The trope of Obama as “reluctant warrior” has crossed the Atlantic–where it is greeted with a little more cynicism (Peter Brookes, London Times)
If there’s one thing elite media seem to know for sure, it’s that Barack Obama doesn’t like war. One phrase in particular seems to stand out:
It was a remarkable moment for a reluctant warrior.
–Jonathan Karl (ABC Nightline, 9/10/14)
He’s a very reluctant warrior, didn’t want to do this. But you have to say, it is good he recognized reality.
–David Gergen (CNN, 9/10/14)
Is he going to become a warrior, and not a reluctant warrior, when he is taking such a strong stance that he will do anything to defeat ISIS, except for if it involves American troops?
–Erin Burnett (CNN, 9/10/14)
He’s a reluctant warrior.
–David Brooks (PBS NewsHour, 9/10/14)
You have a reluctant warrior in President Obama, and the press saying, “Do something.”
–Lauren Ashburn (Fox News, 9/12/14)
He is, as you know, the standard phrase, the reluctant warrior. And I think he’s played that long before this decision.
–David Bergen (CNN, 9/14/14)
But now with weekly beheadings by ISIS, the reluctant warrior must wage war, but not total war–tepid war.
–Bill O’Reilly (Fox News, 9/15/14)
Last night came the announcement that US had begun conducting airstrikes on Syria. Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept posted a story (9/23/14) with this headline:
It does make one wonder: What would an enthusiastic warrior look like to the corporate media? Would bombing eight countries in six years be enough?
It does make one wonder: What would an enthusiastic warrior look like to the corporate media? Would bombing eight countries in six years be enough?
Never- he could bomb ever country in the world (by the time he did of course we would no longer be country) and that would not be enough for the Chicken-Hawks. The only way we will stop them from trying to do so, is put them in as leaders; upfront, one rifle, One bayonet 50 rounds of ammo and no furloughs. When the ammo is out, they get to use the bayonet.
Then we could televise the revolutions.
I remember when Obama was first elected, how my oldest brother was so optimistic. And as the months rolled by, as far as I am concerned, he became an apologist for Obama. This became increasingly difficult for my brother until he finally abandoned trying to do so. I’m a physicist by training, and so when this year’s Nobel prize for physics was being discussed we naturally debated who would win, for example, Peter Higgs and others. (There are rules; no more than three people and all must be living.) Generally, when some one or a few win a science prize, those individuals have done something to earn it. If a mistake is made, it is usually because of an omission. Now, when Obama was awarded the Peace Prize, I ask, What had he done to earn it? To this day I believe it was awarded to him by the committee on the hopes that Obama would withdraw US troops from both Afghanistan and Iraq.. I never had any such hope, like my brother. And if I am right, then I think less of the Nobel Peace Prize committee for awarding a major prize to someone on the hopes what that person will do rather than what that person has actually done. Were people really that naïve about Obama? Some took his election as a sign that we now live in a “post-racial society.” (Not my term.) Are people really that naïve? Every four years they get behind a candidate who they seem ferverently believe will “do the right thing.” Then they’re disappointed, and four years later they do the same thing all over again. Enough already! So now we’ve had a Syrian airstrike. The Pentagon is claiming great success. Everybody believes the news, because–hey!–I read it in the news; it must be true. Yeah, if we’re lucky maybe later we will find the truth.
An enthusiastic warrior would also be in the midst of a massive refurbishment of the nuclear-weapons production complex in preparation for new generations of missiles and bombers yet to come …… d’oh!
Well, he doesn’t foam at the mouth like Cheney/Bush.
With apologies to John Lennon …
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you die
I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a Machiavellian kind of guy
It’s the delicious taste of Hopenchange.
Were people really that naïve about Obama? Some took his election as a sign that we now live in a “post-racial society.” (Not my term.) Are people really that naïve? – JB
They must be, they Re-elected both Reagan and Bush the Zeroth twice, when it was clearly not in their best interest. Sadly, instead of being the hope of change we would have liked (and by comparison a possibility), he simply became the ‘next outgoing president’ with respect to wars in the other parts of the world.
But anyone who paid even the closest bit of attention to the first election, knew then that Obama was not going to get us out of the wars, as the original timeline he presented was not realistic.
As Ralph Nadar once put it, the only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, is in which direction and how fast they bend the knees in obsequies adultery to corporate Military complex.
Obama’s Special Forces #2 are attacking Obama’s Special Forces #1.
With apologies to George Lucas:
“And don’t forget, he’s a politician, and they’re NOT to be trusted.
-Obi-Wan, “Star Wars Episode MMXIV: The Obama Wars”
Interesting, so the usual steno-journalists got the identical White House press release with the talking point “bullet,” to wit:
*reluctant warrior.
You’d think at least one of the rip-and-read crew would dig just a teensy bit for a synonym to keep up the pretense of journalism. At this point in history these frauds opt to quote the press release verbatim, then head for the watering hole…
As many have said lately, the First Amendment is completely wasted on these types.
Be well.
Obama is on his way to matching Henry K. as an undeserving and inappropriate recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize. And equally undeserving of the use of Martin Luther King’s bible for his second term swearing in. That took gall.
Bronco Bomba (say it out loud)
US to World: it’s our planet to do with as we see fit.
You’d think that by now the US would drop the pretenses that America is a Democracy, that America wants World Peace, and that America has not taken it upon itself to dictate terms to the rest of the world from the end of a gun-barrel.
So far as I know, none of America’s recent (back to 1998) military adventures has been legal according to International Law. Has anyone bothered mentioning that? But then American officials refuse any accountability under any law; and the US populace just keeps returning those people to office.
Wouldn’t it be more honest to rename Earth as Planet America, declare that all non-Americans are enemies, all Americans who oppose the Neocons are enemies, and offer “rapacity bonds” to “good Americans” who will contribute to the planet-conquering effort, to get dividends from the spoils of the ever-latest war? Then average “never rocks the boat” Joe and Jane would have something more to look forward to from the next war (one per month?) than just paying for it.
NeoNazis R Us.
We will know things are fixed when G W Bush is tried in the Hague for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity; and like it or not, Mr. Obama as well. Then our officials would not be so blithe with every next bombing campaign.
I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads
IRAN IS NOT A THREAT AT ALL
ALL THE PEOPLE ON TV ARE LIARS
I have not yet seen a version that replaces “IRAN” with “[NAME OF COUNTRY]” but I will buy it when they make it. It is obviously needed.
JB said “Some took his election as a sign that we now live in a “post-racial society.”
In a stint of substitute teaching a few months ago, one of the handouts I gave kids in a class was a reading exercise discussing Jackie Robinson. The handout said (paraphrasing only slightly) “Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. It used to be that African Americans were excluded and disserved in American society, but all that is over with now and things are just fine for Black Folks.”
When the educational system itself is effectively teaching children that Black activists have nothing to complain about, what chance does Society have that our children will ever effectively and correctly understand – anything? I was invited “not to return” to one school because I had told my students that day that they were future voters and that their job as voters was to hold elected officials accountable to their promises. How radical was that?
The mind job the Red Scares did on this country is still in play. Nobody really believes in free speech any longer.
Keep a high unemployment rate, and the fact that “toeing a line” is a condition for employment means that our civil rights are no longer worth as much as a postage stamp.
Speaking of reluctant warriors how about these news hounds? They’re reminiscent of the chickenhawks in the Bush regime. If Erin Burnett is so adamant on US foot soldiers why doesn’t she lead the way? FAIR ought to take up a collection to buy Ms. Burnett a helmet, a rifle, and a plane ticket to Amman. As for David Gergen, what does it matter what a fascist says? William Blum writes that as soon as You realize US foreign policy, far from being gaffe-prone and misguided but with generally good intentions, works just the way it’s designed to work, then everything about it starts making sense. If it’s true that “We will know things are fixed when G W Bush is tried in the Hague for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” which I subscribe to, then the sad reality is things will never be fixed. Anybody who believes we live in a post-racial society should read Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow.” And, I have to second what Mr. Nonymous says: if civil rights disappear on corporate occupied territory, then they’re meaningless everywhere. Or to put it in terms Valdas Anelauska put it in his book Discovering America As It Is, the United States blusters about its political and civil rights, which are not possible, Anelauskas shows, in the absence of social and economic rights. Because the latter are largely missing in America, the former are meaningless.
Sounds like the MICorporate mudia, catapulting the Company’s PNAC propaganda for Poppy and the burning Bushs, AGAIN. Next, The JEB IS UP!
This is crazy.
When Congress spends money for this country there is always a lengthy debate and division. Then too they always ask ‘where will the money come from?” But the same politicians, throw billions on more mideast wars, and both parties can’t vote for it fast enough.
You’d think that 13 years of failure would teach you something.
Tougher leadership would isolate those that did the atrocities, target them specifically, and then be strong enough to end these endless wars.
Reluctant warrior? “Long haul” or endless war. Hawk or bird brain.
The real courage is a leader that will say no to endless war! Why does anyone think that even though 13 years of bombing didn’t work, the 14th year will – in an area that has not been at peace for centuries ? That’s more a cuckoo bird than a hawk
Tom Hendricks: read “The Face of Imperialism” by Michael Parenti and “A Brief History of Neoliberalism” by David Harvey. Nothing we are told about the motives for perpetual war is true (e.g. “peace” has nothing to do with it.) Capitalism needs a place to burn so-called excess money, so we pour it into the ocean in military expenditures for nonreusable goods (viz. things that cannot possibly benefit people.) Despite half the world now having lived half its life in view of programs like Star Trek that advocate peace and socioeconomic justice, near-criminals run the government in most countries and peace and justice are slogans no-one bothers to take seriously. The civil populations in most countries are a mass to be manipulated and exploited. Yet all this, is precisely what the Neoliberals and Neoconservatives want, and they’ve won; the world is as sordid as they’d like to leave it.
It’s rather painful to live in a country that proudly teaches its children about the revolutionary history that gave rise to the birth of our independent nation only to grow up to find that any and all awareness that might give rise to similar sentiments today is thoroughly suppressed and deliberately ignored. Labor was advocating 6-hour work days back in 1953. Does anyone remember that? Where is our 6-hour work day? Who remembers the history of labor in this country? No-one. If we did, we would not put up with the mediocre future-squandering lying assholes that we now do. I recommend reading Philip Foner’s 10 volume “History of the Labor Movement in the United States” and Art Preis’s “Labor’s Giant Step”. What they won’t tell you in school is that labor LOST. Read these works and you will become radicalized if you weren’t already.
To Arthur Nonymous: the real question your last post is asking is, why does the American working class lack any awareness of itself as a class? Let’s take the relatively recent Occupy Movement. The closest it came to any definition of class was a reference to the so-called 1%. But it defined who belonged to the 1% based upon income. That does not provide a clean, clear-cut definition of class. And it really is simple. One’s class is defined by one’s relationship to the production and distribution of goods and services. Simply put, do you own and control the production and distribution of goods and services? If not, you are a member of the working class. I do not work on an assembly line but I am a member of the working class. I would be called a white-collar worker, as opposed to blue collar, but both white collar and blue collar workers are working class despite however white collar, so-called professionals might see it. That is an internal division that needs to be overcome. but that requires the development of an awareness of ourselves as a class. Now, just because workers lack this self-awareness does not mean the so-called one percent is not aware of itself as a class. (Don’t underestimate the importance of that last statement; they are very aware of themselves as a class.) Through local, state, and federal governments they are busily engaged in pursuing their class interests. Just look at the Koch brothers. And look at the fools who support them. So another question would be, why is the US working class so reactionary?
Glenn Greenwald made a good point here, which seems to be forgotten: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/23/nobel-peace-prize-fact-day-syria-7th-country-bombed-obama/
In June 2011, after the US-NATO war in Libya was in progress, Obama actually lost a vote in the House to “authorize continued military operations in Libya for one year.” http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/168347-house-rejects-libya-authorization-resolution
The Obama administration continued US military intervention in Libya for several months, asserting that no Congressional authorization was necessary because the US was in Libya just to “support” NATO. US-NATO air strikes against Qaddafi’s regime were coordinated with Western special forces and LIFG, called “former” LIFG, forces on the ground.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-liberation-of-libya-nato-special-forces-and-al-qaeda-join-hands/26255
The LIFG has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Dept since 12/17/2004. http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm