Obama's Offer of a New Beginning

You have got to admit that President Obama’s speech is impressive. It was so well rehearsed and orchestrated, almost without flaws. He touched base with the middle ground, weaving through the seven issues highlighting his concern and depth in showing his hope in confronting these academically. He preached co-existence and mutual understanding. He even used Islamic terms, concepts and quoted a sprinkling of quranic translations. As if to preempt skeptics, he purposely declared that a speech can never tackle all the complexities but he promises a beginning.

This is new and quite groundbreaking for any US or Western leader to acknowledge and address directly the concerns of the Muslim world in a language of dialogue and in trying to speak as one of their own.

Shall he deliver minding the powerful Israeli lobby, the prejudice in the West and the skepticism of Americans themselves?

His speech was delivered in a typically repressive Muslim country where Arabs hold their leaders and themselves in contempt.

For starters, he should begin by deescalating the war in Pakistan, withdraw from Afghanistan and not see resistance as violent extremism, the new euphemism. His words are worthless to the victims of the Swat tragedy which is ongoing even as he speaks of peace.

We shall remain weary of such promises however eloquent and charismatic his words. Still he sounds far better than Bush!



Points to ponder from his speech:

He acknowledges civilization's debt, cultural and scientific contributions to Islam.

He did not use the word terror or terrorists preferring the more generalized term, extremist and violence.

He urges the world to avert and avoid stereotyping Muslims, in turn perceiving and profiling one another. This spells good news in confronting and getting rid of Islamophobia.

He mentioned and treated with respect the prophets Moses, Jesus and Muhammad by saying the salutations (peace be upon them).

He mentioned Hamas without the usual equating it with terror. Instead he recognizes their popularity but urges them to refrain from armed resistance. (The word resistance was used to Israel’s dismay).

He admits the suffering of the Palestinians in the same breath and line as reminding of the Jewish holocaust (to the consternation of Israel).

He promises to withdraw all US troops from the Muslim countries invaded when they are finished.

He is against torture and still promises to close down Guantanamo.

He mentions publicly his full name as Barack Husein Obama.

He admitted Iraq was a mistake but not in so many words.

He says that he is against all nuclear weapons and is seen to be more receptive towards nuclear energy for Iran.

He admits America’s role in bringing down a democratically elected Iranian government in the 50’s.

He offers dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

He presents a moderate and reasonable view of Muslim women. He does not mock the hijab but almost defends the freedom to don one. He subtly exposes those hostile towards Islam and religion under the pretext of liberalism (Sarkozy’s France may not like this).

He promises engagement and offers sharing in entrepreneurship and economic progress.

He showed unequivocal and categorical support for Israel. He stresses unshaken bonds to Israel and bases it on the Jewish nation’s tragic history. He even urged Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

He insists that war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is justified in pursuit of the violent extremists responsible for 9/11. Again he uses the same al Qaeda threat line except he studiously avoids the word terrorist.

Repression and Obama’s Cairo Speech

Repression and Obama’s Cairo Speech

Obama’s agenda and venture into the Arab and Muslim world brings a lot of promises but so far nothing has really shifted, far from being changed, his catchy election call.

Egyptians are worried that by choosing Cairo as his city for beaming his saintly message, Obama is in fact, endorsing repression. Egyptian political leadership and governing regime thrives upon brutal repression and severe suppression of democracy. For Cairo is not Prague, a vibrant democracy where Obama had previously addressed Eastern Europe.

Obama is expected to announce Mubarak, the Egyptian leader’s central role and shore up his regime as the bulwark against Iranian interests and promote America’s agenda in the Middle East. He is plainly regurgitating stability at the expense of democracy, emphasizing Israel’s security and unfettered expansionism by using his wonderful eloquence and mesmerizing talent. He will cite Pakistan as an example of the bulwark and the fight against terror, purposely being oblivious to the destruction of a peaceful and beautiful region and pathetically ignoring the plight of the 2.4 million sudden refugees because attacking Pakistan was Obama’s idea and election campaign pledge.

Guatanamo is still stuck, Obama could not even release a prisoner held since he was a 12 year old child. His administration is unable to move in closing down this medieval concentration camp and there are many second thoughts, leading Obama to declare that at least a hundred detainees held without trial as lethally dangerous people. He is still echoing Bush era pronouncements made outside the ambit of law and justice. The other black sites such as Bagram, Diego Garcia, Uzbekistan, other Central Asian Republics and clandestine Eastern European places holding countless kidnapped suspected Muslims based on flimsy evidence without recourse to the courts, in a CIA program surreptitiously called rendition.

Obama has backtracked in the release of all the documents, the shocking and devastating photographs of torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib. These photographs were held back and are being contested by the Bush administration and seem to be ratified by Obama’s new administration. The real reason is not the expected Muslim anger worldwide. Muslims are being abused, tortured, kidnapped and killed worldwide already. Such photographs are only documenting what is really happening as the images of loss of life and limb of Muslims are becoming anesthetized and insensitive. Humanity at large is being deadened and unfeeling towards the sufferings and brutality inflicted even upon Muslim women and children. People are being conditioned and dehumanized in a large and unprecedented scale and all that is being remembered or highlighted is the Holocaust of World War II.

The Obama administration has been on the defensive over its refusal to release the pictures, which were gathered as part of U.S. military investigations into prisoner abuse. The real reason for this drastic about turn is the complicity of the entire US administration in condoning and directing the torture and abuse from rendition, physical techniques such as waterboarding, sexual assaults and continued incarceration in extreme conditions. Bush and all of his cohorts bear all these responsibilities and criminal liabilities.

Israel has given Obama the cold shoulder and is facing him down even as the issue is only about removing a few settler outposts, nothing really touched on the illegal towns and forced confistication of Palestinian rights and property. Obama has not the will and ability to confront or moderate the grand Zionist agenda at his own peril.

North Korea has learnt the Iraq disarmament lesson and instead of tuning down its weapons program, it has ratcheted it up to crisis levels, playing for high stakes. Iraq foolishly subjected itself to inspections, embargo and humiliation only to be invaded by a totally false and deceiving resolution. Iran seems to be threading the North Korea path in order to face down a fickle Obama administration.

His decision to surge the military operations in Afghanistan and escalating the war into Pakistan has plunged another large Muslim nation into mayhem and tragedy. Obama has not pursued a political solution but instead he still chooses one of extermination and the zero sum game.

Obama has not stopped the US killing machine, the US torture regime and its longstanding collaboration and promotion of corrupt, brutal and bestial dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world.

In the eyes of the Muslim world, Obama has not changed a thing.