To refer back to the Cornel West quote from my last post, it's not easy to be a war president under "the pressure of peace."  As NATO moves to commit more troops to Afghanistan, Obama is still weighing his options on adding more US troops to the Afghan war effort .  Either way, the pressure of peace and the pressure of war are dividing opponents and supporters of Obama around the world and around the country.  The presidential candidate, now president, who promised to close Guantanamo, end the war in Iraq and do right by Afghanistan has yet to accomplish any of these things.  The war in Afghanistan is escalating, Guantanamo remains open, and withdrawal from Iraq looks more and more like a consolidation of military forces to bases than an exit plan.  

There are those on the Left that feel they were misled, thinking that electing Barack Obama president would dramatically alter the course of US policy and history.  Obama has continued to fight Bush's wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, while expanding the more nebulous "War on Terror" in places like Pakistan and Somalia .  John Pilger points out that Obama in many ways has escalated the war on terror instead of working toward ending it.   Many on the left have felt slightly disenfranchised and unsatisfied with Obama's performance in his first nine months as president. And while the Left has been quietly uncomfortable with Obama's slow movement toward change, their sentiments have, until recently, been relatively silent.  However, since President Obama became a Nobel Laureate, their rumblings have started to grow louder-- the loudest and most mainstream critique being Saturday Night Live's  skit on what Obama hasn't accomplished.

And in many respects, to the Left, Obama has been made into someone he is not.  And not solely due to his passionate speeches, but also due to the Left wanting his words to mean more than they meant.  During his presidential campaign, President Obama many times said, "listen to what it is I am saying."  All too often we distort the words of public figures to mean what we want them to mean.  But Obama isn't a peacenik and he isn't a pacifist, even if those on the Left built him up to be.  Obama launched his national senatorial campaign from the state level with a speech at a Chicago antiwar rally in October of 2002.  He gained fame and national standing from his vocal opposition to the Bush Administration's push to go to war with Iraq.  He was launched onto the national stage by stating :

...what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

These words made Obama famous.  These words won over the peaceniks and  launched the fantasy of a peacemaking American leader.  But what is missed in the memory of this speech is how he began:

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.
The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.
I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

Obama's decision to speak at this Chicago antiwar rally was rushed, but his wording was very deliberate.  Obama is not a pacifist; Obama is not a peacenik; Obama is the leader of the world's largest and most influential empire.  To refer back, yet again, to that quote from Cornel West:

"I think it's very difficult for any head of an empire to be under the pressure of peace. 'Cause you're head of the largest military in the world, you got over a thousand military installments on the globe, you got ships in every sea. It's very difficult.

No matter what we want Obama to do or achieve, we elected him to be the Commander and Chief, to oversee the military force of the world's last empire.  That was the job description and it is the position that the Left campaigned hard to elect him to.  But President Obama, as he often discusses, is a believer in the vision of this country's forefathers, a government for the people, by the people.  During his presidential acceptance speech he said :

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.

And it is this call to action that the Left may still be struggling to pick up, to be vocal and to be heard by the president.  Obama also called the American people to action with his acceptance of the Nobel Prize.  He highlighted his desire to work harder toward a world free of nuclear weapons, to curb climate change, and to bring real peace to Israel/Palestine .  But he also highlighted that the Nobel Prize is a prize to all the American people, and thus also a call to the American people.
And if we are all called to action and if the president is indeed listening, then it is time for the Left to remind the President of what they expected from him.  It is time to demand deescalation in the "War on Terror,"  to call for him to work toward true removal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, to close Guantanamo, and lead this country in a more peaceful direction.  Obama may be amenable to peace, but not without pressure.  
So while the American people delivered us from the violent death march of the Bush years, they have not delivered peace to the world nor to this country.  Electing Barack Obama president was a huge step forward, but it was only the first step in a challenging journey to undo the destruction of the Bush Legacy.  Cornel West ended his comments on President Obama's Nobel Prize by saying:

So now the whole world is watching, saying, what are the ways in which as president, you will be a promoter of justice here at home for poor people, for working people. So jobs can't be an afterthought to your economic policy. But you all get my point. It becomes a challenge now, you see. It's going to be difficult to have a peace prize and not investigate folk who have been torturing people, you see. It's going to be difficult having that moral authority in office and the tension that goes along with that, you see.
So my response is congratulations, celebration, and I wish your precious mother and father were around. I wish your grandparents were around to see it, that just died. And yet the challenge becomes now even more intense, you see!  

And now the  moment to celebrate has passed and it is time to start the real work.  It is time to pressure our president to work harder on his commitment to peace.  Now we, the people, are challenged, as the President said, to live up to the goals and aspirations we have for President Barack Obama and for America.  And those challenges may not even be as difficult as we think; they may just require persistent pressure to achieve them. Recently,  Navy Rear Admiral Tom Copeman told both Fox News and the Miami Herald that Guantanamo could be emptied in ten days if the president called for it .  Granted this mainly moves those illegally held there to other US military establishments or  prisons, but it is a step toward creating justice out of the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" that the Bush Administration accumulated at Guantanamo Bay.  And so this becomes the challenge.  There are not that many barriers to working toward true change.  We are at a moment of celebration and we are also at a moment of challenge.  So now is the moment for Obama supporters to rally again around "Yes we can!" to motivate Obama to work toward the change that he inspired us all to believe in.  President Obama brought us back to believing in change, but as Mahatma Gandhi, the world's most notable peacemaker and non-recipient of a Nobel Prize, once said:  "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

Comments (4)

A few responses...
written by Brian K. Lind , November 05, 2009

Zane -- I think if the years election cycle showed us anything, its that American politics is currently all about the economy. Yesterday on NPR they were discussing exit poles that had been done in NJ and VA, where incumbent democratic governors had lost their seats. Those that were polled for voting in a new governor, by and large, said that their vote had little to do with challenging Obama or the politics of the left and everything to do with wanting fresh leadership in a faltering economy. NY-23 is also a shining example of this where republicans voted strongly for the democratic candidate because the republican candidate continually flopped on questions regarding the economy.

So yes the President isn't getting any pressure over ending the war or closing Guantanamo from congress or the people because what people are most concerned about today is their financial future. And while lobbying groups are strong, I think their is still the political capital their to challenge them.



Steve -- This actually bring me to the differences I see between Campaign Obama and White House Obama. We can't forget that the collapse of our financial system came right at the end of the presidential campaign trail, and on that campaign trail. I think one of the big challenges for White House Obama has been that a lot of the promises he made on the campaign trail just don't hold much leverage on the national stage right now. People don't care what is going on overseas they care about their neighbors foeclosure, shuttered shops, and losing their jobs. How do we gauge his success in meeting those challenges as well as making good on his campaign promises? I'm not sure I know, I'm not sure he knows either. On the one hand the fire burning at home needs to be put out, stabilizing the economy has to be forefront to his policy making decision because it had the greatest impact. However, the economy isn't in such chaos to have made the American people forget about the two wars we are raging, or the host of other international issues that Obama made promises on. Hopefully year two of Obama's presidency will start to iron some of these issues out and he will be able to define his presidential path better, because currently it looks a little like wack-a-mole.



Wesley -- The left is a weird entity, which seems easily pacified. I fear many especially of the older center, Left population feel that once they have a democratic president they can tune out of politics. I think the future holds interesting possibilities for the next generation of the left which is reaching its political maturity. As the children of the baby boomers start to gain a political voice I think they will bring fresh interest and blood to politics. So I think there is the possibility that the Obama administration will start to need to answer to the pressure of the “new Left.” But so far that voice has not become very vocal.

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written by A. Wesley Ballantyne , November 03, 2009

Brian, very interesting read.

I think your discussion about the left being "quiet" for the most part so far is very accurate and intriguing. If anyone should be up in arms it should be those left of center who feel as though Obama is essentially one step left of Bush/Cheney. However, the vociferous outcry against Obama has not come from those who feel that he has reneged on his campaign commitments so far, but rather the right. The right who feel he is a Communist, Socialist, whatever, which most obviously points to their ingrained subconscious racism of having a black president, in my opinion. So yes, you are right, its time for the left to shut them down and make them realize they should not be worried about Obama but be happy Obama has not really done anything yet. Its time to see them be worried about something that is actually pertinent rather than just their ignorance getting the best of them.

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written by Steve Peraza , November 02, 2009

Great post, Brian. I particularly like the way you use Obama’s rhetoric on war to challenge myths about the president’s pacifism. After every great essay I have several questions... I’m curious as to how you perceive the difference between campaign Obama and White House Obama. Presumably the former practiced the politics of promise; the latter, the politics of pragmatism. How should he be assessed? Which is the better gauge? Also, here’s a man committed to undoing the politics of the previous administration but painfully aware that radical changes to foreign policy might not be as politically prudent as they once sounded on the campaign trail. How does pressure from the Left fit into this puzzle? What will the achievement of party goals mean for the public good?

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written by Zane Mitchell , November 01, 2009

The President has seeming tunnel vision towards transforming the American Democracy. Universal Healthcare, cap and trade, fairness doctrine. Anything that falls outside his domestic policy goals seem to be a distant afterthought. Whether that’s necessary given the current economy or short sided given the state of global diplomacy following the Bush presidency is another debate all together. But what is clear is that the reasons we went to war in the first place have yet to be resolved and the pressures which pushed us into an arguably unnecessary war are still in place.
Any president has a certain amount of political capital to use on policies he deems important to his party and country. What this president will fast realize that his political capital is quickly dwindling. From a high of 69% when he first took office Obamas approval rating hovers around 50% today. But while Obamas influence wains, the influence of huge lobbying groups does not. I can promise you every day politicians are looking at the polling numbers trend away from their party and realize their own campaign is one day closer. Im more cynical than most, but my experience has been that a politician is always looking to sell a vote for a small campaign donation, from say a munitions company, to continue a war which is in the interest of the American people anyway. And as long as congressman realize that moving “terrorists” into their ditrict is the quickest way to lose a reelection campaign and the President understands “freeing” terrorists might cost him his reelection campaign Guantanamo will stay open. Sadly keeping Guantanamo open is in the best interest of congress and the President.

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