“Elected by a landslide and carrying the hopes of America, Barack Obama will soon begin to reveal his priorities on international relations for the United States. What place will Latin America have in these priorities? One shouldn’t expect our region to be on the list of his immediate priorities, but for a number of reasons, I think there’ll be significant progress in comparison to the lamentable legacy of George W. Bush, who frustrated the great expectations that he had created in our region at the beginning of his mandate.”
As President Bush prepares to leave the stage, one of his staunchest political friends and allies, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Maria Aznar - who was kicked out of office for supporting the Iraq invasion after an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in Madrid - has issued this defense of George W. Bush in the pages of France’s Le Figaro.
“History will give him his due. Even if at present, his work isn’t recognized, and will not be, he has greatly contributed to defending the cause of freedom. His determination and vision were fundamental to the survival of liberty in countries that have been able to benefit from it, and have extended freedom to countries that for too long have lived under tyranny and barbarism.”
“The fact that George W. Bush, who was President during this tragedy, will within weeks be able to cede power to his successor without the United States having undergone a similar attack, is proof of his success. … Freedom triumphs when we show the courage and determination to defend it. Freedom also wins when there are more nations capable to choosing their leaders freely. That is precisely the legacy that George W. Bush has preserved, allowed to prosper and is leaving to his successor.”
Is the first world - or what today is referred to as the developed world - really prepared to share decision-making power with the second and third worlds? If Sunday’s summit meeting in Washington did nothing else substantial, at least it seems to have convinced some people in the world’s up and coming nations that the answer to that question is yes.
“The current financial crisis appears to be the departure point for a more multilateral world, something that had nearly been forgotten. To put it simply: the rich world has given the signal that it will benefit if it begins to listen to the emerging world.”
“Brazil has a rather important role. The country should use energy and environmental issues to raise its voice in global decision-making - the first issue of which should be forceful action to freeze the Amazon [rainforest] at its current size. And the entire world should contribute to the cost of maintaining the largest tropical forest reserve on the planet. ”
The independent Russian media is certainly not dead. That is the only conclusion one can draw of this editorial comparison of the leadership styles of President-elect Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, from the Russian newspaper, Gazeta.
The Gazeta editorial not only praises the stake that average Americans have in the political life of the U.S., it frontally attacks recent electoral reforms in Russia that are designed to have the completely opposite effect in their country.
Pointing out that the two young leaders gave major speeches on the same day - Obama his electoral victory speech and Medvedev his first ’state of the union’ address, The Gazeta editorial says in part:
“Except that Obama addressed fifty million supporters who voted for him, while Medvedev spoke to a thousand legislators, governors, and bureaucrats.”
“When Obama repeated time and again, ‘we,’ ‘us,’ ‘our climb,’ ‘our goals,’ regardless of how sincere these words were, his listeners believed them: “we” - this is the people, the citizens of the United States. It is the citizens, the regular people that the new leader appeals to. They’re the ones who now have “the chance to make change.” And the words that “it can’t happen without you” seemed quite obvious to them.
“But Dmitriy Medvedev couldn’t have said in the Kremlin ‘It will not happen without you,’ even to his select audience. Because after all, even this narrow circle would have been too wide for such comments. Decisions here are made by a far smaller number of people. … The individual opinion of an ordinary person (unlike his abstract “rights and freedoms”) is definitely not about to be taken into account by those at the ‘top.’”
A truly extraordinary editorial from what many Westerners consider a completely tamed Russian press.
The word progressive has an interesting and storied history, and according to this article, in Obama’s victory, the word and its meaning have been snatched back by the left, from the right - who had “stolen” it from them.
“The election of Barack Obama has another meaning just as decisive to our fate. Since the 1980s, the progressives of the planet have been on the defensive. The forces of individualism and money confiscated the very idea of progress. Business and finance, combined with technology and free trade, were the engines of a revolution that shook the planet, changed work habits and transformed the relationships between people. The exuberance of the markets and the energy of individual selfishness have pushed humanity forward without it knowing where it was going. Capitalism, according to Marx’ theory, revolutionized life. Suddenly, the words changed and reform, innovation, audacity and creativity moved to the right. Although the term doesn’t have the same meaning in the United States, and even if Barack Obama, somewhat like the Kennedys, is also a proven politician, centrist in many ways, a tough competitor and able to maneuver, these words have now come back to the left. By a huge margin, without question, Americans wanted to say that this society is too hard on people, that inequality is not the ideal for citizens of globalization, that the Earth is not infinite and indestructible, and that the rich must lose at least some of their arrogance. Progressives had the idea of progress stolen from them. Now they have taken it back.”
As far as the Arab world is concerned, Obama’s election has brought cautious optimism. But there is another narrative that has been emerging that Moderate Voice readers may have noticed if you have been following our recent posts from the Arab world.
“It is said that in the first few months of his presidency, America’s new head of state plans an address to the Islamic world to dispel any idea of a clash of civilizations. The intention is a good one, but any speech will ring hollow as long as the Israeli lobby continues to dictate American foreign policy toward the Arab world. It’s difficult to forget Obama’s speech to AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], when he practically pledged allegiance on the very day he won the Democratic Party nomination. In this act of allegiance, one could take the measure of a system in which the Zionist lobby is very powerful. Another reason not to succumb to Obamania.”
Today from Kuwait, we have posted the most pessimistic article yet, which contains yet another meme that has emerged over the past few days: That Obama’s choice for chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is everything from simply ‘bad’ because he’s Jewish to a Mossad agent because he was once an Israeli Defense Force volunteer.
“Since the day he announced his candidacy to win the Democratic Party nomination, Barack Obama was largely applauded …We saw nothing but his skin color and his father’s name (Hussein) … Even editors at our newspapers have waxed poetically, talking sweetly of the ‘Brown Knight’”
“America’s policy, particularly in regard to us, will not change, neither during the era of Obama or his successor in four or eight years.”
Readers of the Moderate Voice will recognize his name, since this is the tenth article the people of WORLDMEETS.US have translated by this author. In today’s article, Taahar warns his compatriots that they had better sign the long-term security agreement with the United States before President Bush leaves office or, ‘Iraq will be wiped off the map, torn apart and destroyed forever …’
