Daniel Larison

The Republican Platform and “the Arab Spring”

2016: Obama’s America and Foreign Policy

By Daniel Larison • August 26, 2012, 7:03 PM

Tim Cavanaugh sums up the (lack of) appeal of Dinesh D’Souza’s 2016: Obama’s America:

If you believe the biggest problems with Obama are that he has not invaded Iran, attacked the Alawite regime in Syria and sufficiently supported the Queen’s dominion over the Falkland Islands, this is the movie for you.

Although 2016 does treat Obama’s devastating fiscal legacy, D’Souza and Sullivan’s real passion is for crimes like Obama’s removal of a bust of Winston Churchill from the oval office.

In other words, D’Souza is preoccupied with trivial nonsense when he isn’t complaining that Obama is insufficiently militaristic, which means that the foreign policy parts of D’Souza’s “documentary” consist of the same standard hawkish boilerplate we’ve been hearing for three and a half years. When I first came across D’Souza’s “anti-colonial” interpretation of Obama, the foreign policy aspect was probably the most preposterous part of his argument. There were so many preposterous parts that it’s hard to pick just one, but that seems right. The idea that an avowed American hegemonist was shaping his foreign policy according to the dictates of a “Third World anti-colonial” worldview that he supposedly adopted from a father he never knew was so stupid that it didn’t require refutation. I pointed out the numerous errors in this thinking anyway.

What is far more pernicious in all of this is the casual identification of an “American” worldview with a particularly hard-line and nationalistic foreign policy. Opposing colonialism (both American and European) has been one of the more common traditions in American history. Especially since 1945, there have been very few Americans that haven’t been anti-colonialists. In addition, there has always been a tradition of anti-imperialism and non-interventionism in American politics. At one time, it was the dominant tradition in America. What makes D’Souza’s criticism on this front so absurd is that Obama is quite clearly not part of that tradition and has gone out of his way to separate himself from it.

Posted in foreign policy, politics. Tagged 2016: Obama's America, Dinesh D'Souza, Tim Cavanaugh.

17 Responses to 2016: Obama’s America and Foreign Policy

Leo says:

August 26, 2012 at 10:07 pm

On the other hand , he did point out the intervention in Libya was the usual blowback and that the “Arab Spring” narrative was an invention of our mindless State Dept. searching for a public relations victory. Something was made of Obama’s alleged toadying to Russia; yet even the NYT concedes Russia pursues a policy of protecting Christians in Syria. I guess the alleged Christian Dinesh has quite missed the consequences of overthrowing Assad. Iran is going to get its bomb and Romney won’t stop it anymore than Bush stopped North Korea. I was surprised how boring the movie was. I was disappointed Dinesh or any literate being believes Obama wrote that bathos about his drunk dead daddy. Dinesh spent too much time on this fake Ayres travel fiction. Those kids singing at the end about our Dear Leader were the real horror.
Gerard says:

August 26, 2012 at 10:42 pm

I think I’ll skip 2016. Instead I think I’ll see the Queen of Versailles for a schadenfreude fix.
BritBob says:

August 27, 2012 at 5:54 am

In 1833 the Royal Navy removed a small Argentine garrison from the Falklands, allowing the settlers to stay;Britain having already claimed the Islands. In 1850 Britain and Argentina signed a treaty called ‘the Convention of Settlement’. In the treaty both countries acknowledged that ‘a state of perfect harmony had been restored’ and ‘that neither country had ANY outstanding differences’. In the 1870s and 1880s the Argentine government produced tens of thousands of maps for its consulates that either omitted the Falklands from its territory or showed the Falklands in a different colour like the ’1882 Latzina Map’ – successfully used by Chile in its 1970s Beagle Island Dispute with Argentina. The UK has offered to go to the Courts of International Justice with Argentina on three occasions to discuss ownership of the Falklands. Argentina declined these offers. Argentina’s claim to the Falklands is no stronger than Canada claiming Alaska because it’s closer.
SteveJ says:

August 27, 2012 at 2:14 pm

I’m not sure that bust of Churchill was all that helpful. Merely symbolic I suppose, but symbolism can have significance.

I appreciate that the bust was a gift to show support and solidarity. But Bush used it for something more.

A lot of Americans see Churchill and think of WWII. The bust was put in the Oval office as a result of 9/11. Bush and others tried to create this notion of a WWII President as part of the response to 9/11. They used symbolism to invoke WWII whenever they could.

To that end the neocons constantly chirped about how 9/11 was Pearl Harbor, Iraq and Afghanistan were Japan and Germany — horrendous analysis that led to horrendous policy.

It is policy that Churchill certainly would have rejected.

One of the ironies about the neocons is their obsession and worship of Churchill — a man who would have told them to get lost.
Dain says:

August 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm

The movie’s cleaning up at the box office, or so I hear. Even in places like NYC.

And if you have an affinity for intellectual history, however erroneous, seems like the film offers something to chew on (and spit out, perhaps).
lester says:

August 27, 2012 at 4:58 pm

disappointing. DC conservatives lag so far behind
C Herman says:

August 27, 2012 at 5:18 pm

So then, y’all at TAC don’t think he’s a Communist, huh? Or at least a Marxist? “Anti-colonial” is D’Souza’s politically correct neoconservative equivocation, because he can’t actually bring himself to state the more “outrageous” truth that the President of the United States is a Marxist-Leninist.
SteveJ says:

August 27, 2012 at 5:45 pm

“The bust was put in the Oval office as a result of 9/11.”

Actually, it was put in the Oval office in July, 2001, before 9/11. But I still think the bust was used after 9/11 in the same way.

The Bush administration tried to put a Blair/Bush/Iraq/neocon/ aura around it in an attempt to link the “War on Terror” to WWII.
Bharathi says:

August 27, 2012 at 6:40 pm

hmmm How does Dinesh feel about being born in “anti colonial” India? Would he rather that India would have let the British continue to rule the people. Since when do foreign born people like Dinesh get to have a say in what is American? It could be that he is trying to say foreigners can write about what is American but Hawaii born Obama can’t be American enough to be president.

Were the founding fathers of the USA anti colonial when the refused to pay taxes and wanted representation?

If Dinesh hates it so much, he should just go back to where he came from. I don’t even understand how he has a Hindu first name but claims he is Christian. Come to think of it…. Dinesh sounds as alien as Barack to most Americans, right?

As an Indian American, I am ashamed of idiots like Dinesh Dsouza.
Bob Sale says:

August 27, 2012 at 9:07 pm

I disagree. I think D’Souza does fine job in the film explaining Obama’s roots. D’Souza thinks we should be outraged and afraid, but I actually admire Obama for it. I’ve known this all along about him and it’s the thing that makes me like him. What I don’t like about Obama is that he’s a sellout to his core beliefs and those with whom he most identifies. But look what he got for his soul: the first African American Presidency.

Where D’Souza goes wrong is where he introduces the economy into the last part of the film, as if this horror and disaster is Obama’s fault and is somehow related to his anti-colonial and Marxist roots. Obama hasn’t helped, certainly, but he surely didn’t create it. (Not even Bush can be solely blamed for it.) As everyone from Chris Hedges to Justin Raimondo understand, there is something far greater and sinister than the presidency of Barack Obama at roots of the nation’s troubles. Indeed, far lefties like those Obama secretly loves and from whom he got his ideas, are as troubled by the economic fascism driving this nation as
are libertarians and anarcho-capitalists and paleoconservatives.
Andy Hayes says:

August 27, 2012 at 11:15 pm

Actually, “D’Souza” is a Portuguese surname. I don’t know what part of India Dinesh comes from, but based on his name, Goa is a good guess. Goa was a Portuguese colony until Nehru invaded and annexed it to India in the Sixties; I remember as a teen reading an outraged article by WJB in the National Review. Dinesh may well consider himself to be a Portuguese catholic and a “victim” of Indian anti-colonialism.
tacitus says:

August 27, 2012 at 11:41 pm

So then, y’all at TAC don’t think he’s a Communist, huh? Or at least a Marxist?

Don’t be ridiculous. The far right’s constant harping about Obama being a Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Fascist/Antichrist/(insert pejorative extremist political label here) is getting tiresome, and doesn’t do anything to inform the political debate in this country.

You may disagree with the things they have done, but there is nothing that the Obama administration has done in the last four years that any number of moderately conservative governments around the world have done and are doing in similar circumstances. Even the signature legislation, “Obamacare” is entirely the produce of a conservative think tank and was promoted by the Republican Party as the conservative solution to the serious problem of keeping healthcare costs down… until Obama adopted it as (he thought) a plan that might actually gain bipartisan support in Congress.

Of course, cheap labels are an easy way to express your feelings without having to go to the bother of engaging in actual debate.
paulv says:

August 28, 2012 at 1:31 am

President Obama has done a good job considering the economy he inherited. So what if he is a Marxist, anti-colonial secret Muslim?
John E_o says:

August 28, 2012 at 2:39 pm

D’Souza makes a pretty good living telling people what they want to hear.
sal magundi says:

August 30, 2012 at 12:11 pm

“The idea that an avowed American hegemonist was shaping his foreign policy according to the dictates of a “Third World anti-colonial” worldview that he supposedly adopted from a father he never knew was so stupid that it didn’t require refutation.”

indeed it doesn’t.
except that there are millions (i’d say) of people in this country who really believe stuff like this:

“the more “outrageous” truth that the President of the United States is a Marxist-Leninist.” (nb: leninist. but then so would be e.g. reince priebus.)

“far lefties like those Obama secretly loves and from whom he got his ideas” (nb: secretly. i’m happy we have here posters of the level of insight to detect this.)

then again, no amount of refutation would take, i think.
Lee Brown says:

September 6, 2012 at 7:40 pm

I received an email from my step father telling me to watch this movie and that it was really scary. It is not the movie that scares me, it is the thought that the American people have such a distorted view on what is reality and what is hype. I think “reality” tv is a big part of the problem as the public and media seem to confuse the two. I mean really, when our news headlines are about what happened on some reality tv show rather than what is happening in our government, our politics and our world then why is it so hard to believe a hyped up, meant to scare the S#%@ out of you made in Hollywood movie is so influential on what we should be afraid of and who we let run our country. I’m waiting for the next scary title to come out ” Invasion Of The Right To Choose”
Sue Johnson says:

September 9, 2012 at 10:25 pm

Like Lee, I got an email from my mother saying I have to see this film. I am going to try to see it for myself to see what has whipped up so much fear. In the meantime, I have been scouring the web for some critical analysis of the film. Something more than “you just have to see it and if you haven’t shut up” or “D’Souza is a twit.” Honestly, where is the intellectual rigor in this country? Thank you for the great conversation here. I also found the comments at NYT considered and fact-based.

You wouldn’t believe how hard it has been to find an intellectual who would take on even a few of the assertions in the film and deconstruct them.

The reality is that a lot of Americans have never been taught media literacy. And this is what we get for it: shouting, easy jokes, cynicism, fear mongering and a fractured country.