I imagine if you didn’t watch the president’s state of the union address and listened to NPR (aka Empire) news the next day, you might think they were talking about a speech made by a reactionary republican legislator or pundit. That’s all they had on their guest list for the two days following the address. You have to wonder why they feel these people need all this air time. Instead of wallowing in the predictable knee-jerk partisan reactions to the speech, why don’t they drill into some of the issues? Sure, they do a little “fact check” report, kind of like Politifact (and just about as superficial). But report on, say, oil and gas drilling and its implications for climate change and ultimately human survival? Not when one of their big sponsors is “think about it dot org”.
Then there’s “Morning Joe” (or “Morning Blow”) on purportedly liberal/progressive MSNBC. Their foreign policy braintrust of, well, Joe Scarborough, Richard Haas, and various senior editors from Politico have been engaging in a narrative that goes something like this, in short – “W” Bush did too much, Obama does too little, and both put us in greater danger from the scourge of jihadist terrorism, which has killed nearly one person in the United States so far this year (call it none). Setting aside the obsessive focus on this rare and sensational threat, I agree with the assertion that both presidents’ foreign policies have put us in greater danger, breeding a new generation extremists, several of whom, for instance, attacked the offices of Charlie Ebdo in Paris. But the notion that Obama does too little is ludicrous. Bush and Obama basically have the same foreign policy. Obama is following Bush’s playbook from 2006-08. And yes, it is murderous and destabilizing and designed to radicalize people.
Of course, the pundit circle’s prescriptions for what we should be doing are drawn from the same volume. This week on Morning Blow they were latching onto co-host Mika Brzezinski’s father’s suggestion that we should deploy troops to the Baltic states to provide a “tripwire” against further action by Vladimir Putin. The braintrust was opining that NATO should be beefed up; more troops in Poland, etc. Again – Obama has been following the same policy as Bush, in essence. Aggressive eastward expansion of the U.S.-European trading zone and of NATO, right into Ukraine, which is as integral a part of Russian security planning as Canada and Mexico are for the U.S. Want to keep Putin from overreacting? Stop boxing the Russians in. Just saying.
The only new piece of foreign policy from Obama has been the Cuba opening, but like Boehner’s invite to Netanyahu as a way of scuttling the Iran talks, there are many ways for Congress to undermine the new policy.
Next week: Domestic policy. Stay tuned.
luv u,
jp
At the close of the Cold War, it was understood that expansion of NATO would be seen as provocative by Russia, but because Russia was in a weak position, their economy destroyed by massive privatization, shock therapy structural adjustment, guided by some of our Chicago-school fanatics, we felt free to ignore their concerns. That worked so long as our drunken ally Yeltsin was in command. But now that the extremely powerful Russian presidency (which we supported under Yeltsin) has been inherited by a sober ex-KGB officer, and the Russian economy has been lifted somewhat by oil revenues, they have found the confidence to voice their objections. And, of course, we’re shocked, shocked!
This Russia/Ukraine matter is remarkable in its stupidity. It’s as if our “National Security” state imperial institutions cannot justify their own existence anymore without resurrecting the Cold War, and in so doing, are attempting to make it seem like Putin is intent on resurrecting the Soviet Union. I have to say, that’s pretty weak sauce, as they say on the “coast”. (The sauce must be kind of weak there.) It’s the usual appeasement/slippery slope narrative – sure, it may seem like small potatoes to you, sliding a handful of armored personnel carriers across the border, but if we let him get away with THIS, ANYthing can happen.