-Ed
From: Sid Shniad
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 12:20 PM
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421&ref=patrick.net
A Tale of Two Depressions
The world economy is tracking or doing worse than during
the Great Depression
***
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22771.htm
America's Violent Extremism
By Paul Craig Roberts
June 05, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -What are we to make of
Obama's speech at Cairo University in Egypt?
"I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United
States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual
respect."
Cairo is the capital of Egypt, an American puppet state whose ruler
suppresses the aspirations of Egyptian Muslims and cooperates with Israel in
the blockade of Gaza.
In contrast to the Islamic University of Al-Azhar, Cairo University
was founded as a civil university. Obama's Cairo University audience was
secular.
Nevertheless, Obama said startling words that many Muslims found
hopeful. He said that colonialism and the Cold War had denied rights and
opportunities to Muslims and resulted in Muslim countries being treated as
proxies without regard to their own aspirations. The resulting blowback from
"violent extremists" bred fear and mistrust between the Western and Muslim
worlds.
Obama spoke of the Koran, his middle name, and his family connections
to Islam.
Obama praised Islam's contributions to civilization.
Obama declared his "responsibility as president of the United States
to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
Obama acknowledged "the responsibility we have to one another as human
beings."
Obama acknowledged Iran's "right to access peaceful nuclear power."
Obama declared that "no system of government can or should be imposed
by one nation on any other."
Obama's most explosive words pertained to Israel and Palestine:
"Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be
denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
Obama declared that "the only resolution [to the conflict] is for the
aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and
Palestinians each live in peace and security. That is in Israel's interest,
Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is
why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that
the task requires." For Obama's commitment to be fulfilled, Israel would
have to give back the stolen West Bank lands, dismantle the wall, accept the
right to return, and release 1.5 million Palestinians from the Gaza Ghetto.
As this seems an unlikely collection of events, the nature of the "two-state
solution" endorsed by Obama remains to be seen.
After the euphoric attention to idealistic rhetoric dies down, Obama
will be criticized for extravagant words that create unrealizable
expectations. But were the extravagant words other than a premier act of
schmoozing Muslims designed to quiet the Muslim Brotherhood in our Egyptian
puppet state and to get Muslims to accept US aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Pakistan?
Obama decries regime change, but continues to practice it, invoking
women's rights to gain support from secularized Arabs. He admits that Iraq
was a war of choice but claims that al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and 9/11 make
Afghanistan a war of necessity.
Obama said that "the events of 9/11" and al-Qaeda's responsibility,
not America's desire for military bases and hegemony, are the reasons
America's commitment to combating violent extremism in Afghanistan will not
weaken. Will Muslims notice that Obama's case for America's violent
extremism in Afghanistan and now Pakistan is hypocritical?
Al-Qaeda, Obama says, "chose to ruthlessly murder" nearly 3,000 people
on 9/11 "and even now states their determination to kill on a massive
scale." These deaths are a mere drop in the buckets of blood that America's
invasions have brought to the Muslim world. Moreover, the overwhelming
majority of the Muslims America has slaughtered are civilians, just as are
the unarmed Palestinians slaughtered by the American-equipped Israeli
military.
Against al-Qaeda, whose "actions are irreconcilable with the rights of
human beings," Obama invokes the Koran's prohibition against killing an
innocent. Does Obama not realize that the stricture applies to the US and
its "coalition of forty-six countries" in spades?
America's wars are all wars of choice. The more than one million dead
Iraqis are not al-Qaeda. Neither are Iraq's four million refugees. Yet,
Obama says Iraqis are better off now, with their country in ruins and a
fifth of their population lost, because they are rid of Saddam Hussein, a
secular ruler.
No one has a good tally of the dead and refugees America has produced
in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, declared Obama, "The situation in Afghanistan
demonstrates America's goals and our need to work together."
In his first 100 days, Obama managed to create two million Pakistani
refugees. It took Israel 60 years to create 3.5 million Palestinian
refugees.
What Obama has really done is his speech is to accept responsibility
for the neoconservative agenda of extending Western hegemony by eliminating
"Muslim extremists," that is, Muslims who want to rule themselves in keeping
with Islam, not in keeping with some secularized, Westernized faux Islam.
Muslim extremists are the creation of decades of Western colonization
and secularization that has created an elite, which is Muslim in name only,
to rule over religious people and to suppress Islamic mores. All experts
know this, and most of them hail it as bringing progress and development to
the Muslim world.
Obama said that "human progress cannot be denied," but "there need not
be contradiction between development and tradition." However, the West
defines development and education. These terms mean what they mean in the
West. Muslim extremists understand that these terms mean the extermination
of Islam.
In typical American fashion, Obama offered Muslims money,
"technological development," and "centers of scientific excellence."
All the Muslims have to do is to cooperate with America and be
peaceful, and America will "respect the dignity of all human beings."
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