Whether Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn’t. The fact is, he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant standing.
He failed miserably, producing a hodge-podge that resembled the work of a bright but undisciplined sophomore.
He was hoist on the petard of classical “just war theory,” a theory that, properly understood, condemns his decision to send yet more kill-power into Afghanistan.
This theory which is much misused and little understood is designed to build a wall of assumptions against state-sponsored violence, i.e. war. It puts the burden of proof on the warrior where it belongs.
Pues sí … Es la retórica típica de Obama, la de las palabras que pretenden adornar la oscuridad de los hechos y las posiciones que de hecho se asumen desde dentro de las perspectivas neoliberales, y de las guerras que van de la mano con las intenciones y proyectos neoliberales.
No se pueden separar las guerras actuales de lo que es el neoliberalismo. Esa separación imaginaria y conveniente es lo que ha llevado a lo que a todas luces ha sido el fracaso del llamado movimiento en contra de las guerras actuales.
Obama sigue muy firme en el campo neoliberal, ajustando sus acciones en consonancia con las necesidades imperiales, de control y conquista, dentro y fuera del país, que no son sino los imperativos del neoliberalismo reinante que no tiene oposiciones suficientes.
Hay un cambio en el color de la piel de quien ocupa actualmente el puesto de primer ejecutivo estatal del país, del puesto político administrativo de los poderes que controlan ese gobierno. Lo que no hay es cambio sustancial en las prácticas y las políticas que mantienen al neoliberalismo y sus guerras necesarias. ¿Esto es el cambio en el cual podemos creer?
Las justificaciones de esa “justeza” de las guerras actuales solo reproducen las justificaciones del autoritarismo y las agresiones que vivimos desde hace al menos ocho años, a partir del 11 de septiembre del 2001.
Es más de lo mismo, de esa irrupción oscura y de muerte, de continuidad con las dinastías Bush y Clinton. Promete autoritarimo y guerra, con justificaciones enchapadas.
Acaso estamos deslumbrados. Acaso se resuelve uno que otro complejo histórico de este país, algo que se puede mediatizar y vender como logro. ¿Qué se logra?
Qué lástima. Resulta que todo esto está en la vorágine de la crisis climática y del ambiente … La estrategia sigue siendo mantener por ahora y mientras tanto el modo de producción de la energía basada en los hidrocarburos y las fabulosas ganancias que se obtienen con eso, y sostener las geopolíticas correspondientes.
Lo que hay con Obama es una separación, un distanciamiento muy calculado y oportunista, muy desde arriba, de las posiciones históricas de las luchas del movimiento a favor de los derechos civiles. La ironía es que sin ese movimiento no se hubiera dado la posibilidad de su presidencia.
¿Qué diría ahora Martin Luther King, que al final de su vida se opuso con valentía a la guerra en Viet Nam?
Mal precedente es este, que se acepte un premio por la paz en nombre de la guerra.
Ya sabemos qué esperar, ¿no? Y si no, pues entonces se reitera otra derrota.
Exodo, digo yo. Hay que salir del palacio, de la ciudad del faraón, sin mirar atrás, y apostar a lo que se descubra y se haga en el desierto. Ahí es donde late la vida.
http://www.counterpunch.org/maguire12162009.html
December 16, 2009
“A Pity Beyond All Telling”
Why Obama Flunks the “Just War” Test
By DANIEL C. MAGUIREWhether Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn’t. The fact is, he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant standing.
He failed miserably, producing a hodge-podge that resembled the work of a bright but undisciplined sophomore.
He was hoist on the petard of classical “just war theory,” a theory that, properly understood, condemns his decision to send yet more kill-power into Afghanistan.
This theory which is much misused and little understood is designed to build a wall of assumptions against state-sponsored violence, i.e. war. It puts the burden of proof on the warrior where it belongs.
It gives six conditions necessary to justify a war. Fail one, and the war is immoral. The six are:
(1) A just cause. The only just cause is defense against an attack, not a preemptive attack on those who might someday attack us. Obama flunked this one, saying our current military actions are “to defend ourselves and all nations from further [i.e. future] attacks.” President Bush speaks here through the mouth of President Obama.
(2) Declaration by competent authority: Article one Section 8 of the Constitution which gives this power to the Congress has not been used since 1941. Congressional resolutions instead yield the power to the President. Obama: “I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.” Sorry. Not according to the Constitution.
On top of that we are bound by treaty to the United Nations Charter. Article 2, Section 4 prohibits recourse to military force except in circumstances of self-defense which was restricted to responses to a prior “armed attack” (Article 51), and only then until the Security Council had the chance to review the claim.
Obama fails twice on proper declaration of war. He violates the UN Charter by claiming the right to act “unilaterally” and “individually.” Again, faithful echoes of President Bush.
(3) Right intention: This means that there is reasonable surety that the war will succeed in serving justice and making a way to real peace. Right intention is befouled by excessive secrecy, by putting the burdens of the war on the poor or future generations, by denying the right to conscientious object to soldiers who happen to know most of what is going on, and by a failure to understand the enemy’s grievances.
Obama declares gratuitously: “Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” So all we can do is send soldiers to kill them? Really? What negotiations have been tried to find out why they hate us and not Sweden, or Argentina, or China?
A pause for reflection might show that those and other countries are not bombing and killing civilians in three Muslim countries simultaneously. That could generate a little resentment. None of those countries not targeted by al Qaeda are financing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands in violation of UN resolutions.
The processes of negotiation allow light to shine in dark corners. Realpolitik eschews the light.
(4) The principle of discrimination, or non-combatant immunity. The science of war has made this condition so unachievable that only the policing paradigm envisioned by the UN Charter could ever justify state-sponsored violence.
Police operate within the constraints of law, as a communitarian effort, with oversight and follow-up review to prevent undue violence. Obama’s allusion to “42 other countries” joining in our violent work in Afghanistan and Iraq mocks the true intent of the collective action envisioned by the UN under supervision of the Security Council.
It is a mere disguise for our vigilante adventurism.
(5) Last resort. If state-sponsored violence is not the last resort we stand morally with hoodlums who would solve problems by murder. Obama fails to see that modern warfare, including counterinsurgency, is not the last or best resort against an enemy that has four unmatchable advantages: invisibility, versatility, patience, and the ability to find safe haven anywhere.
The idea of a single geographic safe haven is a myth and an anachronism reflecting the age of whole armies mobilizing in a definable locus. Obama’s speech showed no appreciation of the alternative of peace-making.
A Department of Peace (which would be a better name for a revitalized and better-funded State Department) would have as its goal to address in concert with other nations tensions as they begin to build.
Neglected crises can explode eventually into violence. This is used to assert the inevitability of war when it is only an indictment of improvident statecraft.
(6) The principle of proportionality: Put simply, the violence of war must do more good than harm. In judging war the impact on other nations and the environment must also be assessed in the balance sheet of good and bad results.
This is a hard test for modern warriors to pass. Victory in war is an oxymoron. No one wins a war: one side may lose less and may spin that as victory. Obama’s faith in the benefits of warring in three Muslim countries is delusional.
President Obama in Oslo was more a theologian than a statesman. He gave a condescending nod to nonviolent power but his theology of original sin tilted him toward violence as the surest and final arbiter for a fallen humanity.
It is “a pity beyond all telling” that the “just war theory” he invoked condemns the warring policies he anomalously defended as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Daniel C. Maguire, a professor of moral theological ethics at Marquette University, is the author of The Horrors We Bless: Rethinking the Just-War Legacy.