A member of the president’s National Security Council who shares Noam Chomsky’s foreign-policy goals? An influential presidential adviser whom 1960s revolutionary Tom Hayden treats as a fellow radical? A White House official who wrote a book aiming to turn an anti-American, anti-Israel, Marxist-inspired, world-government-loving United Nations bureaucrat into a popular hero? Samantha Power, senior director of multilateral affairs for the National Security Council and perhaps the principal architect of our current intervention in Libya, is all of these things.
These scary-sounding tidbits might be dismissed as isolated “gotchas.” Unfortunately, when we view these radical outcroppings in the full sweep of her life’s work, Samantha Power emerges as a patriot’s nightmare — a woman determined to subordinate America’s national sovereignty to an international order largely controlled by leftist bureaucrats. Superficially, Power’s chief concern is to put a stop to genocide and “crimes against humanity.” More deeply, her goal is to use our shared horror at the worst that human beings can do in order to institute an ever-broadening regime of redistributive transnational governance.
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Knowing what Samantha Power wants reveals a great deal about Barack Obama’s own ideological commitments. It’s not just a question of whether he shares Power’s long-term internationalist goals, although it’s highly likely that he does. Power’s thinking also represents a bridge of sorts between Obama’s domestic- and foreign-policy aspirations. Beyond that, Power embodies a style of pragmatic radicalism that Obama shares. Both Obama and Power are skilled at placing their ultimate ideological goals just out of sight, behind a screen of practical problem-solving.
THE MOTIVES BEHIND THE INTERVENTION
Critics of President Obama’s intervention in Libya — and there are many all across the political spectrum — have taken a variety of approaches to the novel characteristics of this military action. Some have lamented the president’s failure to establish a clear path to victory (i.e., the overthrow of Qaddafi), or indeed any unambiguous goal beyond the protection of civilian lives. By traditional war-fighting standards, the rationale given for Obama’s Libyan intervention amounts to incoherence and weakness.
Viewing the glass as half full, however, others have declared that the president secretly does want to oust Qaddafi and establish a democratic regime, or at least that the logic of events will inevitably force Obama in that direction. Still others have suggested that a quick overthrow of Qaddafi followed by withdrawal would establish a positive model for punitive expeditions, without the costly aftermath of nation-building. And some have simply christened Obama’s seemingly directionless strategy as an intentional program of pragmatic flexibility.
While there’s much to be said for each of these responses, more attention needs to be given to analyzing Obama’s intervention from the standpoint of his administration’s actual motives — which in this case, I believe, are largely coincidental with Samantha Power’s motives. Obama has told us that the action in Libya is a multilateral intervention, under United Nations auspices; that it is for fundamentally humanitarian purposes, but has strategic side benefits; and that it represents an opening for the United States to pursue its own goal of ousting Qaddafi, although via strictly non-military means. While Obama has in fact taken covert military steps against Qaddafi, and while our bombing campaign has been structured in such a way as to undermine Qaddafi when possible, we have indeed inhibited ourselves to a significant degree from pursuing regime change by military means.
Obama may not have been completely frank about the broader ideological goals behind this intervention, and yet the president’s address to the nation, as far as it went, was largely accurate. Fundamentally, our Libyan operation is a humanitarian action, with no clear or inevitable military-strategic purpose beyond that. There is enormous risk here, and no endgame. We might take strategic advantage of our restricted humanitarian action. But we might not, and, in any case, we are under no obligation to do so. For all we know, many of those we’re defending with American aircraft and missiles could be our dedicated terrorist enemies. From the standpoint of traditional calculations of national interest, this war is something akin to madness. Yet without fully articulating it (and that reticence is intentional), Obama and Power are attempting to accustom us to a whole new way of thinking about war, and about America’s place in the world.
I have always maintained that Obama isn't foolish or naive with regard to foriegn policy, he is absolutely commited to re-oredering our standing to that of a 3rd world participant.
Impoverish the nation through debilitating spending, thus forcing a reduction in military spending and make us dependent upon the UN (I wish it were UI instead, I so much more enjoy Useless Idiots to Useless Nations).
We must, at any cost, (legal of course) send this man packing in 2012.
Samantha Power does not share Noam Chomsky's view. She obviously believes in humanitarian intervention. I suggest looking up Noam's panel discussion on R2P at the UN.
This author surely know nothing of Chomsky's ideology but can count on the readers here to not either
The Obama cults--for and against--use "pragmatic" as, respectively, praise and blame. But doctrinaire and opportunistic is not "pragmatic." Charles Saunders Peirce would not recognize any of this. It might be useful in the context Mr. Kurtz describes to recover Peirce's sense of the word.
MikeB -- I skimmed the link. LexLuthor, eh? Obama isn't particularly smart overall. Nor has he lost his hair. Good thing, because the GOP isn't coming up with superheroes at the moment.
The article is more about Power, anyway. Her influence with Obama is obvious. They both want the US diminished in a unilateral disarmament context, which is suicide. If people hate us, we should maintain and beef up our military, and start bringing it home. People who hate us aren't asking for our help because they want our help. They just want us to come be targets that they can get to. Some of them may want a society like ours used to be, but they are a minority.
Funny thing about humanitarianism. You can ask almost all Americans, yes or no, do they want everyone to have the same basic rights we have, and they will say yes. Ditto a question about whether they want everyone to have all the medical care they want or need, plenty of food, nice clothes, a pleasant house to live in....and we do want everyone to have all those things. No one is going to say they don't want other people to have medical care, food, or a house. We do want people to have happy healthy lives. But we also want to have happy healthy lives ourselves, and we recognize that there is only so much we can give toward helping others before our personal quality of life suffers.
So when there is a humanitarian crisis alleged somewhere, I will pray for them and maybe donate a few bucks to sending food and medical supplies or helping them get to a better place. But sending the military to force their place to be a better place seems insane. The military is to protect our nation and its citizens, not the people of other nations. I don't know if we can stand alone, though I doubt it, but I don't think we can support everyone. We can offer encouraging words, but I don't see the justification based on our national interest for sending the military anywhere.
Of course, it would help if there was a document that defined our national interest, because the only one I can come up with is the right to exist as a nation based on the Constitution, not on international law or sharia or the Hammurabian code. If someone knows of such a thing, please post.
I read this article and am not disappointed or surprised by anything in it. During the 2008 presidential election, I knew that President Obama is an anti-American radical, and his administration is staffed with people who share his views. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Democratic Party dislikes America almost as much as President Obama does. No one should be surprised by any of this.
The part that I find disappointing but not surprising is that former president George W. Bush was charmed by Vieira de Meillo. As low of an opinion as I have of George W.
Bush, he always manages to find a way to cause me to hold him in even lower esteem.
This brings me to my main point. Invading Iraq and toppling the Baath Party from power was practically bloodless. However, George W. Bush wanted to prove that the motives of the U.S. were pure and so we stayed in Iraq for the following 8 years to try to democratize the country. We cannot prove that we are the good guys to people who want to believe that we are evil. By trying to prove we are the good guys, we get ourselves in all sorts of international boondoggles such as Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
The purpose of our military is not to deliver meals to the needy around the world. Its purpose is to kill our nation's enemies, burn their cities to the ground, and cause people who wish us ill around the globe to think twice before crossing us.
Whatever Ms Powers' goals she knows nothing about the use of military power to reach a defined goal. Rather it introduces a sustained state of chaos and crisis that is used to justify removing more liberties from citizens. Another goal she shares with the President.
It is becoming more apparent that this President will not tell the truth about his goals or methods, that he believes that lying is justified to his enemies and that the people of his country that disagree with him are indistinguishable from those enemies.
To those of you who think this nightmare will be over in a couple of years ... WAKE UP!
While you sit on your couch, reading or watching the news, and shaking your head at the insanity, Obama and his community-organizing friends are getting to work on the next election campaign.
Right now Obama allows people like Samantha Power to test their academic theories using the power, influence, and resources of the U.S. If he is re-elected, there will be no more tests. They will go full steam ahead to implement their greatest desires because there will be no re-election campaign ahead of them.
Think the economy, government spending, inflation, and joblessness are going to keep Obama out of the White House for another four years? If you do, you're a fool.
Two of cdscott1968’s points need to be stressed, hammered home, reiterated, carved into psyches and repeated over and over…and over again.
Point 1: “No one should be surprised by any of this.”
Point 2: “The purpose of our military is not to deliver meals to the needy around the world. Its purpose is to kill our nation's enemies, burn their cities to the ground, and cause people who wish us ill around the globe to think twice before crossing us.”
as awful a president obama has been---what is worse is that obama has brought in these scary radicals into the weave of our government....communist threads, hiding like rats and influencing the policies costing American lives...
(anita dunn, power's husband, etc)
people like powers shouldn't be in any power of influence....how scary she is...idi amin is like a teddybear compared to this "monster"
who made her so high and mighty that she can USE our American Military power, our American Money to pay for her beliefs...
BuckeyeTexas is exactly right--there is NO reason why this jackleg Marxist won't be reelected next year.
I lost a lot of faith in the American people when they reelected Clinton, and this would be much worse. However, if the Republicas don't field someone that can defend himself against leftist slander and the entire mainstream media, we will be saddled w/ Obama for another 4 years. And then Biden will run--that may sound funny now, but it won't be if he wins, too.
