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18 November 2012 By Mahboob A.
Khawaja, PhD In his presidential re-election
winning comments on November 6 at Chicago, President
Obama reclaimed his moral and intellectual conscience
to state that he "will be open to change and listening
and learning and to be a better president to serve the
American people." If contemporary history is a
reference point, he made similar assertions during and
after the 2008 historic presidential win by a black
candidate. Did Obama share new political imagination
to pursue a different course of policies and actions
in his 2nd term of office? Is Obama a changed person?
Does he posses a rekindled consciousness of his broken
commitments, failure and challenges in waiting to
prove his leadership for the 2nd term? What is there
to believe his credibility? Politics is a game of pretension
and superficial acting on stage, and all politicians
master the Machiavellian statecraft. The underpinning
passion for political obsession is to get elected and
nothing else. All other grandeur claims of being
honest or doing good for the public are fake illusions
evolved to boost the political image to impress the
electorates who have paid in advance for political
pains. In less fortunate societies, orphans ask for
charity so do politicians in the liberal democracy to
capitalize on public's passion and ignorance of the
facts of political wickedness. People donated money to
Obama and Romney's presidential campaigns only to be
misled by the same politicians. The reality is most
often absent from the political roll call on streets
and contentious electorate divides. While Obama shed few tears to
impress upon his dedicated campaign volunteer workers
in Chicago, there is no logical agenda to know or to
assume that he will be a changed president to develop
a more favorable future for the United States in
global politics or in bankrupt treasury bills and
defeated militarism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
Washington based military-industrial complex
overwhelms the policy agenda, not the American voters.
When the citizens vote, they hold high hopes for
change and expect leaders to honor their commitments
made during the political campaigns. Ordinary folks do
not believe either Obama or Romney were competent
enough to deliver promises to public expectations.
Obama appeared overwhelmed with joys and unpredictable
sorrows (had he lost the re-election strategy), so he
turned to human impulse to show that a president –a
commander in-chief is also a human being affiliated
with the masses. This was the last chance in his
lifetime to get re-elected; he will not have it again
in history. Does Obama know the challenges
facing America? It is a crucial question that most
analysts would like to be addressed during the
election campaigns. Of all the pertinent issues, the
masses wanted to see an end to the bogus War on
Terrorism raging over a decade and that has bankrupted
America not just in economic and financial domains but
also in moral, intellectual and political spectrums.
The consequences of the war on terror are not
adequately reported by the mainstream news media.
Countless precious lives have been lost by the
arrogance and wickedness of the few warmongers in
American politics. Its impacts will remain on public
conscience for generations to come. The end to war on
terror was not part of the active agenda campaign
either by Obama or Mitt Romney. The American folks are
living in fear of the unknown as was demonstrably
clear from the superstorm SANDY affecting millions.
President Obama used the opportunity not to campaign
for few days but his tour of the devastated areas in
New York –New Jersey and utterances were no different
than the implicit substance of a political campaign.
The timely visits worked out in his favor what George
Bush had miserably failed to do during the Katrina in
2007. Many victims of the SANDY catastrophic impacts
tell their story as if they were living in "war
zones." The first hand observations could not have
been indifferent to these expressions. This could be
the consequence to what the US leaders are doing to
other nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan Pakistan and
Yemen. American operated drone attacks are causing
daily killings of innocent people and destruction of
the human habitats. As the people in those lands live
in "fear" and uncertainty, the same is happening to
the American population - the Will of God lives
everywhere whether the American commander–in chief
takes it seriously or not. All living things in the
Universe obey the commands of God. The superstorm
Sandy and previous Katrina were no exceptions. These
are staunch REMINDERS to human beings, what can go
wrong with political arrogance, wickedness and
belligerency. Michael Robeson ("Sorrow,
Sufferance and New York City-The spiritual is
political" Information Clearing House: 11/5/2012)
attempts to share the observations: "Sorrow and sufferance are the
rakes and plows that the great spirit uses in order to
open our spirits to unknown depths that our minds
would otherwise fear to confront. We are raked and
plowed mainly through and by others who we want to
love or who we want to love by and who feel the same
unconscious anger and enmity toward us. None of us
know why. We don't choose those who we will make to
suffer and who will make us, or others, suffer in
turn. We are more often than not brought together by
forces that we don't like to admit exists." President Obama now claims, he
will be a changed president and open to listening and
learning. If so, would he take immediate steps to
cancel the Kill List and stop the inhuman drone war
against innocent people in Pakistan and Yemen? Medea
Benjamin – CODEPINK ("A Chat with Counterterrorism
Chief John Brennan." Dissident Voice: 11/5/2012), took
initiatives to show solidarity with the innocent drone
victims in Pakistan. The discussion turned to John
Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism chief and the key
person making decisions about drone strikes. We
wondered if Brennan ever had a chance to meet innocent
drone victims, as we did, and feel their pain. She
offers touchy narratives of her encounter with the US
Chief of drone strategy John Brenann, an unscheduled
meeting at his door steps as formal requests remained
unanswered: "The last time we met I was being
dragged out of the Woodrow Wilson Center by a
300-pound security man while yelling, "I love my
country! You're making us less safe. Shame on you Mr.
Brennan…….I had just returned from a delegation to
Pakistan meeting with drone victims, how heartbroken I
was to hear their stories, how terrible it is that
these drone attacks are causing so much suffering to
innocent people and turning the entire Pakistani
population against us…. He insisted that it wasn't
true, that we weren't harming civilians……. "It's just
not true," he repeated, dismissively. "You are being
manipulated……I want you to know, John, that I am doing
this from my heart, because I care about the lives of
innocent people everywhere and I care about our
country. With that, he slammed the door." Edward S. Herman ("Beyond Double
Standards–and Hypocrisy." Dissident Voice: 11/1/2012),
helps us to understand the political context, how the
drone war has devastated the whole region and is
creating reactionary animosity against the US. A joint investigate report by the
Stanford Law School and New York University School of
Law published in September 2012 entitled Living Under
Drones, and based on over 130 interviews carried out
in Pakistan offers most credible but horrifying record
of the American drone war. The report claims that the
vast majority of victims of the drone war attacks are
civilians, not "militants"—only 2 percent of those
killed were identified as known "militants." The
Stanford University-New York University authors
explicitly challenge the US version and deny the
official claims of precise surgical strikes by the
drones: "This narrative is false." They also report
that an important feature of the drone war is the
regular use of a second missile strike shortly after
the first strike—the combination euphemistically
labeled a "double tap"—killing many local onlookers
and rescue workers coming to the aid of the
first-strike's victims. These secondary strikes "have
discouraged average civilians from coming to one
another's rescue, and even inhibited the provision of
emergency medical assistance from humanitarian
workers." The Director of the charitable organization
Reprieve is quoted in the report as saying: "An entire region is being
terrorized by the constant threat of death from the
skies…. Their way of life is collapsing… kids are too
terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend
weddings, funerals, business meeting or anything that
involves gathering in groups." Intelligent leaders lead the
masses without shedding tears. In crises, leaders do
not cry. Of course, the unexpected political tears of
Obama were conveniently personal and emotional, not
officials, he could contend. It is common that what
leaders say or do could be misinterpreted. Obama could
claim that he had some eye rash and simply tears came
out of the nowhere. Surely, If Medea Benjamin's first
hand accounts are factual as it seems to be case,
Obama could not have shed tears for the innocent
children and women massacred by his Kill List drone
operations in Waziristan, Pakistan. On November 10,
2012, the eve of Remembrance Day, Mr. McGovern, a
former Assistant Director of CIA, made it known to the
BBC newsman that the war on terror (raging in
Afghanistan and Pakistan) should be stopped
immediately. It simply does not serve the American
interest. He added, if President Obama wanted to do
it, it should be done now, not in 2014 to safeguard
the American people and national security. In an age of REASON and political
accountability, Gary Corseri, a well known novelist,
poet and playwright on PBS –Atlanta, and one who has
performed at the Carter Presidential Library and
Museum ("I Voted" Dissident Voice: 11/5/2012), points
out the rationale for his vote in the presidential
elections: I voted for peace and
justice and sanity I voted for climate-change
victims; I voted for Iraqi mothers
and Afghani; For Kathy Kelly and Rachel
Corrie, To pass from these Dark
Ages The 21st century knowledge-based
politics and leadership accountability warrants
change, new strategies for peace and global harmony
and clear sets of principles and moral values from
those operating the political powerhouses. If Obama
wants to be mentioned in history as President of the
people of America who voted for him, surely, he NEEDS
a Navigational Change. Logically, any intelligent
leader would do his best to change and conform to the
requisites of futuristic adaptability when facts of
life warrant a change, given the passion for facts,
not for fiction. Responsible and conscientious leaders
build their moral strength and intellectual integrity
– the real force for accountable democratic governance
by discarding shortcoming, overcoming failures and
political blunders. Obama's record is not plausible
for the first term of presidency as he discarded all
of his major commitments for peace and justice across
the globe. He failed to stop the bogus war on terror
as he promised in 2008 election campaigns and to bring
the troops home; he signed the first law to close the
infamous Guanatanmo Bay terror prison but failed to
implement it. He initiated and promised to strike a
balanced approach to resolve the Palestine-Israel
conflict and to establish the independent State of
Palestine by 2011 and its membership at the UN but he
failed as PM Netanyahu cowed him down. Informed
observers point out to the White House being the
latest Israeli overseas settlement expansion. It is
too early to speculate how Obama will maneuver escape
from the Israeli entrapment. Would Obama try to regain
some of his lost political power and integrity as
President of the US? History will judge the leaders by
their actions, not by their claims. He got the second
opportunity with a challenge to prove his leadership
perceptions and qualities. Agreeably, conscience is
inherent in political morality as it distinguishes
between the right and wrong. If Obama has a living
conscience, would he tell the American people and the
world - what is the purpose of continuing wars in
Afghanistan and Pakistan? Whose national security
dictates to kill the innocent civilians in Waziristan-Pakistan?
What honor and dignity is he looking for not to
withdraw the troops from Afghanistan until 2014? Why
not now and before the end of the day? For what
national security and purpose more than 3,000
Americans have been killed in Afghanistan and several
thousands wounded veterans survive in street ghettos,
drug sustained hallways and galleys of shopping malls
across the US? Why 18-25 war veterans commit suicide
every day across America? Are the people not the real
power of the American democracy to change its official
policies and practices? Why none of these real world
people's issues not included in the agenda debates
during the recent presidential campaigns? If Obama and
Romney dreamed of glory and triumph, were they
helpless against the election campaign advisors or
simply too weak having poor sense of political
imagination and judgment and not being able to see the
public mirror? (Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja
specializes in global security, peace and conflict
resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western
comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of
several publications including the latest: Global
Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in
Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany,
May 2012) |
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