Will Obama deliver real "change"?

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Wednesday October 29, 2008 14:02

by Jim

Or is Obama simply Bush 2?

A juvenile anti-war left in the US and Europe are hopeful that Obama, a left-leaning liberal Senator, will be an abrupt and positive change from the "worst President ever" George W. Bush.
the story goes that the Bush policies of maintaining American economic and military dominance invited the 9/11 attacks and that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which have led to the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have become an endless quagmire, while the social divide between rich and poor has never been greater as the US economy is in free fall.
The accepted "wisdom" is the Obama will turn American and the world around.
But is this true?
Absolutely not. Obama is in fact Bush 2.

Dubya has been a legendary gaffe machine. He has been infamous for outrageously disastrous and tragi-comic performances at press conferences and on official business to the extent that his a national joke. The zenith of this perception of him as a hapless Leslie Nielson-like boob is the latest Oliver Stone movie with portrays Dubya almost like a charachter out of the Naked Gun.
His left wing enemies and particularly a young left-wingliberal anti-war loath him and make fun of him in equal measure.
However George W. Bush is anything but a fool and is perhaps the most cunning and devious of any US President since Richard Nixon. The myth that Dick Cheney calls the shots in the White House are sadly mistaken. Dubya has ruthlessly used taken advantage of his boob image to send the hounds off the scent while America now dominates the Middle East and has shaken this Russian and Chinese rivals to the core by using raw power.

Obama has claimed that Iraq has been a disaster, that America has alienated the world and that he will bring change.

In fact finally Iraq has stabilised, the insurgency has retreated and attacks are at an all time low.
Iraqi democracy has firmly taken root and US troops are begining to return home.

Obama's presidency looks set to continue the Bush policies while taking advantage of the good will of "change."

Obama wants to withdraw the troops from Iraq but only the most naive would believe he will withdraw from Iraq without victory and a pro-US puppet regime in place.

Obama looks set to step up US military commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a conflict that looks set to repeat the bloody insurgency in Iraq when large numbers of troops are on the ground in terrain that defeated the Soviets before.

During Obama's presidency it is likely that there will be a fig leaf of diplomatic action to persuade iran to give up its nuclear program before Israeli airstrikes are given the go-ahead from Obama who is unashamedly pro-Israel followed by a CIA sponsored coup attempt.

Obama is an excellent orator and is likely to be less secretive than the Bush administration which will endear him to the American people and the American press but also a global audience that previously loathed the United States.

He will get a blank cheque to continue the Bush policies, blaming set backs on the previous administration.

Tens of millions marched through the streets when Bush launched the invasion of Iraq.

Expect Obama to launch major military action against Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and there will be enthusiastic support for military action from millions who once screamed "No Blood For Oil."

For the anti-war movement it would be better that the less likeable McCain would be elected and it is no suprise that Al-Qaeda leaders have spoken their wish that McCain would elected because the propaganda victory the tranformation of Bush hatred into McCain hatred among the left will bring.

Obama is a nightmare because he is everything Bush is not - sexy, smooth, graceful and rhetorically gifted.

Whereas Bush stuck to his guns stubbornly and suffered tremendous political damage, Obama is beloved of the press, a Hollywood elite and the university faculties.

Expect left-wing democrats on the most hardline anti-Bush American campus whowould never dream of setting foot in a ROTC office, rushing to enlist and fight for Obama.

Watch the accompanying video and imagine it were Bush's humming and hawing Texan twang instead of Obama's booming cadences and you will see what I mean.