The Empire strikes back

The new emperor spoke today, about the challenges of the empire and which men and women he will appoint to deal with the more troublesome parts on its frontiers. John Mitchell gave a boring and irrelevant talk about how committed he was to finding a solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis. I caught his speech from the point where he was saying something about 800 years and how somebody had come over to him and ask him whether he had said 800 years, twice. After replying twice that same person said, "Pah, such a recent argument." I rolled my eyes at such stupid shows, not from Mitchell, but from the quite clearly Zionist charmer who had spoke to him. The Zionists love to orientalise themselves and make themselves to be part of the land. At any point in a conversation with somebody they are trying to impress they will love making some anecdote about how tough and prickly they are from the outside, but sweet on the inside, on how they deal with the harshness of deserts and so on ad nauseum. Forget the fact that they are originally Eastern Europeans or Ashkenazi Jews who are more at home in Europe and North America than in the Middle East. Anyhow, I digress. Obama's speech had nothing but praise for Mubarak's Egypt, he made the usual Israeli pledge of allegiance and reassurance, and he made a number of allusions to the troublemakers in the region, Iran and Syria. For Syria, it was the promise of a potential peace deal, for Iran, a warning against supporting "terror" groups, that is Hamas and Hezbullah, as well as the many armed groups in Iraq. There will be more of the same support for "moderates" in the region, a strong endorsement of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, and a reiteration of his "commitment" to a "two-state solution". No American president's speech would be complete without an 'acknowledgement' of the suffering on "both" sides of this conflict, Palestinian and Israeli. Duly noted Mr. President. [middle finger here]

Oh and of course he promised not to torture people anymore, ordering the closure of Guantanamo and saying something about the people of the United States possessing values of some sort. I haven't a clue what these are, but I'm sure it would be a good idea if they did. There was actually little mention of Iraq, in the part of the broadcast that I managed to catch, and this was a little bit surprising.

It was very interesting that there is now one vizier, Richard Holbrooke assigned for both Pakistan and Afghanistan. This shows how bad the situation is now and how clear it is that Pakistan is now sinking into the battle between America and whoever it is fighting there. I couldn't help but wonder how soon it would be before there was a full scale American ground assault in the North Western provinces of that country. This might not be Obama's style, I think massive aid to strengthen the government of Pakistan will probably be more likely, but who knows. The first one hundred days of a US presidency are usually the key ones which define what comes later so let us see. I noted with some interest how Holbrooke considered John Negroponte as his friend. Also he felt it very important to reassure listeners that he took Pakistan very seriously, respecting its culture and history and so on. There will be interesting developments there soon I expect.

Doesn't everybody think it very interesting that the United States, said to be the world's greatest superpower, is unable to subdue the people of an area from the Mediterranean to central Asia? A new era of American power is indeed emerging, the empire is gathering its strength for a renewed strike, with flowers and guns this time. When this does reach a good momentum, we will see many people who secretly idolise the United States in the Arab world start singing its praises again. There will be a resurgence of "moderation" again, up until now a dirty word thanks to the honest and frank brutality of the Bush administration. I have surprised many people in the past by saying I preferred John McCain or even George Bush as presidents. People saw the ugly face of America for what it was. Well, the mask is now on and the same fools who always wanted to believe will again believe, and those who always rejected the lies will continue to be steadfast. It will be good now that the lines have become clearer.