This Man is Truly and Finally Hopeless

I've never been quite as angry at President Obama, or regretted as much having voted for him in 2008, as when I saw and read this part of his speech in Brussels yesterday.

Let's skip the introduction, in which he congratulates himself for having opposed our invasion of Iraq, and go directly to the substance of his remarks.

          But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system.

Yes. We presented our case to the United Nations, they said “no,” and we went ahead and invaded anyway. Is this morally superior to not having asked? It is our failure to abide by the terms of the UN charter that makes the invasion of Iraq a clear violation of international law.

          We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.

True, but . . .

          We did not grab its resources for our own gain.

This is false. One of the first things we did was insist that Iraq's oil, which previously belonged to the Iraqi people, be privatized and the drilling rights sold to American and international oil companies. Of course, energy corporations were not the only ones to profit from the war. Millions of dollars went to weapons manufacturers and politically connected contractors such as Halliburton. Among those who didn't benefit were the American people. According to the Pentagon, 4487 soldiers lost their lives in Iraq, and tens of thousands more suffered life-changing injuries. The American people are also left with more than $3 trillion in debt.

I think we can now say without fear of contradiction that control of Iraqi oil was the primary reason the Bush administration went to war in Iraq. If you have not yet seen Rachel Maddow's March 13 documentary, Why We Did It, you should watch it.

   
          Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people . . .

About a million fewer of them than when the war started.

          . . . in a fully sovereign Iraqi state that can make decisions about its own future.

We also left them with a totally devastated infrastructure, contaminated by depleted uranium which will leave future generations of Iraqis to suffer from cancer and birth defects. We unleashed sectarian violence which continues to kill Iraqis almost every day. Whether the future of Iraq will include democratic elections remains to be seen. Their current President Nouri al-Malaki, running for a third term, seems to be systematically eliminating his competition from the upcoming elections.

How many people died and how much property was destroyed during the annexation of Crimea? And speaking of people determining their own future, we are told that 83% of Crimeans voted in the March 16 referendum, and 97% of those who voted chose annexation by Russia. Even if those figures are not entirely accurate, or are tainted in some way by the presence of Russian troops in the country, no one is seriously denying that annexation by Russia was the overwhelming preference of the Crimean people.

I saw a former American diplomat (whose name I unfortunately don't recall) interviewed on television by Chris Hayes. When he parroted the administration's claim that the annexation of Crimea violates international law, Hayes asked him the obvious question about American hypocrisy, given our past history in Iraq and other places. His answer was, basically, “Yes, but two wrongs don't make a right.” Wouldn't it have been refreshing had Obama said something similar, something like this?

We were wrong to invade Iraq, and in doing so, we contributed to the breakdown of international law which made the takeover of Crimea seem more permissible. But our foreign policy will change. We will not engage in illegal wars during the remainder of my presidency.

Our course, if he had said that, he would have to (among other things) end his illegal drone strikes in at least four countries.

The most interesting question that remains to be answered about Barack Obama is this: Is his dramatic conservative shift in attitudes the inevitable result of time spent in the office of the presidency, or did he actively deceive the American people about his intentions during his two political campaigns?

Update (3/29/14):

I now believe the diplomat I referred to was Michael McFaul, former Ambassador to Russia. He has written an op-ed that mentions the difficult he had defending international law in Russia when they always asked, "What about Iraq?"

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