Robert Parry: WPost Sees Neocon Hope in Obama

[laststeamtrain]

WPost Sees Neocon Hope in Obama

By Robert Parry
April 4, 2009

When reading Washington Post editorials, one often is reminded of the famous question from “Shawshank Redemption”: “How can you be so obtuse?”

Of course, in the movie, the warden wasn’t being “obtuse” as much as he was obfuscating and obstructing. And similarly, one has to wonder if the Post’s apparent obtuseness is really something willful, that there is a method to the maddening stupidity.

Such was the case with the Post’s lead editorial on April 4, “New Words of War,” in which the newspaper’s neoconservative editorial writers equate ex-President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” with President Barack Obama’s more targeted strategy against al-Qaeda.

The Post apparently still won’t accept that Bush’s blunderbuss GWOT against “every terrorist group of global reach” was a geopolitical and constitutional disaster. Instead, by cherry-picking a few words here and there, the Post argues there’s no real difference between Bush’s conflict against all “terrorists” everywhere and Obama’s targeted assault on al-Qaeda and its allies along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

In criticizing the Obama administration for allegedly playing word games by dropping the GWOT phrasing, the Post was itself playing word games.

<snip>

By narrowing the scope of the conflict, Obama also has implicitly rejected Bush’s corollary, that the GWOT requires a suspension of American liberties. Neither of these shifts is insignificant – and to ignore them is obtuse.

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/040409.html

[Demeter]

1. I See No Difference

We're STILL in Iraq, we're STILL in Afghanistan, we're still fighting the bogeymans. And our troops are still dying, as are the citizens of both invaded nations.

[Elidor]

2. The article spells out the differences clearly.

The last 3 graphs sum it up:

The Post wants to pretend that Obama is vindicating the Bush/neocon position by keeping its substance although changing its name. Leftists are pushing the line that Obama is no different from Bush, that Obama is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But neither position recognizes that Obama has abandoned key components of Bush’s GWOT, particularly its infinite nature, both in time and space. Obama has transformed the GWOT into a much more focused and conventional conflict, targeting a specific terrorist group and its allies.

By narrowing the scope of the conflict, Obama also has implicitly rejected Bush’s corollary, that the GWOT requires a suspension of American liberties. Neither of these shifts is insignificant – and to ignore them is obtuse.