Obama makes headlines today by attacking Trump, charging that his statements rattle world leaders. His remarks come one day after release of a State Department report that condemns Hillary Clinton’s e-mail security and practices, as he deflects attention from Clinton’s problems.
Obama’s remarks about Trump are pure political character assassination. They have zero substance. They exist purely in the realm of story-telling by defining one’s opponent. Obama said this: “Because a lot of the proposals that he’s made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what it is that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous and what is required to keep the world on an even keel.”
This is 100 percent nonsense, and I’ll use the difference between Obama and Trump on Afghanistan as an example of why it’s nonsense. But what I will get to that really bothers me is the hidden assumption that Obama is promoting that he and other world leaders belong to an exclusive club of mature and responsible persons who direct the world’s global policies, know what they are doing, and are creating a better world. Trump, Obama says, doesn’t belong in this club whereas Hillary does. But my main concern is not to debunk this laughable proposition but to expose and argue against the idea that the president of the U.S. by and large exercises responsible and thoughtful world leadership that makes the world a better place. I certainly didn’t believe this when Johnson lied us into war in Vietnam and I certainly didn’t believe this when Bush attacked Iraq or when Reagan intervened in the Iran-Iraq War or NATO bombed in the old Yugoslavia or Obama bombed Libya or supported Saudi Arabia in bombing Yemen. And that’s only a start at a list.
Obama and Trump differ drastically on Afghanistan. Trump has said “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.” Obama is for keeping American soldiers there indefinitely. He wants the U.S. to spend big bucks to influence the government, military and economy of Afghanistan for years to come.
Trump has a coherent and understandable position on Afghanistan, which is that U.S. attempts at constructing that country have failed:
“But with Afghanistan, I want to build our country. You know, in Afghanistan, they build a school. They blow up the school. They blow up the road. We then start all over again. And in New Orleans and in Alabama, we can’t build schools.” And this: “Afghanistan is a total and complete disaster. What are we doing? We have all of these horrible events taking place there, we can’t even run our own country. We don’t build our schools, we don’t build our highways, we don’t build anything anymore. What’s wrong with our leadership?”
Obama’s public position on Afghanistan is based on making Afghanistan a ward of the U.S., a province, a satellite, a recipient of certain kinds of U.S. government largesse extracted from American taxpayers but that results in no tangible benefit to them. Obama’s policy toward Afghanistan is the typical social program approach that modern liberals have endorsed domestically. These invariably fail, producing worse results and making bad situations worse. Obama’s applying this “helping hand” approach internationally in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The social program approach is augmented with military force. The corruption and waste in this are unbelievable. Obama himself admits also that the political-military situation is tenuous, even after 15 years: “The bottom line is, in key areas of the country, the security situation is still very fragile, and in some places there is risk of deterioration.” There are many articles on Taliban resurgence, like this one.
Obama thinks that an American presence in Afghanistan helps keep the world on an “even keel”. Trump does not. Obama thinks that assassinating the head of the Taliban is a wise move that makes the situation better. This is far, far from assured. And, in any event, it is a killing that stays within the “social program” philosophy with the added military and violent component.
America will be more “safe and secure and prosperous” when the U.S. government stops attempting to control the world’s stability by dominating every region on this planet, politically, economically, militarily and even socially.
The attempt to enforce a pro-active pax Americana such as by destroying terrorism everywhere or by maintaining existing borders everywhere also backfires. The more that the U.S. tries to ameliorate and fight against trouble spots, the more that these spots become sinks for ever-growing transfers of resources and costs. The more that America wastes its resources on these futile and fruitless ventures or sticks its nose into the problems of others, the less goes into building productive capital that can overcome this world’s evils in other indirect but powerful ways.
Obama’s social program approach to problems assumes that the State and government alleviate and eliminate evils. That’s the assumption behind the “War on Poverty” and its kin. Intervention in Afghanistan looks different superficially, but it’s the same basic idea at work, with the added component of outright military warfare. What these programs actually do is to subsidize the evils they are attempting to eliminate. They encourage more such evils and the creation of unexpected new ones that arise due to the corrupting influence of the money flows.
I come back to Obama’s remarks. My purpose is to criticize what he’s saying, not to defend Trump or his position per se. That defense appears naturally in this instance, but Trump can defend himself. What bothers me is the picture that Obama and other leaders paint. They constantly promote a picture that there are “global affairs” that need looking after; and that they are there to look after them and that they are needed; and that they are competent to handle these vague global issues. They assure us that without them leading us, the world would fall apart and we’d be terribly insecure. These hidden messages are what I see as dangerous propaganda that needs to be exposed and questioned.
The fact is that the most prominent and largest things that the U.S. government does in its foreign affairs are usually unnecessary, superfluous, mis-directed, wasteful often evil, causing greater problems and evils, supportive of narrow interest groups behind them, and just plain wrong. The comforting picture painted by Obama is terribly false and misleading, as I see it. The recent evidence of the incredible ineptitude, fumbling, destruction and evil handling of foreign affairs can be summed up in a few words: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Iran, Russia and China. Add Africom to the list. Pardon me for omitting others.
9:05 am on May 26, 2016
