[Marxism] Obama stands in distinguished company...

[Michael Friedman <lycophidion@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05222009.html

CounterPunch Diary

How Long Does It Take?

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of
constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side
of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted
assassinations, “decapitation” strategies and remote-control bombing
of mud houses the far end of the globe?

There’s nothing surprising here. As far back as President Woodrow
Wilson in the early twentieth century, American liberalism has been
swift to flex imperial muscle, to whistle up the Marines. High
explosive has always been in the hormone shot.

The nearest parallel to Obama in eager deference to the bloodthirsty
counsels of his counter-insurgency advisors is John F. Kennedy. It is
not surprising that bright young presidents relish quick-fix, “outside
the box” scenarios for victory.

Whether in Vietnam or Afghanistan the counsels of regular Army
generals tends to be drear and unappetizing: vast, costly deployments
of troops by the hundreds of thousand, mounting casualties, uncertain
prospects for any long-term success – all adding up to dismaying
political costs on the home front.

Amid Camelot’s dawn  in 1961, Kennedy swiftly bent an ear to the
counsels of men like Ed Lansdale, a special ops man who wore rakishly
the halo of victory over the Communist guerillas in the Philippines
and who promised results in Vietnam.

By the time he himself had become the victim of Lee Harvey Oswald’s
“decapitation” strategy, brought to successful conclusion in Dealey
Plaza, Dallas, on November 22, 1963, Kennedy had set in motion the
counter-insurgency operations, complete with programs of assassination
and torture, that turned South-East Asia and Latin America into
charnel houses, some of them, like Colombia, to this day.

Another Democrat who strode into the White House with the word “peace”
springing from his lips was Jimmy Carter. It was he who first decreed
that “freedom” and the war of terror required a $3.5 billion
investment in a secret CIA-led war in Afghanistan, plus the deployment
of Argentinian torturers to advise US military teams in
counter-insurgency ops in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

[...]

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