What it Stands For

After backing the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia the U.S. once again makes clear its role as police of the world with Obama announcing that the U.S. would work toward eradicating the Somali pirates ensuring justice would prevail. The Lone Ranger couldn’t have said it better. Obama uses words like justice quite freely. But where is the justice for the thousands of murdered Somali people, people murdered by proxy for the U.S., more burnt offerings for the great gods of war and profit, fear and deceit. Somehow the murdered Somali didn’t come up in Obama’s comments on the daring rescue of the sea captain who didn’t go down with his ship. But isn’t that how it always is? We see what we want to and ignore the rest.

And what rare meat this is for the news media, a break from Obama’s new puppy, real pirates, good guys and bad guys, adventure and derring-do. In fact it’s such wonderful fodder for dime store novels that the news media neglects to bring up the slaughter in Somalia backed by the U.S. in its reporting on the piracy much like Obama. How quickly and how naturally do Obama’s words fall out of his mouth as he promises to nix the pirates. It’s a given, thinking on autopilot, that when pirates pop up it’s up to the U.S. to save the world. That’s Obama in a nutshell, a skewed and puerile view of what the U.S. stands for that is no different from any of his predecessors.

CNN reported in quavering tones that “The pirates were now in possession of 100 million dollars worth of oil!” Can you imagine? Though how pirates would unload said oil is beyond me but there you go. But fear not for Obama is here to fight a never ending battle for truth justice and the American way. The piracy also provided that picture perfect moment for Obama to strut his PR skills. The two main tasks facing Obama seem to be one, providing PR to the public to reassure and cajole us into a stupor and the second to continue the expansion of U.S. world dominion no matter the cost.

Beneath the Obama PR there is another reality which resides on the other side of the world in the far-away land of Afghanistan. U.S. and NATO forces continue to murder innocent Afghans attacking remote areas bombing houses in the dead of night. Across the border in Pakistan similar war crimes are being committed with the cowardly use of unmanned drones again resulting in mostly “collateral” damage meaning innocent civilians. This is the real face of Obama lurking behind the hype of respectability imparted by the power he wields so unwisely.