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Obama in Cairo: a new face for imperialism :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dall'Iraq occupato :: news from occupied Iraq :: - it

Obama in Cairo: a new face for imperialism :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dall'Iraq occupato :: news from occupied Iraq :: - it: "The speech delivered by US President Barack Obama in Cairo yesterday was riddled with contradictions. He declared his opposition to the 'killing of innocent men, women, and children,' but defended the ongoing US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US proxy war in Pakistan, while remaining silent on the most recent Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. These wars have killed at least one million Iraqis and tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.

Obama declared his support for democracy, human rights and women’s rights, after two days of meetings with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, two of the most notorious tyrants in the Middle East. He said nothing in his speech about the complete absence of democratic rights in Saudi Arabia, or about the ongoing repression under Mubarak’s military dictatorship. In the days before the US president’s arrival at Al-Azhar University, the campus was raided by Egyptian secret police who detained more than 200 foreign students. Before leaving on his Mideast trip, Obama praised Mubarak as a 'steadfast ally.'

While posturing as the advocate of universal peace and understanding, Obama diplomatically omitted any reference to his order to escalate the war in Afghanistan with the dispatch of an additional 17,000 US troops. And he tacitly embraced the policy of his predecessor in Iraq, declaring, 'I believe the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.' He even seemed to hedge on the withdrawal deadline of December 2011 negotiated by the Bush administration, which he described as a pledge 'to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012.'"

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