Right wing pundits and politicians hated Obama's Cairo speech. That may be the only reason to recommend it. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Iraqi occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Afghanistan occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would close Guantanamo. Peacenik thought Obama would stop torture by U.S. soldiers and agents. Was Peacenik naive. Did Peacenik forget a question mark there? Peacenik thinks Peacenik was optimistic. Overly optimistic. Now, Peacenik thinks Obama is going to change very little. The US is stuck in the Middle East. Inertia. Imperialism. Pride. Oil. Foolishness.
Just like the US couldn't imagine the consequences of not being in Vietnam, the U.S. is incapable of imagining not being in the Middle East. But the day will come. The empire is collapsing. The empire has collaspsed. You know it. Peacenik knows it. Obama will know it.
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted June 9, 2009.
What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture -- yes, we still torture -- Muslims?
Did they play Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world’s largest ghetto?
What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture—yes, we still torture—only Muslims? What do these words mean when we sanction Israel’s brutal air assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, assaults that demolished thousands of homes and left hundreds dead and injured? How does it look for Obama to call for democracy and human rights from Egypt, where we lavishly fund and support the despotic regime of Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-reigning dictators in the Middle East?
