By Lloyd C. Gardner
With Obama's election to the presidency in 2008, many believed the U.S. had entered a brand new period: Obama got here into place of work with excessive expectancies that he may finish the conflict in Iraq and begin a brand new international coverage that will reestablish American values and the United States' management position within the world.
In this shattering new evaluate, historian Lloyd C. Gardner argues that, regardless of beauty alterations, Obama has easily outfitted at the increasing strength base of presidential energy that reaches again throughout a long time and during a number of administrations.
The new president ended the “enhanced interrogation" coverage of the Bush management yet didn't abandon the idea that of preemption. Obama withdrew from Iraq yet has institutionalized drone warfare—including the White House's critical function in choosing ambitions. What has come into sight, Gardner argues, is the recent face of yank presidential strength: high–tech, secretive, international, and lethal.
Killing desktop skillfully narrates the drawdown in Iraq, the counterinsurgency struggle in Afghanistan, the increase of using drones, and particular assassinations from al-Awlaki to Bin Laden—drawing from the phrases of key gamers in those activities in addition to their significant public critics. With extraordinary historic standpoint, Gardner's ebook is the hot touchstone for realizing not just the Obama management however the American presidency itself.
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Extra resources for Killing Machine: The American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare
Example text
In a January 31, 2008, debate with his strongest rival in the Democratic Party, Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama argued that setting a specific time for American troop withdrawal from Iraq would force the contending groups to come together and focus on a national solution. “It can’t be muddy, it can’t be fuzzy. ” As the only prospective nominee who opposed the war from the beginning, he was, he said, in a perfect position to pressure Iraqi factions to cooperate, because they could be sure he meant what he said.
What the president-elect took away from those first conversations with Brennan and McConnell were only the advantages of drones: fewer casualties, less need for more troops to dig out an enemy fighter, and—the strongest selling point of all—a way to strike at the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership inside the frontiers of an ambiguous ally, Pakistan, and eventually even to chase down presumed terrorist inspirers in Yemen and other places. Without an open discussion of drones, however, Obama and Brennan fostered a deceptive aspect to the new administration’s approach that did not provide space for serious discussions on the core issues of national security, including the problem of blowback.
The Early Decisions Obama had pledged during the campaign to send more troops to Afghanistan. But had he really given thought to what a counterinsurgency strategy would entail? After a meeting in Canada with other defense ministers with troops in Afghanistan—including the defense minister of Estonia, which had sent 150 troops—Secretary Gates said that Afghanistan needed a surge. The purpose of sending additional forces, however, would be to shield the Afghan elections scheduled for August against efforts to disrupt the process.