{"id":18300,"date":"2013-09-07T07:03:05","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T13:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18300"},"modified":"2013-09-07T07:03:05","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T13:03:05","slug":"political-reality-checks-the-fascist-limits-of-the-zionist-american-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18300","title":{"rendered":"Political Reality Checks the Fascist Limits of the Zionist-American Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"obamazionist\"<\/a><\/p>\n

G20 shows that world no longer trusts Obama <\/strong>
\nBy: Thomas Walkom – National Affairs – 6 September, 2013<\/p>\n

Politically, the latest G20 summit confirms what until now had only been whispered:<\/p>\n

U.S. President Barack Obama no longer commands the moral authority he was once accorded by the rest of the world. Nor does America.<\/p>\n

While controversial at home, Obama has always been viewed outside of the United States as a larger-than-life figure.<\/p>\n

In part, this is because he is America\u2019s first black president. But in part, Obama\u2019s electoral successes convinced many that the U.S. was returning to sanity \u2014 that the dark malevolence represented by his predecessor George W. Bush (and particularly by Bush sidekick Dick Cheney) had finally passed; that America was preparing to become once again a force for good.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, this was a naive hope. The U.S. is a great power and great powers are not always nice. Washington\u2019s involvement in blatantly illegal enterprises predated Bush and Cheney.<\/p>\n

Yet around the world, America was viewed \u2014 in general \u2014 as a country whose heart was in the right place.<\/p>\n

And Obama was viewed as the leader who could makes U.S actions reflect that heart.<\/p>\n

So high were the hopes around Obama that he was awarded the Nobel peace prize simply for being elected.<\/p>\n

Over time, the cruel world of reality eroded those hopes. Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. He didn\u2019t. He promised a short, sharp war that would defeat the Taliban and bring peace to Afghanistan. That never happened.<\/p>\n

He authorized drone strikes against nations with which the U.S. is not at war, strikes that killed not only Americans but others whose only crime was to be in the wrong place.<\/p>\n

He permitted the U.S. National Security Agency to snoop on U.S. citizens and foreign allies in an unprecedented manner.<\/p>\n

He promised openness but went after whistleblowers like Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning and Edward Snowden with unprecedented zeal.<\/p>\n

In an earlier time, any U.S. president who called for international action against chemical weapons would have received a sympathetic response from much of the world.<\/p>\n

True, it is hypocritical to single out chemical weapons. Syria has not signed the international convention against chemical weapons. But the U.S. has not signed a similar convention against cluster bombs, which can be just as devastating.<\/p>\n

Still, chemical weapons have the capacity to frighten. The idea of civilians being killed in war seems bad enough. The idea of civilians being killed without visible marks upon them seems, for some reason, worse.<\/p>\n

In an earlier time, the moral outrage expressed by Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would have resonated worldwide.<\/p>\n

These days, it does not. When Obama claims he has proof that the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, a great many people around the world \u2014 people who count themselves as friends of the U.S. \u2014 simply don\u2019t believe him.<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that Syrian rebels were behind any chemical attack. He calls Kerry a liar. In earlier times, Putin would have been discounted as a propagandist for Syria\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

But so jaded is today\u2019s world about American motives that the former KGB thug seems more credible than Obama.<\/p>\n

Britain won\u2019t join any U.S. attack because the British people no longer trust American leadership. Ditto Germany. Ditto most other nations. That became obvious at the two-day G20 summit in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

Only 10 of the 20 signed a statement accusing Syria\u2019s government of using chemical weapons. Of those 10, only France has suggested it would participate in a U.S. attack.<\/p>\n

Even Canada\u2019s vigorously pro-U.S. Conservative government refuses to lend Obama anything beyond moral support.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Jean Chr\u00e9tien offered the U.S. more military assets for its 2003 attack on Iraq \u2014 although the former prime minister technically opposed that war.<\/p>\n

Yet in their reluctance to sign on fully to America\u2019s latest war, Harper and Obama\u2019s other recalcitrant allies are being politically rational. Their voters no longer give the U.S. and its vigorous young president the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

They are suspicious and rightly so. …source<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G20 shows that world no longer trusts Obama By: Thomas Walkom – National Affairs – 6 September, 2013 Politically, the latest G20 summit confirms what until now had only been whispered: U.S. President Barack Obama no longer commands the moral authority he was once accorded by the rest of the world. Nor does America. While more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[4121],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18302,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions\/18302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}