Freedom
Rider: Obama’s Iraq Fairy Tale
by
BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Obama
has laughed at his defenders and sneered that his now disappointed
supporters were too stupid to read what he said.”
The
2008 Democratic presidential campaign must hold a record for the
amount of nonsense that was passed off as policy substance worthy of
discussion. All hell broke loose and tongues wagged endlessly and
needlessly because of an accurate
statement
made by the candidate first husband and former president Bill
Clinton. “It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15
debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against
the war. There’s no difference in your (Obama’s) voting record,
and Hillary’s, ever since. Give me a break. This whole thing is the
biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
The
words fairy tale resonated in millions of ears, but the validity of
Clinton’s comments were lost on a public incapable of
distinguishing fact from fiction, or trivia from substance. Obama is
now in the process of proving Bill Clinton right. Ever since Hillary
Clinton pulled out of the race, he has laughed at his defenders and
sneered that his now disappointed supporters were too stupid to read
what he said or really listen to his lofty speeches. He told them all
along he wasn’t really anti-war and it is just too bad that they
didn’t get it.
The
latest case of buyer’s remorse concerns Obama’s
statements
about his plan to visit Iraq in the near future. “I’ve always
said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and
security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That
assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance
to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll
have more information and will continue to refine my policies.” It
may be helpful to take a trip down memory lane and fully dissect the
fairy tale of the anti-war candidate.
In
2004 Senate candidate Barack Obama did not brag about being against
the occupation of Iraq from the very beginning, as he constantly
reminds us now. He was far more circumspect, criticizing president
Bush only for badly managing a war of aggression, and emphasizing
that he was not that much different. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."
"Obama never passes up an opportunity to criticize calls for timetables of troop withdrawals."
The Democratic convention in July 2004 was the beginning of Obama's introduction to the American public. Because he hadn't quite figured out the fine art of making weasel word statements, his comments at that time are quite revealing. The questions at John Kerry's impending nomination party were simple. Would Barack Obama have voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq had he been in the Senate in 2002? In a CNN
interview
he first said he wasn't sure and then a few seconds later claimed he would have voted no.
WOLF
BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether
to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have
voted?
OBAMA: You know, I didn't have the information that was
available to senators. I know that, as somebody who was thinking
about a U.S. Senate race, I think it was a mistake, and I think
I would have voted no (italics mine).
BLITZER: You would have
voted no at the time?
OBAMA: That's correct.
Obama owes Wolf Blitzer a lot for that helping hand. A real journalist would have immediately pounced and demanded a straight answer, but few such persons are employed in the broadcast media today. During that same week, Obama chose to be a little more
straightforward with the New York Times when asked about John Kerry and John Edwards votes to authorize war. “But,
I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What
would I have done? I don't know. (italics
mine) What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not
made.''
After Obama took his Senate seat in 2005 he continued waffling, claiming opposition to the invasion but never passing up an opportunity to criticize calls for timetables of troop withdrawals. In 2006 he was particularly audacious in the word parsing department.
On June 21, 2006, he gave the back
of his hand to any talk of troop withdrawals. "What
is needed is a blueprint for an expeditious yet responsible exit from
Iraq. A hard and fast, arbitrary deadline for withdrawal offers our
commanders in the field, and our diplomats in the region,
insufficient flexibility to implement that strategy."
Fast
forward to November 21, 2006, just a few short weeks after war weary
voters across the country spoke in the voting booth and gave
Democrats victory in congressional elections. "The first part of
this strategy begins by exerting the greatest leverage we have on the
Iraqi government – a phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq
on a timetable that would begin in four to six months." Obama is
a politician par
excellence,
and certainly knows how to gauge a change in the political winds.
In
the 2008 presidential campaign Obama continued to defend the
continuation of an occupation he claimed he never supported, until it
became politically inconvenient to do so. When he couldn’t dispatch
Hillary Clinton once and for all, he had to at least give the
impression that his Iraq policy was different. He began to say that
he would begin troop withdrawals upon taking office and remove combat
troops within sixteen months. Of course, he would keep troops to
protect the U.S. embassy and as a “strike force” against
al-Qaeda, two caveats that left plenty of wiggle room to keep the
gunfire going. But at the time that Obama began his sixteen months
mantra, he was outed by one of his own staffers.
Samantha
Power resigned as one of his foreign policy advisers when she evoked
the definition of a political gaffe, she told the truth. We were told
that she fell on her sword because she called Hillary Clinton “a
monster.” In all likelihood her pink slip was a result of this
statement:
“He
will of course not rely upon some plan that he has crafted as a
presidential candidate and a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan,
an operational plan, that he pulls together in consultation with
people on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now as a
result of not being the president. So to think, I mean it would be
the height of ideology, you know to sort of say well I said it
therefore I’m going to impose it. It’s a best case scenario.”
“Obama
was outed by one of his own staffers.”
So
let’s recap the Obama Iraq magical mystery tour. He was against it
all along, but wasn’t sure how he would have voted, he wasn’t
much different from Bush anyway, he didn’t want timetables, then he
did want time tables and now he says he may have to refine the
timetables he insisted he wanted just a few months ago. Samantha
Power ought to get her job back.
Obama
is right about one
thing.
"I'm
surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I
wasn't saying anything I hadn't said before, that I didn't say a year
ago or when I was a United States senator."
True
enough. There is a long, easily accessed record of Obama’s Iraq
policy statements. His tearful, spurned followers had better grow up
fast, end their asinine hero worship, and learn how to make political
demands before singing the praises of a presidential candidate. It
doesn’t matter if Senator Testy doesn’t like being questioned
about his finely calibrated words. He has been given a pass for far
too long. There may yet be time for a real campaign, but that will be
up to all of us.
Margaret
Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley
lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains
an edifying and frequently updated blog
at freedomrider.blogspot.com.
More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda
Report
archive
page.
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