editorial
5 Nov 2008
It's Official: He's the First Black Man in the White House
He has pledged to change the world. Is Obama up to the massive task ahead?
The election of Barack Obama to the US presidency is an historic moment and one that will no doubt change the world — or at least the way the United States interacts with it.There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Obama's election is a symbolic victory as well as a real one.
But let's not get carried away. Even with the best will in the world, the job ahead is bigger than we know. Just undoing the mess that the current administration is creating in its final few weeks could take years, let alone all of the other damage it has done over the last eight years.
As recently as this week Bush has been pushing through changes that will have a lasting effect on the new administration. The New York Times writes that in his last months in office, "President Bush's aides have been scrambling to change rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties and abortion rights, among others.
"We fear it could take months, or years, for the next president to identify and then undo all of the damage."
Almost a year ago, Australians were also full of hope for a new era of governance that would be marked with compassion, tolerance and consultation (as well, admittedly, as its downside: inquiry fatigue). We also had welcomed the end to a long and dark period of government by a man who had lost touch with his electorate and his mandate.
As public sentiment — and politics — moves on, it's easy to forget how bad things had become on Howard's watch. It's strange to think that in 12 months time the years of George W Bush selling his special brand of misguided patriotism will be a distant memory.
But we also know from recent experience that it takes a long time to turn around the great hulking ship of a national government — especially one so covered in rust and barnacles.
When we elected Kevin Rudd to power, we had high hopes about what could and would change. Twelve months on there is little doubt that the bitter overtones of the Howard years are gone from public discourse, but also that the shine has begun to rub off as election promises get buried in administrative detail, as revolutions become more like evolutions, and as symbolic gestures such as the apology to the Stolen Generations become overshadowed by contemporary policy which contradicts them.
After Bush, Obama has even bigger messes to clean up, and they are not of exclusively national concern: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global financial crisis, the shameful reality of being the second biggest greenhouse polluter in the world, and a looming energy crisis, among others.
The States are in a state, and it will take decisive and often unpopular action to affect such a comprehensive overhaul.
But it is change that Obama has promised: so how will he bring it? There will be plenty of pressure from every point on the political spectrum to interpret this result for him. And there will be a lot of people looking up the definition of "mandate" over the course of the next four years, confused by the arguments that will shortly emerge over just what kind of mandate Obama has been given. How he and his advisors navigate their way through that question will be the big issue in his administration.
Meanwhile, a lot of people are talking about the end of neo-liberal domination of social and political discourse. While we'd welcome that, it's hard to be so sure about this.
In the wake of the US system's failures around the Iraq war, the financial crisis and now this election result, people are using the term "discredited" to describe much of the thinking that underpinned these events. However, as far as we can tell, neo-conservatism was discredited long ago — but that didn't prevent it from exercising enormous power.
The many people in the US and across the world who still believe in the neo-con world-view — and those who find it convenient to believe in it — are not going to stop thinking that way just because Barack Obama had been elected president. Nor is the road going to be smooth as he tries to roll back the administrative excesses of the Bush era (and before). Besides that, a great deal more is needed beyond merely rewinding the mistakes. The world has changed, throwing up new problems that will need new answers.
In this context, let's stop for just a minute to imagine the alternative again — let's imagine that McCain had won.
Okay. Now let's move on.
This election marks a huge step forward for a country and a globe that had been stalled for too long by a dangerous old regime.
But it's also just the beginning of a challenging and critical time.
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The difference between Obama & Rudd. Obama has more credibility and is genuine. He trusted his own belief in / off the American people. In my opinion Rudd won out of contempt.
Obama’s appeal is the great big cheque book of the thieves at Goldman Sachs and the not so secret British bankers who spent many hundreds of millions on the certainty of his presidency.
Obama’s test will come when he is pushed into honouring his commitment of returning the troops from Iraq instead of attacking Iran like his financier owners expect him to do.
The US foreign policy of interventionism is going to look as much a democratic ideal as it has been perceived to have been a Republican ideal long before the end of Obama’s presidency.
The only "change" Obama will bring is ever greater economic hardship for workers in the USA and the remainder of the world as he slithers and slides from promise to breach in favour of the same bankers and lobby group who bought his presidency and who will have both their war as well as their depression.
Batten down for four of the most difficult years in recent history and hope like mad that an escalation of USA foreign policy does not suck the rest of us all into greater global conflict.
Oh, he’s not the first. I’m sure Lincoln smuggled in a few during his time … I hear he liked military uniforms as well!
I think you are selling Rudd too short and Obama too long Adrian. There was plenty of contempt for Bush in this vote. Both are not superheroes and work with what they have.
That isn’t to say they won’t make mistakes (Rudd’s support of the intervention for a start) but remember, as pointed out above, Howard and Bush had a long time embed their particular brand of conservatism on the laws and structure ofour respective countries.
I, for one, am going to allow myself a couple of days of happiness at this outstanding development.
‘Slithers and slides from promise to breach’ is one of the most poetic (and possible) things you have ever written on this site Rockjaw.
Naturally I hope that you are, as usual, wrong.
“Why do people call him a "black man" when they could equally well call him a "white man" since his mother was white and his father black?”
Is it because Americans who voted for Obama want to congratulate themselves more than is really justified?
First class editorial, thank you.
Rockjaw: No prizes in guessing who you would have voted for. (For whom you would have voted). And of your being pleased with the stupidity of Republican voting.
What President-elect- Obama has to do, and do urgently, is to reform the education system. I’m told that in America schools are run by our equivalent of the local council, thus enabling the Christian fundamentalists to keep churning out propaganda to keep people stupid. There was an excellent article in The Age (3rd Nov ‘08) written by George Monbiot-‘Descent into Ignorance’. Also the partner of a friend of mine used to be a teacher in America. She came to despise their education system, and she fled to Australia. Both sources back each other up. One comment only, "One adult in five believes the sun revolves around the earth."
So when the Rockjaws of this world start frothing-at-the-mouth about the evils of the Democrats. Know that not only are the Republicans always lusting for war. They allow their education system to be bushwacked by Christian fundamentalism. After all who would ever enlist in the fighting forces if they were nuclear physicists? Keep them ignorant. In Oz we keep them stupid so they will become footy freaks. What a wonderful world.
I’m surprised that we haven’t seen much of Obama’s running mate (or at least he appears to be in the background when I’ve been watching). Yet we did see Hilary by his side. I’m not complaining about the result - love it. But I would like to know more about the next VP of the USA. Any comments?
and why did he keep in the background? Was it strategic to get the female vote and fight Palin? Very clever if so. Also the experienced VP on the ticket. Very well orchestrated campaign.
I am extremely happy with the Barack Obama victory for the World, for America, for Americans - and especially for non-White Americans given the appalling history of White racism there.
I worked in America with my non-Indigenous Black Australian partner back in the 1960s and have zero tolerance for racism.
That historical significance aside, Barack Obama’s skin color is utterly irrelevant - what is important is his intelligence, humanity and recognition of the acute seriousness of the appalling legacy of economic, war and climate emergency problems left by 8 years of racist, religious right republican (R4) Bush administration.
Thank goodness that the bumbling, abusive, child-bombing "war hero" McCain was not elected to give America and the World another 4-8 years of violent, racist, "exceptionalist" incompetence - since when does dropping napalm and bombs on women and children make you a "war hero"?
After the euphoria passes we must consider the political realities and Obama’s necessary tight linkage to the US Establishment - Biden wants to extend the War to Sudan in the West and Obama wants to "bahm" Pakistan in the East; according to Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz America has bankrupted itself with the Iraq War; any US administration will be in thrall to Wall Street as exampled by the last month or so; the circa 1 million Americans who die avoidably each year from all sorts of reasons from guns to lack of health care; the US faces a huge Reparations Bill for the 9-11 million excess deaths so far in the 1990-2008 Bush Wars (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ); and then there is the Climate Emergency (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25702/42/ ) that Obama described today as "the Planet in peril".
The best of luck to Barack Obama.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Dr Polya, the only difference between "the child bombing McCain" and Obama is that McCain wants to extend America’s war from Iraq while Obama wants to partially exit Iraq to better position himself to attack Iran from the east. I am a little surprised at your ovation, Dr Polya, of all people present I would have expected yours to have been a more informed voice.
Obama’s religion or "colour" is quite irrelevant, we agree all, his father may have been a Kenyan, but his mother was a woman, and nobody has complained about his gender!
But Dr Polya, Obama has already accepted the war party’s programme, he has already gone along with the idea of an Afghan surge. Read Dennis Ross’s new plan put together by something they call the "bi-partisan policy group" which presented recommendations to the incoming president advocating more troops in the region under the rubric of an "Afghan/Pakistani surge" while actually meaning to place pressure on Iran.
Together with Ross, Obama has already confirmed his approval of this group’s finding which seems to suggest no opposition to McCain’s idea of pressuring Iran except that it should occur from the East instead of from Iraq. The policy group findings even recommends the placement of US troops into Georgia as part of an "Iranian solution" to include pressure from the North with the aid of Israel.
Azerbaijan, a US ally, is to be used to house additional US troops to add further pressure in the region in favour of justifying an attack under an Obama presidency. Dr Polya, these reports are all easily accessible and I would recommend you read them before joining a cheer squad for a presidency which is probably going to be worse even than that of "The Moron".
See William S Lynn ‘How to lose an army" and see also the rebuttal to this article by the Obama camp which confirms an intent to attack Iran.
The fact which has escaped everyone here is that Obama has carried out his campaign to get out of Iraq, not as a prelude to changed US foreign policy, but as a prelude to attack Iran with a different plan to that of MCain. That is the only real "change" which Obama represents.
The big debate between Obama and McCain has not been one of war or peace, but ratherone of a choice of which battlefield to fight the continued battle of the Neo-cons. McCain said "Iraq" Obama said "let’s go eastward".
Democrat or Republican, the Goldman Sachs funded Neo-Cons will remain in power through the Obama presidency funded by Wall Street and big banks.
The myth of a left wing Obama being in any way diffrent to the right wing Bush presidency will be destroyed many times over the next few years.
Rockjaw - Obama is vastly better than McCain on domestic economic, health, energy, environment, women and education policy - and after 4 centuries of slavery to second class citizenship for African Americans, Obama’s election must be a great joy to African-Americans with the promise that anything is now possible.
However I AGREE with you that Obama is tightly linked to the warmongering US Establishment and that the withdrawal from Iraq promised by Obama might well be perverted to threaten Iran in addition to Obama’s promise to further devastate Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US and its war criminal surrogates and allies should withdraw their forces from ALL Occupied countries, namely Occupied Haiti, Occupied Cuba, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Palestine, Occupied Syria, Occupied Iraq, Occupied Diego Garcia, Occupied Afghanistan and the now US invaded and US bombed Northwest Provinces of Pakistan.
The carnage in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now involves post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths of 0.3 million, 2 million and 4-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths of 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.1 million; and refugees totalling 7 million, 6 million and 4 million (see "9-11 Excuse for US Global Genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: Millions Dead in Bush Wars": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ).
Among many other appalling but "ignored" realities, I have recently informed all State and Federal MPs in Australia that, unreported by mainstream media, UN Population Division data indicate that the “annual death rate” is 2.7% and 6.2% for under-5 year old infants in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan, respectively, as compared to 10.2% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese (for which crime Japanese generals were tried and hanged) (see "Climate Emergency, Exceptionalism & Ignoring Downunder. Letter to Eminent Australians over Public Honesty": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25702/42/ ).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
not that it’s not, but if I see or hear the phrase "an historic moment" one more time….
sigh….
PHRASING people, PHRASING…..
––––––––––––––-
"…people fascinate me…"
— andy warhol
I withdraw my criticism with humility Dr Polya.
From GP: "Silence kills and Silence is complicity."
I’ve been silent for the last hour-and-a-half now - not a peep, even my breathing was unusually soft and inaudible. But my silence didn’t kill anyone, and it did not collude with anyone else killing either. Awfully unfair and presumptuous to many of the speech-impaired too when saying that their "silence kills" or amounts to complicity with killing, etc.
Btw, the pompous and stratospherically over-rated Obama’s just one more toady of Soros, who’s a real megalomaniacal sicko, "free-trade" imperialist. That dull McCain guy was always irrelevant anyway, because he had none of the corresponding, heavily funded campaign and publicity network. Besides, he had no comparable novelty value to the consumer culture.
I think his election to the US President will only help America fter the Rotten Corrupt Bush admin. This will only bring America into line with the rest of the World. I only hope Obama has some real vision and really tries to tackle Climate change and does something meaningful with America and the massive waste of fossil fuels there and huge cars that Americans drive. His Green policies will be interesting and the world will be watching. I hope he does something about the US health system also and the appalling state of inequality its in also. I live in hope.
History suggests he may not survive long.
With regards to history who pushed Iran into the Arab world , the people remain proudly Persian , and why the obsession with attacking them ?
mil-observer, I think you might ask a young black person from the USA whether the Obama story is purely a novelty for consumption. Have you no room in your philosophy to acknowledge the inspiration that was evident on black faces as he spoke last night? Is that meaningless to you?
Also is there any speech impaired person out there who might genuinely be offended by the silence is complicity quote? They are speech impaired, not mentally impaired, and can recognise context as well as anyone.
Got to beg to differ on the following quote from the article:
When we elected Kevin Rudd to power, we had high hopes about what could and would change. Twelve months on there is little doubt that the bitter overtones of the Howard years are gone from public discourse, but also that the shine has begun to rub off as election promises get buried in administrative detail, as revolutions become more like evolutions, and as symbolic gestures such as the apology to the Stolen Generations become overshadowed by contemporary policy which contradicts them.
"Twelve months on" we are still "overshadowed by contemporary policy", since that contemporary policy is the very bitter overtone we are retaining in public discourse. People are talking about the intervention more and more today, not less, and most Australians want to blame Howard not Rudd for that inheritance. Just like all the late policy changes in the USA that the New York Times reported about, but here in Australia, it felt like the whole last term of the Howard government was a last ditch effort to muddle us all around through making a few nasty legislation changes. But since one of those changes almost makes it outside of the law (and definitely enables police to find such suspicious), few of us will say about Australia, what the New York Times can about the USA.
Dr Polya: I hope your horror of genocide includes the Holocaust (WITH A CAPITAL H) which the Turks inflicted on the Armenians. And which is brushed aside today by America, Britain, France and most revoltingly of all, Israel. Israel wont acknowledge it because they want the world to remember ‘their holocaust’ . As indeed it should. However, the Armenians suffered just as badly-on a per capita basis.The other nations mentioned find it to be an inconvenient truth. Read Robert Fisk. ‘The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East’ London 2005 publishers Harper Collins. He is a lot more eloquent than me.
Jonah Bones: So they can commandeer the oil? Because they are Muslims? And his shi*ty Christian soul hates them for it? I give up. Why?
When talking political rallies: ‘fraid I don’t really get this "inspiration" stuff, Doc Dawg! Can’t say I ever conjure up much imagery about "black faces" either. All a bit too vague, mystical, and downright scary for this working class lad.
The gush over this corrupt mediocrity Obama all reminds me of the silly tribalist euphoria among feminists when Thatcher became PM. The difference is the ever-present, creepy sub-text of racism, so evident by its over-compensation in the muffling of dissent and critical thinking. It’s disgusting that the media, party and NGO lemmings keep invoking this dangerously superficial and divisive issue, implying that serious critics of Obama must have some problem with his ethnicity/skin color, etc.
I just wish all his uncritical backers would sign up for his "Afghanistan surge". Now, there’s some "change you can believe in"!
mil-observer - a speech impaired person can still write and even if paralyzed from the neck down, could still COMMUNICATE by eye blinking (BTW I helped care daily for 2 severely disabled people for 2 decades). Indeed 2 prisoners of Stalinist Hungary, a man and a woman, communicated sight unseen by tapping on a water pipe and indeed fell in love sight unseen and married after escaping Hungary (see Ignotus, P. (1964), Political Prisoner (Collier, New York)).
Venise Alstergren - I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. I have written extensively about the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were murdered in Turkey 1915-1923 (e.g. see my books dealing with holocausts and holocaust denial (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) and the revised and updated 2008 version of my 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability" (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) .
I recently reviewed an excellent book "Denial. History betrayed" that deals with the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide as well as horrible denial in relation to the Jewish Holocaust, Stalinist crimes, Japanese atrocities, Balkans crimes and the Aboriginal Genocide in Australia (see “”Denial. History betrayed” by Tony Taylor. Denial” book ignores UK, US genocide crimes” : http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26450/26/ ).
"Denial. History betrayed" is an important book that should certainly be read by everyone and should be in every library. However inevitably “Denial” can be criticized and the most fundamental criticism is that this otherwise excellent Mainstream Anglo book, published by a prestigious Mainstream Anglo publisher, itself ignores major 20th century and ongoing 21st century holocausts and genocides due to Anglo-American imperialism.
Thus "Denial. History betrayed" fails to notice the Iraqi Genocide (see my contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ); the man-made atrocity in British-ruled India in which the British deliberately starved to death 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine atrocity (see recent BBC broadcast involving me, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ); and the 9-11 million excess deaths associated with the Bush Wars 1990-2008 (see “9-11 excuse for global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity- millions (9-11 million) dead in Bush Wars”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/ ).
Unfortunately, for reasons best known to himself, part-Kenyan Barack Obama IGNORES not only the 9-11 million avoidable deaths (so far) in the Bush Wars but even the 1.1 million excess deaths associated with the British Kenyan Holocaust 1952-1960 (see “Body Count” and also see Elkins, C. (2005), Britain’s Gulag. The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (Pimlico, London)).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
One can only hope that Obama does improve things for Americans. They certainly deserve to have the same opportunities that the average person has in other developed nations.
As to how America is internationally, one can only cross fingers. Perhaps Obama will talk as he says, or perhaps he will only talk first and then demand that the world does as it is told.
Given that his initial appointments show a clear bias toward those who would support war against Iran …. Israeli, Jewish Lobby, Zionist … it is hard to see how he is going to be much different to Bush. Israel’s leader Tzipi Livni has already said that talking to Iran would be a sign of weakness. Obama said he would but will he. His most senior adviser is a practising Jew with Israeli citizenship and a stated commitment to Israel. The power of the Jewish lobby in America is immense and it is truly depressing to see its power already reflected in the Obama government. One can only hope that Obama will hold his own counsel but it is hard to believe given the clear over-representation once again in American corridors of power, of people who hold a particular view of what America should do in the Middle East and what they want to happen in the Middle East. Given that the Middle East is the powder keg which could explode and impact us all, people of reason had hoped that Obama would be what he purported to be, a man of reason. Only time will tell but the signs are not good. Israel wanted Iraq invaded and occupied to serve its interests and it got it; it wants Iran bombed and it is likely to get it. Israel does not want peace in the Middle East (or it would end the occupation and stop attacking its neighbours) and that has meant America does not want peace in the Middle East. Certainly there is a question as to whether America is the dog which wags the tail of Israel or vice-versa but the fact remains that peace seems just as far away with the new Obama Government as it was under Bush. And that is a tragedy, not just for the world, but for Americans and Israelis in particular.
Dr Polya, perhaps you could add to your list of genocides the first concentration camps of the 20th century in which the majority of the Boer population were murdered by the British and Australians from 1900-1904 and in which primarily women, children and the aged were murdered in the most cruel and brutal manner imaginable.
Maybe by doing so you could also learn how this was the model of genocide which inspired the Nazi idea of the Holocaust camps of WWII.
Perhaps you could also study the same British/Australian involvement in that region where they enacted the first race laws on the 16 nations of that region by forcing upon them the enactment of the British "Repugnancy Acts" and introducing the groundwork and the foundation of the world’s first Apartheid laws on those 16 nations which previously managed to live in relative peace and harmony with each other for centuries before these British, Australians and those terrible laws were introduced to the region.
The biggest critics of "Muslim terrorists" or the Nazis or the Israelis are in fact the world’s worst culprits and if only we would rid ourselves of our arrogant ignorance forced on us by our politically correct education which conveniently fails to teach us who we really are and what terrible crimes our governments have committed against other people who do not share our views of right vs wrong.
Doc GP: thanks, you’ve convinced me. All the same, I think I’d better use an old clackety-clack DIN-6 keyboard in place of this spongey USB one, which is very dangerously silent when communicating online. ;-)
Yeah, I’m a bit concerned about Obama’s silence there too. Aside from the various ethno-specific brutalities, a.k.a. genocide, it’s looking like Obama’s support of the bailouts - and his refusal and/or indecision and/or cowardice on scrapping the dead monetarist system that got us here - are about to contribute to a very nasty global phase of Malthusian depopulation. I’m sure that such a development will not much displease the imperialist architects of such business as the Kenyan genocide: Prince Charles just last week hinted as much during his sojourn in Indonesian rainforests where he pined yet again for more orang utans, less commoner-homo sapiens.
Rockjaw - I have indeed considered the appalling mass murder of Boer women, children and servants in British concentration camps during the Boer War - indeed this is item #8 in a catalogue of 20 genocide events in which Australia has been involved, quote: " 8. Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902; 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; Australians participated in the Boer War as immortalized in the movie “Breaker Morant”) (see: "Australia’s Secret Genocide History. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” & Black Crimes of White Australia": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22128/42/ .
The Germans followed this with the Namibian Genocide in South West Africa - 0.1 million Namibian Hereros and Namas murdered; a foretaste of the World War 2 Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma murdered) (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
I don’t know whether Australians were involved as loyal imperial participants in the British Kenyan Holocaust, the Kenyan Genocide (1.1 million avoidable deaths, 1952-1960) that half-Kenyan Barack Obama totally IGNORES - notwithstanding my enthusiasm for his victory (together with 90% of humanity) what sort of brainwashing or political cynicism enables someone like Barack Obama to IGNORE the mass murder of his own people?
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Avaaz’s Global Message to Obama Wall in Washington DC has become THE place for citizens around the world to speak to Obama. If you haven’t already, follow the link to add your name, and send this email to friends and family who might want to join in:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/million_messages_to_obama .
I signed their Letter to Obama and added the following suggestions in the place provided:
The US under an Obama Administration should urgently institute Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s demand for 100% renewable energy within 10 years; urgently provide Health Care security for 45 million Americans lacking medical insurance; adopt the call of top US climate scientists such as NASA’s Dr James Hansen for urgent reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 350 parts per million; stop the global avoidable mortality holocaust involving 16 million avoidable deaths each year due to poverty; and, with its associates, should withdraw immediately, with fully costed Reparations, from all Occupied Territories, including Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Syria, Occupied Diego Garcia and from the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories where post-invasion excess deaths total 0.3 million, 2 million and 4-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.1 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 6 million and 4 million, respectively - genocides as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see the books "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950" and "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" and further writings by Dr Gideon Polya on MWC News) (for links see: “Body Count” : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) .
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
I guess I’m wrong again Doc Polya.
Yes, thanks Doc Bodycount. I’m staying silent this time.
Dr Polya, I would not be holding my breath with Saint Obama.
This Wall Street Journal report explains how Obama is likely to renage on the first campaign promise even before his inauguration already! Wow! Another first for the USA.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122636726473415991.html?mod=googlenews_w…
Judging by his appointments our wonderful Obama has already altered his view on torture which, during his campaign, he used to wow the crowds with his pious rhetoric and self-righteous Bush-hating anti-torture pledges by telling us all how he opposed "enhanced interrogation techniques" and made torture and wire tapping of citizens a signature issue of his campaign.
Currently Obama is fast on track to becoming the second President in US history to approve of torture and the decline of the USA into a state of barbarism is picking up pace as this new administration slowly confirms intent to legitimise the very essence of barbarity, which is torture.
What change?
Dr Gideon Polya: I am totally embarrassed as I failed to read your reply to my comment until today. I shall be following up the links provided as soon as possible. You can bet on it.
Sincerely Venise