OBAMA'S IMPERIALIST FOREIGN WARS
HURTING AMERICA'S MIDDLE CLASS
By Sherwood Ross
By
starting needless wars of aggression, as in Libya, President Obama is
showing his indifference to the plight of hard-pressed Americans at
home, an article in the liberal magazine "The Nation" contends.
"If
Obama is serious about rebuilding the American middle class, he needs a
foreign policy that gives priority to addressing the worrying economic
conditions that continue to threaten the breakdown of economic growth
and political stability in much of the world," writes Scherle
Schwenninger in the June 22/29 issue.
Schwenninger,
the director of the Economic Growth Program at New America Foundation, a
Washington, D.C., think tank, writes, "More specifically, this would
mean curtailing military commitments that are not essential to our
national security or maintaining international peace, while promoting
programs to expand investment and jobs in strategically important
regions."
Calling
for America to "be working with our international counterparts to
strengthen the world economy," Schwenninger asserts that, instead,
President Obama "has failed to protect America's most important national
interests" due to his needless interventions.
Schwenninger ticks off a list of Mr. Obama's aggressive conduct that includes:
*
"Overseeing a new Cold War with Russia and pivoting toward what could
become one with China in East Asia." ("Starting," rather than
"overseeing," might have been a better choice of words here.)
*
Sending military advisers to Ukraine and positioning U.S. military
power closer to Russia by deploying American forces in Poland and the
Baltic states. "It is reasonable to argue we could have avoided much of
the Ukrainian crisis had key figures in the Obama administration not
actively conspired to bring down the Yanukovych government, and
especially if the administration had not, in effect, supported the
illegal February 22 street coup in Kiev."
*
Greatly "increased the geographic scope of the 'war on terror' to
include Yemen, Syria, and large parts of Northern and Easter Africa."
* Actively supported the campaign of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to bring down the Syrian government.
*
Obama has gone so far "as to openly back Riyadh's grotesque bombing
campaign in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians and
strengthened Al Qaeda in Yemen."
* Engineering a "dramatic escalation of drone strikes leveled against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets".
*
Taking economic warfare "to new heights" against Russia and Iran "and
beyond what would be in this country's long-term interests, if the goal
were to preserve America's global economic leadership and the dollar's
position as the world's principal reserve currency."
*
"Similarly," he continued, "it is likely that there would have been no
Benghazi, no civil war among competing Islamic militias, no spread of
weapons or chaos in Libya, if Washington had refrained from militarily
intervening against Qaddafi."
Yes, the
world---and this includes the American middle class and poor---would be
better off today without Mr. Obama's imperialist foreign policy.
What
if, instead of spending trillions for waging aggressive war, Mr. Obama
had devoted those funds to rebuilding America and the world?
As
Activist David Swanson, of Charlottesville, Va., points out in his "War
No More" book, the U.S. alone "could enact a global Marshall Plan,
or--better--a global rescue plan."
"It
would cost $11 billion per year to provide the world with clean water,"
Swanson writes. "We're spending $20 billion per year on just one of the
we'll-known useless weapons systems that the military doesn't really
want but which serves to make someone rich who controls Congress…"
Again,
Swanson points out it would cost Americans $30 billion a year to end
hunger around the world, noting in one recent year the U.S. spent nearly
$90 billion "winding down" the war in Afghanistan.
The
sad truth is that the gang who run America today want war, not peace,
and endless war at that; war to maximize profits for one segment of the
economy, the Military-Industrial Complex, war that requires a steady
stream of enemies, war that is forever "winding down."
This
criminal scheme (and war IS a crime) is being advanced even though the
overwhelming majority of Americans want "peace and prosperity," the
platform on which General Eisenhower ran for the White House. Like
primitive South American civilizations that practiced human sacrifice
and threw youths off the pyramids each Spring, our gangsters are
sacrificing our youth in battle to reap a good harvest for themselves on
the field of Mars. It is equally primitive, barbaric, and medieval.
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(Sherwood Ross is an award-winning reporter and award-winning poet who resides in Miami, Florida. Reach him at sherwoodross@gmail.com)
sherwood ross
