The Center for American Progress (CAP) proposed a withdrawal plan from Iraq in 2005; in 2014 they are proposing airstrikes in that same country. What changed?

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The Center for American Progress (CAP) proposed a withdrawal plan from Iraq in 2005; in 2014 they are proposing airstrikes in that same country. What changed?

The answer is that the political party of the President changed. When George W. Bush, a Republican, was President, the war in Iraq was, according to CAP, an abysmal failure. Then, when Barack Obama, a Democrat, became President, CAP began to endorse the very kind of warmongering policies it so vehemently protested when Bush was President. Yet CAP calls itself a nonpartisan research organization/think tank. Why on earth would anyone believe such a fairytale, given the ample amount of evidence that CAP is anything but nonpartisan?

CAP's former president and founder, John Podesta, who also used to run a lobbying firm, left in 2011 to join the Obama administration. CAP's current president, Neera Tanden, served on Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign in 2008. Such people hardly sound like politically disinterested observers kind enough to share their "knowledge" for the benefit of the nation; they have a political agenda and political allies (corporate Democrats) for whom they speak; truth, if they even care about it at all, is at the very bottom of priorities.

CAP was formed in 2003 to counter the unbalanced makeup of right-leaning versus left-leaning Beltway think tanks. Among the overtly political think tanks, CAP was one of the earliest to openly claim the progressive label. In doing so, it presented itself as a breath of fresh air for those who were tired of the likes of the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute controlling the dialogue. However, since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, CAP has clearly demonstrated that it is little more than a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, a political party which has repeatedly demonstrated that it is NOT progressive.

Afghanistan: The Surge

The myth that the Center for American Progress (CAP) is nonpartisan was completely shattered once President Obama ordered escalation of the war in Afghanistan in 2009. In fairness though, this is actually an area in which CAP has been somewhat consistent. For instance, in late 2007, more than a year before Obama took office, CAP authored a report on Afghanistan entitled "40 Reasons to Reengage in Afghanistan," and the reasons given for escalation are every bit as irrational as the escalation itself. Some examples:

Poverty is widespread.

Literacy levels are inadequate.

Life expectancy is low.

Unemployment is high.

Domestic violence, forced marriages, and roadblocks to opportunity.

Lack of representation [of women] in the police force.

Poor maternal mortality rates.

While all those things are certainly troubling, CAP's report fallaciously implies that an increased military presence will unquestionably improve those situations, without even bothering to explain how. The report continues:

Current Resources are Being Wasted.

Would throwing more resources at the problem not increase the trend of resources being wasted? Common sense says yes.

Failure in Afghanistan would throw NATO's relevance into doubt.

Such a statement implies, with no clarification as to exactly why, it is important for NATO to be relevant, but just that NATO needs to escalate in Afghanistan to remain "relevant." Interestingly, this section quotes Senator John McCain, Obama's 2008 opponent, who had this to say:

If NATO does not prevail in Afghanistan, it is difficult to imagine the alliance undertaking another 'hard security' operation--in or out of area--and its credibility would suffer a grievous blow.

Again, why would it be bad if NATO never did another "hard security" operation? Notice the use of term "prevail," which remains awkwardly undefined by McCain and CAP. Apparently those outside of the Beltway are just too stupid to understand why it is necessary for NATO to keep bombing places around the world. We are just supposed to take the word of McCain at face value, and CAP claims to be the opposition to neoconservatives like McCain! Perhaps if NATO had lost its credibility due to the Afghanistan blunder, there would have never been an invasion of Libya.

CAP's loyalties to the Democratic establishment became abundantly clear when Zaid Jilani, a former blogger for ThinkProgress, the CAP Action Fund's blog, attempted to give an honest assessment of the so-called drawdown of troops in Afghanistan by the Obama administration. Jilani compiled a report which accurately demonstrated that even after the "drawdown," there would still be more American troops in Afghanistan than at any time during the Bush administration. The report made its way to Capitol Hill and was cited by Congressional opponents of the war, which made the Obama administration very unhappy, who contacted CAP to express their disapproval.

Jilani was summoned by the senior staff at CAP, who explained that first priority is to avoid creating any distance between CAP and the Obama administration. If doing so meant compromising on core principles, which it did, then so be it. CAP is there to provide political cover for the Obama administration and justify their policies, no matter what they might be, not to do real journalism, which would require honesty and integrity, something the senior staff at CAP know nothing about.

Libya: The US/NATO Intervention Without Congressional Approval

When the Obama administration attacked Libya in 2011, it seemed that they had obtained permission to violate that country's sovereignty from just about everyone (NATO, the UN Security Council) except for those who would be footing the bill for the U.S.'s role--the American taxpayers, via their elected Representatives in Congress. What's worse, Obama himself stated that the operation would likely take "days, not weeks," a claim whose lack of accuracy became blatantly obvious after spending several months in Libya, again, without any Congressional authorization, as both the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act require.

One can only imagine how CAP would respond if a Republican President attacked a country without prior Congressional authorization; it is highly unlikely they would be providing "strategic advice" without even mentioning the Constitutional issues (a generous term for illegal behavior) at play. In fact, Obama himself is quoted as saying, prior to his becoming President, that he would seek Congressional authorization prior to engaging in military action abroad, which turned out to be just another broken promise, like so many others.

Syria: The Military Action Opposed by, then Supported by CAP

As late as May 3, 2013 Eric Alterman authored, on behalf of CAP, a report about the situation in Syria. The second sentence of the sub-headline reads as follows:

Though many senators are clamoring for heightened U.S. involvement in the crisis, none has suggested responsible ways of doing so.

The first half of the report quotes pro-intervention Republican politicians and explains why they are wrong to propose arming rebels and militarily intervening in Syria. However, CAP is being disingenuous in several ways:

Most of all, by only specifically mentioning Republicans, CAP is implying that it is only Republican members of Congress who supported intervention in Syria at that time. However, eight days prior, on April 25, the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, released a statement calling for military intervention in Syria, but no mention is made of that.

CAP even draws upon several comparisons between the possibility for military action in Syria, how it might turn out, and how it compares to the Iraq invasion quagmire. This quote from The New York Times, which Alterman quotes in his report, says it quite succinctly:

For all their exhortations, what the senators and like-minded critics have not offered is a coherent argument for how a more muscular approach might be accomplished without dragging the United States into another extended and costly war and how it might yield the kind of influence and good will for this country that the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have not.

Then Alterman says the following in his own words:

Many of the same people making this argument for a U.S military response today insisted a decade ago that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would have a helpful deterrent effect on these same regimes when, in fact, it appears to have done just the opposite.

The precise moment when CAP supported intervention in Syria is unclear (as is the case of the Obama administration), but what is clear is that it occurred some time between Alterman's report in early May, and early September 2013, when CAP hosted UN Ambassador Samantha Power, who gave a speech explaining why the US needed to intervene in Syria. Not only was there no opponent of intervention there to challenge her lies, Power did not even take questions afterward, of which there were many that needed to be asked, namely, "where is the evidence that Assad used chemical weapons?". The audience was just supposed to be "good Democrats" and take her word for it because, after all, it is a Democratic administration we are talking about. When a Republican is in office, we refer to these things as preemptive invasions; when a Democrat is in office, the same thing is referred to as a "humanitarian intervention," which is as oxymoronic as it sounds.

CodePink, one of the US's most prominent left-leaning anti-war organizations, protested CAP's hosting of Samantha Power. A prominent anti-war organization protesting the actions of the nation's preeminent left-leaning think tank should have triggered a major discussion among progressives about just what exactly they believe, and whether CAP is actually a progressive, peace-loving organization. But did that happen? Not even close. Very few "progressive" media outlets covered the speech. Although The Nation did run an article about Ambassador Power's speech, the article failed to mention the protest by members of CodePink. Even Democracy Now!, which usually covers the actions by CodePink and its leader, Medea Benjamin, was silent on the Center for American Progress's support for war in Syria.

One of the few media outlets to cover both the speech by Power and the protest by CodePink was the right-leaning Washington Free Beacon. Yes, one of the few media outlets informing progressives about a major debate brewing among liberals and progressives was one which very few, if any, progressives turn to for their news. If that does not describe a complete failure of the phony "progressive" media, then nothing does.

Iraq: Third Time's a Charm

By now it is obvious that the Center for American Progress has virtually no integrity, especially on foreign policy matters. So it should come as no surprise that CAP released a report endorsing airstrikes in Iraq to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Yes, the very organization that proudly touts its own role in ending that illegal war is urging Americans to go into Iraq again. Apparently, even though there was no feasible military solution to Iraq when George W. Bush was President, now that Barack Obama, a Democrat, is President, such military action is feasible. Interesting, huh?

In fairness to CAP, their flip-flop on foreign policy may not be purely because a pro-war Democrat is in office. It also is probably because CAP accepts donations from those in the war business, including Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin, a fact CAP withheld from the public until Ken Silverstein's piece at The Nation called them out on their secrecy in May 2013, which included a partial list of 2012 corporate donors. Then, in December 2013, under the guise of transparency, CAP released a list of its corporate donors, though anyone can tell that this action was the result of increased public scrutiny due in no small part to the piece in The Nation, not a desire to be honest with the American people about just who is bankrolling CAP.

Progressives, and everyone who cares about the truth, would be better served by not listening to ideological think tanks, regardless of whether such think tanks identify as conservative or liberal/progressive. Such think tanks are merely in the business of convincing others that their opinions are correct by utilizing pseudo-academic "research," a phenomenon which could less charitably be described as propaganda. Sure, some think tanks propagandize for the Democrats, and others for the Republicans, but the fact that a think tank identifies with the "correct" political party is no excuse for spreading outright lies and misinformation.

Authors Website: https://twitter.com/JohnBrock24

Authors Bio:

John Brock holds a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in city planning. His writing interests include American politics, the U.S. Congress, anti-war activism, health care, civil liberties, and economic democracy. He hopes that progressives and libertarians can team up to move the United States beyond these dark times of endless war, disregard for the Constitution, and corporatism.