Violence never enough for this president

From Jim Naureckas’s August 30 article “When It Comes to State Violence, 'Too Much Is Never Enough'”

Editing, brief comments by Carolyn Bennett

In his five years in office, U.S. President Barack Obama has executed at least six wars against nations of the world, their peoples and leaders. 

He about tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, from 33,000 to 98,000. 

In 2011, President Obama, the Obama government sent naval and air forces into battle to overthrow the government of Libyan President Muammar al- Qaddafi. 

President Obama and his government tried and failed to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq [as they are doing with Afghanistan] beyond the withdrawal deadline negotiated by the former President George W. Bush and his government.

Since 2009, President Obama’s/U.S. drone strikes have killed more than 2,000 people in Pakistan ─ including 240 civilians among them 62 children.

Since Barack Obama assumed the U.S. presidency, U.S. drone strikes have killed more than 400 people in Yemen. 

Somalia has suffered President’s/U.S. drone strikes, which are “harder to quantify.”

This is far from indicative of a “hesitancy to use force.” It is a flagrant, callous even cavalier taking of human life: Madness.

State Violence

M

edia critic Jim Naureckas was responding to mass media’s pressuring for more wars against Syria and Iran (the latter’s people already suffer ─ as did Iraq before full-out invasion ─ U.S. warfare of sanctions) and a writer who makes the ludicrous suggestion that six wars against foreign countries amount to this president’s “hesitancy in the use of force.”

Naureckas concludes, “No matter how many wars you engage in, there are always wars you could have started but didn't”; and the Time Magazine writer he is critiquing “seems to be suggesting that those unfought wars ought to take the blame for any problems Obama leaves behind.”

T

he old Legacy of Hesitancy (or "soft on," you name it, “Communists,” “terrorists”, “axes of evil,” whatever is this season’s non-threat-concocted-as-threat) charge as opposed to a projection of this president’s true Legacy: 

…of lawlessness and cold-bloodedness, 

global destabilization and provocation, 

invasion and occupation, 

breach of sovereignty and abuse of human rights of many nations and peoples.

F

ormer U.S. President Jimmy Carter in a speech earlier this year said: “Our country is now looked upon as the foremost war-like nation on earth. And there is almost a complete dearth now of a commitment of America to negotiate differences with others. 

"It is not just Democrats or Republicans or a particular president. 

"It is a consciousness or attitude of Americans like you and me. We need to be working for peace for others as well as ourselves.… 

“The Middle East is a typical example where there is a need for peace.”

You be the judge of the current president's (together with mass media and the U.S. Congress and corporate interests') foreign relations legacy.

Sources and notes

“When It Comes to State Violence, Too Much Is Never Enough” by Jim Naureckas, August 30, 2013, http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/08/30/when-it-comes-to-state-violence-too-much-is-never-enough/ 

Jim Naureckas

Since 1990, Jim Naureckas has been the editor of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s bimonthly journal of media criticism, Extra!

Naureckas co-manages FAIR’s website and is co-author of The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ‘90s. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the newspaper In These Times, where he covered the Iran-Contra scandal; and was managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere, a newsletter on Latin America. Jim Naureckas is a Stanford University graduate in political science. http://www.fair.org/blog/author/jim-naureckas/

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is the national media watch group that has been offering offers well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986.

FAIR works to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, FAIR exposes neglected news stories and defends working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting, and promote strong non-profit sources of information. http://fair.org/about-fair/

“Challenges of a Superpower” (PDF): Speech by Jimmy Carter to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, California, February 24, 2013, http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/editorials-speeches/carter-speech-022413-challenges-of-a-superpower.pdf

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