Jeremy Scahill: Obama’s Foreign Policy Deception

This video with Jeremy Scahill is re-posted from The Nation. Editor’s Note: While we agree with much of what Scahill has to say here, it should be made clear that the Obama campaign did say they would escalate the war in Afghanistan and maintain the US “special” relationship to Israel. In many ways, the Obama administration has continued much of the Bush foreign policy positions and even expanded some of those policies. For additional sources on the foreign policy of Obama, see Tariq Ali’s book The Obama Syndrome and Paul Street’s The Empire’s New Clothes.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised an end to torture, extraordinary rendition and secret prisons. But since taking office he has in fact doubled-down on some of the more insidious policies he inherited from the Bush administration. As Nation correspondent Jeremy Scahill explains, Obama has surrounded himself with war hawks, relied on targeted killing and acted unilaterally to defend US interests. Instead of drawing down the two major ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has shifted combat to special operations units, prolonging US engagement and fighting a “dirty” war.