COULD THE REAL OBAMA STAND UP
Yvonne Ridley

Media Monitors Network
full/62831
June 2 2009

"Just how difficult is it for the media to dip into their own
archives and remind Obama about the pledges he made on the campaign
trail and hold him to account? His first promise on the White House
website was that his administration would be the most transparent in
U.S. history. Sadly, these grand statements have not been followed
through."

I wonder how many of you have woken up to the fact that America’s
latest leader is really a political Houdini… an illusionist on a
presidential scale.

In front of our very eyes he has morphed from a gentle intellectual,
and strong defender of human rights into a war-mongering bully who
sponsors targeted assassinations and orders pre-emptive strikes with
casual ease.

It took George W. Bush years before he dared to unveil his true
intentions and invade Iraq, displacing three million people in a war
which cost the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers and the slaughter
of countless civilians.

Whereas the smooth-talking Obama has achieved the same in just a few
months since he arrived in The White House by launching an illegal war
on Pakistan… but he’s using someone else’s army instead of his own.

He is twice as clever as the previous White House incumbent and far,
far more deadly. Obama is quite possibly one of the world’s most
skillful manipulators and his greatest illusion so far is fooling
the public as well as the media.

While blatantly using Pakistan’s army as a cheap source of military
labor he holds the country’s leader Asif Ali Zadari in suspended
animation, trapped helplessly in an almost hypnotic state, induced
by the promise of millions of dollars and the support of the world’s
biggest military machine.

Of course, we must lay some blame at Zadari’s feet for allowing
himself to be used like a magician’s assistant instead of acting with
the dignity and honour his office, country and people demand.

Obama is far more lethal than his predecessor – and yet his
transformation from Mr. Nice Guy to something more sinister seems
to have gone largely unnoticed by the world’s watching media which
appears to be intoxicated by the powerful charisma emanating from
his rich, but smooth seductive tones.

He has already reneged on promises over closing down Guantanamo,
ending military tribunals and releasing to the public the entire
archive of shame which captured the torture and abuse of the previous
administration’s War on Terror in video and film from 2001 onwards.

Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee remarked recently over one of
his u-turns: "President Obama has recently granted immunity to CIA
agents… if the desire to get at what went wrong is so blatantly
covered up under cover of "national security concerns", there will
be no end to this. And once again, the warmongers will get away with
another odious and criminal cover-up".

He has the power to make Guantanamo’s vile prison disappear and for a
few glorious weeks human rights activists across the world waited with
baited breath for the cages of Cuba, Bagram and elsewhere to fly open.

Just how difficult is it for the media to dip into their own
archives and remind Obama about the pledges he made on the campaign
trail and hold him to account? His first promise on the White House
website was that his administration would be the most transparent in
U.S. history. Sadly, these grand statements have not been followed
through.

But this journalistic amnesia is all too convenient – what happened
to his determination to bring home all combat troops from Iraq within
18 months?

Is there no journalist from the White House lobby prepared to remind
him of how he said during televised presidential debates that getting
Usama bin Ladin was "our biggest national security priority"? Perhaps
the hypnotic Obama Affect has wiped their computer hard-drives and
their memories but if you listen to his very first TV interview as
the Commander-in-Chief of America he said Usama was more than a symbol.

His actual words were: "He’s also the operational leader of an
organization that is planning attacks against U.S. targets," adding
that "capturing or killing bin Ladin is a critical aspect of stamping
out al-Qaida."

Having secured the votes from red neck territory by saying Obama will
get Usama, he now says that killing or capturing the al-Qaida chief
is no longer necessary to "meet our goal of protecting America."

However, American Armenians are not so gullible and quite a few were
shocked out of their trance following the U.S. President’s recent
visit to Turkey when he executed with the greatest of ease yet another
presidential flip flop.

"As President, I will recognize the Armenian genocide," he declared
loud and proud during his campaign, but when he arrived in Turkey
he sort of muttered, when asked about the hugely sensitive subject:
"My views are on the record, and everyone knows my views." And then
he refused to elaborate and state them!

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" said Obama before he took the keys
to the White House – may be that’s why, when I watch the U.S. President
perform under the glare of the spotlights on the world stage, I can
see something of the night lurking around his presidential shadows.

There are a few of us who are immune to the charms of the new
president. Like me, they believe that the sheep’s clothing has vanished
and what we now have is a dangerous wolf stalking the corridors of
power on Capitol Hill.

Yes, there’s a new act in the White House these days but while Harry
Houdini built his reputation performing death-defying escapes and
magic tricks his political Doppelganger is certainly the master of
dark arts and mass illusion.

This president has gone from charming to harming and few have noticed.

* First appeared in The Canadian Charger