As consensus grows regarding the futility of US national security policy, concerns arise over Barack Obama's strategy.
By Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
(Cartoon by Steve Bell)
"....The warning signs that President Obama's trajectory would depart from his campaign rhetoric were clear from the beginning. Like when the newly minted President chose for his senior economic advisor's men like Lawrence Summer, Clinton's one time Treasury Secretary, who were responsible for the policies that besides destroying Haiti's rice crop, also enabled a million and one corporate get rich schemes such as the sub-prime mortgage bonanza whose collapse has left the country in its current disastrous condition.
Another clue was surely the fact that Obama's defence spending from the start outstripped his Republican predecessor's, even though his campaign reached national prominence precisely with his pledge to end the war in Iraq, which should logically have meant a major reduction in the military budget......
Perhaps some day President Obama will write a memoir or testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and echo, or even evoke, President Clinton's sad testimonial to the arrogance of power and wilful ignorance seems all too often to produce in the leaders entrusted with it.
If so, it will be good fodder for historians and commentators, but of little comfort to the untold masses of peoples - Afghans, Pakistanis, Americans, and who knows whom else - who will continue to be devastated by the President's inability to look the truth square in the face and do what he was elected to do: lead his country, away from greed, cynicism, and despair, and towards hope and renewal."
By Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
(Cartoon by Steve Bell)
"....The warning signs that President Obama's trajectory would depart from his campaign rhetoric were clear from the beginning. Like when the newly minted President chose for his senior economic advisor's men like Lawrence Summer, Clinton's one time Treasury Secretary, who were responsible for the policies that besides destroying Haiti's rice crop, also enabled a million and one corporate get rich schemes such as the sub-prime mortgage bonanza whose collapse has left the country in its current disastrous condition.
Another clue was surely the fact that Obama's defence spending from the start outstripped his Republican predecessor's, even though his campaign reached national prominence precisely with his pledge to end the war in Iraq, which should logically have meant a major reduction in the military budget......
Perhaps some day President Obama will write a memoir or testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and echo, or even evoke, President Clinton's sad testimonial to the arrogance of power and wilful ignorance seems all too often to produce in the leaders entrusted with it.
If so, it will be good fodder for historians and commentators, but of little comfort to the untold masses of peoples - Afghans, Pakistanis, Americans, and who knows whom else - who will continue to be devastated by the President's inability to look the truth square in the face and do what he was elected to do: lead his country, away from greed, cynicism, and despair, and towards hope and renewal."
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