OBAMA’S MILITARY MINDSET

Obama must rethink what he is doing in Afghanistan and ask himself some hard questions!
by Charlie Leck (introducing Howard Zinn)

Lately, I’ve become extremely interested in the writing of Howard Zinn. A friend introduced me to him a couple of months ago (THE PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES).

Well, Zinn recently published an essay on THE PROGRESSIVE (a damned fine web publication) that all progressives should support.

In his contribution, called CHANGING OBAMA’S MINDSET, Zinn wants to know what happened to the Obama who said, “It’s not just that we have to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.”

What mindset is Obama talking about? Zinn proposes to answer that question.

“It’s the mindset that says force will do the trick. Violence, war, bombers—that they will bring democracy and liberty to the people.

“It’s the mindset that says America has some God-given right to invade other countries for their own benefit. We will bring civilization to the Mexicans in 1846. We will bring freedom to the Cubans in 1898. We will bring democracy to the Filipinos in 1900. You know how successful we’ve been at bringing democracy all over the world.
“Obama has not gotten out of this militaristic missionary mindset. He talks about sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan.

“Obama is a very smart guy, and surely he must know some of the history. You don’t have to know a lot to know the history of Afghanistan has been decades and decades and decades and decades of Western powers trying to impose their will on Afghanistan by force: the English, the Russians, and now the Americans. What has been the result? The result has been a ruined country.”

I hope you’ll read Zinn’s powerful commentary. Again, here’s where you go:http://www.progressive.org/zinn0509.html