10.07.2016 Author: Martin Berger
Obama: The War God in Disguise?
Column: Politics
Region: USA in the World
The state controlled media sources in the US are desperately trying
to present President Obama as a peacemaker that is “worthy of his Nobel Prize.”
However, this “dignified symbol” in his actions doesn’t remind a hero of peace,
instead he seems to be hiding a mask of the Greek god of war in his pocket –
Mars.
The dubious achievements of the sitting American President in the field
of undermining and invading sovereign states are well known and documented It’s
enough to just mention that Barack Obama has been at war longer than any
president in United States history and he will be remembered as the only
president who ever served two full terms in office while constantly being at
war. Obama received back in the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and in the coming years
in the White House he must have been trying to fulfill the promises he given to
the US as an anti-war candidate. Yet he would have a longer tour of duty as a
wartime president than Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon or his hero Abraham Lincoln.
The piece drafted in the Cato Institute would note that President Obama has taken
military action in a total of seven countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,
Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen — without the authorization of Congress. If
one is to include covert military actions taken by special operations forces,
the list is longer and the impact much broader. During the fiscal year that
ended on Sept. 30, 2014, US Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed to 133
countries – roughly 70 percent of the nations on the planet with missions
ranging from kill or capture night raids to training exercises.
As noted by various American observers, the ease with which Obama starts
new conflicts pose the same dangers to world peace that the wars in Vietnam and
Iraq once did. It’s clear that Obama declared the “end” of the Iraq war in 2011
only to start sending troops back. In Afghanistan, he didn ‘t even go through
that formality. The Pentagon has officially refused to disclose the exact
number of American troops deployed in those states. We do know that there are
at least tenfold more troops in Iraq now than there were in the latter half of
2014, when Obama went on television and said that the US would be conducting
“limited” airstrikes there. Since then, more than 25,000 bombs have been
dropped in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.
Obama’s policies resulted in the deaths of American soldiers, despicable
massacres of innocent civilians, the massive exodus of refugees from the Middle
East that keeps descending into violent chaos.It is not surprising that the
Cato Institute states that after eight years of continuous warfare,
the Nobel Committee should take another unprecedented action: it should revoke
Obama’s peace prize and demand repayment of the prize money.
The notorious alternative media source Counter Punch would go further by claiming that:
Nothing has changed when it comes to the Pentagon
slush fund. Instead of a breakthrough on creating Obama’s nuclear-free world,
we see the continued development of new weapons of mass destruction, including
nearly $ 20 billion on nuclear weapons this year alone as part of a $ 1
trillion Pentagon plan for weapons upgrading generally.
Obama’s predecessors insisted that they did not need approval from
Congress to launch a war ; yet in the two major wars he fought, George Bush
secured congressional authorization anyway. By the time Obama was receiving his
Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he had already launched more drone strikes than his
predecessor over two full terms. Since then the sitting US President launched
two undeclared wars and bombed no fewer than seven
countries.
According War Powers Resolution dopted by the US Congress in 1973, the
head of state is entitled to use armed forces abroad without the approval of
Congress for a total of 60 days. Therefore, in order to launch long-term
military operations, the White House is bound to seek the consent of the
Congress.
According to the recent Congressional Research Service report, the White
House deployed military troops in foreign states 37 times over the last fifteen
years. George W. Bush set a record of 18 cases that was soon beaten by the
Nobel Peace Prize that embarked on 19 military adventures without consulting
the Congress. The report unwittingly raises the question about the legitimacy
of those actions. The authors explain that the head of states is entitled to
fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban outside of Afghanistan only when there are
specific threats to the United States. Yet, he doesn’t have the power to launch
large scale military operations at his will, which indicates that the Obama
administration has gone far beyond the powers that the US Constitution provides
it with, in particular in Libya and Syria.
Recently Obama was sue by the head of the US military intelligence in
Kuwait, that demanded to provide him with an explanation what he’s supposed to do – protect his country according to the oath he
gave, or help Obama to break the US constitution. The plaintiff has already
obtained the assistance of high-profile lawyers, so if the case lands in the
Supreme Court, all hell will break lose even before Obama leaves the White
House.
It’s been noted that President Obama finds himself getting
sucked in not just to the equally convoluted Syrian Civil War, but several
other conflicts, intervening and then intervening further to stem the
consequences of his interventions. It is a strange ending for a president who
promised to end wars and assured the public no fewer than 10 times that he
would not deploy troops to Syria. Can the next president do any better?
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist
and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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