For you, what are the top five foreign policy priorities that Obama’s campaign team should have? Be as specific or general as you want.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Well you said should have.
Sticking with number one, do you have a priority list for base closures? Do you have a comprehensive strategy?
For example, closing a base in South Korea or Okinawa has more far-reaching meaning than closing one in Eritrea.
Closing a base in Qatar or the UAE is far different from closing one in Azerbaijan.
There are naval bases and air bases, some of which are vital to current missions, including dealing with supply in Iraq and Afghanistan, securing the Straits of Hormuz, and dealing with piracy on the high seas.
Do you have a strategy for NATO and our bases in Europe? Do you have any idea how to sustain humanitarian and emergency relief efforts without maintaining our global reach by ship and air?
Have you thought through the vacuum that this would create and how to fill it without it being filled by strategic rivals?
And so on.
In general, I support rolling back our air and naval basing world-wide, but not without a systematic plan.
I agree.
Most of these bases are Cold War relics. Forward bases for empire. There are really very few threats in the world today, that are not just part of military-industrial-complex propaganda to keep warbucks rolling into the trough of militarism.
You want all the Capsian Sea bases to remain to protect “our” oil? Why don’t we just play fair in market driven global economics? Hey why don’t we move beyond oil?
Is Europe really threatened by Russia? Most modern Europeans would laugh at the notion.
Leave humanitarian efforts to the UN where they belong. The United States had no business being the world’s policeman or the world’s nanny.
Enough of American unilateralism. Most terrorism stems from western Chicago School, IMF, World Bank colonialism. Drawing back on the rampant US militarism projected by American Exceptionalism will solve lots of the problems.
And where there are threats, let us be part of a multinational force approved and regulated by international agreement.
But I do, agree, all this needs honest, as opposed to propagandist, assessment. We had a domestic base closing commission; why not one for our international holdings?
g.
Well, the UN has no capability to do emergency humanitarian relief. Europe doesn’t even have the air force capability to ship their troops to and from Afghanistan. Now, maybe that’s because we prefer those groups to exist in a state of dependency, but you don’t change things by snapping your fingers.
Yes, well, it would be easy enough to give teeth to the UN and I think you’re right about why the UN is more of a name without actual authority and the means to act.
And, thanks, I wasn’t aware NATO didn’t have the means to deploy outside their immediate neighborhood. Maybe, they should have stayed home instead of follow America into folly.
Thanks for the dialog. It’s much appreciated.
g.
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In an unprecedented move, NATO this weekend approved money to lease cargo helicopters for the alliance’s transport needs — a move made necessary because members of the alliance again refused to provide airlift out of their own military assets.
The helicopters — which may be leased from Ukraine and Russia — will mostly fill this gap and permit the coalition’s other helicopters to transport troops and evacuate the wounded.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
The United Nations and EU countries have outstanding capabilities for relief operations. EU response to Aceh tsunami and the UNDP. It’s true the US Navy assisted with timely helicopter flights in rescue operations, however Bush was slow in financial assistence to Indonesia.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Booman, I thought you said we could be vague. Now you want a list of base closures?
shut down Africom entirely
Okinawa has Forty Eight military bases!
What is wrong with this picture?
God knows how many in Germany.
My very favorite is the one the runs the golf course in Seoul.
Let’s start by closing all the bases that maintain golf courses!
Oh, the security lapses that will follow.
C’mon Booman, I love ya and I know you’re better that!
All I ask is for clarity.
Consider this an exercise. Progressives know very well what they oppose, but they’re often severely deficient in knowing both what they support and in having any clue about how to transition to policies they could support.
It’s all well and good to advocate shuttering military bases across the globe. In a very general sense, I am fully supportive of such an idea. However, it matters a great deal how you do it, when you do it, why you do it, and how you plan on handling the repercussion of doing it.
All I want is to flesh such ideas out a little.
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Great points for the US foreign policy in the immediate future. Here are some of mine …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."back at you.
I forgot about the whole Guantanamo gulag system. An egregious oversight.
And, yes, yes, yes for the rest.
g.
Yes, but…
“Stick to his announced 16 month draw down of troops in Iraq – quicker than the recent treaty passed by Iraq’s congress…“
There is a huge difference between a complete withdrawal, even within three, long, long years, and Obama’s 16-month drawdown, which amounted to nothing more than a reconfiguring and rebranding of the occupation. Obama’s plan was NOT to withdraw completely in 16 months or 16 years. His plan was, in his words, to “bring home all the combat troops” within 16 months, leaving a residual force for an indefinite period. Obama also specified some of the “missions” for his “residual force”, some of which would unquestionably involve combat. That is not only not quicker than the recent whatever-you-want-to-call-it passed by the Iraqi Parliament, which calls unequivocally for a full withdrawal (at least as the Iraqis interpret it) at a defined point, is completely different as it does not include a full withdrawal at any time.
I list only one, from which all the others follow. Secure a viable Israeli-Palestine Peace Agreement. That accomplished clears the deck for a settlement in Iraq and with Iran. Afghanistan is another kettle of fish, but since we are losing militarily there anyway, the end-game won’t be altered one way or the other.
Do either Iran or Iraq care about Israel-Palestine?
I think so. Shibley Telhami at the University of Maryland polls public opinion in the Arab world annually, and finds that Palestine is consistently top priority, or at least in the top three priorities, for a large part of the population. About three-quarters of the people surveyed, I think. So that suggests there is something very important about the I/P issue to Arab and maybe Muslim societies.
(Having said that, Telhami’s polls don’t directly answer your question, inasmuch as I don’t think he polls inside Iraq, and his opinion polls in Iran don’t specifically ask whether people care about Palestine. Though the strong sympathy the 2007 Iran poll showed for Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel, over the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians, suggest they do).
So the only polling I’ve seen that directly asks whether people care about Palestine is not specifically Iranian or Iraqi, but from a selection of countries (I think Telhami polls six countries) in the Arab world. But the results there suggest that people in the wider Middle East care very much about Israel-Palestine.
I think the reason the IP conflict matters to Arabs (and Muslims), even those not personally affected by it, is that they see what Israel is doing to the Palestinians as a racist issue. It comes down to whether an Muslim Arab is an equal person with equal rights to a Jewish Zionist, or whether Arab-ness and Muslim-ness are grounds for institutional inequality. And that is something that an Arab or Muslim might be expected to have an interest in whether or not they live in Palestine.
Zionism chose to build a Jewish state in Palestine, which was never “a land without a people for a people without a land”, but which had a pre-existing population, 95% of whom were not Jewish, but Muslim and (minority Christian) Arab. So Israel could not be created as a Jewish state, and could not continue to exist as a Jewish state even today, except through the forced expulsion/exclusion, killing or disenfranchisement of the Arab (mostly Muslim) majority in order to gerrymander a Jewish majority of voters there. Palestinian Arabs have to be treated like that not because of anything they might do, but simply because they exist and exist in such numbers that their “wrong” racial/religious heritage would screw up the preferred demographic of a Jewish-preferential state.
In the West, the mainstream narrative is that Israel does terrible things to Palestinians because Israel is fighting terrorism. From an Arab or Muslim perspective, Israel does terrible things to Palestinians because creating a Jewish state in Palestine simply requires that the Arab and Muslim majority be neutralized.
Creating a Jewish state in Palestine, where other non-Jewish people already live, absolutely requires the ethnic cleansing of people whose only offence is to be Arab and (mostly) Muslim. How should we expect this idea – that a Muslim Arab, just for being what he is, may be removed from his home because a sectarian state is being declared there which by its very nature excludes the Arab, Muslim population – to go down with the rest of the Arab and Muslim world? Why would it be odd that Arabs and Muslims might have a special interest in a situation where people with the same heritage as themselves are systematically oppressed because that “wrong” heritage is sufficient grounds for inequality? I think it’s no more surprising that Arabs and Muslims are particularly interested in an ideology that intrinsically discriminates against Arabs and Muslims, than it was surprising that black Britons or African-Americans were in the forefront of the campaign against apartheid.
I recall Juan Cole talked a while ago about the importance of the racial aspect of the IP conflict to the Muslim world, when Matt Yglesias had made some comment to the effect of “why would Iraqis care about Palestine? Isn’t that dumb?”. I’m sure Cole explained it better than I just did, and he was talking specifically about Iraq – which yr question was about, so I’ll see if I can find the link.
Reply to Yglesias on Palestine
“the strong sympathy the 2007 Iran poll showed for Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel, over the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians“
That strong sympathy many people hold for Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel over the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians is based, at least in part, on the fact that they know Israel is occupying and illegally colonizing Palestinian land, and that Israelis are systematically and on a daily basis brutalizing the Palestinians who live on that land.
Right now, at this very moment, the Israelis are literally starving a million or so people in Gaza, and not permitting any food or medical aid to enter the area. They are also barring journalists from the area, as is their wont when they are committing atrocities they do not want the public to see. Right at this moment Palestinians in Gaza are literally starving because there is no food while Israelis simply go about their lives.
People in the Middle East feel outrage on behalf of the Palestinians, and lack empathy for Israelis for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they, unlike most Americans, are very aware of what Israelis do to Palestinians on a daily basis. They are aware, too, unlike most Americans, that Israel has never stopped finding ways to take more and more and more land from Palestinians. And people in the Middle East feel outraged because those who have the power to stop Israel from its rapacious behaviour never have even serious tried to do so, and never will.
And people in the Middle East feel outrage on behalf of the Palestinians in large measure because they identify with it, not so much for racial reasons as because they see and fear the potential ultimate result of their own helplessness in the face of predatory imperialist power.
And they feel sympathy for Iraqis and not for the Americans who are destroying their country and killing them for much the same reasons.
The situation is far more complex than that.
Yes, Iraqis care a lot about the Palestinians and so do Iranians (and so does ANYONE who truly understands the situation and has an ounce of empathy), but Iraqis’ greatest grievances with the United States are a great deal closer to home than that. The United States has For decades caused suffering for Iraqis that is unimaginable to Americans. It has destroyed their country and society in the interest of empire, and now still has three more years to try to figure out how to profit from its crimes.
And Iran’s greatest grievances against the United States are also much more up close and personal than concern for the Palestinians, and go back to the ’50’s.
Even IF the United States could secure a settlement of the Palestinian-Israel conflict (which is extremely unlikely given that the U.S. has never been and will never be an “honest broker”), that would do nothing whatsoever to redress the very real and 100% justified issues Iraq and Iran have with the United States that have nothing at all to do with Israel or the Palestinians.
Now, if only I could persuade Europe to adopt that approach.
And for most European leaders, 4 reads:
“Dump the idea that US national interests trump all other concerns.”
<sigh>
1.) Reconstructing Afghanistan – no western empire has ever succeded militarily here. We need to find a solution here and fast.
2.) Global Climate Change. We need to head off resource wars and mass migrations before they start.
3.) An Israeli/Palestinian Peace Accord
4.) An India/Pakistan Peace Accord
5.) Withdrawal from Iraq.
I agree with almost everything already. I would really love to end the whole Columbia and Mexico drug missions. This is money that should be spent on drug treatment programs in America.
Realize that each move that seems “logical” to most liberal/progressive/thinking people actually has an internal logic by those responsible for the policies that is never debated.
The drug wars have never been about stopping drug flow. It’s been about who controls the drug flow. Historically, intelligence services, especially our intelligence services, profit from the drug trade. As long as this continues the inertia in high places will not allow the drug trade to be shut down.
The same is true about our military outreach to the world. A commenter above said something about stopping wars over resources before they start. They’ve been going on for hundreds of years. What is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan except an attempt to get the black stuff bubbling under the ground from the (metaphorically) brown people living on top of it? Oil has driven out post-WWII foreign policy.
Suggested reading: THE GREAT HEROIN COUP by Henrik Kruger, THE POLITICS OF HEROIN by Alfred McCoy (published under several titles), BARRY AND THE BOYS by Daniel Hopsicker. And read Gary Webb’s obit.
In the interest of attepmting a realistic response:
1. Figure out what we want to do regarding Pakistan.
There are very deep cultural and geographic reasons that Pakistan is an unstable nation, and they have nukes that could end up anywhere. The ISI is apparently rife with religious fundamentalists (like the USAF and US Army, right?). There is little to no natural economy outside of the major urban areas and there is an extreme nationalist group within the body politic.
The US alliance of convenience with Pakistan has never been backed up with goals or policies that are more than immediate in scope. This is absurd and idiotic. Somebody please figure out how to support somebody or oppose somebody over there in a way that does not make the situation worse!
2. Show the rest of the world that we are not owned by Isreal in forign policy.
If the leaks about supporting King Abdullah’s peace plan are accurate, this would be a good start. The plan has shortcomings, but we need to show a basis for good faith actors in the Muslim world and in Europe to support our initiatives in the region. Right now, our policies vis a vis Isreal are a major obstacle to that happening. Some kind of significant actions on our part will be required to demonstrate to the world that we can be allies of more than one state in the Middle East.
3. Succeed in withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Obama ran on a different vision foor Iraq. He needs to get us out of Iraq in a way that results in strategic advance for American interests or else his promise as a leader will be significantly undercut within the domestic polity (both elite and otherwise.)
4. Re-Identify the US with human rights.
The easiest so far. End all the bullshit. Disavow it. Speak out against it in the rest of the world. Hopefully no one will notice that offenders in the US faced no consequences and won’t insist on consequences for our allies who have similar polices. (snark alert)
5. Support envirnonmental and labor intitiatives in Latin America and Asia.
If the business elite, flush off their successes in fleecing the American people of hundreds of billions of dollars, are willing to let it happen. Hey, we can Hope.
…wow, I got really bitter there at the end. I guess I’m pretty skeptical about how much change I can actualy believe in. The first few are for real–the others are just to fill out the list.
These are really excellent ideas. I would terminate all star war funding. The system is an endless sinkhole for billions upon billions of dollars, which system can always be easily foiled–just launch more dummy warheads.
It’s a bit off thread but can we ever get some money out of politics; that is, have the national government finance all elections to federal office. I realize the lobbyists would scream bloody murder but that is not a bad thing. Foreign lobbies (like AIPAC) would probably threaten a revolution.
Finally, as a way of checking American hubris, can we have, as Gottlieb suggests, a thorough and fair investigation of what really happened on 911? And, if Americans are involved, then, commence criminal proceedings against whoever is involved. No exceptions.
These are my utopian wishes. Too bad they will never see the light of reality.
here’s another one that needs a reversal