{"id":131129,"date":"2014-10-02T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T18:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=131129"},"modified":"2014-10-10T00:00:21","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T18:30:21","slug":"barack-obama-unplugged-at-the-united-nations-version-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/barack-obama-unplugged-at-the-united-nations-version-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama (Unplugged) At The United Nations (Version 2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Barack Obama<\/span><\/a>, President of the United States of America addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations last week.\u00a0 He made a long and impassioned speech, touching on key global issues but as expected justifying everything that the USA has done and does and making a case for \u2018more of the same whether you like it or not\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The man is educated and even called an intellectual.\u00a0 He can talk.\u00a0 He can turn black into white and convince blacks that he\u2019s black and whites that he is white.\u00a0 Such a man can get away with anything if given the opportunity to talk.\u00a0 But what if someone entered the wrong script into the teleprompter?\u00a0 What if Obama is everything he promised to be and not what he turned out to be?\u00a0 What would have been his original script in such a scenario? We can indulge in a bit of harmless, drone-less conspiracy, right?<\/p>\n

Mr President, Mr Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen:<\/p>\n

Each year we come together to reaffirm the founding vision of this institution. \u00a0Those who built the United Nations believed it could allow us to resolve conflicts, enforce rules of behavior and build habits of cooperation. Today, looking back, we can say with certainty that the awful carnage of two world wars did not shift our thinking.<\/p>\n

For most of recorded history, individual aspirations were subject to the whims of tyrants and empires. Divisions of race and religion and tribe were settled through the sword and the clash of armies. This has not changed in the last 69 years.\u00a0 The idea that nations and peoples could come together in peace to solve their disputes and advance a common prosperity remains unimaginable.<\/p>\n

\"Mahinda<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: President Mahinda Rajapaksa attended a reception hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday (Sept. 23) evening in New York City.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking of tyrants and empires, when has my country ever champion the aspirations of individual countries? When did we not act as tyrant and as empire?\u00a0 We should not ask ourselves whether we possess the wisdom and courage as nation-states and members of an international community to meet new and profound challenges. We should ask ourselves wisdom and courage are enough when some of us place greater faith in power and arrogance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What did you do to put an end to war, someone might inquire regarding my tenure as President of the United States. I can tell you that five years ago, nearly 180,000 Americans were serving in harm\u2019s way in Iraq but that now we\u2019ve quit that country.\u00a0 I can tell you that as we ready to end operations in Afghanistan we\u2019ve already dismantled the core of al Qaeda. I can say we\u2019re working diligently to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay<\/span><\/a>. I can tell you that we are targeting those who pose an imminent threat to the United States and that there\u2019s near certainty of no civilian casualties when we use drones.\u00a0 Someone would say, \u2018you\u2019ve taken war to another level\u2019.\u00a0 This is true.<\/p>\n

First of all, imminent threat to the United States is an easy excuse because it is subjective and unverifiable. We invaded Iraq, after all, to eliminate non-existent weapons of mass destruction.\u00a0 We made the al Qaeda<\/span><\/a>. We made the Islamic State.\u00a0 They were not accidents. They provided excuses to do what all empire-builders do: \u2018bombs in \u2013 booty out\u2019.\u00a0 The IS, in fact, is helping us do what we always wanted to do in Syria without a by-your-leave from this institution.<\/p>\n

So it would be wrong to say that aid cannot keep pace with the suffering of the wounded and displaced. We made sure that there\u2019s enough carnage to make aid ineffective. Well, that\u2019s not exactly true. Aid-ineffectiveness, to us, is \u2018collateral\u2019. It\u2019s easy. All we had to do was pick some people, call them moderates, arm them, turn some of them into extremists and then pretend to go after them when in fact all that matters is that they occupy some territory in a country also occupied by people we want to eliminate.<\/p>\n

We will say, for example, that Syria used chemical weapons. We don\u2019t have to prove it; when you have power, saying is enough (like weapons of mass destruction \u2013 non-existent). We don\u2019t say, you will notice, that Israel used chemical weapons. We won\u2019t say that the USA has used chemical weapons or that we\u2019ve killed more people in more countries than any other country has done over the last 100 years.<\/p>\n

My country is chastised for meddling in the region, accused of having a hand in all manner of conspiracy, but it is also blamed for not doing enough to solve the region\u2019s problems. This might seem to be a contradiction but the truth is that the complaints are from people we can call dependents with horrendous track records. Take a poll and the overwhelming majority would say \u2018get the hell out!\u2019<\/p>\n

Rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, that the USA will use all elements of power including military force to secure our core interests in the Middle East. In other words, we really don\u2019t give a s*** about the general or majority concerns of this assembly. We\u2019ve turned the Middle East upside down politically and called it \u2018Arab Spring\u2019. Gumption? Yes. That\u2019s the privilege of the arrogant who have the power to name and misname things, people and even countries.<\/p>\n

The danger for the world is that the United States may disengage from all this and thereby create a vacuum of leadership that no other nation is ready to fill. I am not kidding you here. The \u2018danger\u2019 here is not to the world but to the USA. But think about it, if it is about a single nation calling the shots, why should we gather here and talk as though it\u2019s a one country one vote institution?<\/p>\n

Today we tell the world that without unsanctioned action (we added the label \u2018international\u2019 for reasons of courtesy) Libya would now be engulfed in civil war and bloodshed, never mind the fact that Libya IS engulfed in all that.<\/p>\n

I know what side of history I want the United States to be on.\u00a0 I know where we stand.\u00a0 You might think we are embarrassed but we are not.\u00a0 Sorry.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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