Obama’s State of the Union:
Delusions That Threaten War
by Nancy Spannaus
Jan. 27—President Barack Obama faithfully demonstrated his allegiance to British imperial policy in his State of the Union speech Jan. 20. In the midst of spewing out his delusions about the state of the U.S. economy and his own accomplishments, Obama pressed forward on the path of confrontation with Russia and China, which will lead, unless stopped very soon, to World War III.
“Obama’s State of the Union address was clinically insane, filled with the most corrupt, rotten, foolish, idiotic statements,” commented Lyndon LaRouche. “And what was worse, the audience was cheering him on like a pack of idiots. It was an echo of the Nuremberg rallies of Nazi Germany.”
“This is why,” LaRouche said, “we are facing an immediate danger of thermonuclear war.”
The immediate responses of the world’s other two major nuclear powers, Russia and China, demonstrate that they are well aware of the threat represented by Obama’s policies, and are working to counter it. Alarmingly, the response of the American political leadership, not to mention the media, continues to largely ignore the danger—although only action to change U.S. policy from within can take the world off the current confrontation course.
Delusion and Confrontation
The bulk of Obama’s State of the Union speech was devoted to lies about the “recovery” of the U.S. economy on Obama’s watch, and the presentation of a series of suggested breaks for the middle class—all of which will be “dead on arrival” in the Congress. These had been pre-billed as a turn toward populism and advocacy for improving the living standards of the population. Yet, Obama did not once utter the words “Wall Street,” much less attack it for profiteering off the misery of the nation.
The fraud began with his ignoring the actual situation of the American population—the extent of poverty, the low-wage jobs, the drought threat to the nation’s food supply, the collapse of vital infrastructure, to name just a few aspects. This worsening travesty could only be reversed by putting the Wall Street looters out of business—starting with reinstituting the Glass-Steagall Law—but that never has been part of his agenda.
In one area, Obama even demanded an exacerbation of the looting through expansion of the British free-trade policy. He insisted that he must get “fast-track” authority to ram through new free-trade pacts (specifically the Trans-Pacific Pact [TPP] and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP]), to create “the most competitive economy anywhere.” This, as many Democrats know, is a race to the bottom for labor, and they have been against the Obama-Republican Party alliance on the issue, since the beginning of the current Congress.
Obama used his push for free trade to attack China: “As we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region,” he said. “Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules” (emphasis added).
In fact, China has put forward a policy of trade and investment for the Pacific—and the world—and specifically offered membership to the United States, as well as other nations, under the concept of a “win-win” policy of collaboration. Obama’s TTP explicitly excludes China—as befits the fact that it is part of a confrontational policy overall.
Targeting Russia and International Law
Obama’s policy of strategic confrontation took on more strident tones as he went on.
On terrorism, he once again asserted his determination to act, à la George W. Bush, outside the framework of international law: “We will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office, to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies” (emphasis added).
The consequences of such action have been disastrous—as the Libya example demonstrates most clearly—actually promoting the proliferation of terrorism globally. But Obama ignored that, and went on to even bigger lies:
“We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small—by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine’s democracy... ,” Obama said. “Today it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters.”
It is not surprising that the delusional Obama would “forget” about the U.S. bullying and invasion of Panama, Serbia (by insisting on independence of Kosovo), and Iraq—not to mention the fact that his State Department emissary Victoria Nuland helped orchestrate a coup in Ukraine that brought Nazis into the government. But how could the full Congress stand to applaud this blatant lie?
And how could that Congress, and the American population, swallow the absurdity that Russia has been “isolated” by Western economic warfare? The BRICS alliance, of which Russia is a crucial part, is comprised of more than 3 billion people, and represents the fastest-growing section of the world economy. It is Obama who is isolated—with his own delusions of grandeur.
The Russian Rebuff
On the day after Obama’s State of the Union speech, both Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov had occasion to respond. Each of them counterposed to Obama’s delusions of power, the reality of the rising strength and influence of the Eurasian nations and the BRICS alliance.
Peskov, in an interview to the nationally circulated Argumenty i Fakty newspaper, reiterated what Putin himself said last month, that “it is not a matter of Crimea or Ukraine; if it had not been Crimea, they would have come up with another pretext” for “being on Russia’s case.” Peskov charged that people in the West were “trying to portray Putin as a party to the [internal Ukrainian] conflict, to isolate him in international politics, to suffocate Russia economically in their own interests, and to get Putin overthrown, while at the same time demanding that he settle the crisis in a neighboring country.”
Asked about a recent statement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that Putin would not be invited to this year’s G7 summit, Peskov noted that Putin was not expecting that. “On the other hand,” he added, “one could ask what the point of the G7 is, anyway; what decisions can it take without the participation of Russia, India, and China?”
Lavrov took up Russian-American relations several times in his two-hour annual year-in-review press conference, stating in his opening remarks: “We hear a lot of statements by our Western partners, about the need to isolate Russia further. U.S. President Obama found it appropriate to state this yesterday in his State of the Union message.” But, countered Lavrov, “such attempts are fruitless. Russia will never take the road of self-isolation, suspiciousness, and looking for enemies.”
As examples of Russia’s foreign policy outreach, Lavrov cited, besides its diplomatic efforts related to Ukraine, its engagement in multilateral formats such as the G20, the BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. As host of the summits of the latter two organizations this coming Summer in Ufa, Lavrov said that Russia would seek to animate their operations. “In the BRICS framework, this means above all the coordination of economic documents such as an economic partnership strategy and a road map for investment cooperation.”
Lavrov went on to discuss Russia’s engagement with other nations of the Asia-Pacific region, China in particular, as well as the offers from the new Eurasian Economic Union for free-trade relations with the European Union.
Returning to the problem of Obama, in answer to a question about Russia-U.S. ties, Lavrov said:
“The Americans have taken the pathway toward confrontation, and are not in the least critical in evaluating their own actions. Yesterday’s speech by President Obama shows a philosophy centered on just one thing: ‘We’re number one, and everyone else should recognize this,’ which is slightly old-fashioned and out of whack with today’s realities. The foreign policy philosophy of the USA is even more aggressive: it wants to be not merely primus inter pares, but to dominate the world.”
Lavrov said he thought that reality was already forcing Washington to realize that this doesn’t work, because international cooperation really is required on a whole range of matters. Furthermore, he said,
“the objective development of the world and the appearance of powerful centers of economic growth and financial influence, and also centers of political influence, is an objective process and cannot be left out of account.”
China Blasts Obama
Two days after the State of the Union, China’s state-owned press began issuing diatribes against Obama’s war-mongering. A Global Times editorial, titled “Speech Shows ‘U.S. Ambition To Dominate World,’ ” quoted from his attack on China, and then cited a quote from Zha Xiaogang, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies: “Obama’s address indicates that the U.S. still wants to dominate the world. They worry that China’s fast development will challenge the status of the U.S.”
The editorial quoted Li Haidong from the China Foreign Affairs University: “The U.S. should pay more attention to developing cooperation with China instead of excluding China in its regional trade pacts.”
China Daily, rather than editorializing, printed an op-ed by a visiting professor from the U.K. at the Universtiy of International Business and Economics in Beijing, Mike Bastin, titled, “Obama’s Speech a Show of U.S. Hypocrisy.” He quotes Obama: “We are demonstrating the power of American strength and diplomacy. We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small.”
Bastin comments:
“This was breathtakingly hypocritical. Once again it is to China that attention should be paid for genuine diplomacy and international engagement aimed at strengthening the world economy. Sadly, it is to the U.S. where one need look no further for a culture of bullying and belligerence towards other, often smaller and weaker, nations. A prime example recently can be found with the launch late last year of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,” pointing to Obama applying “significant pressure on Australia and South Korea so they did not sign up as founding AIIB members.”
He adds:
“Obama, U.S. bully boy, however, rose to the highest hypocritical heights during this State of the Union speech when commenting ‘As Americans, we respect human dignity ... which is why I’ve prohibited torture.’ What Obama failed to mention is the determined and lengthy rearguard action that he is leading against the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture which exposed unequivocally widespread abuse of human rights and human dignity. As part of this action Obama has also, quite incredibly, blocked any prosecution of the torturers.”
The Americans?
There are, of course, many Americans—even some in Congress—who, if they thought it safe, would agree with Bastin. If they don’t find their courage soon, it may be too late.
