With obscene imperial arrogance, President Obama proclaimed
that the “world” – not he – has drawn a bloody “red line” in Syria. “I
didn’t set a red line,” said Obama, at a stop in Sweden on his way to a
Group of 20 nations meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. “The world set a
red line.”
That’s news to the rest of the planet, including most of the Group of 20 and the meeting’s host, Russian President Vladimir Putin,
who described Obama’s claims that Syria used sarin gas against
civilians in rebel-held areas as “completely ridiculous.” “It does not
fit any logic,” said Putin, since Syrian President Assad’s forces “have
the so-called rebels surrounded and are finishing them off.”
It’s news to China, which will surely join Russia in vetoing any
Security Council motion to provide legal cover for Obama’s aggression.
And it’s news to the usually compliant UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,
who this week reaffirmed
that “the Security Council has primary responsibility for international
peace and security" and “the use of force is lawful only when in
exercise of self-defense in accordance with article 51 of the United
Nations Charter and or when the Security Council approves such action.”
It’s news to Great Britain, America’s temporarily wayward poodle,
whose parliament rejected any military entanglement in Obama’s red line.
As esteemed political analyst William Blum points out, 64 percent of
the people of France oppose their government’s planned participation
Obama’s Battle of the Red Line.
Apparently, a young and impressionable Obama took the 1985 USA for
Africa song “We are the World” too literally, and believes that all one
need do is sing or shout the words to make it so.
-- Glen Ford, "Obama: As Warlike as Bush, and Just as Lonely" (Black Agenda Report).