Monday morning on Democracy Now, Tavis Smiley spoke with Amy Goodman about his upcoming special on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s courage in criticizing LBJ's involvement in Vietnam, and of course the parallels with Obama and the US in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
The program, MLK: A Call to Conscience will be shown this Wednesday evening (March 31st) on PBS.
In the interview, Goodman shows clips from Smiley's program of MLK's 1967 speech, referred to as "Beyond Vietnam" or "A Time to Break Silence", in which King said
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud:
"Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?"
"Why are you joining the voices of dissent?"
"Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say.
"Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask?
And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
Smiley says
But this speech, "Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence," is given by Dr. King on April 4, 1967, literally one year to the day later he’s assassinated in Memphis, April 4, 1968. But to your point, it is the speech that caused him the greatest deal of controversy and consternation, quite frankly. Most Americans, I think, know the "I Have a Dream" speech. Some Americans, Amy, know the "Mountaintop" speech given the night before he was assassinated in Memphis. But most Americans do not know this "Beyond Vietnam" speech, which got King, again, in a world of trouble. He comes out very clearly and talks about three things that are causing him consternation: militarism, racism and poverty. And he links all three of those things in this "Beyond Vietnam" speech.
Many of us watched and listened with consternation to Obama's Nobel Lecture in which the war president said
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak – nothing passive – nothing naïve – in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions – not just treaties and declarations – that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest – because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another – that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths – that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.
Some clever pundits in the media (Brooks and Dionne among others) thinking no one would call their bluff or their pretense to knowledge, superficially wrote that Obama was speaking with the complex lens of Reinhold Niebuhr.
But many of us progressives knew better. We recognized the war-perpetuating-and-escalating-and-justifying rhetoric. We didn't expect the media to actually criticize Obama for increasing troops in Afghanistan, even though a few scholars like Andrew Bacevich and Malalai Joya have said "if Barack Obama heralds an escalation of the war, he will betray his own message of hope and deepen my people's pain"
More Joya:
After months of waiting, President Obama is about to announce the new US strategy for Afghanistan. His speech may be long awaited, but few are expecting any surprise: it seems clear he will herald a major escalation of the war. In doing so he will be making something worse than a mistake. It is a continuation of a war crime against the suffering people of my country.
I have said before that by installing warlords and drug traffickers in power in Kabul, the US and Nato have pushed us from the frying pan to the fire. Now Obama is pouring fuel on these flames, and this week's announcement of upwards of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan will have tragic consequences.
Already this year we have seen the impact of an increase in troops occupying Afghanistan: more violence, and more civilian deaths. My people, the poor of Afghanistan who have known only war and the domination of fundamentalism, are today squashed between two enemies: the US/Nato occupation forces on one hand and warlords and the Taliban on the other.
While we want the withdrawal of one enemy, we don't believe it is a matter of choosing between two evils. There is an alternative: the democratic-minded parties and intellectuals are our hope for the future of Afghanistan.
It will not be easy, but if we have a little bit of peace we will be better able to fight our own internal enemies – Afghans know what to do with our destiny. We are not a backward people, and we are capable of fighting for democracy, human and women's rights in Afghanistan. In fact the only way these values will be achieved is if we struggle for them and win them ourselves.
...
Like many around the world, I am wondering what kind of "peace" prize can be awarded to a leader who continues the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and starts a new war in Pakistan, all while supporting Israel?
Smiley, Dr. Cornel West, and others have criticized Obama:
[I]n this special, Amy, [we talk] about how it is that the world can be made safe for the legacy of Dr. King when you have this tension between an African American president, who’s linked with King on the world stage, as Dr. West just suggested, if not intentionally, certainly unintentionally, diminishing King and his philosophy, that Gandhian philosophy of satyagraha, of nonviolence. And so, it’s again a fascinating tension point here in the conversation.
Smiley says at the end:
It’s not so much about a level of criticism, as much as it is holding him accountable to doing those things that he said he would do, number one. And he’s done some of those things, to be sure. But I’ve said many times in our conversations that I don’t think great presidents are born. Great presidents are made.
If he’s going to become a transformational president, the progressive community-—and I think that includes black folk, by and large—-is going to have to help push him, to help usher him into his greatness. I believe there’s honor in accountability.
Indeed, Kossacks: If not us, then who can push Obama to greatness?
Watch Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
----------------------------------------------------------------
I linked it above, but I just want to bring attention to this piece by Norm Solomon on Obama's pro-war pep rally in Afghanistan recently.