Corporate profits have rocketed to all-time highs – but for more than a decade, wages and incomes have hardly budged. — Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, 2013
Barack Obama addressed fellow-Americans one more time, employing his oratorical skills to shore up their morale. But we must give him credit for stating some home truths. Not only have the rich become richer in America, those who were not counted as poor have gradually moved to being “hand-to-mouth,” as Obama said.
He announced an increase in minimum wage to ensure that “in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.”
Obama went on to dwell on other issues of national importance, notably the need of reforming laws on carrying arms. His repetition of America’s greatness and good intentions was no surprise. But a growing concern for gay and lesbian families, especially in the US military, was so touchingly liberal. Obama’s domestic agenda should mean a lot to ordinary Americans. After all, they are the ones who would feel its beneficial impact.
As for the rest of us, it is a different story. The message in Obama’s address boils down to one point: in pursuing its foreign-policy goals, the US does not care about the dignity, security and well-being of other peoples as long as America’s own interests are served well.
A problem arises when one tries to fathom what America’s vital interests are: defending its territorial integrity, political and economic systems or global domination? These sound logical, if not morally right. To delay the process of the emerging economies nibbling away the US share of the global pie?
To make sure that foreign agents do not steal or copy America’s cutting-edge technologies? These goals too sound reasonable. To secure oil supplies to the US and its friends? A dubious reason, at best, because if the oil producers do not sell their oil and gas to the west, how would they sustain their own economies?
On a closer look, however, one may end up finding another reason behind America’s war efforts in the last two decades, or in the period ahead. It is to eliminate all threats – real or perceived – to the security of Israel. There is ample evidence to substantiate this argument.
In a town-hall-style confession of a former CIA employee, a very revealing part was that dealing with US apprehensions of a major terror attack in 2001. US security agencies failed to zero-in on the group plotting 9/11. The US air force failed to stop the hijacked aircraft from reaching their targets.
Yet, the US had repeatedly warned Iraq that if such an attack came, the Saddam regime would be held responsible and most terrible retribution would follow. Iraq denied any connection to the preparations for a terror attack against the US. The attack was eventually linked to Al-Qaeda, providing the basis of invading Afghanistan under a UN mandate.
Long before Afghanistan became America’s longest war, the neo-cons declared that they had run out of major targets in Afghanistan and it was necessary to attack Iraq to take out its weapons of mass destruction.
It was as if America had realised that the war in Afghanistan was distracting it from the war it had always wanted – to eliminate the Iraqi threat to Israel.
The neo-cons had ideas about follow-up wars to defang Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel and finally to take out Pakistan’s nuclear assets to save them from falling into the hands of Al-Qaeda and its local franchises. But the wars undertaken in Iraq and Afghanistan would exhaust the wealthiest nation to a level where a third war-loving presidency in a row assumed nightmarish proportions.
Democracy took its sweet revenge when a less hawkish Barack Obama won the election in 2008. Not many felt happy with Obama’s premature Nobel Peace Prize.
But it makes more sense today because he brought America’s war in Iraq to a quick end and went ahead to start wrapping up the one in Afghanistan, ruling out new wars in his second tenure.
In his state of the union address last week, Obama reconfirmed his plans to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, leaving behind a small number for the training of Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations.
He warned North Korea of further isolation and urged Iran to seek a diplomatic solution to a nuclear showdown. Of course, Obama reiterated his commitment to Israel’s security, omitting any mention of the Palestinians. He will be visiting Israel next month to demonstrate his support to Israel.
It is no surprise that the war industry is unhappy with Obama. The military leaders feel that his haste to withdraw the bulk of US troops from Afghanistan is fraught with danger. The Israeli lobby is upset with his opposition to military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations.
But Obama has other plans, notably his strong belief in a smarter form of warfare that minimises US losses in life and materiel targeting America’s enemies in their farthest hideouts by unmanned aerial vehicles commonly known as drones.
Obama has gone a step farther by approving the award of a medal to troops which conduct drone attacks from computer consoles, directed at enemies thousands of kilometres away.
The new Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to those having killed the enemy without risking their own lives. Obama remains unmoved by worldwide condemnation of drone warfare and seems only slightly worried about the consequences of pursuing American citizens who have joined the enemies of America. The medal for drone war heroes is the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944.
The decision to honour drone warriors and the magnitude of resources being devoted for the perfection of unmanned aerial warfare underscore an important choice. The US is not concerned about addressing the root causes of the origins or successes of militant outfits.
Washington’s preferred solution is to eradicate the terrorists through firepower. The US will fight and talk its way out of the Afghan quagmire. There is a message for others like our beleaguered security apparatus. They too can plan to carry out surgical strikes against militant groups challenging the writ of the state.
Will the US go ahead and transfer drone technology to countries like Pakistan? Or will we have to rely on our own capabilities to develop this redoubtable system of getting an upper hand against terror networks?
The writer is a former ambassador to the European Union. Email: saeed.saeed k@gmail.com
M. Saeed Khalid, "Wrapping up the war," The News. 2013-02-21.Keywords: