LET OBAMA BE OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!

the desire to avoid inflaming anti-Americanism when the country is trying to rebuild its image

Of all of Obama’s excuses, and he had no greater UK supporter during his campaign than I, this is the weakest. Telling the world the images will make everyone hate America even more just makes it harder for the world to move on from rightly being angry at the horror and hypocrisy of how America has tortured people in Abu Ghraib and prisons across the world.

It all smells like bad attempts to not cause any controversy at home – typical Democrat bullshit. America needs to see what has been done in its name and face up to it: otherwise it will never learn.

Off topic, but the closest to a fictional counterpart Obama has in The West Wing was Matt Santos, the Democratic President elected at the end of the series: perhaps Neil is referring to Jed Bartlet, the Democratic President who found himself constrained by a political team that wanted to play it safe until they decided to “Let Bartlet be Bartlet”. This is the episode in reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Bartlet_Be_Bartlet

War Crimes are you serious? President Bush, Dick Cheney defended their Nation to the end. They have done nothing wrong and waterboarding is not torture. They are a Soveriegn Nation and can do whats in the best interest for the United States. 9/11 can never be forgiven or forgotten. Or is the Liberal Left on the side of Terrorists? Its also funny how the Left go on about Free Speech and yet if some one from the Right says something its classed as hateful? Oh and the United States should have kept Binyam Mohammed.

Although the British media have been ignoring this in favour of their usual parochial preoccupations, torture has been THE topic in the US for weeks; many pundits have talked of little else. Obama lacks the stomach to go after the criminals, but sooner or later he may have to.

Don’t feed the Troll, hes talking nonsense.

Obama has a serious reserve of goodwill and political capital. The most important point to take away from his action is to imagine the things he does as though they were being done by John McCain, or anyone you wouldn’t want to be POTUS. Once you have your reaction to that man you can mediate between swooning for Obama and decrying McCain.

Obama has missed a lot of opportunities and I hope that he is simply restrained by circumstances, because theres a chance that hes just a continuation of what went before. For example, just look at the number of Clinton staffers in his entourage.

I think its fair pragmatism to be honest. You can’t just pile on so many accusations at your own intelligence community that they become completely demoralised and collapse under a torrent of lawsuits.

Obama was criticised by Cheney etc for revealing the torture memos. To then allow the CIA to be part of a witch-hunt for abuse meant that the agency and his relationship would suffer badly when he needs them for Af-Pak.

Besides, it would feel the right-wing meme that he is against America’s security.

He’s been there for just over a 100 days for god’s sakes! You can’t have him tackle every controversy under the sun! It was a pragmatic and wise decision. He deserves criticism for it (I don’t think Democrats should avoid criticism of Obama) but I think it was the right decision to make.

Nonsense, I bet there are as many people in the CIA who are disgusted with what has occurred as anywhere else.

Their good name (well not that good) has been sullied by what has occurred.

The parts of the CIA involved may become demoralised, and some important sections they are too, but the catharsis is required for the CIA to improve on its reputation.

Neil…

“We also should refrain from seeing these incidents as proof that Obama will spend his term obstructing the pursuit of justice; given the scale of the furore and the fact that his administration has allowed some openness, it’s still quite possible that proper public investigations will be carried out during the next 3 1/2 years.”

I believe that the correct reaction to this openness is “have a cookie“.

The investigation of torture is necessary not just because the acts – despicable though they were – but because of what the acts led to. The torture of suspected 9/11 conspirators, for example, was integral to the Commission of the same number; despite the fact that they talked complete nonsense. Torture also extracted the fetid balls that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq (and one of the victims has just, rather conveniently, died). Proper torture investigations would, in other words, be the rabbit-hole into all the horrors of the Bush administration, which is why a) they’re so integral and b) I doubt Obama will hold them. Then again, I am having a really bad day.

But what these obstructions do show is that opponents of torture – especially among those who supported him – can no longer afford to give his administration the benefit of the doubt. They must decry every attempt at secrecy, denounce every delay and immerse the White House in such a sustained wall of sound that full accountability becomes the only politically sensible course of action.

Well said.

…not as a matter of Right & Wrong, but as a policy argument where the choice isn’t between what is ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, but what what works to secure America’s safety.

Have you seen this?

Sunny,

You can’t just pile on so many accusations at your own intelligence community that they become completely demoralised and collapse under a torrent of lawsuits.

Accusations? Well, that’s one way of describing clear evidence of widespread, sometimes fatal, torture.

“Besides, it would feel the right-wing meme that he is against America’s security.”

To which we could only say…”Go boil yer heads”.

“He deserves criticism for it (I don’t think Democrats should avoid criticism of Obama) but I think it was the right decision to make.”

He deserves criticism for making the right decision. Qué?

I think the Democrats should not shy from criticising Obama when he makes a decision they do not like. I do not like the decision to do so either.

However, I think pragmatically it is the right decision to make at this time. Obama has bigger issues he needs to focus on: securing Af-Pak / pushing through Healthcare reform, and forcing the Israeli PM to follow through on the peace process.

I think the bigger issue is whether this adminstration has shied away from condemning torture and whether it will allow lawmakers to excuse it in the future. It won’t. So unless Obama allows torture to carry on – I don’t see how prosecutions, at this time, will help his agenda. My worry is that he will be seen as trying to destroy establishment organisations that tried to protect the country, and thus his ratings will drop, he will continue to come under fire for making the country more unsafe, and his other more important agenda items will fall away.

Right now I don’t want to see that happen. I see healthcare reform as far more an important issue.

At some point every left-winger who believed in Obama was going to be disappointed. For me, that point has arrived. Yes, he is quite soon into his first term but anyone familiar with American politics knows that you only have about a year to make serious changes if you are ever going to make them, before the pressure of the midterms and then re-election take their toll. What he has done so far effectively prevents him from pursuing a progressive agenda on civil liberties/domestic security/foreign policy. I’ve defended him from others on the left so far but no longer. Maybe the war in Afghanistan tied his hands from the beginning, or maybe I’ve been watching too much West Wing and it really is too much to ask for a President to do what is right rather than what will not piss off their intelligence/security services or stupid right-wing fuckheads who will never support him no matter how much he triangulates.

America is not ready for a genuinely progressive president, and the Democrats are certainly not ready to produce a genuinely progressive candidate. Part of Obama’s appeal to me was that his campaign got so many more people active in politics than any other candidate before or since. Perhaps from these people, a candidate we can truly believe in will arise.

It was neither politically pragmatic, because I don’t see what he has gained from it in terms of silencing his nutjob critics on the right (oh no! right-wing memes peddled by Rush Limbaugh! Let’s stay in Iraq and invade Iran!), nor was it morally correct. Just pointless, spineless triangulating – people further down the left were right, he has surrounded himself with too many Clinton-era wankers.

Thanks for the comments, people.

@Rayaan,

This is a slimmed-down version of a longer post over at my own blog(http://bit.ly/sFIrA), and I think the West Wing reference works better in that context than it does here. Completely agree about the ‘anti-Americanism’ excuse, btw.

@Left Outside,

I think there is a degree of being restrained by circumstance, but equally, even his supporters have worried about an overly-deferential relationship with the national security establishment (see his picks for Secretaries of Defense & State, for example), and these actions only fuels their concern. But it’s still early days, of course, and I’ve tried to hold back from denouncing him when it’s not at all clear how this thing’s going to develop. I never got the sense that he was being insincere when he made those campaign promises, but I do think he’s having a hard time reconciling those promises with what some of his advisors are telling him.

Ben,

Proper torture investigations would, in other words, be the rabbit-hole into all the horrors of the Bush administration, which is why a) they’re so integral and b) I doubt Obama will hold them. Then again, I am having a really bad day.

Bad day or not, you make your point well and may turn out to be right. But this is why there are branches of government, and if President Obama won’t accede to the kind of transparency which is obviously required, then Congress will have to act and conduct the investigations which are within its power. Granted, the chances of that happening aren’t too high either, but at least it’s a fall-back option for opponents of torture to keep the pressure up.

Thanks for the video link, btw. I’m still not used to DailyKos contributors having real names, but his performance is stellar.

Also, I’m not sure where re-introducing military commissions, which he criticised as being unjust during the campaign, fits into the whole pragmatism schtick. If anything people are disappointed he’s reversing his campaign promises so quickly. Not normally a fan of the way Sirota, Greenwald etc attack Obama but the latter is spot on with this one:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/14/afghanistan/index.html

Until everything is known about how America has tortured and abused people in Iraq, Afghanistan etc there will be NO solution to the wars there.

oh no! right-wing memes peddled by Rush Limbaugh! Let’s stay in Iraq and invade Iran!)

He’s neither staying in Afghanistan nor planning to attack Iran (in fact his secretary has just forced the Israelis to accept they won’t launch a unilateral attack on Iran).

Also, it would be good if someone could link to or write an article laying out not only the argument for the continued presence of the US in Afghanistan but more importantly their plan, i.e. what is it they are trying to achieve, how long do they intend to stay there, how on earth they think they can achieve anything there when Pakistan is disintegrating and Afghanistan is already such a mess, and so on.

Oh, and someone please tell me how these two actions by American military forces fit into whatever plan exists:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6237189.ece

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67862.html

And besides, his reversal on Bush on climate change science, stem cell research and related stuff easily still make him vastly more different and preferable the previous adminstration.

The guy has been a god-send on climate change, and will hopefully be on health care issues. In comparison, all this is small beans.

Sunny…

“He’s neither staying in Afghanistan[sic] nor planning to attack Iran…”

Rly?

“Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed dismay that President Barack Obama is planning to leave as many as 50,000 US troops in Iraq even after the long-awaited withdrawal of combat troops next year.”

“In comparison, all this is small beans.”

Well, fine…assumedly, then, if the odd rocket thundered into Islington we’d remember his environmental policies and write the deaths off as “small beans“?

Ben – I haven’t said that I consider any deaths acceptable, as far as I remember.

I’m for in staying in Afghanistan – I think a return of the Taliban otherwise would lead to far more deaths and a destabilisation of the entire South Asian sub-continent.

I could quite easily play your game and point to a story of a poison gas attack on Afghani girls by Taliban, and say that by exiting Afghanistan essentially you’re happy to write off their lives.

50,000 troops in Iraq, to help stabilise the country is not the same as a full blown occupation on the same level as now. What do you suggest? We pull out immediately and if al-Qaeda destabilise the new Iraqi govt enough to essentially destroy them, that’s fine?

his reversal on Bush on climate change science, stem cell research and related stuff easily still make him vastly more different and preferable the previous adminstration

That really isn’t any kind of yardstick upon which to measure him is it? It’s like saying we should ignore what Labour have done in office because Thatcher was so terrible. Yes he is vastly preferable but so would any number of potential presidents be preferable to Bush.

I understand the reluctance of many within the liberal-left to criticise Obama for how things are going. It’s early days. And where would it end? I know many don’t want to end up looking or sounding like Sirota or the UK far left, always whining at the tiniest compromise. But wrong is wrong and right is right. You can support his presidency without passing over heinous bullshit like this.

If it were McCain in office, would you criticise HIM for US troops killing Afghan kids? Small beans? Read the stories about the deaths of civilians and torture and indefinite detention without trial that Greenwald links to, and tell me that’s all “small beans”.

The war threatens to overshadow the rest of his term in office, and he still hasn’t got a definite plan as to how to end it. The more political capital and time he wastes trying to appease people he can’t appease, the less he has to spend on climate change and healthcare. For what it’s worth I too predict he will be good on those issues but it’s obvious he is far too constrained by his advisors and special interests to really get stuff done. If he can’t address what’s happened in the past with transparency and honesty, how on earth is he supposed to push for massive reforms in the future? Both houses of Congress are on his side at the moment but that might not last long.

Btw I don’t advocate a total withdrawal from either Iraq or Afghanistan but I would like to see what on earth Obama hopes to achieve in Afghanistan. I just don’t see it ending any way good for the US or for Pakistan. Rather than waste money and Afghan/Pakistani lives on just blindly chugging away doing the same thing Bush tried to do, he should come clean and actually discuss what it is they want from Afghanistan. All this crap about “defeating al-Qaeda”: the man’s in the wrong country.

That really isn’t any kind of yardstick upon which to measure him is it?

Oh really? So you’re saying that his reversal on climate change, on classifying Co2 as a harmful gas, his willingness to sign up to Kyoto and take it further, calling for nukes to be phased out, trying to invest billions into green technologies are basically irrelevant because he hasn’t gone far enough on torture. I suppose that also means he would do exactly the same as McCain even though McCain did not pledge to do any of that stuff.

Yes, I see the logic!! We didn’t get everything from Obama so he’s just as bad as McCain!

I haven’t said anywhere Democrats should not criticise him. In fact I’ve just recorded a video for the Guardian (Friday actually) saying exactly that. I just think his decision was a pragmatic one, and frankly my priorities are different to what you guys want. I happen to think climate change and health care are far bigger issues and will judge him on that.

If that means I somehow happily approve of rockets flying into Afghanistan, or that I’m condoning what Bush did – then you’ve completely failed to see my argument.

he should come clean and actually discuss what it is they want from Afghanistan

He’s done that as far as I know. He wants it to be a stable country free from Taliban rule. I support that aim fully.

His willingness to compromise so early into his administration on things he didn’t even do himself doesn’t bode well for his ability to stand firm in the future. It is too early to tell.

Why make assumptions about my priorities? Nothing matters more to me than dealing with climate change, but there isn’t much point in preserving the earth if we aren’t doing what we can to save the lives of humans who live on it. I’m not against all wars, as someone more famous than myself once said, but I am against dumb ones. I agree something needs to be done with that region of the world but I do not see how current US policy in Afghanistan is going to achieve anything other than make the situation worse – I don’t see much logic to it, and I consider it “dumb”.

Again, I don’t advocate a unilateral withdrawal but I would like to see some other options on the table because the present situation is unsustainable and going nowhere. As Pakistan falls to pieces, the US is going to have to consider what is politically feasible and achievable. THAT, would be pragmatic.

The McCain thing was to highlight whether or not those who are in favour of the present US strategy would condemn attacks upon civilians regardless of whatever other achievements the current US president might have done, or not done. When I meant other potential presidents, I meant more along the lines of the other possible Democrats. I’m not saying his other achievements are irrelevant in comparison to foreign policy – which is the reverse of your position – but I just do not think it is a worthy trade-off. My political beliefs are that you support progressive policies on climate change, healthcare AND foreign policy – not just one or two of the major issues. You might need to compromise along the way but so soon? Come on.

On a related note, I agree with the need to compromise in order to preserve some kind of peace process with Israel and to maintain good relations in Iran, but this latest flipfloppery was extremely poorly-handled and will only serve to make things worse. He can either keep this issue of the photographs bottled up and let it become even bigger in a few years time when the Democrats might not control Congress or Afghanistan has become worse, or he can deal with it now, and give himself the maximum amount of time to deal with it. Those photos will come out sooner or later, and it would have been better had he be the one to do it.

Sunny…

“I haven’t said that I consider any deaths acceptable, as far as I remember.”

I’m not saying that you consider them to be acceptable (very sorry if it came over that way) I’m expressing bemusement at your will to pass off his administration’s fairly devious and/or catastrophic crimes or errors as “small beans” (not necessarily nice beans (in fact, maybe beans that require some negative comment) but certainly not beans of any particular size).

When people are dying and atrocities are being swept under the carpet, why is it relevant that he’s “vastly more different and preferable” to Bush?

“I’m for in staying in Afghanistan – I think a return of the Taliban otherwise would lead to far more deaths and a destabilisation of the entire South Asian sub-continent. “

I’m not entirely sure what should be done re: Afghanistan. What I do know, however, is that Obama n’ Bush’s drones have killed more citizens than suspects by a factor of 50, that a combination of that and Zardari’s forces will soon have forced a million people to flee and that US forces are still trying to dodge responsibility for their atrocities (whatever intent was behind them). I’m not happy, essentially.

It’s worth mentioning that Karzai is reviewing US presence in Afghanistan, and has ordered them to stop all air strikes. Let’s see whose authority carries more weight…

“I could quite easily play your game and point to a story of a poison gas attack on Afghani girls by Taliban, and say that by exiting Afghanistan essentially you’re happy to write off their lives.”

You could! Well, you could if I’d suggested that the Taliban’s crimes were “small beans“.

“50,000 troops in Iraq, to help stabilise the country is not the same as a full blown occupation on the same level as now.”

50,000 is a lot of troops; more than half the number involved in Obama’s Afghanistan “surge” and over thirteen times the number of Brits that pulled out a couple of weeks ago. Thus, it’s fair to say that they’re “staying in“.

I’d also quibble with the assertion that they’d stay to “help stabilise the country“. How do you know?

“What do you suggest? We pull out immediately…”

Well…pretty much. As they’re still weaselling out of taking account for
killing 12 year-old kids, I think it’s time to go.

“…and if al-Qaeda destabilise the new Iraqi govt enough to essentially destroy them, that’s fine?”

That’s a bit like me saying “What do you suggest? That we stay in Afghanistan and if bloodthirsty neocons suddenly leap out of the sky and drink everyone’s blood, that’s fine?“. I don’t really have to consider how I’d feel about that, because I don’t think it’ll happen.

Sorry if I’m sounding a grump.

*Grumps.*

Ben

I just don’t think the liberal-left should stay silent on things like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html?_r=1&ref=world

No one wants the Taliban back but how does the current US policy guarantee their defeat? They’re getting their ass kicked, is all. You say Obama wants them out of Afghanistan. How exactly? Let’s face it, this is a war the US cannot win, even if you believe it is a war they must win. You can support the policy but pointing out where it’s gone catastrophically wrong doesn’t undermine your support for that policy. We are commentators, not soldiers who have to stick to a line.

Andrew Sullivan also highlights the deeply disturbing past record of the man Obama has just put in charge of Afghanistan, and speculates if there is a connection with the u-turn on photos:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/mcchrystals-unit-t626.html

Sunny, I think you might find this article from Al Giordano a good defence of your position, albeit substituting the trade-off over Af-Pak with one over the no new nuclear thing:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/torturous-debate

I disagreed with a lot of it, as I think Al Giordano basically doesn’t give too much of a shit about foreign policy and as an organiser is far more concerned with relatively minor stuff that goes on in the US than huge loss of civilian life elsewhere, but I see his point.

As I said on the economy, it looks like for embedded structural reasons, Obama ends up doing more or less what Bush was doing but with a different gloss. We should remember that Bush arrived in the Whitehouse as a small state conservative just as Obama has arrived as a big state (but liberal-ish) progressive. But the US didn’t get a small state Bush, and they are not going to get a progressive Obama either. They just get more of the same since the permanent administration itself has its own interests that always need protection and promotion, and that is what will always dominate actual decision making.

Good points, Nick. To be fair, I think there is a case to be made that Obama is playing the long game with regards to foreign policy. But on civil liberties / domestic security / justice, which some seem to think are not issues of priority and are secondary rather than crucial to foreign policy, this has been a terrible week for Obama, who promised to be so different to Bush on particularly these issues. From Glenn Greenwald:

“This is what happened this week alone in the realm of Obama’s approach to “national security” and civil liberties:

Monday – Obama administration’s letter to Britian threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how we tortured British resident Binyam Mohamed;

Tuesday – Promoted to military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who was deeply involved in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era;

Wednesday – Announced he was reversing himself and would try to conceal photographic evidence showing widespread detainee abuse — despite the rulings from two separate courts (four federal judges unanimously) that the law compels their disclosure;

Friday – Unveiled his plan to preserve a modified system of military commissions for trying Guantanamo detainees, rather than using our extant-judicial processes for doing so.”

From http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/16/obama/index.html

Greenwald sums up my problem with those who think these issues, along with the butchering of Afghani and Pakistani civilians, are “small beans”:

“What would it say about a person who spent the last seven years vehemently criticizing those policies to suddenly decide that the same policies were perfectly fine or not particularly bothersome when Obama adopts them? How could that be justified? What should one say about a person who vehemently objected to X when Bush did it, but then suddenly found ways to defend or mitigate X when Obama does it?”

There is always some psuedo-ethical rationale for the assertion of force by a powerful nation; this has been the case since Julius Caesar. Raw power cannot be supported without some intellectual cover for its iniquities. That’s one reason I consider the Democrats to be a more insidious tool of American power than the Republicans: the latter, especially under Bush/Cheney, overplayed their hand. Replace the obviously retarded cowboy with a smart and reasonable-sounding black guy with the right party affiliation who throws out some of the extremes of his predecessor, and there is suddenly a legion of intellectuals cheerleading American policy.

The left – or, really, any political position that is genuinely humanist – should take as its starting point a suspicion of power. I’m not saying the Americans can’t do anything good; it’s a shame that Obama has U-turned on clean energy somewhat, but at least there is some genuine effort in place there. But come on. It’s all just common sense.

It’s like America is a “problem child” … and the so-dissant democratic is are an anxious and optimistic social worker writing a report card:

- Has promised to stop shitting in the pool quite so frequently (carbon)
- Has stopped dunking smaller kids’ heads in the toilet (torture)
- Stopped sulking whenever someone he doesn’t like comes into the room (e.g. chavez)
- Is still going out and knifing people, but not quite so often (iraq, afghanistan)

(The rest is domestic policy which I will leave up to the Americans to judge for themselves.)

I also find the thought experiment “imagine if you were the president” to be a thoroughly distasteful one. There are many people in the world who would benefit from some empathy informing the views of those in the powerful nations. Obama, the most powerful man in the world, is not among them.

@Joshua Mostafa
” Its like America is a “problem child”…and the so-dissant democratic is an anxious
and optimistic social worker wrting a report card;
Has promised to stop shiting in the pool quiet so frequently (carbon)
Has stopped dunking smaller kids heads in the toilet (torture )
Stopped sulking whenever someone he doesn,t like comes into the room (e.g
Chavez )
Is still going out and knifing people,but not quiet so often ( Iraq,Afghanistan.) ”

A picture speaks a million words. How insightfull
Mind if I use it sometime.?

Sure. BTW I made a typo, I mean “soi-dissant democratic left” …

Rayyan – no one has suggested the liberal-left should stay silent on killings like that.

I’ve always been consistent on foreign policy, and even supported Bush in Afghanistan, but always knew the fuckwit would not invest enough time and effort into stabilising the country.

Nick says: But the US didn’t get a small state Bush, and they are not going to get a progressive Obama either. They just get more of the same since the permanent administration itself has its own interests that always need protection and promotion, and that is what will always dominate actual decision making.

An element of this is true. Every politician has to deal with existing structures and organisations that have their own input, and force checks and balances into the system. I’m not against that because the intelligence community also forced Bush to keep delaying the Iran plan.

The system stops ideologues from pushing too far in one direction in other words. I’m not entirely against that.

Saying that, it would be helpful if people got into a discourse outside of simply pointing to stories of dead children and saying see, Obama is just carrying on with Bush’s policies. That isn’t intelligent discussion.

There’s an article here on the NEw Yorker about Obama’s Afghanistan strategy:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/05/25/090525taco_talk_coll

The miscalculations across five Administrations are by now generally understood: near-unequivocal support for anti-American militias during the nineteen-eighties; averted eyes as Pakistan pursued its covert nuclear ambitions; the abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal; the failure to recognize the menace of Al Qaeda during the nineteen-nineties; erratic investments in Pakistan’s democracy, economy, and civil society; and, most recently, a war in Afghanistan after 9/11 which did not defeat Al Qaeda or the Taliban but chased them into Pakistan, where they regrouped and have proceeded to destabilize a country now endowed with atomic bombs.

For several months, the Obama Administration has been rethinking American policy, hoping to depart from this history of dysfunction. It has announced a formal strategy: an adaptive counterinsurgency doctrine that seeks to emphasize the security and the prosperity of the Afghan and Pakistani people above all; economic and development aid; vigorous diplomacy; and carefully targeted warfare, particularly aimed at Al Qaeda. Already, however, Obama and his advisers have had to confront the puzzle of which policies in their new portfolio will promote stability in the region, and which will promote instability.

I know people are quick to draw conclusions but foreign policy is never quick and easily implementable.

Tuesday – Promoted to military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who was deeply involved in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era;

He also appointed Robert Gates, to people’s frustrations – but that guy is now leading the pull-out and also implementing an entirely different strategy to Bush’s.

Lastly, the attempt to stop the photos coming out may actually be a good strategic move – especially if you’re reasonably confident the photos will come out anyway. See Frank Rich’s latest article in the New York Times.

It’s not necessary to equate Obama with Bush to critique the dynamics of American power in world affairs. You’re right, Sunny, that it’s simplistic to do so. However, the implication of

The system stops ideologues from pushing too far in one direction in other words.

is that there is a centre of gravity in the US polity. I would argue that this centre is derived from a concentration of interests and power, informed by the demands, sometimes competing and sometimes coinciding, of capital, of power, and to an extent, of the interests of its citizens – mostly in that order.

People will want to depart from this centre of gravity for various reasons. Personally, given the disproportionate level of power the US holds in world affairs, I cannot see why any of us, outside the US, should have any respect for that centre of gravity; or why we should be concerned with “its values, its future or its traditions” (to quote the OP).

To take an example: we can credit Greece with a huge contribution to our intellectual life and the values we believe in – democracy, many philosophical and cultural innovations – possibly more so than any other nation (I don’t know if I believe this, but it’s a reasonable case to make). Should we therefore concern ourselves with the political fortunes of the Greeks? Of course not. It is the power, hard and soft, of the US that makes it a magnet for intellectuals, and is also precisely (given the intrinsically anti-democratic and exploitative nature of power) why we should not resist its allure.