President Barack Obama pauses as he addresses thousands at the opening session of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual policy conference Sunday, March 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Obama has presided over policies that have resulted in horrific war crimes against civilians (mainly children), a corrupt corporatocracy, and a dragnet surveillance state. Yet in a last ditch effort to preserve his legacy, he is pursuing policies that will pacify the public’s view of his crimes, which are no different than most other presidents before him regardless of political party. We must realize that he will only pursue legacy policies up to the point it upsets his masters in the banking industry that installed him in office, just like most other presidents since Woodrow Wilson (who got elected on the promise to the bankers to sign the income tax and Federal Reserve Act into law).
The argument given by Obama apologists leading up to the 2012 re-election was that if we re-elected him he would end the wars, the surveillance, the corporate/banking collusion, and the erosion of the Bill of Rights.
The line must be drawn at dead children. This is the commander in chief and he had every ability to stop these atrocities in a timely fashion. It is very important that we as a people distinguish between pragmatism and compromise. Being against the bombing of children is not being a purist; it is being human.
Being a pragmatist means that the bombing can stop immediately, but it may not be possible to withdraw the skeleton of the empire overnight due to buildings, military bases, and more, let alone reconciliation for the countries we have obliterated. Compromise is saying that we can wait until 2016 or 2020 to stop killing children, which is code for ‘war will never end’ due to the spineless nature of public officials who have misused the public’s trust.
Obama’s Crimes & Obama’s Apologists
President Obama did not hesitate to maintain, expand, and worsen the crimes of George W. Bush. Obama extended the drone program to Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Libya, and Somalia. Tens of thousands of children died in the Somali famine, which occurred around the time of the ramping up of drone attacks by the President.
Did Obama-apologists really think that in order to defeat Romney, Obama needed to kill children in order to get a small fraction of the neoconservative population, such as Bill Kristol, who praised Obama as a ‘born again neocon’ days after advising him on Libya? To quote hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco, did Obama ‘not say s—’ on the bombardment of Gaza with Operation Cast Lead only to get re-elected?
The answer to those questions is no. Those notions are absurd. It is very easy for Americans, who even among the poorest of the poor are better off than 90% of the planet, to play politics with the lives of others.
A mother in Gaza is never thinking “I can surely wait until 2016 or 2020 for Americans to get their house in order to stop killing our children.”
While America plays games with two-party politics, we come across as spoiled and ignorant of the consequences of both parties’ consent to imperialism.
War crimes cannot be repented or made up for. Surely, war criminal politicians are stuck with the job, since 90% of Congress was re-elected in 2014, and we would all love for them to admit their mistakes and cease the war crimes indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean that even if they stop the war crimes they shouldn’t be held accountable. By all means, they should get due process and jail time if convicted so the world can move forward in peace while military contractors collect unemployment benefits.
We’re stuck with President Obama until 2013-2017, regardless that he should not be forgiven for his war crimes of 2009-2012. The apologists promised he’d use his re-election mandate to really fulfill his 2008 campaign promises, but did he?
No! Police militarization, Edward Snowden revelations, closing down the office tasked with closing down Gitmo, the Boston Bombing, the NDAA, renewal of the PATRIOT Act, prosecution of whistleblowers and WikiLeaks, blank check for the CIA to justify its drone strikes & kill list, prosecution of Aaron Swartz, a witchhunt against journalists, crackdowns on Occupy Wall St., foreign aid to Israel, funding of ISIS/al-Nusra rebels, foreign aid to other despotic regimes (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt), Monsanto Protection Act, ongoing war on medical cannabis, immunity for the Federal Reserve & big banks, and a hefty laundry list of offenses continued past the alleged mandate of re-election. The only tragically ironic silver lining is that this has awoken many on the left to the notion that the Democratic Party will not save them and we have much deeper and sinister systemic problems in our world.
Malcolm X called it “an international, Western power structure.”
Javier Yanez stands on his balcony where he hung a U.S. and Cuban flag in Old Havana Cuba, Friday, Dec. 19, 2014. After the surprise announcement on Wednesday of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the U.S., many Cubans expressed hope that it will mean greater access to jobs and the comforts taken for granted elsewhere, and lift their struggling economy. However others feared a cultural onslaught, or that crime and drugs, both rare in Cuba, will become common along with visitors from the United States. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
War Crimes & Legacy Politics
If President Obama was really serious about legacy politics, why wouldn’t he pursue the maintenance of his public image starting from 2012, instead of after the 2014 midterms? The laundry list above is just what was done since 2013.
Some legacy policies Obama is pursuing: easing relations with Cuba, ‘ending’ the war in Afghanistan, and alleged talks of sanctions on Israel, the latter of the policies being the main focus of this article, but the former will be dealt with because it is important to understand the smokescreen here. We have to read between the lines in these policies, because these are watered down attempts meant to save the image of the two-party system, when really these legacy policies won’t go beyond what the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Morgans allow.
The Cuba issue is very positive, as sanctions/embargoes are a declaration of war. Obama does not deserve any credit for this. In the 70s, the CIA orchestrated several coups in Chile, Ecuador, and more. John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” details these horrific imperialist endeavors and how they exploit the native populations and the natural resources of the land for the benefit of a few multinational corporations.
Nowadays, the U.S. is losing its former grip over Latin America. Hugo Chavez & Evo Morales stuck their necks out, especially since the plane-rerouting fiasco involving Morales and a conveniently absent Edward Snowden. The pressure of Latin American governments who aren’t taking any more bullying by the corporate agenda of the US military are the ones who forced Obama’s hand in this action. However, the U.S. will use this opportunity to covertly infiltrate Cuba as well as try to extradite heroes like Assata Shakur.
To briefly touch on Afghanistan, the war is not over and will last until at least 2024. Private contractors and drones still count as a war. Obama apologists think that Libya was not a war because the bombing occurred from land and sea, without boots on the ground. Absurd logic, but that’s how the media works to pacify the so-called left. Thankfully we have truly principled peace advocates like Cindy Sheehan calling out people who were once on her side who now are completely silent when the Democrats took power in 2006.
The corporate media freaked out when President Obama was ‘considering’ sanctions against Israel. The extremely right-wing Zionists are even willing to call out the New York Times as being anti-Israel. The NYT, which is owned by a pro-Zionist Jew and often whitewashes Israel’s crimes such as the daily violation of this summer’s ceasefire, cannot be anti-Israel. In order to use the tool of divide & conquer to their advantage, the Zionist lobby will chastise their own lapdogs, which further helps to pacify the left by making people think that Obama and the ‘liberal’ media are antiwar, when they are actually the opposite.
The Zionists should not fret! Obama is very good at smokescreens. The Zionists should cheer at the fact that Obama was 100% complicit in Operation Protective Edge, not just by giving Israel the money and weaponry to commit such atrocities against Gaza (including re-stocking Israel’s stockpile when they ran out, as they used so many bombs it dwarfed Cast Lead by comparison), but by morally supporting their right to ‘defend themselves.’ Obama aides and John Kerry may have been caught ‘red-handed’ bad-mouthing Israel, but this administration’s actions speak louder than their empty words.
In fact, actions make the words look like they are purposefully implanted in the media to distract from the fact that Obama is a hardcore Zionist. Only the gullible will buy the story of a secret recording of John Kerry. This is the Secretary of State. No journalist can leave Guantanamo Bay unless all their recording devices are reviewed by military personnel, much of which is erased, so how can a secret recording device get anywhere near Secretary Kerry, let alone the recording allowed to remain un-erased on the device unless they wanted it to be recorded? Kerry’s State Department is “deeply troubled” by the Palestinian bid to try Israel for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.
“I’m a Zionist. You don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist.” –Vice President Joe Biden (D)
Lowkey vs. AIPAC
Since Zionists are willing to use celebrities and artists to glorify their war crimes, I don’t think that musicians who are on the side of peace and love should be ignored. British hip-hop artist Lowkey went on Russia Today a few years ago, during the first term of President Obama, to break down President Obama’s speech to the Middle East.
Obama’s hypocritical speech talked about opposing violence against the people of the region (except for America’s wars), universal rights (except those suppressed by our puppet regimes), equality for men & women under the rule of law (except for US ally Saudi Arabia), and the right to choose your own leaders (until we choose them for you). Lowkey pointed out that Obama failed to mention Israel’s murder of unarmed Palestinians around the time of the speech. He pointed out how Obama failed to mention the biggest violators of human rights and the most tyrannical regimes in the Middle East: Israel & Saudi Arabia.
Both countries have been committing their crimes since their very foundations in the middle part of the 1900s. Obama gave watered-down rhetoric in regards to Israel & Palestine, that both sides have to change and want peace. Lowkey debunks such a notion by pointing out the Palestine Papers, released by Al Jazeera, in which the Palestinian Authority were offering Israel the biggest Jerusalem in history: it is Israel who does not want peace and does not want to recognize Palestine nor any sort of two-state solution, no matter how watered down and favorable it is to Israel’s expansionist agenda.
Lowkey also points out about how cozy President Obama is with Netanyahu, who professed that 9/11 was good for Israel’s policies, and how the President gives keynote speeches at AIPAC conferences.
“He is still a servant to AIPAC, 100% … and is the handsome face of an ugly empire,” Lowkey concluded, while adding that Saudi Arabia is yet another oppressive country that Obama will not call out.
Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are big allies of Israel and help to fund illegal settlement expansion.
As the corporate media will cry wolf over talks of sanctions against Israel, they are silent that the same Obama government is considering sanctions on Palestine due to their bid for statehood. They’re not even celebrating that fact because it contradicts their previous hysteria. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, whose oath is to the United States and the Constitution, has now pledged allegiance to a foreign country’s policies.
Politicians who consider themselves ‘mavericks’ (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Rand Paul), have all similarly capitulated to the AIPAC lobby, especially when it counted this summer during the massacre in Gaza. They dehumanized the Palestinians by not recognizing their existence while approving the weaponry used to kill them in the thousands. Over 500 children died, but Sanders, Warren, and Paul can satisfy their egos by running for president.
This is so perverted: imagine you are a parent and a government official who was complicit in your child’s murder went on a self-satisfying political glory ride fooling American voters into continuing these very same policies.
They also neglect the surging movement within the Jewish population that staunchly opposes Zionism who say ‘not in our name’ with principle, unlike the watered-down message of J Street. AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League have tried to psychologically implant the notion that Jewish Voice for Peace A) does not exist, B) are self-hating anti-Semites, or C) is a terrorist organization.
When Israel is clearly the aggressor and their government oversees massive war crimes, bloodshed, apartheid, and tyranny — treating their subjects as less than subhuman — they cannot logically defend themselves. So they resort to childish name-calling against anyone who speaks out whether they are Jewish or not, as we are all human beings here. Groups like JVP emulate the Prophet Moses, who fought against tyranny, while the state of Israel emulates the pharaoh, who carried out the tyranny.
War and Peace
War is a product of hate and peace is a product of love. We need to hold war criminal politicians accountable so that we can replace them with those who will pragmatically put an end to the empire, so that we as a people can unite and spread peace, love, and harmony regardless of race, spiritual orientation/religion, gender, class, sexual orientation, physical/mental ability, or any other arbitrary classification that arises from hate of the other.
But if we keep worshipping political false idols and saying that the only way to go in 2016 is to reform the two-party system from within, innocent people will keep dying and the people will all be successfully divided and ruled. Pro-Israel billionaires are poised to influence the 2016 presidential race in a pro-war direction. Sheldon Adelson is courting the Republican neoconservatives and Haim Saban is courting the Democratic neoliberals.
We must not play politics with the lives of others, not one election cycle longer.
Imagine if it was your children and your family that was suffering. You wouldn’t advocate for compromise and change at a snail’s pace, pushing it off to 2020. It is time to vote our hearts instead of compromising our hearts when we vote. We can’t change everything overnight, but compromising means that things will never change.
Content posted to MyMPN open blogs is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to MintPress News.
