Does Obama’s policy on Syria make any sense whatsoever? Did his policy on Libya make any sense? Does his policy on Iran make any sense? Does his new policy on Iraq make any sense? Does his policy on China make any sense? Does his policy on Russia make any sense? Does his policy on Ukraine make any sense?
In spirit, they all display one thing: hostility. They show rancor, venom, hatred. They manifest a negative spirit animating the U.S. government. In practice, they display two things: short-sightedness and arrogance. Obama doesn’t consider consequences and he is sure that the policies he selects are best and right.
The negative spirit is not the face that Obama presents to himself or the world. He thinks he is just. He thinks he’s enforcing the law and justice. He thinks he’s fighting evils. Obama makes up his mind that he’s right and that some other enemy is wrong, and then he takes up the sword and punishes them. Whether or not it makes sense to punish them is secondary. He wants to give them a good whipping, and he does. He thinks this will stop what he sees as their evil. He doesn’t understand or foresee the consequences. He doesn’t stop to consider that his judgment and sentence may be wrong. He doesn’t stop to consider that good and evil are not as well-defined as he thinks they are.
While the policies of others in government or who aspire to office almost surely would be even more senseless, this does not negate the fact that Obama’s policies are nonsensical. They are stupid, ridiculous, idiotic, moronic, and foolish, not to mention destructive and dangerous. They are leading America and the world downwards, not upwards. They are leading away not toward those very goals that Obama himself trumpets.
Bush who preceded him was no different. Clinton who preceded Bush was no different. Large numbers of those in Congress are no different.
If national security has to do with defending America against real threats, there is no threat to this nation as a whole from any of these nations. There certainly is no serious threat that calls for American interference, aid, arms transfers, training, drones or sanctions in these far off places. No serious threat emanates from a host of other countries either in which America is busy mucking up while killing and terrorizing not a few innocent civilians (Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan). There is literally no reason for American blundering in these countries. That’s one basic reason why the policies are nonsensical.
If we drill down to each separate case, there are even more reasons why Washington’s policies are senseless. Syria has been having a civil war. The U.S. and its allies took sides with a ragtag bunch of rebels that had no capacity even to make an alternative government. It supported many of these, knowing full well that it was supporting a contingent that would turn into ISIS. Now the U.S. is actually heightening the very same policy. And the initial reason for this made no sense anyway. It was to bring down an ally of Iran. But there is also no reason to be hostile to Iran. It doesn’t have nuclear weapons, which is Washington’s big bugaboo. It doesn’t even have a program to build nuclear weapons. U.S. policies in Syria and Iran are irrational. They reflect Israeli antagonisms.
The policies on Iraq have been ludicrous for decades, alternating between support and hostility and finally culminating in a prolonged period of hostility that involved two cruelly-fought wars and a period of cruel sanctions that killed untold numbers of Iraqis. The U.S. is still engaged in Iraq, a country that it tore apart.
The policy in Afghanistan was to invade and topple the government, for no apparent reason other than to capture bin Laden. The U.S. demanded bin Laden from the Taliban who didn’t deliver him up. Instead they asked for evidence against him, which the U.S. didn’t bother to deliver. That request they took as reason enough to invade the country!
Invading Libya and/or assisting NATO in its imperialism made no sense for America. There was zero threat coming from Libya. In fact, Gaddafi was cooperative. But he was also independent. He was making noises about African unity, greater control over Libyan oil and a move away from the dollar. None of these matters affected American national security in the slightest. The venomous character of the U.S. government was revealed for all the world to see in Hillary Clinton’s gloating over Gaddafi’s murder: “We came, we saw, he died.” The old American embassy in Libya has fallen into other hands.
Coming to Ukraine and Russia, the policy of Obama only looks moderate when stacked up against the even more absurd confrontational schemes of certain Senators, neocon commentators and spokespersons among those in the Washington circle of think tanks. Obama is introducing the U.S. military into Ukraine, despite having earlier ruled out American forces. The president as lawyer draws non-existent distinctions that allow him freely to lie and misrepresent his introduction of military forces. He has used the same trickery in Iraq. It is very easy to imagine how this can lead to military confrontation with Russia. This and sanctions on Russia are nonsensical. They and the propaganda campaign against Putin are further illustrations of Washington’s underlying spirit of hostility. That venom goes hand in hand with a powerful will to dominate, the goal being to make the world over in the American image.
9:09 am on February 1, 2015
