[Peace-discuss] Cynthia McKinney on Obama

[C. G. Estabrook]

Angela Davis made an interesting comment on the current presidential
campaign. She said all the candidates are talking about "differences"
that will not make a difference and "changes" that will not bring
about any change. How true.

Take Obama and foreign policy: Independent journalist Allan Nairn
spoke to Amy Goodman on her January 3 Democracy Now program about
Obama's top policy advisers. I will quote from the transcription of
this program, appropriately titled, "Vote for Change? Atrocity-Linked
U.S. Officials Advising Democratic, GOP Presidential Frontrunners."

Nairn stated:

"Obama's top adviser is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski gave an
interview to the French press a number of years ago where he boasted
about the fact that it was he who created the whole Afghan jihadi
movement, the movement that produced Osama bin Laden. And he was asked
by the interviewer, 'Well, don't you think this might have had some
bad consequences?' And Brzezinski replied, 'Absolutely not. It was
definitely worth it, because we were going after the Soviets.' ...

"Another key Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, was the main force behind
the U.S. invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years during which they
brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to
support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an
increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians and set the stage for
the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti.

"Another Obama adviser, General Merrill McPeak, an Air Force man, was
the man overseeing the delivery to Indonesia of U.S. fighter planes
not long after the Dili massacre in East Timor in '91.

"Another key Obama adviser, Dennis Ross, advised Clinton and both
Bushes. He oversaw U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine. He pushed the
principle that the legal rights of the Palestinians, the rights
recognized under international law, must be subordinated to the needs
of the Israeli government -- in other words, their desire to expand to
do whatever they want in the Occupied Territories.

"And Ross was one of the people who, interestingly, led the political
assault on former Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Carter is no
peacenik -- Carter is the one who bears ultimate responsibility for
that Timor terror that Holbrooke was involved in. But Ross led an
assault on him, because, regarding Palestine, Carter was so bold as to
agree with Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa that what Israel was
doing in the Occupied Territories was tantamount to apartheid. And so,
Ross was one of those who fiercely attacked him.

"Another Obama adviser is Sarah Sewall, who heads a human rights
center at Harvard and is a former Defense official. She wrote the
introduction to General Petraeus's Marine Corps/Army counterinsurgency
handbook, the handbook that is now being used worldwide by U.S. troops
in various killing operations."

That's the Obama team. But Nairn demonstrates that the Clinton and
Edwards teams are equally loaded with Washington insiders who in one
way or other have contributed to our current national predicament.

There is another message coming out of Iowa that is aimed directly at
Black people. Former Clinton presidential adviser and columnist Dick
Morris wrote that with Obama's victory in Iowa, "race is no longer a
factor in American politics." Tell that to the Black folks living in
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita, or who are facing "Hurricane America" in cities and
communities all across the country.

Bill Bennett on CNN said that Barack Obama is the kind of Black person
Blacks should be -- not like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. This is the
way to go if you want to get somewhere in this country, Bennett said.

>From http://www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com/node/226