Leftover Policies Pose a Challenge to Obama's Cairo Message

Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet at 12:00 PM on June 5, 2009.

In a speech delivered at Cairo University yesterday, Barack Obama extended a rhetorical olive branch to the Muslim world. In addition to voicing a surprising (if ambiguous) recognition of Palestinian sovereignty, the president repeatedly invoked Islam: He stuck an "Assalaamu alaykum" at the end of his opening remarks; he mentioned a Quran Thomas Jefferson kept in his library. He even went so far as to quote a verse from the sacred text near the end of the address: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female," he said. "And we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

Such references framed the affirmation that followers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity should focus on overlapping beliefs in order to create a lasting peace. But absent from Obama's comments was the promise to address existing policies of exceptionalism and hostility that continue to rot American foreign policy from the inside out. Without a recognition and serious reconsideration of these practices, the current administration has little chance of making tangible the changes it spent much of the last year promising.

To begin with, Obama's claim that "we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron" seems misguided when viewed in the context of Order 17, a legal provision issued in 2004 by Paul Bremer. This order essentially restructured Iraq's body of laws, ensuring that no American would ever be tried or prosecuted. All coalition "Personnel, property, funds and assets, and all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process," the document states. Order 17 also applies to all defense contractors, who "shall not be subject to Iraqi laws or regulations in matters relating to the terms and conditions of their contracts." It's perhaps not surprising that Lawrence T. Peter, the man who penned the initial draft of Order 17, was later named director of the Private Security Association of Iraq.

Buoying Order 17's false ideal of 'perfection' is the American Servicemembers Protection Act, another pickled leftover from the Bush administration's pantry. Folded into this piece of legislation is a "Hague Invasion Clause," which authorizes the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate" to retrieve soldiers being held at the International Criminal Court. The continuing implication here is that since all military endeavors conducted by the United States are inherently just, no American citizen could possibly be guilty of war crimes.

The bucking of international consensus doesn't stop there, unfortunately. Obama failed to address the shadowy history of Stanley McChrystal, the general just picked to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal, who was responsible for mischaracterizing the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman in 2004, has also been linked to brutal detainee interrogations at Camp Nama in Iraq - something he said he "became more proud of over time." There, he was instrumental in denying the Red Cross access to prisoners, a violation of Geneva provisions.

Obama, along with many of his supporters, have eagerly expressed their desire to move forward in terms of America's relationship with the Muslim world. Robert Dreyfuss, for example, commended Obama yesterday for his mention of "a history of colonialism" in the Mideast. But by placing colonial legacies in the past and ignoring those that persist in the present, Obama stands poised to yank America's exceptionalism from the discourse altogether. "America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire," he said, adding, "Any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail."

To make good on these assertions, Obama needs to take a serious look at policies that undermine them. He must take his own words seriously, and realize that "suppressing ideas never makes them go away."

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