Warfare State Wins Reelection, Along With Obama

Whichever candidate won this year, the warfare-welfare-corporatist state will carry on

Americans reelected President Barack Obama on November 6th for four more years, giving so-called “mandate” to unconstitutional war, an expanding secret drone program, codification of indefinite detention, and widespread government secrecy.

In fact, the mandate for those policies was far greater than Obama’s side of the vote count. GOP contender Mitt Romney agreed with Obama on virtually every foreign policy and national security issue, from Iran to Syria, Israel to Egypt, the drug war to Afghanistan, and the pivot to Asia-Pacific.

Where voters saw a difference in this election was with regard to economic policies. The electorate was split over whether Obama or Romney was better equipped to magically create jobs via government coercion.

US foreign policy, though, would have stayed the same regardless of which candidate won the election. Romney offered no alternative to Executive-ordered war without congressional approval; no alternative to an expanding and illegal drone war; no alternative to a federal government that spends upwards of $11 billion just keeping secrets from the American public; no alternative to sanctioning Iran for a nuclear weapons program US intelligence admits Tehran doesn’t have; no alternative to the warfare-welfare-corporatist state.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.