As Easter approaches, a time of respect for life, for eternal cycles which respect common human values, which place human life as the most precious common asset since the early days of humankind, I address this open letter to President Barack Obama, expressing the words and hopes of billions of people around the world.
Dear Mr. President,
Whether you or I like it or not, I have a voice, cemented in thousands of articles over the years printed in dozens of languages in media outlets in all the inhabited continents. This does not bestow upon me a position of arrogance, rather it demands the humility of responsibility and service as I dare to pen what I perceive as the feelings and thoughts in the hearts and minds of humankind across the globe.
Surrounded as you are by your aides and by the Apparatus which closes ranks around a Head of State, which as you have seen has rendered your claims for Change to a watered-down shrug-shoulder shadow of what you aimed for, or at least said you did, you perhaps have no idea of the way people around the world perceive your country.
Twenty-odd years ago, the United States of America could get away with insulting the precepts and values of the Founding Fathers, while it preached what it did not practise and fooled the gullible western world with buzz words and catch-phrases, carefully studied and sculpted by an obedient corporatist media.
Today, Washington's trumpeting of terms such as Freedom and Democracy walks hand-in-hand with the torture chambers and concentration camps over-lorded by the United States of America, Washington's foreign policy has been exposed as, at best, the cutting edge of the business interests of the corporate elitists representing the arms, drugs, energy and banking lobbies, which pull your strings in Washington and those of your poodle states in Europe.
I am not going to let this letter turn into a diatribe, trading insults, I am merely stating what I perceive to be the truth, as is my fundamental and inalienable right, and which neither you nor anyone else can, or will, take away from me. I respectfully ask you to stay with me until the end of this brief note.
As Easter approaches, it brings with it a time of hope for a new cycle of life which humankind, whatever its gender, sexuality, colour, race or creed, has celebrated since we collectively became sapiens sapiens. You can tell your daughters that the eggs and rabbits they eat this Easter are the symbols of eternity (no beginning or end) and fertility, which were depicted at this time of year in pre-Christian times in Europe, in rock engravings of the Fertility Goddess, Eostre.
And if we take the word respect at face value, let us engage the approach that with respect comes the truth, not propaganda and hatred. As we speak here about chocolate bunnies, terrorist takfiri forces are running amok in swathes of Syria, slicing the breasts off women in the streets, raping girls, cutting the heads off men and boys, stealing, torturing, destroying churches and murdering police and soldiers. With between 60 and 79% of Syrians supporting or favouring President Assad over this demonic horde, you have said that Assad must go and you directly favour the opposition, and indirectly, the terrorists, who are part of it. And why? Is Syria on your borders? Which country were you elected President of? So what has it to do with you? While Russia tries to protect the citizens of Syria by supporting their legitimate Government and authorities, your side is intent on murdering policemen, fire servicemen and civilians, calling it Freedom and Democracy.
And now, Ukraine. You know very well what happened in Kiev in February. Western money, they say up to 5 billion USD, was used to finance the illegal Putsch which installed the current self-styled "Government" against every fibre of Ukrainian law, whereupon the first thing they did was to enact anti-Russian edicts, while some members of this Fascist Junta called for the death of Russians and Jews.
Let us imagine that several million US citizens lived in Mexico over the border and a Fascist Junta sized control, capturing and torturing Americans, murdering others, and calling for the death of Americans and Jews. Would you just turn away and do nothing? Probably, you would. That is exactly why when Vladimir Putin was staring you out in the last meeting you could not look him in the eyes, you looked down at the floor and tried to make small talk.
You know very well that Russia has never stated it was going to invade Eastern Ukraine and you know very well that Russian troop movements inside Russia are Russia's business, and not yours. Mind your own business, while you maintain torture camps and thousands of armed personnel overseas, and what has Ukraine to do with you? Does it share a frontier with the USA? Or has the arms lobby told you to set up a NATO base there so that Ukraine can contribute 2% of its GDP, like the other NATO member states which last year spent some 1.2 trillion USD on NATO weaponry/administrative costs?
1.2 trillion USD in one year, four times more than it would take to eradicate endemic poverty, worldwide, forever. And your political epitaph is what, exactly? The one who supported terrorists and Fascists to spread the interests of the lobbies you are too damned weak to stand up against, thereby letting down every single woman and man who has supported you?
You also know very well that this Fascist Junta in Kiev being illegal, and the removal of the elected President being illegal, only a Government headed by President Viktor Yanukovich has any authority in Ukraine and in the absence of this, the authority in the Crimea was and is the Assembly, which had every right to organize a free and fair referendum on the status of the Crimea. 97 per cent of the voters wanted to return home to Russia. It is called Democracy, Mr. President, so what have you against that?
Finally, Mr. President, take a trip to the Donbas area of Ukraine, in fact walk around all over Eastern Ukraine, then come back here and tell me if Russia needs to send any agents into the area to fight for their rights over the Fascist Junta which seized power in Kiev. Of course it doesn't, they are perfectly capable of standing up for themselves, as Ukrainian citizens, living in a Ukraine which respects their rights in a Federative State. That is all they ask for and Russia has never said or done anything to foment violence, instead Moscow has always called for a diplomatic solution whereas you, Mr. President, are the only one who has mentioned war, just as your country is the only one to have perpetrated an atomic terrorist attack on civilians. Twice. And after the Japanese Government had offered your country the same terms it accepted at the peace agreement, as you know, or should know.
See, the ones you support in the Ukraine are the ones calling for the death of these citizens, the ones Moscow supports are innocent civilians trying to protect themselves against death threats, trying to stave off a massacre, and simply calling on the Government to hear them and protect them.
Your Government wants them massacred by the Fascist Junta? Russia's Government wants your Fascist Junta to guarantee their human rights. The bottom line is, after Iraq, after Abu Ghraib, after Guantanmo, after Libya, after Syria and the demonic hordes Washington supports, there is no high moral horse for you to ride into town on, Mr. President. You know it, we know it, so how about that C word, Change?
The Russian Federation has annexed nobody as you know, the Russian Federation poses a threat to no-one, as you know. So why do you repeat the lies every time you open your mouth? How about less propaganda, less rhetoric, less hype, less hysteria, less intrusion, less spreading hatred and more dialogue and more respect?
Now that you have sided openly with Fascists, now that you have sided openly with terrorists in several theatres of war, now that you have sided with or identified yourself with torturers, now that you stand side-by-side with your country's torture and concentration camps, where citizens are detained for a decade without right to due legal process (and you call yourself a lawyer?), now that you side with those who call for, or are supported by those who call for, the death of Russians and Jews, I believe the ball is in your court, Mr. President.
You are less than two years away from saving something for your political epitaph. Do it. Not by lying, not by supporting the wrong side, but by using what remaining influence your country has (now that it has lost any respect it ever had), to walk in tandem with Humankind, not against us. Behind me, I hear the cheers of billions of world citizens, and so do you.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Source : english[dot]pravda[dot]ru
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