Obama's Middle East and N. Africa

I have come to believe that my country, the United States of America, is two-faced. We tend to have great values, such as human rights, but tend to act toward other countries, and sometimes against our own people, in a completely contrary manner. I mentioned before that the Native Americans used to say, especially in those "Westerns" of my younger days, that the white man speaks with forked tongue. The Native Americans certainly experienced first hand our contrariness.

In their post for CODEPINK's blog, PINKtank, Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of both CODEPINK and Global Exchange, and Charles Davis, an independent journalist, seem to be saying the same thing about President Obama's major speech on May 20 at the State Department regarding the Middle East and North Africa. We speak of and commend non-violence, but act in a completely different manner.

Here are some excerpts ~

**Given that President Obama daily authorizes the firing of hellfire missiles and the dropping of cluster bombs in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it was awful odd seeing him wax eloquent this week about the “moral force of non-violence” in places like Egypt and Tunisia. But there he was, the commander-in-chief of the largest empire in history, praising the power of peaceful protest in countries with repressive leaders backed by his own administration.

Were we unfamiliar with his actual policies – more than doubling the troops in Afghanistan, dramatically escalating a deadly drone war in Pakistan and unilaterally bombing for peace in Libya – it might have been inspiring to hear a major head of state reject violence as a means to political ends. Instead, we almost choked on the hypocrisy.

* *Yet even for all his talk of human rights and how he “will not tolerate aggression across borders” – yes, a U.S. president said this – Obama didn’t even feign concern about Saudi Arabia’s repressive regime invading neighboring Bahrain to put down a pro-democracy movement there. In fact, the words “Saudi Arabia” were never uttered.

**The president also didn’t deviate from his policy of “unshakable” support for Israeli militarism, typified by his administration’s efforts to safeguard the Jewish state from accountability for its war crimes in Gaza – crimes that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead – and his determination to hand an already wealthy nation more than $3 billion a year in military aid, even as it flaunts the “peace process” and colonizes ever more Palestinian land. 

**Obama’s remarks on the killing of Osama bin Laden were likewise delivered with a complete lack of self-awareness. Describing the latter as a “mass murderer,” Obama – who since taking office has the blood of hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani civilians on his hands – said bin Laden’s philosophy of using bloodshed to achieve desired political changes had been discredited “through the moral force of non-violence” that has swept the region. 

You can read the full post here:  Obama Should Follow His Own Advice on the ‘Moral Force’ of Non-Violence | PINKtank.


Somehow: May Peace Prevail in the Middle East and North Africa. May Peace Prevail in United States Foreign Policy.

Osama bin Laden's Death

The US Needs to Focus on Not Creating Any More bin Ladens | | AlterNet

I would like to recommend this wonderful interview with Samina Sundas, the founder of American Muslim Voice, a post-9-11 group, by Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American of Israeli descent and a CODEPINK organizer. The interview is rather lengthy, but well worth the read. Sundas speaks to American foreign policy and I believe we need to take heed.

The interview was done the morning following the assasination of Osama bin Laden by the United States.

Mother's Day for Peace

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)

Mother’s Day in the United States began as a peace day.

Following the Civil War groups of mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers met together for consolation. Anna Reeves Jarvis held a Mother’s Friendship Day to reunite families that had been divided during the war and she hoped that Mother’s Day would become an annual occurrence. Her daughter, Anna M. Jarvis, worked for a national Mother’s Day to honor both her mother and peace.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe wrote the first Mother’s Day Proclamation. Earlier she had written the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but she became outraged at the carnage of both the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. She called for a summit of mothers for the promotion of peace.

She wrote in part:

We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace.

Julia Ward Howe was a writer, a social activist, and and an active Unitarian, including being a preacher in that denomination. Her Mother’s Day Proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.

I urge mothers and those who have or have had mothers to give a thought to peace and the lack of peace. I urge the good people of this country to give a thought to peace in and for the United States and the world and to the policies of the United States toward that peace. Even more, I encourage people to live in and work for peace themselves. I do believe peace is possible if we aim for it knowing that peace itself is the way. I note that even Osama Bin Laden was a mother’s child.