Glen Ford on Obama’s turn to the right
[visit the site & contribute!]
http://www.blackagendareport.com/006/006a_gf_obama_winds_of_war.php
Barack Obama and the Winds of War: Turning Right by BAR Executive
Editor Glen Ford
“Obama’s focus on gamesmanship has rendered him virtually useless in
the struggle to end the occupation and war in Iraq.”
Barack Obama is a windblown politician. The junior Illinois senator
avoids anchoring himself to any principle, lest his political sails
fail to catch the slightest breeze blowing from the left or the
right. His political direction is always tentative, although his
ultimate destination is never in doubt: he will be a formidable
national presence – maybe even president.
But Barack Obama – who has never claimed to be a Black leader – is in
fact not a leader at all. Nowhere is this more evident than in the
most critical issue facing Americans and the world at this dangerous
juncture in history: the war in Iraq.
One year after his bland and idea-less speech on Iraq to the Chicago
Council on Foreign Relations (see “Obama Mouths Mush on War,”
December 1, 2005), Obama returned to mush more of the same to the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The U.S. should “begin to move
towards a phased redeployment of American troops from Iraqi soil,” he
told the business-oriented crowd. Since the objective reality on the
ground in Iraq and in U.S. public opinion had changed dramatically in
the intervening year – resulting in Democratic capture of the House
and Senate – Obama’s failure to substantively revise his previous,
timid prescriptions actually amounts to a turn to the right.
[…]