Welcome to Bennett's Study

From the Author of No Land an Island and Unconscionable

Pondering Alphabetic SOLUTIONS: Peace, Politics, Public Affairs, People Relations

http://www.bennettponderingpeacepoliticssolutions.com/

http://www.bennettponderingpeacepoliticssolutions.com/author/

http://www.bennettponderingpeacepoliticssolutions.com/buy/

UNCONSCIONABLE: http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/ http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/author/ http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/book/ http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/excerpt/ http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/contact/ http://www.unconscionableusforeignrelations.com/buy/ SearchTerm=Carolyn+LaDelle+Bennett http://www2.xlibris.com/books/webimages/wd/113472/buy.htm http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/AdvancedSearch/Default.aspx? http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx

http://todaysinsight.blogspot.com

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

U.S. presidential oratory stark contrast with world view

Internationally known political activist and former Afghan Member of Parliament Malalai Joya says, United States relies “criminals, dictators, human rights violators”; must “Stop criminal war”

Pravda Ru writer editor Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey says, the United States of America “needs the rest of the world far more than the rest of the world needs the USA”
By Carolyn Bennett (editing, new material)

In his second inaugural address, U.S. President Barack Obama barely mentioned and never significantly world affairs and the United States’ place in it.

In his usual rhetorical flair, banal generality and vacuous cliché, this is as close as the president came to substance: “America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe,” he said. What exactly does that mean?

The president continued, “And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. 

“We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.  And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice ─ not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes:  tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.” 

Consider what is real. 

Afghanistan

O
n Monday, the day the U.S. president took his oath of office in public, dozens of people died in “two successive U.S.-led assassination drone strikes on eastern Afghanistan,” Press TV reported.

Yemen

On two successive days, Sunday and Monday this week, at least eight Yemenis died in U.S. drone attacks. Press TV reported Monday: “Innocent civilians become main victim of U.S. drone war.”

Pakistan

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is among the most recent Pakistanis to express “concern over the U.S. assassination drone strikes in her country,” Press TV reported today.

Evidenced by the content of his second inaugural speech, you’d think the U.S. president had flown in from another planet. Is it any wonder that the masses in this country are ignorance and indifferent, paranoid and insular, criminally narrow-minded.

A
s the United States is at war with the world, I expected some mention of these wars in the second inaugural speech but in going through the transcript and looking for what I consider key places and issues, I found was zip.

Afghanistan – 0
Africa – 1
Asia – 1
Bahrain - 0
Congo – 0
Iran - 0
Iraq - 0
Israel - 0
Libya – 0
Mali - 0
Pakistan – 0
Palestine- 0
Somalia – 0
Syria – 0
Yemen – 0

Aggression – 0
Airstrikes – 0
Dead (death) - 0
Drones - 0
Employment – 0
Foreign policy – 0
Foreign relations – 0
Human rights – 0
Innovation – 0
International law - 0
Middle East – 1
Missiles - 0
NATO - 0
Occupation – 0
Poverty – 2
Trade – 0
UN (United Nations) – 0
Unemployment – 0
War – 1

In my view, this is criminally dismissive, a flagrant and unconscionable disregard for life.

In early January Afghan activist and former member of parliament Malalai Joya in interview with Elsa Rassbach discussed the “reality behind U.S. President Barack Obama’s ‘mission accomplished’ in Afghanistan.”  After outlining the history of U.S. involvement in her country, Malalai Joya said history is rife with examples of the United States’ reliance “on criminals, dictators, human rights violators, and reactionary forces in many countries of the world.”

She said, “It was the United States that brought the warlords into power in [Afghanistan’s capital and largest city] Kabul; and the US/NATO puppet [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, is even more shameless than previous Afghan puppets of the British and the Russians….

The U.S. and NATO recently supported fundamentalists in Libya who are worse than [Muammar al-] Qaddafi.

The U.S. and NATO are in Syria supporting Al-Qaeda and other such dirty groups. So it is not surprising that they are once again working with the Taliban and with Hekmatyar and other criminals in my country.…

The U.S. wants to remain in Afghanistan because of its geopolitical location: to be able to control other Asian powers like Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China.


E
lsa Rassbach asked Malalai Joya what she would say if invited to speak to U.S. and NATO officials.

Malalai Joya
Malalai Joya’s answer was unequivocal. “Stop this criminal war in my country as soon as possible,” she said. Expanding on her remarks to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, if given a chance, she declared:  

Your war, waged under a fake banner of human rights and democracy, is in fact a war against poor Afghan people. 

You are not only traitors to the Afghan people, but to your own people as well.

You are stealing from the pockets of poor Americans and Europeans and wasting billions of dollars on killing and looting in order to safeguard only the interests of a very small, elite minority. 

You have a massive war and propaganda machine to sell your lies.

But the world’s conscience, which includes a large number of U.S. antiwar veterans, is against you: you can’t overturn it by any means.

So your war machinery is doomed to fail, and the toiling people of the world will win.


Y
esterday at Pravda Ru, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey weighed in with a view of America’s leadership, its place in the world and how the world sees the United States,  and the nature of real change that is closer to life on the planet and, obviously, in stark contrast to the U.S. president’s vacuous oratory and a frenzied horde on the Washington Mall.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey at http://www.terminalx.org/2011_07_10_archive.html
“Eight years of Bush made the USA the international pariah along with its master in Tel Aviv,” Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey wrote.

Having wasted four years, “the legacy of [U.S. President Barack] Obama,” Hinchey said, “should be to enact change in the way the USA behaves ─ which means using debate and dialogue as its diplomatic tools and which means favoring development over deployment.
  

“It may have been a Clintonesque dream to destroy [Libyan President Muammar al-] Qaddafi’s African Union and substitute it with AFRICOM ─ but this is not change; it is a continuation of the same old tired and failed policies.

The USA needs the rest of the world far more than the rest of the world needs the USA these days, especially one with its economy creaking dangerously and a country sitting on top of a minefield of debt.

The supremacy of the United States of America is not a foregone conclusion any more than it is a reality and neither does the rest of the world want an arrogant fat-headed brat in its midst with a President who speaks about leading the world.

Barack Obama was not elected by the rest of the world so the bottom line is: … fix America first and engage with your partners on an egalitarian basis instead of the top-down approach which sees Washington sneered at everywhere she goes.”





Sources and notes

Second Inaugural speech Barack Obama, For Immediate Release January 21, 2013,
Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama, United States Capitol, 11:55 A.M. EST,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-address-president-barack-obama

“Malalai Joya exposes reality behind Obama’s ‘mission accomplished’ in Afghanistan ─ Karzai and Obama are working on an agreement legalizing permanent military bases in Afghanistan: but as long as we have foreign military bases in our country, we have no independence”  (Malalai Joya and Elsa Rassbach, Common Dreams, January 10, 2013), Stop the War Coalition UK,  January 11, 2013), http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/afghanistan-and-pakistan/2174-malalai-joya-america-will-empower-the-worst-enemies-of-the-afghan-people-to-achieve-stability

Malalai Joya is an Afghan and internationally known political activist, lecturer and writer, a seriously insightful analyst and critic of criminally impaired governance, governments and leaders in Afghanistan and United States, and of foreign relations and domestic affairs on both continents.
  
“What is expected of Obama” (Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey), January 21, 2013, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/22-01-2013/123536-expected_obama-0/#


Wikipedia note

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (b. 1947) is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was Prime Minister of Afghanistan (1993 to 1994, again briefly in 1996). “One of the most controversial of the Mujahideen leaders, Hekmatyar has been accused of spending ‘more time fighting other Mujahideen than killing Soviets’ and of wantonly killing civilians.” .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbuddin_Hekmatyar
 _______________________________________________


Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

_______________________________________________

No comments:

Post a Comment