The Obamians, by James Mann: on War & Peace
Barack Obama:
OpEd: Calling Iraq "a dumb war" left open "smarter war"
In 2002, Obama spoke at a demonstration in Chicago against the war. Congress was preparing to vote on whether to authorize the use of force. Obama went out of his way to emphasize that he was not a pacifist. His characterization of Iraq as a "dumb war"
clearly left open the possibility of a "smarter" war. In this sense, he was not giving the demonstrators what they expected to hear. "I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances," Obama declared. He mentioned the Civil
War, WWII and finally, the Bush administration's action against al-Qaeda after 9/11. "I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again," Obama said.Obama's speech set him apart from the elite Democrats. To be sure,
there had been a series of caveats about other wars, but these would be either overlooked or dismissed as necessary hedging. Obama had actually taken a clear, forthright and unequivocal position against the war in Iraq--before it occurred, not afterward.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 63-64
Jun 14, 2012
Barack Obama:
Iraq was a rash war, based on politics, not on reason
Even the prominent Democrats lagged well behind the party's rank and file. Party activists & peace groups had been strongly against the Iraq War much earlier, and so had some local politicians. One of them was a state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
In the fall of 2002, Obama was beginning to lay the groundwork for a campaign for the US Senate. Obama's speech [to an anti-war demonstration] proved to be a critical step in launching him to the Senate & then to the presidency. What he said would be
recalled and recited again and again during his battle for the Democratic nomination in 2008. He called Bush's intervention in Iraq "a dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason, but on passions, not on principle, but on politics. 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 the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment of al-Qaeda."
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 63-64
Jun 14, 2012
Barack Obama:
2008 trump card: opposition to Iraq War showed experience
When early in the campaign Obama began advocating a more aggressive stance toward Pakistan, Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd chided Obama for his inexperience in foreign policy.In response, Obama pulled out his trump card: his early
opposition to the Iraq War that his opponents had voted to authorize. He recited: "I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are
on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism." Obama said. The audience cheered.
Years later, an Obama aide said he felt this was a turning point in winning the Democratic nomination. Obama not only deflected the
attacks on his inexperience in foreign policy, but turned that inexperience into a virtue. His words reinforced the campaign's larger message that Obama was a young, energetic outsider who was not tied to the Democrats of the past.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 87
Jun 14, 2012
Barack Obama:
Expanded CIA drone program for "targeted killings"
In the first year of his administration, Obama beefed up the military campaign against al-Qaeda by stepping up the use of unmanned drones in Pakistan. The increase became particularly noticeable in late 2009, after the administration's long internal
review of the war in Afghanistan.The Obama administration referred to these drone attacks as "targeted killing," rather than "assassinations." The euphemism was of legal significance. In the 1970s, President Ford issued an executive order that banned
assassinations. The administration's formal reasoning for why its overseas killings did not constitute assassination went like this: Congress had authorized the use of force against al-Qaeda. Therefore, America was at war, and under the law of war,
America had the right to defend itself "by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks." Since the laws of war permitted targeted killing, therefore the practice wasn't illegal, and "does not constitute assassination."
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.217
Jun 14, 2012
Barbara Boxer:
The price of war is in body bags and babies killed
Most of the congressional Democrats determinedly opposed the Persian Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi troops into Kuwait in August 1990, the Bush administration sought authorization from Congress for the use of force to reverse the invasion.
The debate on Capitol Hill made clear that most Democrats still held to the core beliefs that had dominated the thinking of the liberal wing of the party since Vietnam.
The Democrats exhibited a deep aversion to the use of force, even for the purpose of repelling one country's invasion of another."The president says he's angry and impatient, but God bless him, so are all of us.
But is that a reason to send a whole generation to war?" asked Biden.
"The price is in body bags, in babies killed," said Barbara Boxer, then a member of the House of Representatives.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 28-29
Jun 14, 2012
Democratic Party:
Balance between MoveOn anti-war & Bush militarism
It was almost as if the Democratic foreign policy establishment were running two different campaigns at once, one against the Republicans and another against the left wing of the Democratic Party.
On the one hand, they were opposed to Bush's policies and to the worldview of the neoconservatives.
They believed the Bush administration had vastly overemphasized how much the US should rely on military power--and, indeed, how much the use of force could accomplish.
Yet on the other hand, the Democrats did not agree with groups like
MoveOn, which often leaped from criticisms of the war in Iraq to a broader denunciation of America's role in the world. The Democratic foreign policy hands were not opposed in principle to the use of force.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 54
Jun 14, 2012
Hillary Clinton:
OpEd: Iraq war follows tradition of active US leadership
Most of the prominent Democrats in Congress, including Senator Hillary Clinton, decided to support the 2002 Iraq resolution, casting votes that they would all find themselves obligated to justify for years afterwards.For the Democratic foreign policy
elite, the Iraq War was a disaster both politically and for the ideas they had come to hold. The war reopened old divisions between the Democratic Party's leaders and the party's base. At the grass roots, since Vietnam, liberals had been instinctively
skeptical about the use of force. By contrast, many of the party's foreign policy hands, particularly the alumni of the Clinton administration, had a different outlook. They viewed themselves as heirs to the foreign policy traditions of Franklin
Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy, all proponents of national strength and an active leadership role for the US. The Clinton administration had put its imprint on the general idea of regime change in Iraq, though not by American military invasion.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 47
Jun 14, 2012
Hillary Clinton:
Clinton-Gates combo won push for Afghan surge
Just as the Obama administration was beginning to hold meetings to decide [whether to send a troop surge to] Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal's report leaked out.Robert Gates gradually came around to supporting the McChrystal request, and Hillary Clinton
did, too. During that period, the two often sided with each other in administration debates; they were happy to show that the secretaries of state and defense could work smoothly together, unlike their immediate predecessors, Donald Rumsfeld with Colin
Powell & Condi Rice. The Clinton-Gates combine helped to win over the president to sending more troops, despite the skepticism of other senior administration officials such as Biden; the president was not prepared to override the recommendations of the
two departments primarily responsible for foreign affairs. Obama approved the deployment of 30,000 more American troops for Afghanistan, bringing the total to about 100,000, and also called on NATO allies to provide another 5,000 or more of their own.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.134-136
Jun 14, 2012
Jim McGovern:
Switching Afghan generals? "Same menu, different waiter"
The McChrystal affair [in which the General commanding all US forces in Afghanistan had his war assessment report leaked] brought to the fore the larger question of how the US was doing in
Afghanistan and how long the war would last. In Congress, liberal Democrats threatened to hold up further appropriations for Afghanistan. Speaking of the change from Gen. McChrystal to Gen. Petraeus,
Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern quipped, "Same menu, different waiter." From the political right, libertarian congressman Ron Paul said, "That McChrystal thing is just a symptom of what we won't face up to, which is that
[Afghanistan] is a totally failed policy. If we were on the verge of a great success, do you think we'd fire the general?"
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.223
Jun 14, 2012
Joe Biden:
Opposed Vietnam but didn't identify with anti-war movement
Joe Biden, the young senator from Delaware. Like other Democrats outside the South, he had opposed the Vietnam War. Yet Biden was never closely identified with the antiwar movement; graduating in 1965, he was a little too old and too interested
in electoral politics. "You're looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am," he once quipped. "I'm not big on flak jackets and tie-dye shirts and--you know, that's not me."
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 18
Jun 14, 2012
Joe Biden:
1990 Gulf War: reason enough to send generation to war?
Most of the congressional Democrats determinedly opposed the Persian Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi troops into Kuwait in August 1990, the Bush administration sought authorization from Congress for the use of force to reverse the invasion.
The debate on Capitol Hill made clear that most Democrats still held to the core beliefs that had dominated the thinking of the liberal wing of the party since Vietnam.
The Democrats exhibited a deep aversion to the use of force, even for the purpose of repelling one country's invasion of another."The president says he's angry and impatient, but God bless him, so are all of us.
But is that a reason to send a whole generation to war?" asked Biden.
"The price is in body bags, in babies killed," said Barbara Boxer, then a member of the House of Representatives.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 28-29
Jun 14, 2012
Joe Biden:
1990s: Military intervention to stop Bosnia ethnic cleansing
One of the earliest critics of Clinton's foreign policy was Senator Joseph Biden. From his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden became a staunch proponent of US military intervention in Bosnia to deter Bosnian Serbs from their
campaigns of "ethnic cleansing" against Muslims. Three months after Clinton was sworn in, Biden upbraided the administration for not doing "a damn thing" to stop the Serbs from bombarding women and children in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
Biden called for air strikes by the US and its NATO allies.They were the vanguard of change for the Democrats. In the 1990s, as Biden demonstrated, some of the liberals who had opposed the use of force in the
Persian Gulf were willing to support military intervention for the humanitarian purpose of preventing genocide in the Balkans. America was now viewed as, potentially, a force for good in the world, if only it had the will to act.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 35
Jun 14, 2012
Joe Biden:
OpEd: Iraq war follows tradition of active US leadership
The administration was clearly and openly moving toward war with Iraq. The Democrats did little to slow down Bush's momentum. In the fall of 2002, their acquiescence in this hurried process had been a huge blunder. Most of the prominent Democrats in
Congress, including Senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden, decided to support the Iraq resolution, casting votes that they would all find themselves obligated to justify for years afterwards.At the grass roots, the
Democratic Party included millions of liberals who, since Vietnam, had been instinctively skeptical about the use of force or other assertions of American power abroad. By contrast, many of the party's foreign policy hands, particularly the alumni of the
Clinton administration, had a different outlook. They viewed themselves as heirs to the foreign policy traditions of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy, all proponents of national strength and an active leadership role for the US.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 47
Jun 14, 2012
Joe Biden:
Drones against al Qaeda instead of ground troops
Obama decided to step up the use of unmanned drones in Pakistan. Vice President Joe Biden recommended that the administration rely primarily on drones or missile attacks against al-Qaeda leaders instead of sending more ground troops. While Obama rejected
that approach and decided instead on new troop deployments, the president nonetheless expanded the CIA's drone program.The Obama administration referred to these drone attacks as "targeted killing," rather than "assassinations." The euphemism was of
legal significance. In the 1970s, President Ford issued an executive order that banned assassinations. The administration's formal reasoning for why its overseas killings did not constitute assassination went like this: Congress had authorized the use of
force against al-Qaeda. Therefore, America was at war, and under the law of war, America had the right to defend itself "by targeting persons such as high-level al-Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks." Therefore the practice wasn't illegal.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.217
Jun 14, 2012
Richard Durbin:
1990 Gulf War: We may be repeating Vietnam experience
Most of the congressional Democrats determinedly opposed the Persian Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi troops into Kuwait in August 1990, the Bush administration sought authorization from Congress for the use of force to reverse the invasion.
The debate on Capitol Hill made clear that most Democrats still held to the core beliefs that had dominated the thinking of the liberal wing of the party since Vietnam.
The Democrats exhibited a deep aversion to the use of force, even for the purpose of repelling one country's invasion of another."Personally, and I can speak for many members of our caucus, we are products of the Vietnam experience," said
Representative Dick Durbin of Illinois. "We are really touched by the possibility that we may be repeating that experience."
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p. 28-29
Jun 14, 2012
Robert Gates:
Clinton-Gates combo won push for Afghan surge
Just as the Obama administration was beginning to hold meetings to decide [whether to send a troop surge to] Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal's report leaked out.Robert Gates gradually came around to supporting the McChrystal request, and Hillary Clinton
did, too. During that period, the two often sided with each other in administration debates; they were happy to show that the secretaries of state and defense could work smoothly together, unlike their immediate predecessors, Donald Rumsfeld with Colin
Powell & Condi Rice. The Clinton-Gates combine helped to win over the president to sending more troops, despite the skepticism of other senior administration officials such as Biden; the president was not prepared to override the recommendations of the
two departments primarily responsible for foreign affairs. Obama approved the deployment of 30,000 more American troops for Afghanistan, bringing the total to about 100,000, and also called on NATO allies to provide another 5,000 or more of their own.
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.134-136
Jun 14, 2012
Ron Paul:
Afghanistan is a totally failed policy
The McChrystal affair [in which the General commanding all US forces in Afghanistan had his war assessment report leaked] brought to the fore the larger question of how the US was doing in
Afghanistan and how long the war would last. In Congress, liberal Democrats threatened to hold up further appropriations for Afghanistan. Speaking of the change from Gen. McChrystal to Gen. Petraeus,
Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern quipped, "Same menu, different waiter." From the political right, libertarian congressman Ron Paul said, "That McChrystal thing is just a symptom of what we won't face up to, which is that
[Afghanistan] is a totally failed policy. If we were on the verge of a great success, do you think we'd fire the general?"
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.223
Jun 14, 2012
Sarah Palin:
War on Iran would end lackadaisical approach to terrorism
Cheney quickly accused Obama of failing to realize that the nation was at war--a charge at variance with the reality that Obama had widened the frequency and scope of "targeted killing"
[which included, for legal reasons which otherwise prohibited assassinations, considering the US to be at war with al-Qaeda]. Other Republican charges followed along similar lines.
Sarah Palin claimed in an interview on Fox News that Obama had a "lackadaisical approach" to dealing with terrorists. The situation would improve only if
Obama would toughen up, she said: "Say he decided to declare war on Iran, or decided to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do."
Source: The Obamians, by James Mann, p.220
Jun 14, 2012
Page last updated: Feb 25, 2019