French Petition Calls for Obama to Run for President

"Oui on peut!" Yes we can! Recently four Parisian guys in their thirties, working in creative industries, met after work for a drink and talked about the state of affairs in French politics and the upcoming elections. One of them spoke on condition of anonymity to NPR.

"We were thinking about French politics and saying that we were fed up with the fact that we all the time had to vote against someone," he said, "and how it would be cool to be able to vote for someone we admire. We came up with Obama. I think the whole world would love to have him as president." Ain't that the truth. America is still in mourning, or it would be if there were time, amid the chaos and din created by the Trump administration. Many Democrats don't even think of Donald Trump as a president of any kind, legitimate or not.

The four French friends, who don't want to see a repeat of Brexit or the US election, or the alt-right hijacking the government, did what they do best; they got creative and started a petition calling on Obama to put himself forward as a candidate in the French elections in May. They aim to have garnered a million signatures by March 15.

"The French are ready to make radical choices. That is good because we have a radical idea to propose to them.

After a phantom quinquennium and faced with the announced failure of the next presidential election, we think it is time to move to the 6th Republic to get France out of its lethargy.

To launch this 6th Republic, we wish to strike a blow by electing a foreign President at the head of our beautiful country. Barack Obama has completed his second term as President of the United States on January 21, why not hire him as President for France?"

The petition is tongue-in-cheek. "It's definitely a joke," said the guy who spoke to NPR, insisting that he and his friends aren't politicians and the petition isn't meant to be a real political call to Obama. They just wanted to wake people up, make them think "a little bit about what we could do differently in French politics..."

After all, as probably the majority of people around the world would agree, Obama is the most qualified man on the planet for the job. And now as France stands on the brink of voting the extreme right into power, the four intrepid creatives wanted to remind us all about what democracy really is; that dire circumstances call for thinking out of the box. And the truth is that it would be legal in France to elect a foreigner.  

Obama could only run, however, if he became a French citizen, and that's not likely to happen since, God knows, his own country needs him so desperately.

But the petition's message is serious. And it's just one more real time illustration of how much we in the west do appreciate and recognize integrity, and long for it in government. And we do not want our world to go to the dogs.

A Sober Barack Obama Wants Action Against Bashar-Al Assad's Use of Chemical Weapons

The war in Syria rages on, with media reporting contradictory stories that masquerade as the truth about what’s really happening. The war in the US rages on; a war of words, emotions and opinions that verge on ludicrous conspiracy theories. Did Bashar-Al Assad use nerve as in an attack on Damascus that left more than 1400 dead, over 400 of them children, or was it the rebels killing their own in a Machiavellian plot to make Assad look bad?

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the attack was an offense and even a crime against humanity and that if the West did nothing Assad could take that as permission to repeat the offense. David Cameron wanted to do something but British MP’s voted him off the stage, although that was before the UN report was released.

Russia and China of course refuse to get involved, and Barack Obama has been fighting a losing battle with Congress and with many US citizens, to take some kind of action. He has repeatedly said that he would wait until he received the UN report and that he was not considering troops on the ground or any kind of action that would lead to long term involvement in Syria’s civil war, but the press continues to use the most dramatic headlines possible, and whatever it is that has underpinned opposition to Obama in the US since he first got elected is feeding off the drama.

It’s par for the course that conservatives in the US don’t listen to his actual words, and conveniently ignore the reality of his actions, just as it’s predictable that they will accuse him of having no backbone no matter what he does.

But the latest is that he’s being compared to GW Bush on the eve of the Iraq war, which is so far from the truth that if it wasn’t tragic it would be laughable. Bush’s intention was clear from the start. Justification for the Iraq war, where there was none, was fabricated on the flimsiest of excuses. Well, patent lies, actually. The US military industrial complex profited immensely as people on both sides got slaughtered. By the time the truth was obvious to Americans it was too late. Not for the military industrial complex of course.

Barack Obama has no intention of creating a war as GW Bush did. He has no intention of indiscriminately involving the US in Syria’s complex civil war. He has openly refused to do so up to this point, and gotten little recognition for it.

But he once said, when criticized for attempting to work with Congress, that he knows perfectly well how to draw a line in the sand, and that when he does he doesn’t back down. He spoke to the press on Friday, having seen the UN assessment which categorically states that Assad used sarin in the Damascus attack. The following is taken from the text of Obama's speech, transcribed by Federal News Service:  

“…This kind of attack threatens our national security interests by violating well-established international norms against the use of chemical weapons, by further threatening friends and allies of ours in the region like Israel and Turkey and Jordan, and it increases the risk that chemical weapons will be used in the future and fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us. So I have said before, and I meant what I said, that the world has an obligation to make sure that we maintain the norm against the use of chemical weapons.”

“…But again, I repeat, we’re not considering any open-ended commitment. We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach. What we will do is consider options that meet the narrow concern around chemical weapons, understanding that there is not going to be a solely military solution to the underlying conflict and tragedy that’s taking place in Syria [my italics]. And I will continue to consult closely with Congress. In addition to the release of the unclassified documents, we are providing a classified briefing to congressional staffs today, and we’ll offer that same classified briefing to members of Congress as well as our international partners. And I will continue to provide updates to the American people as we get more information.”

For this he’s recently been accused of trying to save face. I guess when you don’t want to see the truth of a man you won’t see it no matter what. Obama hasn’t said yet what action the US should take. But he’s being blasted from all sides as if he had openly and aggressively declared war and said let’s kill the bastards. Frankly, the idea that nerve gas can be used indiscriminately by a lunatic like Assad and get away with it unnerves me. But what’s more unnerving is how many people in the West are quite happy to let him get away with it because it’s not on their doorstep. Yet. And maybe because it’s about Middle Easterns.

A lot of the comments left on recent New York Times articles about Obama’s desire to take some kind of action have been of the nature “let the Syrians kill each other, they’re all violent criminals anyway”.

So much for global humanity. The callousness of conservative Americans is nauseating. They’ve forgotten – as they forget anything that contradicts their current fantastical theory, whatever it is – that the original rebels didn’t initially commit the atrocities; they just fought for their freedom. It was when they got utterly desperate and particularly when foreign, fundamentalist elements came in to support them, that atrocities started being committed on both sides.

What conservatives in the West are too short-sighted to see is that if Assad has stockpiles of chemical weapons and he uses them and nobody in the West takes him to task, a precedent has been set. And if – or maybe I should say when - fundamentalists get hold of them, hallo international terror all over again but on a much bigger and more horrifying scale than ever before. If Obama doesn’t take action now – moderate action, as he’s proposing - what will they say then? If they’re alive to say anything at all.

The Sad Truth about Edward Snowden - Nobody Really Wants Him

Edward Snowden continues to elude capture as a story unveils that has all the makings of a fascinating political thriller/personal drama. A lot of his support comes from people who believe he’s a hero and that he sacrificed himself for a worthy cause. Others, myself included, are a little more sceptical, mostly because of the countries he turned to for asylum. To proclaim yourself an activist for human rights – in this case privacy and freedom of speech – and then ask help from countries whose governments are notorious for violating those rights doesn’t make sense.

Snowden must be very naïve if he believes these countries would want to harbour an activist who has shown himself willing to break laws and expose and betray his own country. And he's downright deluded if he thinks they care more about human rights than about international relationships. They’ve already proved that they don’t. They’ll use him if they can and spit him out if they can’t.

Who is Edward Snowden, anyway? What’s his background? There’s not much information to be found about him. I guess he values his privacy. He doesn’t mind exposing a government but he doesn’t want anybody to expose him. He’s possibly also a little paranoid. NBC News reported that he covers himself and his laptop with a red hood when entering his passwords. I can’t say whether that information is true or not.

According to The Guardian, he comes from a middle class family. He was born in 1983 in Wilmington, N.C., his father is a former Coast Guard Officer and his mother is the chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology at Baltimore federal court. He has one sister, an attorney, who is older than him. He didn’t complete high school, but he’s mum on why. He studied at a community college and got a general equivalency degree. The Guardian learned that a student with his name and date of birth took classes at the Anne Arundel Community College from 1999 to 2001 and in 2004 and 2005.

In 2004 he was recruited into the Army Reserves special forces for a 14 week training course which he didn’t complete. Nor did he get any awards. Snowden told The Guardian he broke both his legs in an accident and that’s why he was discharged. 

He then worked as a security guard with the NSA, from where he moved onto doing IT for the CIA. He worked there from 2007-2009, when he left to work for private contractors. He had been working for Booz Allen for about 3 months when he let the cat out the bag. He had been making about $200 000 a year. By self admission he has been a spy almost all his life. Which doesn’t quite fit with the facts. It’s very Hollywood, though. 

Snowden told the Guardian that he was diagnosed with epilepsy last year and used that as his excuse to take leave from Booz Allen. He didn’t tell his girlfriend or his family where he was going or what he was going to do. Nor did he apparently stop to think about how his actions might impact on them. I guess big noble causes require people to be sacrificed, whether they want it or not.

What I wonder is, why did he leave school? No kid does that unless there’s provocation. And the accident with 2 broken legs? What happened there? Snowden did say that he wanted to go to Iraq to protect the Iraqi people but got disillusioned when he realized the special services were more about killing Arabs. 

Which is very understandable and commendable. But what did that do to him, I wonder? As for his home life, how successful was his older sister and what was his relationship with her and with his parents? And I’d be very interested to know when he first started communicating with Julian Assange, or at the least how much he was influenced by that man’s PR. I have the sense that, like poor Bradley Manning, who had lousy self esteem and was lonely and easy prey, Snowden is now just so much fodder for Assange and his personal quest to stay in the spotlight no matter what the cost to anybody.

The Brazilian Revolution - Quality of Life Trumps Football

In an era of mass communication it’s surprisingly easy to know very little about a country’s people. My assumption about Brazil was that everybody was crazy about football and up until protests erupted recently I presumed everybody was excited about the Confederations Cup and the Olympics. Clearly I was wrong. What started out as a righteous objection to the price hike of transport was just the tinder catching fire. That something so sacred as football is being sacrificed to a greater need says a lot about how far Brazilians have been pushed.  

Now it’s practically a full-blown revolution as the middle class riots against corruption, poor services and government mis-spending, which includes the inordinate cost of hosting the World Cup and the Olympics. More than a million people demonstrated on Thursday in 80 cities around the country. Compare this to 100 people protesting lasting year about the hike in bus prices.  

It’s starting to look a bit like Egypt. With one major difference; President Dilma Rousseff paid attention and praised Brazilians for their courage in speaking out peacefully. As the protests got violent she didn’t support the violence, but she hasn’t used it as an excuse to shut the door.  

Perhaps that’s because she was radical student herself and can identify with the protestors – many of whom are young and demonstrating for the first time in their lives. Or maybe it’s because she’s taken note of history, and power hasn’t intoxicated and blinded her as it has many activists who led revolutions only to become harsh dictators. Whatever the reasons, partly at Rousseff’s command, bus prices were restored to what they were in quite a few cities, and on Friday she called an emergency meeting with various relevant ministers.  

Some of the demonstrators’ placards have read “Halt evictions”, “Come to the street. It’s the only place we don’t pay taxes”, “Stop corruption. Change Brazil”, "We don't need money for World Cup, we need money for hospitals" and “Government failure to understand education will lead to revolution”. The message is clear. The middle class is awake, alive, articulate and courageous. Not willing any more to take abuse. 

It’s happening all round the world. Call me a radical but I think it’s a good thing. It signals the coming to an end of an era that’s been great for a few but miserable for millions. The world has gone from having two classes, upper and lower with no hope of the lower rising, to three where the middle class enjoyed prosperity. And if you were born with nothing you could make a fortune.  

But the dynamics have been slipping back dangerously close to a 2 class world as the middle class has lost its footing. I guess in a way that's because it still had the mentality of boss and servant. It was a thing of pride to give all your loyalty to a company. Until giving your loyalty was abused and became sacrificing your life and your lifestyle. That’s when the middle class started splitting into two. Bosses and entrepreneurs rose, and workers sank. Bosses became greedier, workers became demoralized until the boundary between the two began solidifying again. In today’s world if you’re born with nothing or you lose what you had and you land in the gutter it’s incredibly difficult to get back up again.  

But all the time the middle class has looked to be losing its power it’s been gathering a different kind of momentum: awareness that it has rights, that people can protest and make a difference. That the masses actually have the power. 

This is always how consciousness grows. When you don't know your worth you get kicked around, you give yourself away to people who abuse your trust. You get angry. You protest. You realise you can drop the boss/servant mentality. You can take your power back. It usually happens when you have nothing left to lose.

The beauty about today's world is that some leaders understand this dynamic and are either actively promoting the middle class or at least recognizing that they have to work with it. I think that’s a beautiful thing. So I'm all in favor of protest and demonstration. I hate violence but I can understand how a person can get to the point of being so constantly dismissed, disrespected and made to pay for others’ inhumanity, corruption and lousy management that they blow a fuse. 

May Brazil have as peaceful revolution as possible; may Rousseff find a way to help the people succeed in their quest for a better run government and a better quality of life. They deserve it.

Iraq War - And The Winners Are?

In January 2003 a CBS poll showed that 63% of Americans wanted a diplomatic solution to the US’s problem with Iraq. 62% believed that war would increase the threat of terrorism. 77% wanted real proof that Iraq had nuclear weapons. But in March that year the US, UK, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq, ostensibly to protect the world from an immediate and intolerable threat from weapons of mass destruction, and to free the Iraqi people. In 2005 the CIA released a report stating that no such weapons existed in Iraq.

From an analysis of 31,500 violent incidents between 20 March 2003 and 14 March 2013, Iraq Body Count reported that between 112,017 and 122,438 Iraqi civilians were killed. Reuters, cited on Huffington Post, puts that figure at 125,000, and deaths of soldiers at about 130,000.

An additional 1.7 million people have been displaced and 365,000 have been wounded. Now that’s freedom for you. After the fall of Hussein, US Commander in Iraq General Tommy Franks is reported to have said “we don’t do body counts” [Reuters]. Inconvenient, I guess. These figures don’t take into account subsequent deaths indirectly caused by the war. Suicides. Disease. 

Anybody with any sense could see that the war in Afghanistan was a thinly veiled preparation for a war in Iraq for which there was no justification and which took such a toll on human life. The financial cost was huge, also. President Obama put the cost of the war in Iraq at $1 trillion. But in all, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan over the past ten years have cost the US about $3.7 trillion and counting. And the winners were?

In the short term, the contractors providing services at the expense of the US taxpayer - $138 billion worth of government contracts. Controversy about corruption rages over the company that got the lion’s share, Haliburton, awarded a $7 billion contract in a process that only allowed them to bid.

Once the war was ostensibly over, contractors stayed for security and to rebuild Iraq. Haliburton got a $2.5 billion contract to restore Iraqi Oil. It was supposed to pay for itself and for the reconstruction of the whole country.  

The project was a horror story from start to finish. Haliburton tried to drill a tunnel through a geological fault zone that they had been warned was unstable and impossible to drill. The New York Times reported that when army geologist Robert Sanders came to inspect the work in 2004, his comment was “no driller in his right mind would have gone ahead.” Money was poured down the toilet, and accountability blatantly avoided.

Getting off the subject of bungling winners, enter China, today. It has been pouring workers and billions of dollars into Iraq’s oil industry. It buys nearly half of everything Iraq produces and is currently bidding for Exon Mobil's stake.

China’s oil companies are state-owned and don’t answer to shareholders. They’re not in it for the profit, they’re in it for the control. So they accept Iraq’s rigorous terms, which western oil companies reject or balk at. And China doesn’t care how little its workers make or under what conditions they work. Nor do Chinese interfere in religious matters. Ironically, that Chinese investment has contributed to Iraq’s oil production shields the US. From a spike in oil prices caused by sanctions on Iran.

So everybody wins. Except for the dead. And the Iraqi citizens whose lives are still in turmoil. Whose country is still torn apart. 

Public domain photo of US soldier and Iraqi child