Obama: A new foreign policy?

If Obama didn't speak up given the horrors of this most recent Israeli pogrom against the Palestinian people in Gaza he isn't going to do or say anything contrary to existing U.S. foreign policy.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Barack Obama sent signals to Israel along the lines: Go ahead and do your dirty deeds, don't tell me what you are going to do I don't want to know, just go ahead and do whatever it is you intend to do and be done before Inauguration Day.

This is the exact same kind of policies of the Russian Czars--- who, by the way, were as thrilled with Zionism as the United States Congress.

What we are now seeing with Obama is a foreign policy of "benign neglect;" or, "I'll give you the money and arms but don't tell me what you intend to do with them I don't want to know."

A new foreign policy? After the the shameful Senate and House votes on the resolutions supporting this latest Israeli killing spree and rampage in Gaza, it is very naive for anyone to think that until progressives in the United States break free from the Democratic Party (the two-party trap) there will be anything but "business as usual" in foreign or domestic policy... and anyone who thinks that the American people will get anything of benefit from a government that is so morally rotten and corrupt that it would encourage the kind of barbarity and cannibalistic behavior we have seen by the Israelis in Gaza over the recent weeks is in store for a very rude awakening.

If anyone thinks that the terms "barbaric" and "cannibalistic" are too harsh I would urge them to consider that the Israelis and their killing machine paid for with our tax-dollars did every grotesque and anti-human thing imaginable except eat their victims... and they might have done this, too, if not for the type of weapons used which made their victims unpalatable to these bestial monsters.

I would note that the only organized "progressive" voices within the Democratic Party, namely: Progressive Democrats of America, the Campaign for America's Future and Progressives for Obama, have all failed to organize in support and solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza at a time when it counted: when they were under attack. Robert Borosage, the leader of the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), in response to my inquiry as to why after two weeks of this barbaric Israeli rampage the CAF had not spoken out, declared: "We don't do the Middle East," as if he was saying this with great pride; all this weekend the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) were meeting, and not a peep from them about Gaza! Even as they talked about "Health care, Not Warfare" there was not a mention that the United States was spending billions of dollars paying for the death and destruction Israel brought upon the Palestinian people in Gaza; and the "Progressives for Obama" who pledged that they were organized to hold Obama's feet to the fire, did little more than circulate a few newspaper clippings even though there was some questioning as to Obama's silence... but, this "silence" was never analyzed in a way that this is what Obama's election is really all about... they brushed Obama's silence aside as if it is some kind of anomaly by a "President-elect who we can still expect good things from."

Here in Minnesota, Democratic United States Congressman Keith Ellison has been very vague and two-faced on this issue in refusing to pressure Obama to speak up while blaming everything on Bush. Placing blame on Bush only goes so far when the United States Senate with an overwhelming Democratic majority voted--- without one voice of dissent--- to support Israel's barbarity... ditto for the House, where at least there were a few--- very, very few--- voices of opposition (from Democrats and Republicans).

I find it very interesting that even with Bush now leaving office, Democrats who acquiesced to his every whim and war throughout these eight-long years of the most reactionary politics in this country... are going to go on blaming Bush even though the Democrats in both houses of Congress had the power to say no to these two shameful resolutions which probably are so shameful that such disgraceful governmental conduct on the part of any government from any country since the end of World War II could not be found... one would have to go back to the near unanimous refusal of the United States Congress to refuse to ship arms to the anti-fascists in Spain as anti-fascists were being slaughtered because they had run out of bullets to defend themselves and the Spanish Republic.

Now, if Barack Obama could not find it within himself to muster the moral and political courage to speak in opposition to this Israeli killing spree, I don't understand how anyone can expect him to change U.S. foreign policy with regard to support for the racist, warmongering, reactionary government in Israel.

And for those who have any hope that Israeli policy is going to be changing from within anytime soon; we only have to remember what happened to Rabin... a bullet finished him off just like Martin Luther King.

How it is that the Progressive Democrats of America would meet this weekend and refused to focus on this Israeli carnage in Gaza as they discussed "Health care, Not Warfare" I will never understand; perhaps Tim Carpenter will provide us all an explanation.

Alan L. Maki