Reality Check: The Profound Hypocrisy of
President Obama’s Speech on the Middle East
By Brian Becker and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard
President Obama took to the airwaves today to discuss the
revolts and conflicts spreading throughout the Middle East. The U.S. dominance
over this strategic and oil-rich region has been the pivot of U.S. foreign
policy for decades. Utilizing a system of proxy and client regimes, in addition
to its own vast military forces in the region, the United States has supported a network
of brutal dictatorships and the Israeli regime for decades.
Now that system of imperial control has been shaken by the
popular risings that started in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and elsewhere, the
Obama administration spoke today at the U.S. State Department as part of an
effort to reassert U.S. leadership over the swiftly changing region.
Using the rhetoric of democracy and freedom to mask the
responsibility of U.S. imperialism in the enduring oppression and suffering of
the peoples of the Middle East, President Obama’s speech was a demonstration of
profound hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy: President Obama said that the “greatest untapped
resource in the Middle East and North Africa is the talent of its people.”
Reality: The U.S. strategy is based on control of the Middle
East’s most coveted resource: two-thirds of the world's known oil supply. The U.S. government
has given billions of dollars and armed the most brutal dictatorships in the
Middle East for decades, a practice fully continued by the Obama administration.
The U.S. government never cut funds to the Mubarak dictatorship even while the
regime murdered more than 850 peaceful protestors. More than 5,000 civilians in Egypt have been convicted and jailed since Jan. 25 following trials conducted by the Egyptian military. The United States continues to provide massive funding to Egypt's military in spite of the ongoing repression against the people.
Hypocrisy: President Obama stated, “it will be the policy of
the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support
transitions to democracy.”
Reality: The only governments in the Middle East that have
been targeted for invasion, economic sanctions and overthrow by the U.S. government
are those that pursue policies that are independent of U.S. economic,
political and military control. The U.S. never imposed economic sanctions on
the Mubarak dictatorship and only came out
publicly against Mubarak when the tide of revolution had become irresistible.
Likewise, the U.S. supports the brutal Saudi monarchy.
Hypocrisy: President Obama championed for the people of the Middle
East the “basic rights to speak your mind and access information,” stating,
“the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately
depend on active and informed citizens.”
Reality: The Obama administration has gone out of its way to
punish those who would inform the public by shedding light on the activities of the U.S. government. Bradley Manning remains jailed with the threat
of life in prison, having been held in brutal conditions that caused the U.N. Special
Rapporteur on Torture to seek an investigation. The Justice Department is
working at full speed to find a way to prosecute Julian Assange of Wikileaks
for disclosing government documents to the public, many of which expose the
U.S. role in the Middle East. The Obama administration has undertaken a major campaign more aggressive than any prior administration to criminally prosecute
whistleblowers who expose the truth of illegal government actions.
Hypocrisy: President Obama stated: “The United States
opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region.”
Reality: The United States under Obama is involved in the invasion,
occupation, and bombings of four predominantly Muslim countries simultaneously: Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan. Moreover, the head of state who has been the
single biggest violator of the basic human rights of Arab people and the
perpetuator of violence in the region is George W. Bush, whose illegal invasion of Iraq cost
the lives of more than one million people. The March 19, 2003, invasion was a
war of aggression against a country that did not pose any threat to the United
States or the people of the United States. The invasion and occupation of Iraq led to the deaths of more
Arab people than have been killed by all the dictatorships in the region
combined. President Obama today called Osama Bin Laden a mass murderer. September
11, 2001, was indeed a great crime that took the lives of thousands of innocent working
people, but measured in order of the magnitude of victims killed, Bush’s crime of
mass murder in Iraq is unmatched. George W. Bush has not been arrested for the
mass killings of Iraqi people but is treated honorifically by the Obama administration.
Hypocrisy: In an effort to appease Arab public opinion,
President Obama's speech made it appear as if the United States was insisting that Israel return to
its pre-1967 borders. Obama stated, “precisely because of our friendship, it is
important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel
too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.”
Reality: Israel’s war against the Palestinian people would
be impossible without U.S. support, which continues unabated. The single biggest
recipient of U.S. foreign aid is the state of Israel, which uses the $3 billion
it receives annually to lay siege to the people of Gaza, continue the illegal
occupation of the West Bank and prevent the return of the families of the 750,000
Palestinians who were evicted from their homes and villages in historic Palestine
in 1948. The United Nations in various resolutions has condemned the 1967 Israeli invasion
and occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria’s Golan Heights. Far from imposing economic sanctions, President
Obama has promised Israel a minimum of $30 billion in military aid over the next 10 years, thus
functioning as a partner in the occupation. Obama’s speech also made it clear
that the United States would support Israel retaining vast swaths of the West Bank. This
is what he meant by referring to “land swaps.” In the coming days, Obama will
have private meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu and will be a featured speaker at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference. He will
undoubtedly reinforce the strong U.S.-Israeli military ties and U.S. financial support.
Hypocrisy: President Obama stated: “We support a set of universal
rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly;
freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the
right to choose your own leaders – whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus;
Sanaa or Tehran…. [W]e will continue to insist that universal rights apply to
women as well as men.”
Reality: While the U.S. government – along with Britain and
France (the former colonizers of the Middle East and Africa) – are bombing
Libya with the latest high-tech bombs and missiles in the name of “protecting
civilians” and “promoting democracy,” the Obama administration offered the most
tepid pro-forma criticism of the Bahrain monarchy as it and the Saudi monarchy
kill and imprison peaceful protestors in Bahrain. No sanctions have even been hinted at for Bahrain or
Saudi Arabia. The Saudi monarchy is the ultimate negation of democracy,
depriving women of all rights, depriving workers of the right to form unions and
depriving all sectors of the population of any right to free speech, assembly
or press. There has never been an election in Saudi Arabia. But the Saudi monarchy functions as a client of the U.S. government
and, as such, is not targeted for economic sanctions or “regime change” as are the governments of Syria and Libya. The Bahrain monarchy likewise functions as a U.S.
client and allows the U.S. Fifth Fleet to use Bahrain as its home port, which
is why he referred to the monarchy as “a long-standing partner.”
Hypocrisy: President Obama denounced the Iranian government,
stating that “we will continue to insist that the Iranian people deserve their
universal rights,” and condemned what he called Iran’s “illicit nuclear
program.”
Reality: He failed to mention that it was the CIA along
with its British counterpart that staged the overthrow of Iran’s democratic
government in 1953 and reinstated the Shah’s monarchy. They overthrew Iran’s
democracy when Iran nationalized its own oil from AIOC/British Petroleum. The
U.S. only broke relations with the Iranian government when the Shah’s
dictatorship was overthrown by a populist national revolution. Regarding
nuclear weapons, the Israeli government has refused to sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty and has accumulated 200 “illicit” nuclear weapons. Of
course, the United States has thousands of nuclear weapons and remains the only country
to have used nuclear weapons, destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in 1945.
Hypocrisy: President Obama told the world that the United States shares the
goals of the Arab revolution, that “repression will fail, that tyrants will
fall, and that every man and woman is endowed with certain inalienable rights.”
Reality: The U.S. government, whether it is led by Democrats or Republicans, views the oil-rich Middle East through the
lens of empire. Operating through a network of proxy regimes including Israel,
Saudi Arabia, the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt, the Shah of Iran until his
overthrow in 1979, and other regimes in the region – and supplemented by tens
of thousands of U.S. troops positioned in U.S. bases throughout the region and
on aircraft carriers – the United States aims to dominate and control a region that
possesses two-thirds of the world’s known oil supply. It has and continues to
finance a network of brutal client dictatorships, and it has funded the Israeli war
machine and staged repeated invasions, bombing campaigns, and occupations
against the people of the region.
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