Friday, April 03, 2009
Obama at G-20 and at Strasbourg ‘Town Hall’ meeting
It is ‘America First – America Last’ all the way. Obama tried hard to be more civil, more cultured, more conciliatory than his predecessor, Bush, but the message at both his meeting was loud and clear --- US militarists and Bankers have spoken and the world better listen. His repeated assurance that he had come to listen, share ideas, come to hold a dialog with Europe was a hollow sales talk on behalf of his handlers back home.
His economic package, as fine-tuned by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, had taken pains to see that the old financial system is not disturbed. It is the G-7 that was in command and will remain in command for all time to company. The sweet talk about emerging market and developing nations was a big eye-wash. Neither the Sarkozy/Merkel teaming up made any difference to the railroad approach of the US-UK bulldozer, nor NATO’s continued reluctance to send ‘their boys to shed blood to defend Afghanistan, where anti-women laws are passed’.
In London, between pomp and pageantry and a symbolic anti-capitalist protest rally chocking city center, Gordon Brown took pride in reeling of figures – all in trillion and billions, none in millions, to pump more credit into a system that has ruthlessly exploited America’s dollar as reserve currency and America’s financial markets as treasurers to the world, and inflicted a grand ponzi scheme on the world, with full impunity. The same thieves are in business and no amount of oversight can take away their inbuilt, ingrained ability and motivation to build up mountains of leveraged products just to remain in business.
The same IMF and World Bank, with their US controlled bureaucrats dispensing credit to the only credit-worthy from their own Anglo-Saxon clientele. The third world will be relegated to the same drudgery of remaining at the end of the line. The fond hopes of a new world economic system that will eliminate greed and criminality from the whole process of world credit and finance, were dashed against the clout of US economic and military power still dominating the world economy. Obama as a friendly face --- was used to gain sympathy from the third world and raise false hopes of a better deal to the poor victims of world meltdown that had done no wrong to deserve the dire fate of widespread impoverishment and drastic deterioration of their survival level existence. The basics of the old order remain intact.
Over security, Obama posed the same old question with the European audience – Why we are in Afghanistan. This time he answered that the Europeans should trust America as if the security danger was not so acute, US would not be in Afghanistan. So simple! Obama who had come to listen, asked to be given a blank check by his NATO allies. He was not ready to give any credence to the argument that Al Qaida and Taliban terror has some connection with Israel/Palestinian imbroglio and Muslim anger over US forays in Muslim world. Again and again he cited 9/11, as if the world came into existence only on 9/11 and US was innocent of all crimes that could have triggered a reaction. Obama, like his militarist advisors, was not ready to even consider in an academic way, why 9/11 occurred.
It is clear that 9/11 is a convenient tool for America’s militarists, under neo-con prodding, to station western forces around the oil well countries of Near/Central/South Asia. Obama is just a piped piper, trying to mesmerize the world, to lead it to the same destination, where the Neo-con planners had guided Bush to bog down. Bush railroaded Blair to join his misadventure in Iraq. Obama was now instructed to rope in full NATO into the next serial invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan --- faithfully abiding with the old blue-print prepared by American Jewish Neo-cons.
Obama’s success was clearly evident by his interaction with Russian, Chinese and Indian leaders. All ate out of his hand. But that could be what the world saw in televised promotion of the Summit. As BBC commentators repeated again and again, the devil is in the details.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.com
