Obama and The Nation

Early in the Obama administration, progressives liked to recount how, meeting with labor leaders, Franklin D. Roosevelt told them: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.” And they indeed pushed FDR into taking stronger action against the Depression than his own inclinations might have led him. Progressives circa 2009 seemed to understand that politicians rarely do the right thing without being pressured to do so.

But with few exceptions, they have not made Obama “do it.” Much of the responsibility for the failures of his administration lies with progressives who have blunted their criticism, apparently out of the mistaken idea that they had to circle the wagons against assaults from the far right. Obama would be a much better president if he had heard from supporters that we didn’t elect him to approve indefinite detention, murder children with drones, violate the War Powers Resolution, put deregulators in charge of economic policy, and let four years go by without seriously confronting climate change. Instead, the message he gets is “We support you no matter what.”

A prime example of this is The Nation magazine. The liberal bastion has certainly featured criticism of Obama, but it is impossible to imagine a Republican administration doing some of the things Obama has done without receiving harsh, full-throated condemnation from the magazine instead of handwringing talk of “disappointment.”

It was with these thoughts in mind that I sent the following letter to The Nation in response to Deepak Bhargava’s Why Obama? in the October 22 issue:

An intellectually honest case can be made for supporting Barack Obama, but Deepak Bhargava abandons that path the moment he credits him with ending the war in Iraq. Obama strove mightily to secure Iraqi consent to a continued U.S. troop presence, but the deal was scuttled by WikiLeaks revelations that brought renewed attention to U.S. war crimes. Credit for the departure of American troops should go to WikiLeaks and the Iraqi people, not to Obama.

Other than a brief reference to the “war on terror,” Bhargava has nothing further to say about our use of force abroad. Nothing about drones; nothing about violating the War Powers Resolution in Libya; nothing about sanctions inflicting misery on innocent Iranians. Once, urged on by the voices of Martin Luther King and George McGovern, we understood that when the United States government commits injustice anywhere, it is our task to stop it. Now, it’s distressing to see many progressives making their peace with militarism and civil liberties abuses, as long as the victims comprise no significant voting bloc.

Marching Orders

(A version of this post is available at Foreign Policy in Focus.)

Richard Armitage is at it again.

George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State has made a career of telling Japan what to do. When Prime Minister Koizumi had second thoughts about joining the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, Armitage told an official, “Don’t try to back off.” Earlier, he had advised Japan (in Gavan McCormack’s paraphrase) to “pull its head out of the sand and make sure the Rising Sun flag was visible in the Afghanistan war.”

Now, in a report co-written with Joseph Nye for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Armitage states: “Japan should confront the historical issues that continue to complicate relations with ROK [South Korea].” The report was released on August 15, in the midst of an upsurge in tensions between Japan and its neighbors. Koreans, Chinese and other Asians suffered horribly from Japanese imperialism, and despite repeated apologies and some payment of reparations, many in those countries feel that Japan has not adequately redressed its wrongs. Millions of Japanese agree. But the cause of further redress is only undermined by the current spate of tit-for-tat visits to islands of disputed sovereignty, rabid demonstrations, and demands for apology that predictably drive up nationalistic feeling on all sides.

It goes without saying that overcoming these differences would be in the interests of Japan, South Korea, and China. It would help them to peacefully cooperate and devote resources to problems in the here and now. Most of all, it would serve justice. But why, exactly, are Armitage and Nye pressing for Japan to do this? In order to answer this question, we must examine some of their other recommendations for Japan.

• “Cautious resumption of nuclear power generation is the right and responsible step for Japan.”
• “At the first rhetorical sign or indication of Iran’s intention to close the Strait of Hormuz, Japan should unilaterally send minesweepers to the region. Japan should also increase surveillance of the South China Sea in collaboration with the United States to ensure freedom of navigation.”
• “Japan should expand the scope of her responsibilities to include the defense of Japan and defense with the United States in regional contingencies.”

The last item requires explanation: it is a reference to collective self-defense (the use of force to defend an ally), which is proscribed under war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. This prohibition is one of the few ways that Article 9 is still honored – another “historical issue” that “complicates” matters for American power projection. The report notes that the U.S. military’s assistance to Japan in the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami set a useful precedent for interoperability with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. It was clear from the start that the cynically named Operation Tomodachi (“Friend”) was intended to make Japanese citizens more amenable to the presence of U.S. troops.

The paternalism of these recommendations fits a pattern going back to Douglas MacArthur, who famously characterized Japan as a twelve-year old boy. These days, Americans employ more tactful language and affirm their respect for public opinion when issuing orders to Japan – at least in public. But does it matter to the authors, for example, that poll after poll shows support for eliminating nuclear power? Probably not. Michael Green, another former Bush official who participated in the creation of the document, scorned resistance to nuclear power in Japan as NIMBYism – just weeks before the Fukushima disaster.[1] Of course, the authors insist that all this is for Japan’s own good, but curiously, in their formulation, Japan rarely has interests at odds with the U.S. Imagine the howls arising from Congress if a group of Japanese ex-officials started issuing prescriptions to the United States – advising it, for example, how to interpret its Constitution and employ its armed forces.

However, reports like this find a receptive audience in the Japanese halls of power. The conservative establishment there has long chafed under Article 9 restrictions. Despite much talk of “soft power,” the overwhelming tendency is to entrust security to military might – at first, under the American “nuclear umbrella,” but increasingly to Japanese and American forces acting in concert (under overall American command, of course). All this fits into McCormack’s depiction of Japan as an American client state, with “servility on one side and condescension and contempt on the other.” When Prime Minister Hatoyama made efforts toward an East Asian Community and to reduce the burden of American military bases on Okinawa, he was punished with a stone wall of resistance from the Obama Administration, and resigned after less than nine months in office. Ever since, prime ministers have clung more tightly to the American embrace. Though there are growing calls to reconsider the alliance in view of an increasingly multipolar world, the CSIS report aims to extend Japan’s role within U.S. hegemony. Given longstanding personal and institutional links between the two countries’ national security establishments, it may succeed.

And therein lies a contradiction. As Philip Seaton observes, the U.S. has long served as an enabler for Japanese politicians who nullify previous apologies for wartime behavior with provocative words and deeds:

Overall, American policy, particularly since 9/11, has been unambiguously helpful to Japanese conservatives. The American government supports the Japanese government on compensation (even concerning claims by US citizens), is in favour of renouncing the pacifist element of Japan’s constitution, does not condemn worship at Yasukuni Shrine where all the war criminals executed by the Allies … are enshrined, and is actively pushing for the remilitarization of Japan. Some American neo-cons have even suggested that Japan should arm itself with nuclear weapons to confront the North Korean threat, a proposal that horrified many Japanese. Given that all of these are (or would be) viewed as a ‘failure to address the past’ if pursued unilaterally by the Japanese government, the complicity of Japan’s most important ally in that ‘failure to address the past’ becomes stark.[2]

The Armitage-Nye report clearly persists in this complicity. Increasing the offensive capability and scope of the Japanese military is the last thing likely to assuage bitter memories of the Imperial Japanese Army’s behavior during the Fifteen Year War of 1931 to 1945. And to encourage a reliance on force is to suggest that such wounds can be safely left to fester.

Thus, the primary objectives of this report conflict with its call for overcoming history problems. If the Armitage crowd had any genuine interest in righting the wrongs of past wars, they would be just as eager to see Chinese grievances addressed as those of Koreans (not to mention the innumerable victims of American atrocities). Instead, they invoke the bogeyman of China’s rise as their main rationale for Japan-U.S. military integration. To be sure, China’s aggressive assertion of its territorial claims plays into their hands: “alliance managers” in Washington and Tokyo eagerly exploit friction with China (and North Korea) to overcome resistance as they introduce more and more weapons systems into Japan. And so, one recommendation the report does not make – in this seventy-fifth anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre – is that Japan more fully face up to the outrages it perpetrated in China.

No, the CSIS experts are interested in contestation over history only to the extent that it interferes with American strategic goals: Japan and Korea must stop squabbling so they can be more effectively used by the United States to counter China. When South Korea, in the face of public opposition centering on historical disputes, scuttled an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, it was very bad news in the Pentagon. Sure enough, the report urges “quick movement to conclude” the pact.

In a presentation of the report, Armitage speaks admiringly of Japan’s “national brand” (51:30 in the video), seemingly unaware of the major part Article 9 played in building it. He and Nye write that Japan can ignore their report unless it wishes to be a “tier-one nation,” meaning one, like the United States, with “significant economic weight, capable military forces, global vision, and demonstrated leadership on international concerns.” That is, if you want to be an impotent little nothing of a country, go right ahead. Armitage, though, hopes for “a Japan in which young Japanese can dream, not just exist” (59:05). In order to do more than “just exist,” apparently, your country must be constantly at war. It must be, in other words, an empire, or at least the favored vassal of one.

Just because the Armitage-Nye report’s call for Japan to rectify its historical differences with South Korea is purely self-interested and contradictory is no reason for intransigence. The problem is that no solution framed in terms of cleaving to the U.S., or reluctantly joining together with South Korea against China, will last. In the midst of the current crisis, the way forward requires recognizing the common interests of all the people of East Asia – no matter how much they diverge from those of the American foreign policy elite.

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[1] Michael J. Green, “The Democratic Party of Japan and the Future of the U.S.-Japan Alliance”, The Journal of Japanese Studies, 37:1 (Winter 2011), p. 109.

[2] Philip A. Seaton, Japan’s Contested War Memories: The ‘memory rifts’ in historical consciousness of World War II (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 72.

Mirror Image

Political candidates are regularly accused of flip-flopping. But they’re not the only ones who do it.

Suppose that the incumbent president were a Republican named Amabo, and that (except for a few issues like marriage equality and abortion) he were running on a record identical to Obama’s.

Is there any doubt that Republicans would be touting President Amabo’s record on the economy, while Democrats were forever assailing his failure to bring down unemployment? That Republicans would be lauding their candidate as the greatest commander in chief since Reagan, with Democrats bitterly accusing him of betraying Israel?

Many, if not most, would be adopting talking points that are the exact opposites of those they’re using now. In many respects, it would be a mirror image of the present campaign.

This is not about Obama and Romney. This is about the abdication of principle in the interest of party allegiance and the cult of the leader. If your view of a politician’s record on issue x depends not on her record itself, but on her party or rhetorical skills or even her record on issue y, you’ve lost some of your own integrity.

This is not without consequences for the country as a whole.

Such switches of convenience would be harder to pull off without the shrinking differences between the two parties as they both move to the right. And when you adopt the other side’s arguments in order to help your candidate, you become more like them.

A similar thing operates when people withhold criticism of their candidate for political gain. Republicans give a pass to Romney for his Massachusetts health care mandate and past support for reproductive rights, while few Democrats find fault with Obama’s civilian-killing drone attacks and prosecution of whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning.

Maintaining our integrity as citizens is more important than who wins the election. We are responsible for the level of discourse in our political debates. Unless we hold ourselves to high standards, we end up with shapeshifters for leaders, and no hope of solving the very serious problems we face.

“Civilians,” “Military-age males,” and Language Abuse

Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.

–George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

A “senior administration official” recently claimed that the number of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan was in the “single digits.” As we’ve all learned by now, he was using a definition of “civilian” concocted to allow him to make such claims. It turns out that if you are killed in a U.S. airstrike, and you are a “military-age male”, you’re not a civilian.

But a definition itself contains words, and they too must be defined. What does the Obama administration regard as “military age” in the countries it targets? 18 – 35? 15 – 50? Does it even have a precise definition? Or would that have the undesired effect of boxing them in?

But that’s not the end of it. Using photographs alone, how can they assess the age of a Hellfire missile-ravaged corpse? Could it be some of these “militants” were actually 12-year-old boys? For that matter, it seems unlikely that they can even determine gender in all cases. Just as they regard “military-age males” as combatants “unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent,” is everyone assumed to be male and “military-age” unless proven otherwise?

This is not to suggest that a tightly circumscribed and verifiable definition of “military-age male” would make for a legitimate criterion for judging whether the people we kill were combatants or not. If the dead include infants, women and old men, the assumption that all “military-age males” in the group were “up to no good” becomes absurd, and cruel.

There’s nothing really new here. Recall how Bush assured us “This government does not torture people.” Office of Legal Counsel lawyers had greased the skids for this lie by redefining “torture” to require pain equivalent to that “accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The aim was to permit waterboarding. Obama’s Attorney General seems to have taken lessons from John Yoo, for he redefined “due process” a few months ago as something that the White House can take care of all by itself, with no pesky interference from the judicial branch. And when even Holder couldn’t buy the attempt to get around the War Powers Resolution, Obama found some other lawyers to reclassify the “kinetic military action” in Libya under a heading other than “hostilities”.

Of all the ways the Obama administration has picked up where Bush left off, perhaps the most surprising is its continuing abuse of language. Clearly, we must be vigilant sentence-parsers, and demand that our officials define their terms.

On Empathy: Obama’s, Cheney’s, and Ours

Dick Cheney:
“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with. …With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.”

Barack Obama:
“But I have to tell you that over the course of– several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors. When I think about– members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together….At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that– for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that– I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Every positive development has a negative side (and leave it to me to find it). How fortunate for the cause of marriage equality that there are gay people on the White House staff, and that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Perhaps if the president had some staffers from Yemen, or the former vice president’s daughter married a Pakistani, they would awaken to the humanity of people in those places too.

But Obama’s recognition of the right of gay Americans to marry is not matched by an awareness of the right of Afghans to live free of airstrikes. Instead, we have an endless succession of horrors like this, sometimes (but not always) followed by apologies that would mean something if only they were followed by the complete abandonment of a strategy that leads inevitably to parents weeping over the lifeless bodies of their children. I doubt Obama would be so cavalier about civilian casualties if they happened in Chicago.

It’s nice that Cheney and Obama overcame a prejudice through personal experience, but no matter how many “friends” we have on Facebook, there will still be segments of society and parts of the world we don’t know well. With that in mind, we would do well to recognize and resist stereotypes habitually, not just when our experiences force us to. The more superficially “different” a group of people seem to be, and the more our communities regard them as pariahs, the more skeptical of our received opinions we should be.

I’ve long advocated what I call “diffuse empathy”. People tend to take more of an interest in the sufferings of others when they can relate to an individual’s story, and see how much they have in common with that person. This can happen through personal acquaintance, through art, or even the news media. For example, movies such as “Schindler’s List” help us feel the abstract horror of genocide acutely by taking us into the lives of particular victims. The problem is that this makes our compassion contingent on the particular stories that happen to reach us. Thus, while it’s important to keep the awful history of the Holocaust in memory, tragedies going on right now – such as in Palestine – rarely seem to gain Hollywood’s attention.

This perilous selectivity is also on display in the attention the U.S. news media pays to victims of war and terrorism. The New York Times devotes an extensive feature to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and NPR occasionally does a whole story on an American solder killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, including interviews with friends and family members. All of which is well and good. But when it comes to the innocent victims of U.S. violence, our news media cannot be troubled to even name them. Instead, such people remain anonymous statistics.

But really, it shouldn’t make any difference. Others shouldn’t have to convince us of their humanity to arouse ours. If empathy can be likened to light, a diffuse glow extending everywhere is far better than a powerful but narrow beam focused on a select few, while leaving the rest of the world in darkness.