The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency has highlighted the foreign policy double standard that the activists on the left end of the political spectrum have exhibited, or should one say not exhibited, towards the President's war-centric foreign policy.

Obama is following the McCain plan for Iraq, doubling the U.S. forces in Afghanistan in addition to sharply increasing the number of private contractors operating in that region and bombing Pakistan on a regular basis. Yet, all of these actions, which in prior years would have been decried by those who consider themselves liberals/progressives, have seemingly fallen off the radar of the left-wing grassroots activists.

The Netroots Nation, an alliance of liberal activists, held their annual convention on August 13-16 in Pittsburgh which featured "the most concentrated gathering of progressive bloggers to date." Surprisingly, the issue of ending the multiple conflicts the United States is actively engaged in, which was such a big topic from prior years, was barely a blip on the agenda. Byron York, writing for the Washington Examiner, states: "Not too long ago, with a different president in the White House, the left was obsessed with America's wars. Now, they're not even watching."

But does this mean that the antiwar movement in America is dead? Some political observers feel that the time is long past due for a political realignment to oppose Obama's wars. John V. Walsh, writing for Antiwar.com, passionately argues that activists from the right can succeed in an area where activists from the left failed so miserably.

So a great opportunity presents itself to the Right ... whose movement has been captured and distorted by the neocons. The Right has a world to win, if it might be put that way, or at least an empire to terminate. What could be more inspiring than a view, an ideology, which rescues mankind from the suffering of war that has plagued humanity over the millennia? The Right can do this because it has a following at a crucial point... All that is required is the will and then the action.

Indeed, it was Congressman Ron Paul's antiwar message of his 2008 presidential campaign which made him stand out from the establishment Republicans and propelled him to the national stage. Paul's message was unique because he opposed unconstitutional government intervention domestically as well as abroad. Lew Rockwell, writing in the introduction to Dr. Paul's 2007 book A Foreign Policy of Freedom, stressed that this position is the only ideologically consistent one.

Government should be restrained from intervening at home or abroad because its actions fail to achieve their stated aims, create more harm than good, shrink the liberty of the people, and violate rights. Does that proposition seem radical? Outlandish or far flung? Once you hear it stated, it makes perfect sense that there is no sharp distinction between the principles of domestic and foreign policy. What would be inconsistent would be to favor activist government at home but restraint abroad, or the reverse: restraint at home and activism abroad.

And it isn't just the voices of Rockwell and Paul arguing that a coherent limited government vision only resorts to war as a last resort. Many of our patriotic forefathers also were weary of endless interventions abroad. It was none other than George Washington himself who advised his fellow countrymen to avoid foreign entanglements. Author Bill Kaufman wrote a 2008 book entitled Ain't my America: the long, noble history of antiwar conservatism and middle-American anti-imperialism, where he concludes that there "is a long and honorable ... tradition of antiwar thought and action among the American right."

Historian Ralph Raico recounts that the early history of American Republic was one of wise visionaries familiar with the dangers of involvement in endless wars.

That this system was endorsed by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other Founders as well was no accident... The monarchies of the Old World were massive war machines, exploiting the people to fund their never-ending conflicts and the military and civilian bureaucracies those conflicts necessitated... Here the rights of the people were to be all-important. Government power was strictly limited and mainly exercise by the localities and the states (hence, the Tenth Amendment)...

But, in order to forestall high taxes, debt, and the centralization of power, we had to steer clear of war. That is why the advice of the Founders was: if you want to preserve the system we have established, keep out of wars except when required to defend the United States, and avoid political entanglements overseas, since these are likely to lead us into war.

But as the old saying goes, "what was old is new again." Some activists who have been instrumental in organizing Tea Parties are now picking up the antiwar "torch" which has been dropped by born-again liberal war-hawks. Namely, libertarian activist and attorney James Ostrowski has already begun organizing a "National Day of Protest of Obama’s Democrat Wars” for September 5 at noon in Buffalo, New York. In an interview with THE NEW AMERICAN, Ostrowski explained "the tea party movement has been very successful in thwarting Obama's domestic agenda and I feel that now is the appropriate time to go after his foreign policy agenda. It's the right time since almost all the liberals and the leftists have given Obama a pass on all his war mongering. Big government and war are genetically linked and historically linked. This can be a great teaching moment to the tea party activists and perhaps they will open their eyes to the link between big government and war." Could a new antiwar movement rise up and derail Obama's presidency? Only time will tell if the activists who made the tea parties such big events will be able to translate that energy into opposition to Obama's wars.

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Stephen Garland said:

Obama's Wars Trigger New Activists Please, are you so niave? You sound like you live in the beltway with the idiot politicians who never venture out into main street or suburb America. The Republicans are very happy to continue to support what is now Obama's War. They are not going to oppose Obama and the war, even if it is now his war. I know these people. They are my friends and family. They are quite content allowing the slaughter to continue. Even my brother in law, who is an Evangelical minister is quite OK with the continued wars of agression. Now that Obama and the Democrats are in office, you only have about 10% of the population that opposes the wars. Regrettably, revolution is all that is left to us and we're so fat and spoiled, we'll go down without a fight.

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August 25, 2009 | url
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Flu-Bird said:

	Pathetic Liberals So those liberals thought that obama would end the war and bring the troops home POOR PATHETIC LIBERALS YOUVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED AGAIN
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August 25, 2009
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Mikey Pinkie-rings said:

This is the difference between principled activists and partisans Republicans who are partisan are still suffering under the illusion that they must defend Bush's wars. If they were to come out strongly against the wars, they would have to admit that they were bamboozled by Bush. Principled activists (including most JBS activists) understand that when the party (D or R) leaves good sense, it should be chastized for it. However, even the partisans will come on board when they realize it is a way to capture the middle ground and have another "contract with America." We can use the partisanship of typical Republicans to punish the D's. At the same time, it would be nice to have them actually follow through when they get into office. This is accomplished only through Congress, not the president. Congress is the key. Let's elect and pressure Congressmen who will follow the Constitution. Ignore the presidential race, if you please. (I don't want you to waste your time, simply said.)

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August 25, 2009
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Thomas Paine said:

	The war machine consolidates power Look up Report from Iron Mountain on the internet. It was written by a secret CIA group during Vietnam. It is clearly the game plan of the military industrial establishment. When your entire pay check and future income depends on war, this is what you get. The Iraq war jumped our military budget to $800 billion. This makes a lot of people rich and powerful.
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August 25, 2009
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Ed Burley said:

oh well This will turn out like the health care debate. The left is portraying the protesters as "right-wing nut jobs" who "didn't complain when their guy did it." The same thing will happen here. Libertarians will hit the streets protesting, while the progressives will denounce them by saying "they didn't protest when it was Bush's war." Of course, libertarians did, but that won't be what the public hears - they'll hear the media's take on it, that we are only opposing the war now that it's Obama's war. I agree that the left is a bunch of hypocrites. I think a lot of left-leaning libertarians voted for Obama hoping that he would end the war and legalize marijuana. Since he's done neither, now it's time for libertarians to stop supporting the two parties. Bush betrayed us, and Obama is just doing what socialists do. We need real liberals, classical ones, in Congress and in the White House. Will America get their collective heads out of their butts in 2010, or not? That remains to be seen.

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August 25, 2009 | url
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Lee Gonzales said:

A peacenik's child somewhere was saved My "progressive" parents marched against the Viet Nam war, leaving me often to while away hours on their hippy van's floor, dreaming of clashes between flower children and the thin blue line, peaceniks with Mao’s Little Red Book and bags of homegrown thought of themselves as heroes never the ones committing the crime. This was a time of media manipulation and campus unrest of doctored photographs and media generated police brutality, Time and Look’s editors and magicians doing their best to show the local police as thugs and rioters martyrs, pictured cops with batons brutalizing hippies in Philly, same photo in Life told us the brute cops were now in the “windy city." Street rioters called anti-war marchers and media in action conspiring like criminals and doing their best to hide a hippie’s burning camel pressed up to a cop horse's hide, making the poor frightened animal to rear up in pain, but it resurrected the caption of POLICE BRUTALITY” to come alive again! "Beautiful, man" my parents would pot up and say: "the fuzz are the heavies and we're the good guys!" "It's kind of 'mind blowing'" they'd often times ponder and wonder why the middle class bourgeoisie never seemed to catch on? Why the idea of conspiracy didn’t come down on them like lighting and thunder? Street demonstrations are theater to exploit capitalism's supposed evil nature and it’s plain to see that “we're just smelly street actors who go into action awaiting the camera to catch the police’s slightest infraction." My parents were willing fools, lazy, shiftless liars and perhaps even hired, following plans easily exposed by Jan Kozaks 'Not a Shot is Fired.' It was the book that helped to open my eyes and to win my mind back, years ago when I ordered and read it from an ad on a John Birch Society tract.

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August 25, 2009
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Edtehredpill said:

	Many leftists oppose Obama's wars Veterans for Peace, L.I. Alliance for peaceful Alternatives, Code Pink, Win Without War, UFPJ, Peace Action, and many other leftist groups oppose Obama's wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Stop tarring us all with the same stereotyped brush and relying on the Fawning Corporate Media for information about progressives.
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August 25, 2009
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Jim Ostrowski said:

	... I got this started because the local "peace center" had no antiwar events scheduled. So, it was direct knowledge, not Fox News that I relied on.
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August 26, 2009
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911 Truth Ends 911 Wars said:

	Why The Hell is Obama Coninuing These Wars??? Is he a NWO/globalist???
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August 26, 2009 | url
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I could be Fishing... said:

	Human Thank you Jim Ostrowski for your efforts. I wish we could all be enjoying the peace that Obama promised to bring but obviously he was lying his ass off to get elected. Even worse are all the sheep who continue to support him for reasons of political/monetary gain. Have a look at a shill site like alternet dot org and you will see the trend..
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August 26, 2009
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