conference in July of 2007 that in pursuing an unpopular war in Iraq
he was obliged to take into account a number of constituencies. The
American people were relegated to just one of several constituencies,
the most important of which were the military and military families.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank in a column today points to Obama’s
increasingly public association with the military. He writes: “Already
in his young presidency, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has addressed
the troops at Osan air base in South Korea, Elmendorf Air Force Base
in Alaska, Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida, the US Naval
Academy in Annapolis and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. (For
different purposes, he also spoke at the memorial for shooting victims
at Fort Hood and welcomed home the remains of troops at Dover Air
Base.) The vice president and the first lady, in turn, have made the
rounds at half a dozen other facilities.

“Presidential addresses to the uniformed military were relatively rare
before Bush. A tally by George Mason University found that in past
years, presidents sometimes spoke to military groups only once (Bill
Clinton in 1993, Richard Nixon in 1969), twice (Gerald Ford in 1974)
or not at all (Ronald Reagan in 1985). But Bush gave ‘far more’ such
speeches, including 13 in 2005 alone.

“The proliferation began in 2002, when Bush went to West Point for a
June 1 speech to the cadets detailing the doctrine of preemptive war…
But they [the troops] are required to be loyal, and when their
commander in chief talks, whether it’s Bush or Obama, they salute. Or
applaud. Or yell ‘Hoo-ah.’ And on Tuesday night, this military
pageantry will only compound the sense on the left that Obama is not
the man they thought he was.”

The militarization of American political life is inseparably bound up
with an imperialist policy, continued and intensified by Obama, of
ceaseless colonial-style wars, aimed ultimately at bigger powers such
as Russia and China.

Barry Grey

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pers-d01.shtml

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