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