Also available in orange where it has really upset the locals. Perhaps that is no bad thing if it shocks them out of their complacent belief that Obama can do no wrong because he is the smartest guy on the planet.
I never thought I would hear myself say this, because I hate unnuanced bland generalised assertions. There are so many ways in which the Obama administration is a quantum improvement on Bush – think stimulus, healthcare, financial regulation, don’t ask don’t tell, and two reasonable Supreme Court nominations. But on foreign policy in general, and Israel/Palestine in particular, Obama is proving to be as stupid as Bush:
- He has failed to close Guantanamo detention centre or correct the gross violation of human rights it represents.
- He has escalated an unwinnable war in Afghanistan
- He has legitimised a military coup in Honduras
- He has caved in to Netanyahu on illegal settlement expansion several times and has allowed his Vice President to be humiliated on a visit to Israel
- He has capitulated to Chinese manipulation of the Dollar Yuan exchange rates despite numerous threats to confront the issue
- He has caved in to his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, having accused him of corruption and falsifying elections – and to to Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali, having accused him of being a drug lord
- He has been repeatedly snubbed by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has chaired meetings of 31 Latin American and Caribbean countries which excluded the United States, and actually got something constructive done by negotiating a deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Iran to ship 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey. Obama then ignored the deal and proposed tougher sanctions on Iran.
- He has done nothing on climate change and was all for expanding deep sea off shore drilling until BP pissed in his back garden.
- And now, to cap it all, he has blamed peace activists for getting themselves killed by an illegal act of war and opposed a UN investigation of the war crime.
Is there no end to his grovelling incompetence? Increasingly world leaders, large and small, are learning that Obama is a paper tiger who makes bullying noises, some fine speeches, and then capitulates at the first sign of opposition.
It must be the first time in history that the Nobel Peace prize has been awarded to coward who mistakes collaboration with racists, genocidal maniacs, drug lords, rapacious corporations, fascists and juntas for bipartisan compromise.
Hell, even Bush had more balls – even if he was stupider still. Bush may have been ignorant and wrong, but he had the courage of his convictions. Obama apparently has no courage and no convictions. It is hard to tell which is the more dangerous combination. </end rant>
