Antiwar Groups Fear Barack Obama May Create Hawkish Cabinet

November 22nd, 2008

And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter…

The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway.

—Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

—Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time

Via: Los Angeles Times:

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama’s national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.

“Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning,” said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the 54-chapter Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The activists — key members of the coalition that propelled Obama to the White House — fear he is drifting from the antiwar moorings of his once-longshot presidential candidacy. Obama has eased the rigid timetable he had set for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and he appears to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts.

The president-elect has told some Democrats that he expects to take heat from parts of his political base but will not be deterred by it.

Aside from Clinton and Gates, the roster of possible Cabinet secretaries has included Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who both voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq, though Lugar has since said he regretted it.

“It’s astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who voted against the war is in the mix,” said Sam Husseini of the liberal group Institute for Public Accuracy.

2 Responses to “Antiwar Groups Fear Barack Obama May Create Hawkish Cabinet”

  1. jak says:

    Does anyone else read Ran Prier? http://www.ranprieur.com/
    I read him from time to time and though I disagree with him plenty, I often value his perspectives.

    Recently (few months) though he seems to be chugging the Kool-Aid. I interpret his last post (Nov 21, 2008) as essentially saying if Obama doesn’t solve any problems the problems weren’t solvable in the first place:

    “Antiwar politicians locked out of Obama administration:’It’s astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who voted against the war is in the mix.’ I would say it’s disappointing, but we have to be careful how we think about this.

    [H]aving studied Obama closely over the last year, I trust him to do the best job that’s politically possible. Now, by watching what he does, we find out what is and is not politically possible. He’s like a scientific testing device, pointing to invisible forces.”

    To me it seems the cognitive dissonance/rationalization is setting in rather than having/admitting to what Kevin calls an “Oh sh!t!” moment (https://cryptogon.com/?p=5129).

  2. Loveandlight says:

    In other news, health advocates are concerned that peanut-butter cookies may have a high sugar and fat content.

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