A NEW MIDDLE EAST, BUT NOT THE ONE BUSH AND CONDI WERE BLABBERING ABOUT

Syria’s Diversified Options

This was written six months ago and recently published in Political
Insight.

Pulse

A sigh of relief blew across Syria when the Bush administration was
retired. Bush had backed Israel’s reoccupation of West Bank cities,
described Ariel ‘the Bulldozer’ Sharon as “a man of peace”, given
Syria two million Iraqi refugees and an inflation crisis, and blamed
Syria for the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafiq
al-Hariri. Veiled American threats of “regime change” scared the
Syrian people – who observed the blood rushing from neighbouring Iraq
– almost as much as they scared the regime itself.

Obama’s re-engagement signalled an end to the days of considering
Syria – in the predatorial neo-con phrase – “low-hanging fruit”, but
American overtures have remained cautious, the new administration’s
policy severely limited by its commitments to Israel and the domestic
Israel lobby. Obama nominated Robert Ford as the first American
ambassador to Damascus in five years, but the appointment has since
been blocked by the Senate. In May, Obama renewed Bush-era sanctions,
citing Syria’s “continuing support for terrorist organizations and
pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs,” which,
“continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

So not much has changed. The neoconservative language is still in
place, the same elision of distance between American and Israeli
interests, and between anti-occupation militias and al-Qa’ida-style
terrorists, plus a flat refusal to understand that the countries
really under unusual and extraordinary threat of attack are Syria,
Lebanon, and – Netanyahu’s “new Amalek” – Iran.

It is clear to Syria that the US is both unwilling and unable to
deliver an Arab-Israeli settlement which would fulfill its minimum
demand – the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since
1967 (creating 100,000 refugees) and annexed in 1981 (a move
condemned by UN Security Council Resolution 497). Any concession on
the well-watered Golan would be experienced as a betrayal by the
Syrian people. Former President Hafez al-Asad dragged a promise of
full Israeli withdrawal from Yitzhak Rabin, but all subsequent
Israeli prime ministers have reneged on the “Rabin Pledge.”
Furthermore, the “just and comprehensive peace” envisaged as a
“strategic option” by Hafez al-Asad in 1991 is no longer on offer.
Observers of the calibre of John Mearsheimer believe that it’s now
far too late for a viable two-state solution in Israel-Palestine.

Obama’s new peacemaking tack may involve public snubs of the Israeli
right, but it doesn’t extend to enforcing UN Resolution 497, (or 242
or 191 for that matter). Obama will not apply the real pressure
needed to nudge Israel into decolonisation of the West Bank. He will
not stop the billions of dollars of direct military aid, loan
guarantees and technology transfers, nor the flow of private Zionist
cash.

In April Obama adopted as truth highly suspect Israeli allegations of
a Syrian Scud missile transfer to Lebanon’s Hizbullah. The charge,
denied in Damascus and Beirut and by the UN, provided the Arabs
another example of American double standards. Aside from the
improbability of the Scud claim (these are weapons too cumbersome for
Hizbullah’s style of warfare), it stank of hypocrisy. The US is
currently selling F35 fighter planes to Israel, the most advanced of
its own fleet.

Without a change in the balance of power, it seems impossible that
Syria will reclaim the Golan. But the region is changing, and Syria
is diversifying its options.

In Istanbul on May 9th Bashaar al-Asad reaffirmed Syria’s willingness
to resume indirect peace talks with Israel, mediated by Turkey. The
bait is there if anyone wants to bite. Meanwhile Syria is working on
relations with its ‘Northern Alliance’: Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

The superficially unlikely alliance of secular-nationalist Syria and
Islamist Iran is longstanding and unwavering, and is of great
political, economic and military value to Syria. Al-Asad, like
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan, had hoped to act as a
bridge between Iran and the Obama administration. Such hopes have
evaporated, and regional security deteriorates a notch further with
each Israeli threat to bomb Iran’s nuclear programme, or re-destroy
Lebanon’s infrastructure, or unseat the Asad regime.

In a February Damascus summit, al-Asad, Iran’s Ahmadinejad and
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared a common military front in
the event of an Israeli attack on any of their countries. Nasrallah’s
rare public appearance gave bite to the proceedings. Known – almost
uniquely among Arab leaders – for keeping his word, Nasrallah had
promised a new military doctrine a few weeks earlier:

“If you strike martyr Rafiq al-Hariri’s international airport in
Beirut, we’ll strike your Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. If you hit
our ports, we’ll hit your ports. If you attack our refineries or
factories, we’ll bomb your refineries and factories.”

For the US and Israel, Hizbullah is no more than a terrorist
organisation, despite the fact that it concentrates its fire on
military targets far more effectively than Israel (in the 2006 war,
Hizbullah killed 43 civilians and 121 soldiers; Israel killed 1190
civilians and 250 soldiers). The Party of God – which runs
construction, welfare and media projects as well as an armed wing –
is wildly popular amongst the Shia, Lebanon’s largest sect, and at
any moment has the support of at least half the country as a whole
(elections under Lebanon’s skewed sectarian system do not always
reflect this fact). And Hizbullah is dear to most Arabs, because its
few thousand fighters drawn from the downtrodden have done what the
Arab states could not, for all their emergency laws and massive
military budgets, for all their fruitless embrace of the US-sponsored
peace process: they beat back, then in 2000 ended Israel’s 22-year
occupation of Lebanon. When Hizbullah held its own against Israel’s
2006 onslaught it proved its evolution from shadowy militia to
guerrilla force to a semi-conventional army able to keep territory.
For all the current rumours of war, it may be that a balance of
terror has already been achieved on the Lebanese border, that Israel
may be contained.

A step back from Syria’s frontline alliances stands its spectacularly
improved relationship with Turkey. Under new, upwardly-mobile,
Islamist-democrat direction, Turkey is investing heavily in Syria,
Iraq and Iran, waiving visas and building railways in the interests
of trade and tourism, publically supporting Iran’s nuclear programme
while condemning Israel’s siege of Gaza. Turkey, of course, with NATO
membership and a flourishing economy, is a weight-bearing nation. An
immediate consequence of its realignement is that the Resistance
Front – ‘Moderate State’ duality which held sway in the region a few
years ago has been consigned to history’s dust-heap. The increasing
irrelevance of such US-client regimes as Egypt and Saudi Arabia is
what prompted General Petraeus’s statement that “Israeli
intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardising US
standing in the region.”

And there’s a jaded but resurgent superpower in the picture too. In
the first visit to Syria by a Russian leader since the 1917
Revolution, this month President Medvedev discussed oil, gas, and
possibly nuclear cooperation. Russia is selling Damascus warplanes,
air defence systems and anti-tank weapons, and developing the port of
Tartus to receive the Russian fleet.

“Washington’s failure to realign relations with Iran and Syria dooms
it to repeat its past,” writes Syria analyst Joshua Landis, warning
of a new cold war. Bashaar al-Asad agrees, telling La Republica, “The
Russians never believed the Cold War ended. Neither did we. It only
changed shape. It has evolved with time. Russia is reasserting
itself. And the Cold War is just a natural reaction to the attempt by
America to dominate the world.”

But the current situation is too multipolar for an old-style cold
war. This time Syria isn’t compelled to choose between two sponsors.
Instead it meets a world of independent actors – Iran, Turkey,
Russia, China, even Brazil. The big story here is the emergence of
new alliances as the global power balance shifts.

MORALES WANTS TO INTERNATIONALISE THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACIST IMMIGRATION LAWS IN NORTH AMERICA

"We will express it at all the forums, and we are going to

launch an international campaign with the Chiefs of State

and the social movements (against the Arizona law),"

Morales said

Bolivian President Evo Morales Tells Obama

‘Stop Deporting Immigrants’

NEW YORK – As heads of state gathered here to attend the United

Nations General Assembly, Bolivian President Evo Morales ended a

speech at Hunter College on Monday by calling on President Barack

Obama to stop “expelling” Latin American immigrants who are trying to

eke out a living.

“Here there’s a lot of talk about policies that aim to expel

immigrants,” he said. “There are deep asymmetries between countries,

between continents, so of course our brothers in Latin America come

here to improve their economic situation. But our brothers who come

to the U.S., to Europe, to survive, to reach a better station in

life, they are thrown out. What kind of policy is that?”

Morales’ message: “I call on President Obama to halt these policies

that aim to deport the Latin American people here, because we all

have the same rights.”

President Morales was at Hunter to promote his biography, recently

translated into English. But he closed his speech with a few select

words for the American president. “I was convinced a black man and an

indigenous man were going to work like a pair of oxen for the whole

world,” said the indigenous Morales. “It doesn’t make sense that one

discriminated party would discriminate against another.”

Morales’ biographer, Martin Sivak, spoke warmly of the Bolivian

President, with whom he traveled for two years to write, Evo Morales:

The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia.

Evo Morales was born to a poor indigenous family in the high plains

of Bolivia, and grew up to be a union organizer who represented coca

farmers. His rise to power was characterized by fierce opposition,

including detention and torture in Bolivia, and more recently,

ridicule abroad, where he has been called a puppet of Hugo Chavez.

His policies have sought to nationalize natural resources and basic

services, and The New York Times described his diplomatic

relationship with Washington as “tense.” In an 2009 article, the NYT

said it “might be the worst in the hemisphere, except for the one

with Cuba.”

His biographer described Morales’ political career and recounted

episodes which reveal the sense of humor of the man he chronicled. “I

heard him say to a waitress, ‘I would even drink poison from your

hands,’ after she asked him if he liked coffee or juice. I listened

to him lecture on the difference between llamas and people.”

At first, Sivak, a young man from Argentina, was exhausted by trying

to keep up with the Bolivian president’s rigorous schedule. “Morales

predicted I wouldn’t be able to handle the pace of his life as

president but that I should give it a try,” Sivak said:

“After the first week I had altitude sickness and I was hooked up to

an oxygen machine in a pharmacy in La Paz. The schedule, which

started at 5 o’clock in the morning and ended at 12 o’clock at night,

had included 22 airplanes and helicopters and more than 40 events in

places that do not appear on school maps. President Morales enjoyed

asking the pilots to do pirouettes because he knows how scared I am

of small planes.”

In a more serious tone, Sivak said Morales’ landslide victory (64% of

the vote) in the last presidential election “deserved a more complex

read” than the one it earned from critics of the Bolivian regime, who

said it stemmed simply from Morales’ support base in the indigenous

community, which makes up more than 60 percent of the population.

Sivak said, “I was deeply moved with what I saw in these years [...]

The decline of power of the old elites that ruled the country for so

many years and the resurgence of the poor majorities.” He urged

people in the U.S. to view Morales as a leader in his own right–more

than just an extension of Chavez who has “emotional ties” to the

indigenous community.

Bolivian president asks Obama to reject

controversial immigration law

LA PAZ, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia's President Evo Morales Thursday
asked U.S. President Barack Obama to reject a U.S. immigration law
because it discriminates against Latin Americans.

In a letter to Obama, Morales warned the U.S. president against the
consequences of the immigration law adopted by the U.S. state of
Arizona in April.

Morales said the United States is a country of immigrants, who
contributed to its development and economic power.

He also urged Obama, the first African-American U.S. president, to
avoid past historical mistakes like racial segregation or slavery in
the United States.

"We will express it at all the forums, and we are going to launch an
international campaign with the Chiefs of State and the social
movements(against the Arizona law)," Morales said.

The Arizona law makes it a crime to stay in the United States
illegally and empowers local law enforcement to check the immigration
status of people suspected of staying in the country illegally. It
also creates misdemeanor crimes for harboring and transporting
illegal immigrants.

OBAMA AND HILARY LEAD THE EMPIRE IN UNDERHAND DIVIDE AND RULE BETWEEN ARAB WORLD, IRAN AND CHINA

China feels US-Iran fallout

By Peter Lee
Asia Times Online

The question of the day in Washington is will the People's
Republic of China veto further United Nations Security
Council sanctions against Iran over Tehran's nuclear
program?

Informed opinion says "no".

China has exercised its veto only six times in 30 years on
the council. In matters core to national priorities, like
punishing countries such as Guatemala and Macedonia for
their ties to the Republic of China (Taiwan) and protecting
the interests of Pakistan, it has acted alone.

However, on broader geopolitical issues, in recent years it
has vetoed resolutions only when joined by at least one
other Security Council member.

France and the United Kingdom are lined up solidly behind
the United States on Iran's nuclear program, which some say
is geared towards making a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran
consistently dismisses.

Russia this year is interested in improving ties with the
US and Europe and has moved toward support of sanctions. No
Russian veto, no Chinese veto, says the conventional
wisdom.

On the other hand, chances of China voting for sanctions
are slim. A press report covering Chinese Foreign Minister
Yang Jiechi's visit to Paris at the beginning of February
says it all: "China Says Iran Sanctions Hinder Diplomacy."

Abstention is, therefore, China's most likely course.

Beijing's reaction might be expected to be a dismissive and
a resigned shrug: a symbolic vote, another toothless round
of sanctions, more political kabuki, and eventually
business as usual.

However, China's expected non-vote will be accompanied by
new feelings of unease and anger, reflecting Beijing's
growing suspicion that an important motivation for the Iran
sanctions, and the escalation of Iran tensions in general,
is Washington's desire to employ the issue as a wedge
against China.

In past years, China could regard US sanctions against
authoritarian regimes with a certain amount of complacency.
The George W Bush administration's heavy-handed approach
dismayed and divided natural allies of the US and drove its
targets deeper into China's embrace.

However, the Obama administration has decided to supplement
brute power with smart power. It apparently promotes
divisive international initiatives only when the splits in
international opinion and alliances are expected to go
America's way.

China first got a taste of the smart-power approach in
December at the Copenhagen climate summit. The US linked
the release of billions of dollars of climate adaptation
aid to vulnerable developing countries with China's
acceptance of a satisfactory transparency regime. Its
delegation passed the message to smaller nations that
China's intransigence was standing between them and
billions of dollars of much-needed assistance.

Despite the treaty debacle, the geopolitical results for
the Obama administration were encouraging. The European
Union sided with the US. According to an internal Chinese
report, a good number of Group of 77 nations were, for the
large part, influenced by the American position but did not
openly confront China. China cobbled together an alliance
with the emerging economies of Brazil and India and,
despite a concerted "blame China" effort by the US and the
UK, was able to limit the political damage.

However, it was a sobering experience for Chinese
diplomats. The report concluded "A conspiracy by developed
nations to divide the camp of developing nations [was] a
success."

Now, the Obama administration is picking on the regionally
and globally unpopular government of Iran, thereby exposing
China as the regime's lone international supporter of note.

The US has worked to bring the EU and Russia to its side.
The EU, at least, is now an enthusiastic ally. Relieved to
be dealing with a judicious and consultative American
president, it no longer sees the need to accommodate a
greater role for China on the world stage.

Russia has joined the American team (with sub voce
reservations), reportedly in response to the Obama
administration's concessions on shelving plans for a
missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

The State Department has also worked with the Gulf states
to gain their support for a policy of putting Iran in its
place.

As far as the China issue is concerned, America's direct
solicitation of China's Security Council vote involved
Obama passing the word to President Hu Jintao that China's
interests would suffer if diplomatic pressure failed,
Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, and the price of
oil went up.

It is unlikely that the Israel attack card was persuasive
to the Chinese leadership, and did little more than
convince them that Washington was using it as an excuse to
justify an extension of US influence in the Middle East.

A pre-emptive attack by Israel to nip Iran's nuclear
ambitions in the bud is unlikely.

Despite Tel Aviv's brave talk of its ability and
determination to launch a raid independent of US approval,
even a resounding success would probably only slow down the
program a few years while earning the undying enmity of the
Iranian people and the Muslim world toward Israel ... and
the United States, which would have to provide Israel with
flight privileges over Iraq to stage the attack.

American assertions that the Iranian nuclear program will
spark a ruinous arms race in the Gulf no doubt elicited
similar skepticism from China, with the unspoken
observation that, since most of those arms would be
supplied by the US and EU, the onus for (and profits of) an
arms race would probably fall to the West.

American efforts to wedge the Arab states away from China
are more likely to attract Beijing's attention and concern.

James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation spun US Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton's current trip to the Middle East:

Clinton will be looking to the Arabs to "act as a
counterweight [to Iran] on China and help unlock its
Security Council vote.

The US is hoping to use these discussions with the Arabs as
a way to encourage China to look at its long-term economic
interests," Phillips added. "The Arabs could let the
Chinese know that it will hurt them economically with the
Arab countries in the long run if China clings to this
pro-Iran position.

United States protestations that all this diplomatic
maneuvering directed at China is justified by the need to
exhibit international unity on Iran ring hollow.

Invocation of the Israeli attack and the Gulf states arms
race bogeymen notwithstanding, the primary justification
for the current spasm of concern over Iran's nascent
nuclear activities is the dreaded Western "impatience",
which appears very similar to the manufactured impatience
that sent the coalition of the willing charging into Iraq
in 2003.

The stated remedy for this impatience, the UN sanctions, is
unlikely to work.

Russia cares enough about its relationship with Tehran to
make sure anything that gets through the Security Council
will not be particularly catastrophic.

On February 11, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Ryabkov made
this memorable statement: "We do not think sanctions will
work, but we understand that it is impossible to get by
without them in certain circumstances."

With early reports that a massive government presence
marginalized Green Movement demonstrators on the February
11 anniversary of the Iranian revolution of 1979, regime
change in Iran is probably off the table, too.

Even if a new regime came to power, Iran's national
commitment to nuclear power - and the perceived nuclear
weapons threat to the region - would probably remain
unchanged.

By conventional geopolitical logic, China would seem to
have the right idea: more jaw-jaw and engagement or, as it
called for in a recent editorial, "patience, patience and
more patience."

But US policy seems to be moving in the opposite direction,
stoking the crisis instead of lowering the heat.

So what's China's takeaway from the Iran crisis?

Absent an immediate, credible threat of an Israeli attack
on Iran, the US is rushing the international community
toward "crushing sanctions" on Tehran that, if carried out,
would result in disruption of Iran's energy exports.

If this were to actually occur, the big loser in the Iran
crisis would be China.

As a Chinese analyst told Reuters: "Fully going with
Western expansion of sanctions on Iran so they restrict
Iran's energy exports would amount to disguised sanctions
against China, and China certainly won't agree," Wang Feng,
a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told
the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper published on
Thursday.

Reportedly, the US had advised China it would dispatch
Hillary Clinton to visit Iran's enemies in the Persian Gulf
and ensure that, if sanctions disrupted the supply of
Iranian oil, Saudi Arabia and its associates would ensure
that China's petroleum needs would continue to be met.

It is unlikely that China's vision of its energy security
involves relying on the US's good offices to deal with the
consequences of a US-imposed policy that it rejects and had
no voice in formulating.

In any case, the prospects for an oil-price Armageddon are
unlikely. Given free-market realities and the greed of oil
producers inside and outside the Gulf, the world would
suffer as much as China if Iranian crude disappeared from
the market.

For Beijing, the biggest concern is its perception that
Europe, Russia and the Gulf states are signing on to an
anti-Iran initiative that could impact China's interests in
such a major way without accommodating China's priorities.

From Beijing's point of view, China is the main superpower
stakeholder in the Iran crisis.

So it is asking why isn't it being consulted? Indeed, why
aren't its critical interests given priority, instead of
subjecting it to moonshine about an Israeli attack, an arms
race in the Gulf and lectures about its geopolitical
interests?

China is not a threat to the international order, but it is
its most independent and uncontrollable element. There are
growing signs of a shared consensus in the West that
reliance on China as a stabilizing financial, economic and
geopolitical factor must be reduced.

The past few years have been good to China's competitors
-especially India - and bad for China's allies - Pakistan
and Iran.

By accident or design, the Obama administration's decision
to heat up the Iran controversy has driven another wedge
between China and the US, the EU, the Gulf states and even
Russia.

The issue for China is whether the purpose of America's
Iran campaign is to isolate Iran ... or to isolate China?
This is a consequence of China's participation in the
security initiatives that the US chooses to organize to
protect and promote its own and loyal allies' interests.

China responded to the escalation of the Iran nuclear
crisis with a remarkable lead editorial in the Global
Times, the international affairs organ of People's Daily,
the government mouthpiece,.

The editorial, with the eye-catching title "Iran and the
West: Neither Should Think of Taking China Hostage",
painted China as the victim of the standoff. In an effort
to be even-handed, both Iran and the West are criticized
for their intransigence.

Nevertheless, both the West and Iran are unheeding at this
time. They both believe that only if they are unyielding,
then the other side will back off. This unenlightened
attitude even extends to their attitude toward China. Both
sides believe that all that's needed is to put pressure on
China, then China will, without considering its own
interests ... lower its head to them ... This thinking is
unrealistic.

The use of the loaded term, "lower its head", conjuring
images of the humiliating kowtow, instead of a more neutral
term such as "support one or the other" is an indication
that red lines are being drawn.

The fact that China's main worry is the West, and not Iran,
is unambiguously conveyed in the editorial's conclusion.

Recently in Western public opinion has been a call to use
the Iran issue to isolate China. This is extremely
superficial ... China is a big country and its interests
must be respected. China's dilemma must be sympathized
with. China's proposal opposing sanctions must be
understood. The big powers must cooperate and negotiate on
the Iran issue ...

China is a great country. If anyone seeks to compel her, to
injure her, they will certainly pay the price. Pretty
strong stuff.

The editorial is a clear indication that China considers
itself the target - or at least intended collateral damage
- in America's anti-Iran campaign. It makes the case that,
if the Obama administration sincerely cared about its
relationship with China, Washington would back off from the
sanctions campaign and allow negotiations to continue.

But that doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Sanctions will probably go ahead, with China either
abstaining or throwing in a tactical "yes" vote to postpone
an overt breach, and Washington will obtain another point
of leverage against China in the Persian Gulf.

If that happens, China will have to think about adjusting
to a new world situation in which the West seems less
interested in bargaining for its support or respecting its
interests.

Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.

OBAMA STOPPED 'WHITEY GOING TO THE MOON', BUT HASNT DONE JACK ELSE

LEADING RADICAL INTELLECTUAL MICHAEL DYSON ON MARTIN LUTHER KING AND OBAMA

WHAT THE HELL ARE THE YANKS UP TO IN HAITI!

Blackwater before drinking water

Greg Palast
Sunday 17 January, 2010

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air
almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of
Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President
of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of
2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged
country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr.
Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000
Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF
"austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who
could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to
hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the
rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I
tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48
hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant.
Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right
there.

5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't
know how this government could have responded faster or
more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't
know.

6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has
access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile
medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf
Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré,
who served as the task force commander for emergency
response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian
Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from
Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people."
Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense
Department missed school that day.

7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's
what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson
finally showed up after three days. With what? It was
dramatically deployed - without any emergency relief
supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.

8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue
Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven
days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric
tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents,
advanced communication equipment and water purifying
capability. They're from Iceland.

9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said,
there was no "structure ... to provide security." For
Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by
Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from
Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in
getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the
right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like
the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the
left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan
Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon
Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US
Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected
president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with
infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or
non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire
nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was
simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?

Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and
destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc,
the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28
years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid
into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US
government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo
militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The
war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as
many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF
finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity
plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists
zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government
services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled,
Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who
resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the
military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed
him. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as
farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the
priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped
and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the
hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century,
than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's
wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves
rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.

From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee
to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused
by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave
individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to
simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain
facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of
these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in,
oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was
found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her
father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of
life too, Mr. President.

*** Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my
friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have
someone getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact
Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately. Urgently recommended
reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the
San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave
uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.

A DEEPER LOOK INTO US INVOLVEMENT IN YEMEN

Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China
By M K Bhadrakumar

Asia Times

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the
startling revelation that his country's security forces
apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli
intelligence forces. "A terrorist cell was apprehended and
will be referred to the courts for its links with the
Israeli intelligence services," he promised.

Saleh added, "You will hear about the trial proceedings."
Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold. Welcome to
the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the
Arabian Nights were played out.

Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden,
al-Qaeda and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady
mix. The head of the US Central Command, General David
Petraeus, dropped in at the capital, Sana'a, on Saturday
and vowed to Saleh increased American aid to fight
al-Qaeda. United States President Barack Obama promptly
echoed Petraeus' promise, assuring that the US would step
up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and
perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the
region.

Another Afghanistan?

Many accounts say that Obama, who is
widely regarded as a gifted and intelligent politician, is
blundering into a catastrophic mistake by starting another
war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic and
unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, on the face of it,
Obama does seem erratic. The parallels with Afghanistan are
striking. There has been an attempt to destroy a US plane
by a Nigerian student who says he received training in
Yemen. And America wants to go to war.

Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged
mountains that could be a guerilla paradise. Yemenis are a
hospitable lot, like Afghan tribesmen, but as Irish
journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while they are
generous to passing strangers, they "deem the laws of
hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal
territory, at which time he becomes 'a good back to shoot
at'." Surely, there is romance in the air - almost like in
the Hindu Kush. Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni
has a gun. Yemen is also, like Afghanistan, a land of
conflicting authorities, and with foreign intervention, a
little civil war is waiting to flare up.

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1
speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his
own canons? Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The
intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest
moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global
hegemony. It is America's answer to China's surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is
one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the
Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi
Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In
effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a
lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening
its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow
in the race.

The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with
Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that,
the US establishes its military presence in an entire
unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian
Ocean's western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken
of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The
US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country
with a coastline that is available for China to set up a
naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries
have a Western military presence.

The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on
the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he
doesn't receive any body bags of American servicemen
serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects
from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special
forces and "focus on providing intelligence and training to
help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants", according to the US
military. Obama's main core objective will be to establish
an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many
purposes.

A new great game begins First, the US move has to be viewed
against the historic backdrop of the Shi'ite awakening in
the region. The Shi'ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have
been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi'ite uprisings
have been a recurring theme in Yemen's history. There has
been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of
Shi'ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.

More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they
constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate
Sunni Arab states - and Israel - is that the Believing
Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is
entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in
Lebanon in all respects - politically, economically,
socially and culturally.

Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the
Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The
Yemeni Shi'ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have
far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which
is a key American base, is predominantly Shi'ite. Even more
sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of
Shi'ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia's highly
restive Shi'ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it
all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country's
fabulous oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of
political transition as a new generation is set to take
over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and
fault lines within the royal family are likely to get
exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of
institutionalized Shi'ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by
the Wahhabi establishment, Shi'ite empowerment is a
veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this
juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the
recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against
the north Yemeni Shi'ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia
testifies.

The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama
to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies - as he
did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But
democratization in the Yemeni context - ironically, in the
Arab context - would involve Shi'ite empowerment. After the
searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched
like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be
aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh
than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil
rich-region in which it has profound interests.

Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what
Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn't
want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with
all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only
"democratic" system operating in that entire region.

Iran's shadow over the Yemeni Shi'ite consciousness worries
the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle
going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the
ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that
constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he
isn't finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be
believed, there could be times when the vague recollections
of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of
his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling
intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the
White House corridors.

Israel moves in But Obama is first and foremost a realist.
Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic
considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval
Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has
tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a
military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a
springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty
considerations for Obama.

The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni
authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli
intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen - just as it did
in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.

Islamism doesn't deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn't have
been far off the mark when he alleged last year that
Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links
with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a
highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort
of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates
marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is
lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.

Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift
insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian
Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose
effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously
handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf
region. The overarching US military presence helps Israel
politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without
doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel
(and Britain). But the "pro-West" Arab states with their
rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute
spectators on the sidelines.

Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli
security presence in the region as a safer bet than the
spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi'ite empowerment
emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some
stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the
extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known
as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn't done that
already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for
the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite
possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in
the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.

It's all about China

Most important, however, for US global
strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port
of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the
gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait
will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great
game" of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian
Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy.
By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to
Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a
declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an
extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming
under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the
Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese
naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between
Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese
influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its
Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the
primary intent of eroding China's influence with the
military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at
strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to
open a new transportation route towards the Middle East,
the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting
traditional Western economic dominance.

China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca
Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US,
on the contrary, is determined that China remains
vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and
Malaysia.

An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy
with China's efforts to reach the warm waters of the
Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan.
Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose
around the neck of the Pakistani elites - civilian and
military - and forcing them to make a strategic choice
between the US and China. This will put those elites in an
unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they
are inherently "pro-Western" (even when they are
"anti-American") and if the Chinese connection is important
for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances
perceived Indian hegemony.

The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites
are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from
Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis
Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George
W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent
power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will
have to learn to live?


US-India-Israel axis

On the other hand, the Indian elites
are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the
Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama's
political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all
but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the
broad contours of the US's global strategy - of which
containment of China is a core template.

The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard
to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the
Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the
Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish
lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in
the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers
as well as successive administrations. And all this is
happening at a time when the India-Israel security
relationship is gaining greater momentum.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to
visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is
reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude
toward India's longstanding quest for "dual-use" technology
from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military
cooperation is about to open between the two countries,
which will make India a serious challenger to China's
growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the
great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business
for American companies.

Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides
the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on.
It will have significance for the security of the Indian
Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last
year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.

All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and
missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen
in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard
reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be
"change", has careened away and increasingly defaults to
the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the
Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the "revisionism" in
his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We
can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the
Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia
and towards China and Russia.

Arguably, this sort of "return of the native" by Obama was
inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his
circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama's
presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a
train cannot be "steered", the driver can at best set its
speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.

Besides, history has no instances of a declining world
power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the
sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance
without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all
such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought
piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet
Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

VOICE OF BRITISH FINANCIAL ELITE: US ARE LOSING THE FREE WORLD

America is losing the free world

By Gideon Rachman

4 Jan, 2010, FT

Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the “free world”. But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most strategically important democracies in the developing world – Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey – are increasingly at odds with American foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such as China and Iran.

The US has been slow to pick up on this development, perhaps because it seems so surprising and unnatural. Most Americans assume that fellow democracies will share their values and opinions on international affairs. During the last presidential election campaign, John McCain, the Republican candidate, called for the formation of a global alliance of democracies to push back against authoritarian powers. Some of President Barack Obama’s senior advisers have also written enthusiastically about an international league of democracies.

But the assumption that the world’s democracies will naturally stick together is proving unfounded. The latest example came during the Copenhagen climate summit. On the last day of the talks, the Americans tried to fix up one-to-one meetings between Mr Obama and the leaders of South Africa, Brazil and India – but failed each time. The Indians even said that their prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had already left for the airport.

So Mr Obama must have felt something of a chump when he arrived for a last-minute meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, only to find him already deep in negotiations with the leaders of none other than Brazil, South Africa and India. Symbolically, the leaders had to squeeze up to make space for the American president around the table.

There was more than symbolism at work. In Copenhagen, Brazil, South Africa and India decided that their status as developing nations was more important than their status as democracies. Like the Chinese, they argued that it is fundamentally unjust to cap the greenhouse gas emissions of poor countries at a lower level than the emissions of the US or the European Union; all the more so since the industrialised west is responsible for the great bulk of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.

Revealingly, both Brazilian and Chinese leaders have made the same pointed joke – likening the US to a rich man who, after gorging himself at a banquet, then invites the neighbours in for coffee and asks them to split the bill.

If climate change were an isolated example, it might be dismissed as an important but anomalous issue that is almost designed to split countries along rich-poor lines. But, in fact, if you look at Brazil, South Africa, India and Turkey – the four most important democracies in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the greater Middle East – it is clear that none of them can be counted as a reliable ally of the US, or of a broader “community of democracies”.

In the past year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has cut a lucrative oil deal with China, spoken warmly of Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, and congratulated Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on his “victory” in the Iranian presidential election, while welcoming him on a state visit to Brazil.

During a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council from 2006, the South Africans routinely joined China and Russia in blocking resolutions on human rights and protecting authoritarian regimes such as Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan and Iran.

Turkey, once regarded as a crucial American ally in the cold war and then trumpeted as the only example of a secular, pro-western, Muslim democracy, is also no longer a reliable partner for the west. Ever since the US-led invasion of Iraq, opinion polls there have shown very high levels of anti-Americanism. The mildly Islamist AKP government has engaged with America’s regional enemies – including Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran – and alarmed the Americans by taking an increasingly hostile attitude to Israel.

India’s leaders do seem to cherish the idea that they have a “special relationship” with the US. But even the Indians regularly line up against the Americans on a range of international issues, from climate change to the Doha round of trade negotiations and the pursuit of sanctions against Iran or Burma.

So what is going on? The answer is that Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and India are all countries whose identities as democracies are now being balanced – or even trumped – by their identities as developing nations that are not part of the white, rich, western world. All four countries have ruling parties that see themselves as champions of social justice at home and a more equitable global order overseas. Brazil’s Workers’ party, India’s Congress party, Turkey’s AKP and South Africa’s African National Congress have all adapted to globalisation – but they all retain traces of the old suspicions of global capitalism and of the US.

Mr Obama is seen as a huge improvement on George W. Bush – but he is still an American president. As emerging global powers and developing nations, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey may often feel they have more in common with a rising China than with the democratic US.

SONS OF MALCOLM's SUKANT CHANDAN PANEL GUEST ON PRESS TV's FORUM WITH ANDREW GILLIGAN REVIEWING THE LAST DECADE

FIDEL's COMMENTS ON COPENHAGEN

Reflections of Fidel:
The Moment of Truth

Translated by Granma International

NEWS arriving from the Danish capital paints a picture of
chaos. After planning an event in which around 40,000
people were to participate, the hosts have no way of
keeping their promise. Evo, who was the first of the ALBA
presidents to arrive there, expressed certain profound
truths emanating from the millenary culture of his people.

According to the news agencies, he affirmed that he had
received a mandate from the Bolivian people to oppose any
agreement if the final declaration fails not meet
expectations. He explained that climate change is not the
cause but the effect, that we have an obligation to defend
the rights of Mother Earth against the model of capitalist
development, the culture of life against the culture of
death. He spoke of the climate debt that the rich countries
must pay to the poor countries, and the return of
atmospheric space seized from the latter.

He described as "ridiculous" the figure of $10 billion
dollars offered per year up until 2012 when, in reality,
hundreds of billions of dollars are needed every year. He
also accused the United States of spending trillions of
dollars on exporting terrorism to Iraq and Afghanistan and
establishing military bases in Latin America.

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
addressed the Summit on December 16th, at 8:40 a.m. Cuban
time. He made a brilliant speech that received tremendous
applause. His remarks were categorical.

Contesting a document proposed to the Summit by the Danish
minister chairing the conference, he stated:

"…it is a text that comes from nothing, we do not accept
any other text unless it comes out of the working groups
which are the legitimate texts that have been discussed
with such intensity during these two years."

"There is a group of countries which believe themselves
superior to us from the South, to us from the Third World…"

"…we are not surprised: there is no democracy in the world
and we are here, once again, in the face of powerful
evidence of a world imperial dictatorship."

"…I was reading some of the slogans painted in the streets
by the young people…One: ‘Let’s not change the climate,
let’s change the system’…Another: ‘If the climate was a
bank, they would have saved it already.’"

"Obama… received the Nobel Peace prize virtually the same
day that he was sending an additional 30,000 soldiers to
kill innocent people in Afghanistan."

"We were raising our hands to accompany Brazil, India,
Bolivia and China, in their interesting position … but,
well, we were not given the floor…"

"The rich are destroying the Earth… do they have plans to
go to another planet?"

"Climate change is, without any doubt, the most devastating
environmental problem of the present century."

"The United States could amount to possibly 300 million
inhabitants; China has a population that is almost five
times larger than the United States. The United States
consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil per day. Chine
barely reaches 5 or 6 million barrels per day. One can’t
ask the same of the United States and China."

"… reducing contaminating gas emissions and achieving a
long-term cooperation agreement […] seems to have failed,
for now. What is the reason for that? […] the irresponsible
attitude and the lack of political will on the part of the
most powerful nations of the planet."

"…the gap that separates the rich countries from the poor
is still expanding despite the existence of the Millennium
Goals, the Monterrey Summit on finance, all of these
summits – as the president of Senegal said, denouncing a
great truth, promises and promises and promises that have
been unfulfilled, while the world continues along its
destructive path."

"…The total income of the 500 richest individuals on the
planet is greater than the income of the 416 million
poorest people."

"Infant mortality stands at 47 per 1,000 live births; but
the figure for the rich countries is just 5 ..."

"…For how long are we going to allow millions of children
to continue dying from curable diseases?"

"Some 2.6 billion people live without health services,"

"Brazilian Leonardo Boff wrote: ‘that the fittest survive
over the ashes of the weakest.’"

Jean Jacob Rousseau [sic] said: ""Between the weak and the
strong, it is freedom which oppresses." For this reason,
the empire talks of freedom, in order to invade, to murder,
to annihilate, to exploit, that is its freedom. And
Rousseau goes on: "it is the law which sets free."

"For how long are we going to allow armed conflicts that
massacre millions of innocent human beings, with the aim of
awarding the resources of other nations to the more
powerful ones?"

"Almost two centuries ago, Simón Bolívar, the Liberator
said:

‘If nature opposes, we will fight against her and make her
obey us.’"

"This planet is billions of years old, and has existed for
billions of years without us, the human race: that is to
say, it does not need us to exist. Now, we cannot live
without the Earth…"

Evo addressed the conference in the morning of today,
Thursday. His speech will also never be forgotten.

He very candidly opened his remarks by saying: "I wish to
say how upset we are over the lack of organization and the
delays in this international gathering…"

His basic ideas were the following:

"When we ask the hosts what is going on, […] we are told it
is the United Nations; when we ask the United Nations what
is going on, they say it is Denmark, so we don’t know who
is disorganizing this international event…" "…I’m very
shocked because only the effects and not the causes of
climate change are being discussed."

"If we fail to identify where the destruction of the
environment is coming from […] we will never be able to
solve this problem…"

"…two cultures are under discussion here: the culture of
life and the culture of death; the culture of death, which
is capitalism. We, the indigenous peoples, say that it is
living better, better at the cost of others.’"

"…exploiting others, plundering their natural resources,
assaulting Mother Earth, privatizing basic services…"

"…living well is living in solidarity, in equality, in
complementation, in reciprocity…"

"These two different ways of life, these two cultures of
life are in debate when we it comes to climate change, and
if we do not decide which is the better way of living or of
life, it is certain that we are never going to resolve this
issue, because we have problems with life: luxury and
consumerism damage humanity and sometimes we don’t want to
admit the truth in this kind of international event."

"…in our way of life being truthful is sacred, and we are
not practicing the truths here."

"…in our Constitution it reads ama sua, ama llulla, ama
quella, which means do not steal, do not lie, do not be
weak."

"…Mother Earth or Nature exist and will continue to exist
without the human race, but human beings can’t live without
planet Earth, therefore, it is our duty to defend the right
of Mother Earth."

"…I applaud the United Nations because this year, it has
finally established the International Day of Mother Earth."

"…a mother is sacred, a mother is our life; a mother cannot
be rented, cannot be sold or assaulted, she must be
respected."

"We have profound differences with the Western model, and
that is under discussion at this moment."

"We are in Europe, and you know that many Bolivian
families, many Latin American families come to Europe. Why
do they come here? To improve their living conditions. In
Bolivia, they might be earning $100 or $200 per month; but
that family, that person comes here to take care of an
elderly European grandfather or grandmother and earns
$1,000 a month."

"These are the asymmetries that exist among continents and
we are obliged to discuss ways in which to achieve a
certain equilibrium, […] reducing these profound
asymmetries that exist among families, among countries, and
especially continents."

""When […] our brothers and sisters come here to survive or
to improve their living conditions they are expelled. There
are papers which are known as repatriation documents […]
but when those elderly Europeans arrived in Latin America
all those years ago, they were never expelled. My families,
my brothers do not come here to seize control of mines, nor
do they possess thousands of hectares in order to become
landowners. In the past, no visas or passports were
required to come to Abya Yala, now called, America."

"…the rich nations should welcome all migrants who are
affected by climate change instead of forcing them to
return to their countries as they are doing at the moment…"

"…our obligation is to save all of humanity and not half of
humanity."

"…the FTAA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, […] is not
a Free Trade Area of the Americas, but a free colonization
area of the Americas…"

Evo suggested the following questions, among others, for a
worldwide referendum on climate change:

"..Do you agree to reestablishing a harmonious relationship
with Nature, recognizing the rights of Mother Earth...?"

"…Are you in agreement with changing this system of
excessive consumerism and waste, that is, the capitalist
system...?"

"…Do you agree that the developed countries should reduce
and reabsorb their greenhouse gas emissions…?"

"…Do you agree on transferring everything that is currently
being spent in wars to create a budget higher than the
defense budget to tackle the problem of climate change…?"

As is widely known, the UN Agreement on Climate Change was
signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997. This protocol
obliged 38 industrialized nations to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage in
relation to those emitted in 1990. The countries of the
European Union committed themselves to 8%, a move which
came into effect in 2005, when most of the signatory
countries had already ratified it. George W. Bush, then
president of the United States – the largest producer of
greenhouse gases and responsible for a quarter of total
emissions – had rejected the agreement from mid-2001
onward.

The other members of the United Nations continued with
their efforts. The research centers continued with their
work. It is now evident that a major disaster is
threatening our species. Perhaps the worst aspect is that
the blind egotism of a privileged and rich minority is
attempting to lay the burden of the necessary sacrifices on
the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants.

That contradiction is reflected in Copenhagen. Thousands of
people are there, fiercely defending their points of view.

The Danish police are resorting to brutal methods to crush
resistance; many protesters are being preventively
arrested. I spoke on the phone with our Foreign Minister
Bruno Rodriguez, who was at a solidarity rally in
Copenhagen with Chávez, Evo, Lazo and other ALBA
representatives. I asked him who those people were that the
Danish police suppressed with such hate, twisting back
their arms and beating them repeatedly across the back. He
said they were Danish citizens and people from other
European nations as well as members of the social movements
who were demanding from the Summit an immediate solution to
deal with climate change. He also told me that debates in
the Summit were to continue until midnight. It was already
night in Copenhagen when I spoke with him. The time
difference is six hours.

Our comrades in the Danish capital have informed us that an
even worse situation is expected tomorrow morning, Friday
18th. At 10:00 a.m. the UN Summit is to be adjourned for
two hours while the Danish prime minister meets with 20
heads of state invited by him to discuss "global problems"
with Obama. That is what they have called the meeting,
which is aimed at imposing an agreement on climate change.

Even though all of the official delegations are to take
part, only "invited guests" will be allowed to express
their views. Of course, neither Chávez nor Evo are among
those entitled to express their opinions. The idea is to
give the illustrious Nobel Laureate an opportunity to read
his previously drafted speech, preceded by the decision to
de adopted in that meeting to postpone the agreement until
the end of next year in Mexico City. The social movements
will not be permitted to attend. After that show, the
"Summit" will resume in the plenary hall until its
ignominious closure.

As television channels have broadcast the footage, the
world has been able to see the fascist methods used against
the people in Copenhagen. The protesters, young people in
the main, who have been repressed, have earned the
solidarity of the peoples.

Despite the maneuvers and unprincipled lies of the leaders
of the empire, the moment of truth is drawing closer. Their
own allies are increasingly losing confidence in them. In
Mexico, as in Copenhagen or anywhere else in the world,
they will be met by the growing resistance of the peoples
who have not lost the hope of surviving.

Fidel Castro Ruz

December 17, 2009

6:46 p.m.

OBAMA's NOBEL PRIZE SPEECH, AFTER SENDING 30,000 MORE TROOPS TO KILL AFGHANIS

Text of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished
Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of
America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great
humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest
aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our
world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions
matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the
considerable controversy that your generous decision has
generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning,
and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared
to some of the giants of history who have received this
prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my
accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and
women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in
the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian
organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized
millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire
even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those
who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to
all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this
honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt
of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief
of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is
winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not
seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries —
including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all
nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the
deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a
distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I
come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict
— filled with difficult questions about the relationship
between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with
the other.

These questions are not new. War, in one form or another,
appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its
morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like
drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then
civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

Over time, as codes of law sought to control violence
within groups, so did philosophers, clerics and statesmen
seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept
of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified
only when it meets certain preconditions: if it is waged as
a last resort or in self-defense; if the forced used is
proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are
spared from violence.

For most of history, this concept of just war was rarely
observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways
to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our
capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or
pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to
wars between nations — total wars in which the distinction
between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span
of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this
continent. And while it is hard to conceive of a cause more
just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis
powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total
number of civilians who died exceeded the number of
soldiers who perished.

In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the
nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike
that the world needed institutions to prevent another World
War. And so, a quarter century after the United States
Senate rejected the League of Nations — an idea for which
Woodrow Wilson received this Prize — America led the world
in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a
Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern
the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights,
prevent genocide and restrict the most dangerous weapons.

In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars
have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has
been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant
crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of
the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty.
The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the
rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of
the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is
a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.

A decade into a new century, this old architecture is
buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no
longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear
superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of
catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern
technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to
murder innocents on a horrific scale.

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way
to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or
sectarian conflicts, the growth of secessionist movements,
insurgencies and failed states have increasingly trapped
civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more
civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future
conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies
torn asunder, refugees amassed and children scarred.

I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the
problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these
challenges will require the same vision, hard work and
persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly
decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways
about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just
peace.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will
not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will
be times when nations — acting individually or in concert —
will find the use of force not only necessary but morally
justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King
said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never
brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: It
merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone
who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's
life's work, I am living testimony to the moral force of
non-violence. I know there is nothing weak, nothing
passive, nothing naive in the creed and lives of Gandhi and
King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my
nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face
the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of
threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil
does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not
have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince
al-Qaidas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force
is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a
recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the
limits of reason.

I raise this point because in many countries there is a
deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the
cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of
America, the worlds sole military superpower.

Yet the world must remember that it was not simply
international institutions — not just treaties and
declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War
II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is
this: The United States of America has helped underwrite
global security for more than six decades with the blood of
our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and
sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted
peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled
democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have
borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will.
We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because
we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren,
and we believe that their lives will be better if other
people's children and grandchildren can live in freedom and
prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in
preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with
another — that no matter how justified, war promises human
tragedy. The soldiers courage and sacrifice is full of
glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause and to
comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we
must never trumpet it as such.

So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly
irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary,
and war is at some level an expression of human folly.
Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that
President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he
said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based
not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual
evolution in human institutions."

What might this evolution look like? What might these
practical steps be?

To begin with, I believe that all nations — strong and weak
alike — must adhere to standards that govern the use of
force. I — like any head of state — reserve the right to
act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards
strengthens those who do, and isolates — and weakens —
those who dont.

The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks,
and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan,
because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the
recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world
recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he
invaded Kuwait — a consensus that sent a clear message to
all about the cost of aggression.

Furthermore, America cannot insist that others follow the
rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves.
For when we don't, our action can appear arbitrary, and
undercut the legitimacy of future intervention — no matter
how justified.

This becomes particularly important when the purpose of
military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense
of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all
confront difficult questions about how to prevent the
slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop
a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an
entire region.

I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian
grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that
have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience
and can lead to more costly intervention later. That is why
all responsible nations must embrace the role that
militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.

America's commitment to global security will never waver.
But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and
missions more complex, America cannot act alone. This is
true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like
Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and
human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in
unstable regions for years to come.

The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries — and other
friends and allies — demonstrate this truth through the
capacity and courage they have shown in Afghanistan. But in
many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts
of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader
public. I understand why war is not popular. But I also
know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely
enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace
entails sacrifice. That is why NATO continues to be
indispensable. That is why we must strengthen U.N. and
regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few
countries. That is why we honor those who return home from
peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to
Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali — we honor them not
as makers of war, but as wagers of peace.

Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as
we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must
also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel
Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize
for peace to Henry Dunant — the founder of the Red Cross,
and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.

Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic
interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct.
And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by
no rules, I believe that the United States of America must
remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is
what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a
source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture.
That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed.
And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to
abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we
compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we
honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is
easy, but when it is hard.

I have spoken to the questions that must weigh on our minds
and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me turn
now to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak
of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.

First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and
laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to
violence that are tough enough to change behavior — for if
we want a lasting peace, then the words of the
international community must mean something. Those regimes
that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions
must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with
increased pressure — and such pressure exists only when the
world stands together as one.

One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the
middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a
treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to
peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will
forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work
toward disarmament. I am committed to upholding this
treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I am
working with President Medvedev to reduce America and
Russia's nuclear stockpiles.

But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that
nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system.
Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert
their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for
their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race
in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace
cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear
war.

The same principle applies to those who violate
international law by brutalizing their own people. When
there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo or
repression in Burma — there must be consequences. And the
closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced
with the choice between armed intervention and complicity
in oppression.

This brings me to a second point — the nature of the peace
that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of
visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent
rights and dignity of every individual can truly be
lasting.

It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In
the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human
rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.

And yet all too often, these words are ignored. In some
countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by
the false suggestion that these are Western principles,
foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's
development. And within America, there has long been a
tension between those who describe themselves as realists
or idealists — a tension that suggests a stark choice
between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless
campaign to impose our values.

I reject this choice. I believe that peace is unstable
where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or
worship as they please, choose their own leaders or
assemble without fear. Pent up grievances fester, and the
suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to
violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when
Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has
never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest
friends are governments that protect the rights of their
citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither
America's interests — nor the worlds — are served by the
denial of human aspirations.

So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of
different countries, America will always be a voice for
those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness
to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi;
to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the
face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have
marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling
that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations
of their own people more than the power of any other
nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and
free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and
history are on their side.

Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot
be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled
with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with
repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of
indignation. But I also know that sanctions without
outreach — and condemnation without discussion — can carry
forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can
move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open
door.

In light of the Cultural Revolution's horrors, Nixon's
meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable — and yet it surely
helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens
have been lifted from poverty, and connected to open
societies. Pope John Paul's engagement with Poland created
space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor
leaders like Lech Walesa. Ronald Reagan's efforts on arms
control and embrace of perestroika not only improved
relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents
throughout Eastern Europe. There is no simple formula here.
But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and
engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights
and dignity are advanced over time.

Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political
rights — it must encompass economic security and
opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear,
but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root
without security; it is also true that security does not
exist where human beings do not have access to enough food,
or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It
does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent
education or a job that supports a family. The absence of
hope can rot a society from within.

And that is why helping farmers feed their own people — or
nations educate their children and care for the sick — is
not mere charity. It is also why the world must come
together to confront climate change. There is little
scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more
drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more
conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely
scientists and activists who call for swift and forceful
action — it is military leaders in my country and others
who understand that our common security hangs in the
balance.

Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for
human rights. Investments in development. All of these are
vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that
President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe
that we will have the will, or the staying power, to
complete this work without something more — and that is the
continued expansion of our moral imagination, an insistence
that there is something irreducible that we all share.

As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be
easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are, to
understand that we all basically want the same things, that
we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some
measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our
families.

And yet, given the dizzying pace of globalization, and the
cultural leveling of modernity, it should come as no
surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish
about their particular identities — their race, their tribe
and, perhaps most powerfully, their religion. In some
places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even
feels like we are moving backwards. We see it in the Middle
East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to
harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by
tribal lines.

Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is
used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have
distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who
attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are
not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of
the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no
Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe
that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no
need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother,
or the medic, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a
warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the
concept of peace, but the purpose of faith — for the one
rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that
we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Adhering to this law of love has always been the core
struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make
mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and
power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best
intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before
us.

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect
for us to still believe that the human condition can be
perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to
still reach for those ideals that will make it a better
place. The nonviolence practiced by men like Gandhi and
King may not have been practical or possible in every
circumstance, but the love that they preached — their faith
in human progress — must always be the North Star that
guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or
naive, if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on
issues of war and peace — then we lose what is best about
humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our
moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that
future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years
ago: "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to
the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea
that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally
incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that
forever confronts him."

So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark
of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.
Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he's
outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere
today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the
brutality of her government, but has the courage to march
on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that
a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that
oppression will always be with us, and still strive for
justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation,
and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there
will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that —
for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope
of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that
must be our work here on Earth.