President Barack Obama took office seven years ago, vowing to end wars begun by his predecessor, George Bush. Before the expiration of his term of office remained eight months, and on 6 may this year he set a record, surpassing all his predecessors, including George W. Bush, for the total duration of military operations. The material on this subject was published by The New York Times. Translation prepared by the Federal news Agency.
Almost guaranteed the fact that the United States will continue its military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria before the end of the current term of Barack Obama. This is evidenced by the President’s statement about the intention to send to Syria, another 250 employees special forces. In this case, Obama will go down in history as the only President in the entire history of the United States, for two periods of service which the country continuously resided in the state of war.
In 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize, and ever since, during the whole life he tried to perform their anti-war promises made during his election campaign. However, now it appears that Obama bypassed for the duration of stay of the country in a state of war, even such presidents-warriors, like Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Abraham Lincoln.
Of course, Obama has kept a much smaller number of troops in conflict zones – 4 thousands in Iraq and about 10 thousand in Afghanistan – compared with the 200 thousand military (in these countries) inherited from the Bush Jr. Should take into account the fact that for all the service he gave orders about the bombing and other military action in a total of seven countries, including Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen etc.
“No President wants to go down in history as a war President,” said Eliot A. Cohen, a military historian at Johns Hopkins University, who spoke in support of the war in Iraq, and whose son participated in the operations in the course of it. – Obama views the war as a tool, which he quite reluctantly forced to use. In the end, we will introduce these protracted phoney war, killing a huge number of people and carry a large number of victims”.
Obama is struggling with this undeniable reality since his arrival in the White House, since then, when he after a visit to the memorial cemetery in Alington had to send 30 thousand soldiers to Afghanistan.
His closest advisers say that he prefers to resort to limited secret operations and the use of armed drones, because aware of the existence of a threat of escalation of the conflict and does not consider American intervention effective.
Obama himself has publicly admitted that his real actions do not correspond to his campaign. When in 2009 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize, he said that “humanity should accept two seemingly contradictory ideas – that war is a necessity, and that the war to some extent an expression of human stupidity”.
He tried to imagine these conflicting ideas through a focused approach to all current military conflicts as a chronic but solvable complications in the field of security, and not as all-consuming national campaigns, comparable with the Second world war and the Vietnam war. According to statements by military experts, the duration of its military involvement also reflects the change in the definition of “war”.
“There is a difference between a military President and a wartime President,” says Derek Chollet, who served in the state Department and White House during the first term of Barack Obama and the assistant Secretary of defense for international security during the period 2012-2015.
“To be a war President is subordinate to all forces in the country’s foreign policy and the conduct of the war,” said Chollet.- What Obama tried to do during the whole time of government is not to allow military interests to prevail over other priorities. That is why he is very wary of the buildup of forces”.
However, Obama was unable to end these conflicts. 21 Oct 2011 he announced that before the end of 2011, Iraq will leave the last American soldiers, planning to finish which lasted for eight years war.
“Our military will return home before the Christmas holidays,” said Obama to the White House.
Less than three years later, he announced that he plans to return the 475 military trainers back to Iraq to assist in the fight against ISIS, the terrorist group, which was formed in a political vacuum appeared in the region with the departure of the U.S. military. By the beginning of last month in Iraq was already more than 5 thousand American military.
The recent brutal firefight between ISIS militants and U.S. military special forces marked a return to the most brutal stages of the Iraq war. These events are also deprived of any meaning the statements of the presidential Administration on the implementation of the us military purely Advisory functions in the country the Iraqi armed forces.
This also happened in Afghanistan. In may 2014 President Barack Obama announced the planned end of 2016 complete withdrawal of American troops from this country.
“We Americans have finally realized that starting wars is much easier than to complete them. However, so you need to finish war in the 21st century”, — said the American President.
After 17 months Obama has suspended the process of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, stating that he plans to leave more than 5 thousand military in Afghanistan at least until early 2017, i.e. until the end of his service as President. By the time the forces of the terrorist organization the Taliban controlled a greater number of territories than ever since 2001.
Obama’s critics have long said that his approach to the wars weakened the ability of the nation to really fight.
“He was not trying to mobilize the country,” said Dr. Cohen. He didn’t even try to explain to the country what is the meaning of these wars, and why things were that way”.
President Bush was also criticized for the fact that he did not consider it necessary to ask the opinions of the American people about any victims during the war in Iraq. However, “with all the mistakes Bush – says Dr. Cohen, he had an uncompromising desire to win”.
Vincent DeGeorge, research fellow, Carnegie Mellon University, who collected material about presidents in wartime, said that the tone of President Obama’s, was less important than the decisions he took.
“Whether the value of the words of the President for soldiers who return home wounded or caught in the crossfire?”, he said.
Of DeGeorge admits that he had difficulty in assessing wars and conflicts during the reign of Barack Obama. Formally, the Americans left Afghanistan in December 2014, despite the fact that thousands of soldiers are still there. For their study, DeGeorge agreed to consider the military conflict continued until, while between the strikes, or any us casualties took place less than one month.
Obama has joined the fight with the military militias often and kept her longer than Bush or Clinton. Military officials, the Pentagon called these battles “new normal”. However, for employees of the Obama Administration, this experience was quite serious.
“As the coordinator of the Middle East, I definitely think that it was wartime,” said a former White House employee who served Obama in the period of 2013-2015.
Gordon and other former officials noted the significant difference between the wars of the XIX and XX centuries. Congress had still not approved any of the campaigns of Barack Obama, not to mention the approval of his Declaration of war – something Congress has not done since world war II.
“The concept of “war” no longer exists in the usual sense,” said Gordon.
It is still difficult to predict whether the successor of Barack Obama to use the same approach. Leading at the moment, the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, more likely to adopt participation in controversial military operations than President Obama, and the most likely candidate from the Republican party, Donald trump, has already promised to finally bomb ISIS, despite the rather contradictory attitude to the intervention of us ground forces in military conflicts on the territory of other States.
Military historians suggest that American presidents will continue to alter – expand or narrow the meaning of the war in order to fit their political interests.
“Neither Clinton nor Obama presented himself as military President, unlike Bush,” said Richard H. Kohn, Professor Emeritus of history and peace, war and defense University of North Carolina at chapel hill. – War has existed for thousands of years, and we know that it has a huge number of different types and definitions”.
Ksenia Beketova
