Barack
Obama campaigned for the presidency in 2008 as a peace candidate. He signaled
that he would fundamentally change America’s course after the reckless carnage
unleashed by the George W. Bush administration. However, by the end of Obama’s
presidency, the United States was bombing seven different foreign nations.
But
Obama’s warring rarely evoked the protests or opposition that the Bush
administration generated. Why did so many Bush-era anti-war activists abandon
the cause after Obama took office?
One
explanation is that the news media downplayed Obama’s killings abroad. Obama
was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize less than 12 days after taking office —
not because of anything that he had achieved, but because of the sentiments he
had expressed. Shortly after he accepted the Peace Prize, he announced that he
would sharply increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan. Much of
the media treated Obama’s surge as if it were simply a military campaign
designed to ensure that the rights of Afghan women were respected. The fact
that more than 2,000 American troops died in Afghanistan on Obama’s watch
received far less attention in the press than did the casualties from Bush’s
Iraq war.
In
early 2011, popular uprisings in several Arab nations spurred a hope that
democracy would soon flourish across North Africa and much of the Middle East.
Violent protests in Libya soon threatened the long-term regime of dictator
Muammar Qaddafi, who had become a U.S. ally and supporter in recent years.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other advisors persuaded Obama to
forcibly intervene in what appeared to be a civil war.
In
March 2011, Obama told Americans that “the democratic values that we stand for
would be overrun” if the United States did not join the French and British
assault on the Libyan government. Obama declared that one goal of the U.S.
attack was “the transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the
Libyan people.” Qaddafi, who was dealing with uprisings across the nation, sent
Obama a personal message: “As you know too well, democracy and building of
civil society cannot be achieved by means of missiles and aircraft, or by
backing armed members of al-Qaeda in Benghazi.”
Even
before the United States began bombing Libya, there was no sober reason to
expect that toppling Qaddafi would result in a triumph of popular sovereignty.
Some of the rebel groups had been slaughtering civilians; black Africans whom
Qaddafi had brought into Libya as guest workers were especially targeted to be
massacred. Some of Qaddafi’s most dangerous opponents were groups that the
United States had officially labeled as terrorists.
Obama
decided that bringing democracy to Libya was more important than obeying U.S.
law. The War Powers Act, passed by Congress in 1973 in the waning days of the
Vietnam War, requires presidents to terminate military attacks abroad after 60
days unless Congress specifically approves the intervention. Immediately after
the bombing commenced, Secretary of State Clinton declared during a classified
briefing for members of Congress that “the White House would forge ahead with
military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the
mission.” Echoing the Bush administration the Obama administration indicated
that congressional restraints would be “an unconstitutional encroachment on
executive power.”
According
to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Obama “had the
constitutional authority” to attack Libya “because he could reasonably
determine that such use of force was in the national interest.” Apparently, as
long as presidential advisors concluded that attacking foreigners is in the
U.S. “national interest,” the president’s warring passes muster — at least
according to his lawyers. Yale professors Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway
lamented that “history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a
quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to
put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.”
The
U.S. attack on Libya evoked almost no protests across the nation. After Qaddafi
was killed, Secretary Clinton laughed during a television interview celebrating
his demise: “We came, we saw, he died.” But U.S. missiles and bombs begat
chaos, not freedom. Five years later, when asked what was the worst mistake of
his presidency, Obama replied, “Probably failing to plan for the day after what
I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”
Syria
In
2013, Obama decided to attack the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Obama
team alleged that the Assad regime had carried out a chemical weapons attack on
Syrian civilians.
A
front-page Washington Post headline blared, “Proof Against Assad at Hand.” But
that hand remained hidden. On a Sunday talk show, White House Chief of Staff
Denis McDonough admitted that the administration lacked evidence “beyond a
reasonable doubt” proving that the Syrian regime had carried out the gas
attack. But McDonough asserted, “The common-sense test says [Assad] is
responsible for this. He should be held to account.” Obama administration
officials also insisted that attacking Syria would boost American
“credibility.” But unless “credibility” is defined solely as assuring the world
that the president of the United States can kill foreigners on a whim, that is
a poor bet. This type of credibility is more appropriate for a drunken brawl in
a bar than for international relations.
The
administration never provided solid evidence to back up its claim. Even Obama
ally Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) characterized the evidence presented in a Capitol
Hill classified briefing as “circumstantial.” Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.)
commented, “The evidence is not as strong as the public statements that the
president and the administration have been making. There are some things that
are being embellished in the public statements. The [classified] briefings have
actually made me more skeptical about the situation.”
Seeking
to rally the nation behind the cause, Obama called on Congress to authorize
bombing Syria. But the American people had little stomach for another adventure
abroad. There were a few protests — including one outside the White House on
the Saturday when Obama was expected to announce that he had commenced bombing.
I was there that day, along with a smattering of conservative and libertarian
opponents to another war. The protest was a bit anemic until a couple busloads
of ANSWER Coalition activists arrived from Baltimore. They had great signs —
“Bombing Syria Doesn’t Protect People — It Kills Them” —and they marched and
chanted in unison better than most high-school bands. The U.S. Park Police were
unhappy with the protest and rode their horses into the middle of the group.
Federal officials came up and threatened to arrest anyone who did not clear
away from the street behind the White House. A handful of arrests were made and
the crowd simmered down.
But
when Obama made his a radio speech to the nation that afternoon, the chanting
from the protest could be heard in the background. Obama announced that he was
postponing a decision on bombing.
However,
in the summer of 2014, the ISIS terrorist group released videos of the
beheading of hostages. That provided sufficient cover for Obama to commence
bombing that group — and other targets in Syria. The media played its usual
lapdog role. A Washington Post headline proclaimed, “Obama the reluctant
warrior, cautiously selling a new fight.” So we’re supposed to think the
president is a victim of cruel necessity, or what? A New York Times headline
announced, “In Airstrikes, U.S. Targets Militant Cell Said to Plot an Attack
Against the West.” “Said to” is the perfect term — perhaps sufficient to alert
non-brain-dead readers that something may be missing (e.g., evidence). By mid
2016, the Obama administration had dropped almost 50,000 bombs on ISIS forces
(or civilians wrongly suspected to be ISIS fighters) in Syria and Iraq. A
September 2016 Daily Beast article noted, “In January, the Pentagon admitted to
bombing civilians on at least 14 different occasions. In July, an off-target
airstrike in northern Syria killed more than 60 people.”
Obama
acted as if he was doing God’s work by again bombing the Middle East. But the
supposed beneficiaries were not persuaded. On the eve of the 2016 U.S. November
election, independent journalist Rania Khalek (who was visiting Syria) tweeted,
“I’ve been asking Syrians who they want to win for president. The vast majority
say Trump because they feel he’s less likely to bomb them.” Presidential
rhetoric was not sufficient compensation for the lives and homes that would be
destroyed by the increased onslaughts that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton
seemed to promise.
Anti-War or Anti-Republican?
Thousands
of innocent foreigners were killed by U.S. bombings and drone attacks during
the Obama administration. In his 2016 State of the Union address, Obama scoffed
at “calls to carpet bomb civilians.” Perhaps he considered it far more prudent
to blow up wedding parties instead (as happened during his reign in Yemen and
Afghanistan). As long as White House or Pentagon spokesmen announced that the
United States was using “precision bombing,” media controversy over innocent
victims was blunted, if not completely avoided.
Why
did Obama suffer far less backlash than George W. Bush? Salon columnist David
Sirota summarized an academic study released in 2013: “Evaluating surveys of
more than 5,300 anti-war protestors from 2007 to 2009, the researchers
discovered that the many protestors who self-identified as Democrats ‘withdrew
from anti-war protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success’ in
the 2008 presidential election.”
Sirota
noted that the researchers concluded that “during the Bush years, many
Democrats were not necessarily motivated to participate in the anti-war
movement because they oppose militarism and war — they were instead ‘motivated
to participate by anti-Republican sentiments.’”
There
have been plenty of stout critics of U.S. warring in recent years — including
Antiwar.com, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Ron Paul, the Mises Institute,
and some principled liberals and leftists such as CounterPunch and Glenn
Greenwald and The Intercept. But overall, the media spotlight rarely shone on
U.S. carnage abroad, as it did in earlier times. Perhaps the anti-war movement
will revive if Donald Trump commences bombing new foreign nations. But it is
clear that too many Americans have not yet learned the folly of “kill
foreigners first, ask questions later.”
James Bovard is the author of Attention
Deficit Democracy, The Bush
Betrayal, Terrorism and
Tyranny, and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of
Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com
