The Anti-Empire Report: Obama Acting Just like Bush

Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he's speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to "European youth", the president fed his audience...

April 12, 2014 | Source: Nation of Change | by William Blum

For Related Articles and More Information, Please Visit OCA’s Politics and Democracy Page and our Planting Peace Campaign Page.

Indoctrinating a new generation

Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he’s speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to “European youth”, the president fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or smirk. Here’s a sample:


“In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as a precedent – an example they say of the West interfering in the affairs of a smaller country, just as they’re doing now. But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years.”

Most people who follow such things are convinced that the 1999 US/NATO bombing of the Serbian province of Kosovo took place only after the Serbian-forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to
stop this “ethnic cleansing”. In actuality, the systematic deportations of large numbers of people did not begin until a few days
after the bombing began, and was clearly a reaction to it, born of Serbia’s extreme anger and powerlessness over the bombing. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, 1999, and the few days following. Or simply look at the New York Times of March 26, page 1, which reads:

with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would
now vent their rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation.  [emphasis added]

On March 27, we find the first reference to a “forced march” or anything of that nature.

But the propaganda version is already set in marble.