The Obama Contradiction
By Tom Engelhardt
He has few constraints (except those he’s internalized). No one can stop him or countermand his orders. He has a bevy of lawyers at his beck and call to explain the “legality” of his actions. And if he cares to, he can send a robot assassin to kill you, whoever you are, no matter where you may be on planet Earth.
He sounds like a typical villain from a James Bond novel. You know, the kind who captures Bond, tells him his fiendish plan for dominating the planet, ties him up for some no less fiendish torture, and then leaves him behind to gum up the works.
As it happens, though, he’s the president of the United State, a nice guy with a charismatic wife and two lovely kids.
How could this be?
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175535/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_a_global-profiling_president/#more
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about how, given the inertial masses set in motion by history and most especially by GWB/AUMF, any President could be much different at this particular point in the development of all of these problems. Self-fulfilling prophecy is VERY real and pretending that it isn't doesn't change the differences, in RISK, between the ideal, or even the "better", and the status quo. And, btw, that's not just risk to U.S., but to the rest of the world too, due to what could happen here.
Americans want to forget what we did, especially to Iraq, but also elsewhere around the globe ever since the end of WWI. Pretend it didn't happen. But the rest of the world, and especially those who have suffered and died because of our increasingly imperial presidency-abroad, will not forget, EVER.
Once the bull has wrecked the china shop, what recourse is there? I just don't understand how a President just stops, especially when alternatives are sooooooo limited. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but I've never seen any of the articles such as this ever say anything like "President Obama should respond to terrorism specifically this way: _________________________ ...."
All of the articles I have seen say TTE "His is an imperial Presidency and here's why I say that." What else, exactly, is there that could/would work and achieve more effective ends for national security in our current situation? which, mind you, is an aggregate of all of the same sorts of problems that preceded it. Once you have created so many murderers, how, what do you have available that to you that can make them non-murderers again? Is there something about whatever alternatives there are that is significantly more likely to be effective? What is that?
When you have destroyed someone's house, due to some likelihood of a hidden enemy presence within that house, and in destroying it you have gone renegade, killed a bunch of people who didn't need killing, and triggered many other horrible things, you don't stop amidst all of that and say, "Hey, I've changed my mind. I expect you to change from being a murderer too. Let's go to court over this."
IT'S. TOO. LATE.
That doesn't mean that outside of that situation you can't pursue other creative and peaceful alternatives to international problem solving for other problems. But everything previously set into motion by American Exceptionalism and its proponents such as PNAC has its OWN inertia and our ability to ascertain whether a given person's course through all of those processes is motivated by a desire for an increased imperial power, or by processes that were set in motion before their role became what it is, IS IMPERFECT.
As you can see, I am wrestling with this. I am not trying to rationalize Obama's role. I just don't accept that absolutely everything is known about absolutely everything that this specific President could do, and all of the consequences of any doing, and we can, ergo, deliver a judgement that says TTE: "He is doing it the way he is because he WANTS to do it that way. He could do it this other way. And this other way will in fact work better for national security." I accept that the validity of such statements IS a possibility, just NOT THE ABSOLUTE THAT SUCH AUTHORS WANT US TO BELIEVE IT IS (without any authentic analysis of the alternatives). And the difference between those two degrees of probability ("He is doing what he WANTS" vs. "He is doing what he MUST"
is NOT insignificant to the future of this country, let alone to a world in which we would have to respond to 9/11 2.0.
