p>Mumía Abú Jamal
As the Arab Spring moves into the Arab Summer, the forces of the distant colonial past arise, like vampires from their crypts, seeking something to feed upon.
European and American exploiters, using UN resolutions (but ignoring others) and NATO as fig leaves, rain death and desolation, in the name of ‘protecting civilians’. That these same forces were, just months ago, in bed with the very same dictators that they today denounce, shows us that something else is at work.
One thing for sure, two things for certain, it ain’t the protection of Arab civilians! This may be seen when Palestinian kids lob stones at occupying Israelis armed with automatic weapons and tanks, the West damns the stone throwers – not the bullet shooters.
When the American President dared to even mention the 1967 borders between Palestine and Israel as a negotiating point, the Israeli President, Binyamin Netanyahu essentially told him (in diplomatic language) to go to hell.
At times such as these, one sometimes wonders, which is the world power — and which is the satellite?
At the much heralded Cairo speech (June 2009) U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama charmed the elites of the Muslim world by proclaiming, to applause: “Any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will eventually fail.”
Clearly, he didn’t mean Israel, which is allowed to flout UN resolutions, by bombing Palestine civilians from F14′s, invade other countries (like Lebanon, at least twice), build sky high walls on Palestinian land and generally occupy, steal and settle on their territory, at will, with the U.S. rarely raising its voice.
The late French general and President, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) once said: “Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.”*
After the Cairo speech, with its flowery promises of a “new relationship” with the Muslim world, hopes rose like kites in the spring winds.
Two years later, after the waste of Iraq and Afghanistan, rough riding through Pakistan and the bombing of babies in Tripoli, and the thrill is gone.
After all is said and done, it’s about what it’s always been about — oil.
–(c) ’11 maj
[*De Gaulle, C., Newsweek magazine, Oct. 1, 1962.]