The Obama regime entered office hot-wired to bring down the government of Robert Mugabe, in Zimbabwe, but has been frustrated by the recent power sharing agreement between Mugabe and the main opposition party. In the face of African Union support for the new arrangement in Zimbabwe, the Obama administration has very reluctantly retreated from its hyper-aggressive posture, and is no longer in a position to press the United Nations Security Council to impose tightened sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Obama's UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, is especially eager to exercise U.S. power in Africa - including American military options. Only last week, Rice was intent on bringing the so-called "miscarriage of justice" in Zimbabwe "to an end." Rice looks at maps of Africa and sees multiple opportunities for regime change, especially when it comes to what she calls "the autocracy" surrounding Mugabe.
But the U.S. was forced to tone down its belligerent language - if only slightly - as southern African nations declared their support for Zimbabwe's political experiment. The disappointment in Washington was palpable. The U.S.-funded Voice of America last week reported Washington's continued implacable opposition to Mugabe's remaining in office, even with the opposition sharing power. By Tuesday, February 3, Obama's people were more subdued but still seething, vowing that "Mugabe is not getting a reprieve from President Obama."
A reprieve! What does that mean? Does Barack Obama carry around a hit list of world leaders, like George Bush did?
"Rice looks at maps of Africa and sees multiple opportunities for regime change."
Susan Rice certainly seems to have the mentality of a political assassin. She is an advocate of U.S. "humanitarian" military intervention - that is, the duty of the United States to send in the Marines whenever Washington decides that a government isn't willing or able to provide for the needs of its people. Rice is advertised as an expert on Africa, having held down the Africa seat at the State Department in the Clinton Administration. Clinton and Rice did worse than nothing during the Rwandan massacres, but she is now the very picture of the fiery-eyed interventionist. Rice endorsed George Bush's savage war against Somalia, which early this year ended in defeat for the Americans and their Ethiopian allies. Rice can be expected to try to plunge the country back into chaos at the earliest opportunity. She wants to blockade Sudan's ports, enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur, and commit other acts of war - unilaterally, if necessary.
Susan Rice is, in short, Barack Obama's "hawk" in Africa, as bloodthirsty as Condoleezza Rice at her ugliest. The Obama administration's eagerness to show its fangs against Mugabe in Africa in its first weeks in office, while the new president was flashing smiles, charm and reassurances to the rest of the planet, is evidence of Susan Rice's malicious influence. President Obama will soon begin to justify U.S. military intervention on broad "humanitarian" grounds - a cynical game of words to mask the same crimes as George Bush's so-called "democratic" interventions.
Susan Rice is a war hawk, and Obama is no peace president.
Comments
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Counterpoint to biased opinion piece
06.02.2009 09:55
the arrest of peaceful protesters,
the devastation of Zimbabwe's food production capacity,
the abduction of MDC officials,
over 3300 unnecessary deaths due to preventable Cholera,
torture by baton, screwdriver and pliers,
the destruction of houses of opposition supporters,
murder of opposition activists,
rigged elections,
terrorising a population in to silence,
a 'power sharing' agreement that doesn't share power.
That some Africans and black people think westerners and white people have no right to be appalled by this is racism. The point where we should all, African and western, have intervened to protect the people has long since passed.
infury
I guess
07.02.2009 06:34
Human rights, they don't give a fuck about them, we know it.
I am not familiar with Zimbabwe and Mugabe but I was quite familiar with Iraq and Saddam Hussein as well as Serbia and Milosevic.
In both cases it turns out all the cases made against those two people were dead wrong, and deliberately so.
dude
I also guess
07.02.2009 06:44
With a black man at the steering wheel this will be so much easier.
dude
Anti-imperialist apologetics
07.02.2009 11:40
"Anti-imperialists" who think Mugabe is supportable need to practice holding more than one idea in their head at a time. If you're bothered about the west's economic agenda in Africa, look at and spread information about that. The minute you associate sensible concerns with the defence of a brutal nationalist regime, you lose swathes of support.
CH
The deceptiveness of liberal-imperialist ideology
08.02.2009 21:44
People across the world are becoming increasingly aware of how these liberal-imperialist arguments are being used to justify and perpetuate the ongoing genocides commited by the "most civilised" countries.
anti-imperialist