In an age when U.S. power can be projected through private mercenary armies and unmanned Predator drones, the U.S. military need no longer rely on massive, conventional ground forces to pursue its imperial agenda, a fact President Barack Obama is now acknowledging. But make no mistake: while the tactics may be changing, the U.S. taxpayer – and poor foreigners abroad – will still be saddled with overblown military budgets and militaristic policies.

Speaking January 5 alongside his Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the president announced a shift in strategy for the American military, one that emphasizes aerial campaigns and proxy wars as opposed to “long-term nation-building with large military footprints.” This, to some pundits and politicians, is considered a tectonic shift.

Indeed, the way some on the left tell it, the strategy marks a radical departure from the imperial status quo. “Obama just repudiated the past decade of forever war policy,” gushed Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, calling the new strategy a “[s]lap in the face to the generals.”

Conservative hawks, meanwhile, predictably declared that the sky is falling. “This is a lead from behind strategy for a left-behind America,” cried hyperventilating California Republican Buck McKeon, chairman the House Armed Services Committee. “This strategy ensures American decline in exchange for more failed domestic programs.” In McKeon’s world, feeding the war machine is preferable to feeding poor people.

Unfortunately, though, rather than renouncing empire and endless war, Obama’s stated strategy for the military going forward just reaffirms the U.S. commitment to both. Rather than renouncing the last decade of war, it states that the bloody and disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – gently termed “extended operations” – were pursued “to bring stability to those countries.”

And Leon Panetta assured the American public that even with the changes, the U.S. would still be able to fight two major wars at the same time—and win. And Obama assured America’s military contractors and coffin makers that their lifeline – U.S. taxpayers’ money – would still be funneled their way in obscene bucket loads.

“Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow,” the president told reporters, “but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow.” In fact, he added with a touch of pride, it “will still be larger than it was toward the end of the Bush administration,” totaling more than $700 billion a year and accounting for about half of the average American’s income tax. So much for the Pentagon’s budget being slashed – like we were promised – the way lawmakers are trying to cut those “failed domestic programs.”

The U.S. could cut its military spending in half tomorrow and still spend more than three times as much as its next nearest rival, China. That’s because China, instead of waging wars of choice around the world, prefers projecting its might by investing in its own country. On the other hand, the U.S. under the leadership of Obama is beefing up its military presence in China’s backyard, more interested in projecting its dwindling power than rebuilding its economy.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once noted that every dollar going to the military is a dollar that can’t be used to provide food and shelter for those in need. Today’s obscene amount of military spending isn’t necessary if the administration wished to pursue the quaint goal of simply defending the country from invasion. Maintaining “the best-trained, best-equipped military in history,” as Obama says is his goal? That’s a different story – for a different purpose. Indeed, as Madeline Albright observed, possessing that kind of military might is no fun if you don’t get to use it, as Obama has with gusto in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Uganda.

The truth is that the Obama administration’s “new” strategy is more of the same—a reaffirmation of the U.S. government’s commitment to militarism for the all the usual reasons: to promote American hegemony and, by extension, the interests of politically connected capital. And U.S. officials aren’t shy about that.

Indeed, throughout the strategy document the ostensible purpose for having a military — to provide national security — repeatedly takes a backseat to promoting the economic interests of the U.S. elite that profits from empire. Repositioning U.S. forces “toward the Asia-Pacific region,” for instance – including the stationing of American soldiers in that hotbed of violent extremism, Australia – is cast not just as a means of ensuring peace and stability, but guaranteeing “the free flow of commerce.” Maintaining a global empire of bases from Europe to Okinawa isn’t necessary for self-defense, but according to Obama, ensuring – with guns – “the prosperity that flows from an open and free international economic system.”

Of course, that economic considerations shape U.S. foreign policy is nothing new. More than 25 years ago, President Jimmy Carter – that Jimmy Carter – declared in a State of the Union address that U.S. military force would be employed in the Persian Gulf, not for the cause of peace, freedom and apple pie, but to ensure “the free movement of Middle East oil.” And so it goes.

Far from affecting change, Obama is ensuring continuity. “U.S. policy will emphasize Gulf security,” states his new military strategy, in order to “prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon capability and counter its destabilizing policies” — as if it’s Iran that has been destabilizing the region. And as Obama publicly proclaims his support for “political and economic reform” in the Middle East, just like every other U.S. president he not-so-privately backs their oppressors from Bahrain to Yemen and signs off on the biggest weapons deal in history to that bastion of democracy, Saudi Arabia.

Obama can talk all he wants about turning the page on a decade of war and occupation, but so long as he continues to fight wars and military occupy countries on the other side of the globe, talk is all it is. The facts, sadly, are this: since taking office Obama doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan; he fought to extend the U.S. occupation in Iraq– and partially succeeded; he dramatically expanded the use of killer drones from Pakistan to Somalia; and he requested military budgets that would make George W. Bush blush. If you want to see what his military strategy really is, forget what’s said at press conferences and in turgidly written Pentagon press releases. Just look at the record.

Charles Davis has covered Capitol Hill for public radio and the international news wire Inter Press Service. More of his work may be found on his website.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and GlobalExchange.

“The deeds of occupier and occupied alike suggest that there come cruel times when to save a nation’s deepest values one must disobey the state.” ~ Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France

I devoted ten years to a novel about the Armenian community of Paris during the Nazi Occupation, which I only recently completed. I have spent eight years working against U.S.-funded wars and occupations as a part of the staff of CODEPINK Women for Peace. So in July 2011 when Adbusters put out the call to “Occupy Wall Street,” I was skeptical for two reasons. In the first place, it didn’t make sense that a magazine based in Western Canada should be setting the agenda for organizers in New York City. In the second place, the word “occupy”—associated with France during World War II, with Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade, and with the West Bank and Gaza for over forty years—didn’t seem like the right “meme,” to use Adbusters’ own rhetoric, for the movement we needed.

But by early October, I realized that I was wrong. I went down to Zuccotti to help staff the CODEPINK table, and joined the two mass marches from Foley Square. I donated my novels and other books to the People’s Library. The encampment at Liberty Plaza and the hundreds and eventually thousands of people who flocked there brought new meaning to the word “Occupy.” All over the country, all over the world, people are going to their public squares to take possession of what has been stolen from them. As the writer and activist Grace Paley said, “The only recognizable feature of hope is action.” And the Occupy Movement is a beehive of activity, ideas, and hope. It’s about prioritizing human needs over corporate greed. It’s about creating new communities based on shared values. Occupy Wall Street, not Iraq. Occupy our public spaces, not Afghanistan. Occupy AIPAC, not Palestine.

My name is C.J. Minster. I am a native Angeleno and a peace activist with CODEPINK: Women for Peace. While I applaud the City Council of Los Angeles for writing a resolution in solidarity with Occupy LA and the Occupy Together movement, I am here to remind you that responsible banking is only one part of the way to fund change. In July of this year, the City went on record calling on Congress to Redirect Military Spending to Domestic Priorities (pdf) by withdrawing all troops and contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan and cutting the Pentagon budget. You must act on the resolutions you’ve already passed and direct the DC legislative office of the City of Los Angeles to connect the needs of our city to the wasteful spending on war and the Pentagon.

As well crafted as your resolution in support of the Occupy LA movement is, we the 99% will not be silenced by pretty words. We care as much about your actions as your votes. And we are deeply troubled by recent reporting that the staff of Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilmember Perry helped secure a $1 million community redevelopment block grant to lure architecture firm Gensler from Santa Monica to downtown LA. Our regional economy doesn’t benefit from shell games across city lines, nor do we need tax payer money wasted lining the pockets of rich corporations. To pay for the needs of the 99%, the U.S. must tax the rich and corporations, not give them handouts. And the U.S. must immediately withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and implement the more than $1 trillion in Pentagon budget cuts outlined by the Sustainable Defense Task Force.

Thank you for using your voice, as the representatives of the second largest city in the country to amplify the voices of the 99%. I urge you to pass this solidarity resolution and work to ensure it is used in tandem with your anti-war resolution to end wars, stop economic injustice, and fund jobs. Together, we can prioritize human needs over unfettered, militarized capitalism.

A lot has changed since we started occupying Wall Street 24 days ago.
Voices take much longer to echo through the masses of bodies in Liberty Plaza,
requiring two or three layers of repetition via the people’s microphone. The kitchen
staff, once limited largely to serving the now-famous “occu-pie” pizzas (99% cheese,
1% pepperoni) lovingly designed by Libretto’s, are now cooking full-balanced, vegan
meals, composting the scraps, and washing the dishes through an on-site grey-water
system. The once-quaint library that started out as a few rejects from someone’s
bookshelf is now a full-blown, catalogued institution with sections ranging from
anarchism to acupuncture. Celebrities are coming down for the second, third, and
fourth visit not to make speeches, but to see how things are evolving.

Story-sharing session with Eve Ensler at Occupy Wall Street

When Eve Ensler came down for a repeat visit on Saturday night she asked if I could
gather some people together to talk after the General Assembly. She and Naomi
Klein sat with us on the concrete for the entire General Assembly, patiently listening
to over two hours of working group report-backs, announcements, and general
housekeeping. When we finally gathered on the steps by the library, Eve asked for
ideas on how she could best support us. “Use your voice to say what you see,” said
one woman. “Tell people we’re not a bunch of patchouli-wearing hippies doing
hula hoops and dancing in a circle.” As everyone laughed, she quickly added, “there
is that, and it’s beautiful, but there’s also real process, there’s real community.” “I
have to say, more than I’ve seen anywhere” Eve said, nodding. Eve asked us to tell
her what brought us here. One woman said she had just wandered over to see what
was happening: “I’ve been trying to leave for the past four hours. Every step I take
there’s something amazing happening.” As other people shared their stories a plan
evolved to bring these “stories from the heart of the park” to a wider audience.

What Brought You Here?

When long-time activist and hip-hop/funk/reggae artist Michael Franti came to
Occupy Wall Street last week he told us “starting activism is easy – all you have to do
is show up. It’s coming back the second and third time that’s challenging.”

I showed up at one of the first General Assemblies back in August as skeptical
as anyone. Occupy Wall Street? Yeah, right. We all knew it was one of the most
militarized places in the city; we knew the plan for September 17th – made by
someone in another country who didn’t seem to know anyone here or have any
intention of actually participating in the demonstration – was all over the internet;
we knew the police would be ready for us. I sat on the concrete with over a hundred
students, workers, artists, teachers, organizers, passers-by, for what seemed like
an eternity grappling our way towards some kind of agreement, structure, process,
ANYTHING that would get us closer to preparing for September 17th.

There were debates about what should be on the agenda, who should take down the agenda points, when the agenda should be formed, and whether we should even HAVE an
agenda. It was painfully – even comically – slow. It was clumsy, frustrating, ad-hoc,
and incredibly exciting. Everything about that night felt different. The faces were
new. The energy was new. We were thinking out loud. We were stumbling. We were
feeding off each other. We were learning. When I went home around midnight there
were still plenty of people milling around, forming working groups, talking and
sharing food. We were beginning to build a community.

Every day of the first week of the encampment at Liberty Plaza was filled with
the excitement that this was really happening; every day in the space was lived
with the feeling that it could be our last. The Occupy Wall Street community
survived many tests that first week – torrential downpours, dwindling numbers,
people dropping out due to illness and fatigue, and of course, constant police
violence and intimidation. As @occupywallstreet tweeted:

Building community at #OccupyWallStreet is hard, esp. when facing constant eviction threats. Now we know how so many Americans feel.

On the one-week anniversary of Liberty Plaza I watched the heart of the park galvanize before me. After the police attacked and pepper-sprayed protesters at Union Square and followed us down to our home at Liberty Plaza, we all prepared for a showdown. Paddy-wagons lined the streets. Hundreds of police officers lined the perimeter of the park, their hands poised on guns, orange nets, and reams of zip-ties that hurt my wrists just to look at. We gathered for a General Assembly (GA), as we do every evening, in a unified, determined group under an intense cloud of imminent danger, and asserted that we were not afraid. We developed contingency plans for when the police swept the square.

People lined the park with candles, creating a buffer-zone between the police and our central organ, the GA. Drums and brass instruments filled the air with an upbeat yet unavoidably ominous tone I somehow imagined accompanying the Titanic’s final hours.

Messages on the projector screen read “Love is the New Fear.” “Feeling good.” “We shall not be moved.” “In it for the long haul.”

Older activists from CODEPINK and the anti-war community checked in or came by to see what was happening – asking, but not telling, what we were going to do. “We’re staying,” I told them. Some lingered on the outskirts like guardian angels, patiently, silently watching. “We’ve got your back.” The Occupy Wall Street bike bloc slowly circled the square in solidarity. “We are watching. We are with you.” I armed myself with a hot pink “Make Solidarity Not War” sign to go with the “Make Bikes Not War” signs adorning my bike and joined them to burn off nervous energy.

Melanie Butler on One Week Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Photo by Tom Martinez

Putting on a brave face, I told the bloc how a cashier at a nearby cafe refused to
charge me for my sandwich earlier that day when she found out I was part of the
demonstration. Other cyclists chimed in with similar stories. One guy struck up a
conversation about what we were doing while in line for the bathroom at McDonalds and when he came out, the stranger he had been speaking with gave him a burger and fries. Slowly, as the night progressed, something incredible happened. The police started to pack up and leave. The bike bloc continued to circle until we were sure our home was safe, and then did a final victory lap, bells ringing, lights flashing, flags waving. The community had survived. The heart of the park beat stronger than ever – and we were all part of it.

Eve Ensler’s first issue of curated stories from Occupy Wall Street was featured in
yesterday’s Huffington Post. Join us next Sunday at 5 pm at Liberty Plaza library
(NE corner of Zuccotti Park) to participate in this ongoing story-sharing experience.

You could say I implicitly understand the limits of imperialism. The unifying principle in any empire is the belief that your way of life is superior and must be spread. Empires are built many ways – by conquering people’s beliefs by imposing religious beliefs through superior weaponry; by conquering people’s lands by introducing diseases that kill the majority of the population; and by the economic tyranny of “free-trade” capitalism.  The macro-historical view I began to see in college was crystallized by reading Chalmers Johnson and Naomi Klein.

I fundamentally believe in pluralism and self-determination. Simultaneously, I believe in universal human rights.

It is on this backdrop that I entered anti-war activism. My focus remained corporate personhood and the root causes of war long after the U.S. put boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. I reasoned that other people were in the streets fighting against these wars and it was important for me to take the long view of history. Eleven years into that strategy, I realized that unless you relate your fundamental beliefs to current events, you’ll be hard-pressed for attention among progressives, let alone The Media. And that’s about the point when I joined the CODEPINK national team.

The ignorance of imperialism is writ large in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American Empire Project published Peter Van Buren’s book today, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. He was interviewed today by Dave Davies of Fresh Air.

Over the weekend, I facilitated a teleconference with Dr. Rashad Zaydan, founder of the Knowledge for Iraqi Women Society. I was frankly surprised to hear how strongly she denounced the veracity of the article “Fight for Women’s Rights Begins All Over Again,” by Rebecca Murray on the Inter Press Service site. Dr. Zaydan challenged us to see Iraqi women’s rights in the context of human rights. She reminded us of the many economic and social rights enjoyed by Iraqis prior to the U.S. invasion — the Iraqi government ensured all citizens had basic food stuffs, free education for both genders, free medical care, and housing. After the occupation, none of those things have been guaranteed, and the killing of many Iraqi men has created an expanding population of widows without means to provide for their families. Additionally, the war and occupation have destroyed Iraq’s electrical grid, leaving most people without access to continuous electricity. She reminded us that there must be justice and peace. It is not acceptable that occupying soldiers rape and murder with seeming impunity, further exacerbating the failed state created by the initial invasion. Dr. Zaydan recommends completely withdrawing all troops and war-profiteering-contractors by the end of the year and allowing Iraqis time and space to re-develop their country.

You can listen to our complete conversation with Dr. Zaydan by calling (661) 673-8609, entering access code 780252# and then entering reference number 1 when prompted.

Unfortunately, the situation in Afghanistan is no better than in Iraq. International human rights lawyer Tzili Mor spoke with CODEPINK LA on International Peace Day. She served eight months as the Gender Justice Adviser based in Kabul for the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) primarily on the establishment of special violence against women prosecution units and related issues around access to justice for women. According to Ms. Mor, there are laws in Afghanistan that protect women’s rights, but the process of implementation is slow and many layers of work must be done. While women have returned to the Afghan legal field as prosecutors and judges, people of all genders can allow their personal biases to affect their job performance. For example, a female prosecutor might suggest to a man that his wife be imprisoned for misbehaving when the wife reports that she was the victim of domestic violence. Additionally, cultural norms can have the force of law – on some roads, police pull women off buses, claiming they have broken a law by traveling without their husband or father. No such law currently exists in Afghanistan, but in some areas women serve 5 year prison sentences for this “offense,” though sentences vary widely. Despite these disturbing anecdotes, there are many areas of Afghanistan where women are respected, equal members of society. It is vitally important to continue supporting women’s participation in Afghan society, politically, legally, and culturally. As Laura King pointed out in the LA Times,  Afghans know the presence of Westerners makes targets of everyone nearby.

In the coming weeks, we will continue to demand an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of Occupy Wall Street, the encampment at Freedom Plaza, and throughout the country. Additionally, on October 7, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan will be speaking at Pasadena Community College, and the event will be video streamed on the Afghan Women’s Mission website. And if you’re near San Diego, attend an in-person Conversation with Dr. Rashad Zaydan at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Theatre on October 13.

I hope you will join us in challenging empire. Between the U.S. diplomats based in the Middle East who can’t speak Arabic and the soldiers tasked with killing people one hour and helping rebuild the schools destroyed by the U.S. military the next, it’s a wonder that the U.S. empire hasn’t already collapsed under the weight of its hubris. I remain hopeful because progressives are gathering in the streets to demand fundamental change, to demand Make Jobs, Not War.

Watch Medea’s interview on #OccupyWallStreet with Oz House Alt News:

LA CODEPINK was present yesterday at both Obama LA fundraisers to challenge him to immediately end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bring all troops and contractors home and ensure real human security by creating jobs and ensuring access to healthcare, education, housing and food. Check out the CBS LA coverage of his appearance, featuring a quote from me around the minute mark.

CODEPINK NYC Coordinator Melanie Butler was interviewed on KPFA’s Letters and Politics program today. Listen to it online.