Robert Blake even rounded up anti-Sri Lanka Foreign Ministers from the International Community, along with Hillary Clinton with her harangue about “you cannot put all terrorists in to the same basket”, to save the terrorist leaders from being eliminated. Had we listened to Robert O’Blake or his powerful coteries Sri Lanka would have by now been territorially divided or completely devastated along with our mothers, fathers and children with out distinction of their communal appurtenance massacred in the “ tsunami of terrorism”.
But thanks to a President with foresight the people had through their wisdom elected to take control of the affairs of Sri Lanka already in pangs of “destruction”, that eventual ruin and misfortune was averted just in time, with of course high cost of life and material which unfortunately was the sad price to pay to step over irreversible calamity.
But now from the President Barack Obama’s promised land for Change and Hope for the world, suffering from war, terrorism, poverty, and hunger comes a man called Howard Berman a top member of President Barack Obama’s Panel of the US Congressional Committee who sponsored in the House Foreign Affairs Committee measure to ban all US Government Funding to Sri Lanka, except for humanitarian aid , demining activities to promote DEMOCRACY and governance in a voice vote.
The proposed ban is with the specification to “..only allow aid once the administration certifies progress by Sri Lanka on Key Concerns-i.e., "accountability for those involved in violations of human rights and war crimes at the end of Sri Lanka's civil war, (and more) …… including members of the defeated rebel Tamil Tigers.”
The latter is by way of an explanation why such strict measures to a Sovereign State that suffered under terrorism for thirty years and having eliminated it, has moved on to a post terrorist reconciliation and development process.
But Howard Berman in his proposal failed to state , “….including members of the defeated rebel Tamil Tigers, and their proxies and Agents who have inherited the “blood money” collected from the Tamil expatriates and still support the cause of the Tamil Tigers brandishing the LTTE Terrorist Flag.”
Howard Berman’s proposals is the result of watching a “doctored” document by the UK Channe 4 which had in turn been sponsored by the LTTE Terrorist front Organisation in UK and USA. Incidentally the Forensic experts who had certified the document as depicting true events are dishonest and with questionable technical expertise legally condemned in a court of Law.
But the importance of this “sanctions” proposed by the President Barack Obama’s top man in the Panel, has to be read in the light of the hope and Change promised by the President and what he said on that historic day in his acceptance speech before a large crowd of supporters in Grant Park in Chicago,
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,….new dawn of American leadership is at hand…. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."
But have the changes really taken place, or is America still what it was before the President Barack Obama was elected, and when he said on that historic day the 5th November, 2008 to an estimated crowd of 240,000 :
“ To those — to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope. …… »
As far as “those who would tear ”our” world” (in Sri Lanka), Barack Obama’s Howard Brandon has seen it fit to punish us with “sanctions” just for “defeating those who were tearing Sri Lanka”.
Now let us see how far the changes promised by the President Barack Obama in 2008 and being implemented by his Administration, differ from what it had been before.
The Sanctions Howard Brandon sponsored for Sri Lanka are just a repetition of inhuman arrogant part of the history of American administration. Let us see what others have to say of American desire for empire building, and whether the policies being implemented “to-day” by the President Barrack Obama with Hillary Clinton at the helm of his foreign policy have any difference to those age old American policies.
*****
Scott Harding writing in Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, as far back as June,2004 says,
“ For more than 12 years, the use of economic sanctions against Iraq, often enforced at the behest of the United States, produced a range of devastating consequences for the health and well-being of much of Iraq's civilian population. The sanctions were criticized as a violation of international human rights (Kozal, 2000); as a weapon of mass destruction that prevented Iraq "from satisfying its most basic humanitarian needs" (Gordon, 2002, p. 43); and as being responsible for "the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history" (Mueller & Mueller, 1999, p. 51).” B.net.
Then another Vinod Anand, a Senior fellow of the IDSA on a research paper on Iraq Under Siege: Human Cost of Economic Warfare-Sanction Syndrome, writes:
“America has a pronounced proclivity to impose sanctions on other nations, whether justified or not, to pursue its strategic, political and economic objectives. The policy of imposing sanctions on other countries was bestowed by President Woodrow Wilson who first mooted the idea that sanctions were a "peaceful, silent and deadly remedy".
Vinod Anand goes on to say that the large proportion of these sanctions had been imposed by the Clinton Administration. The American Democracy is said to have considered imposing sanctions on 26 countries such as : China, Russia, Vietnam, Croatia, Mexico, Nigeria, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Syria, India and Pakistan. This behaviour of imposing sanction Vinod Anand says is its notion of being superior due to its uncontested role of being the only super power.
He adds very significantly that, “America has used the sanctions as an instrument of coercion to compel other sovereign nations to acquiesce to the American will. Thus, whatever is not according to the American thought process is not rational and whatever is good for the Americans is good for the world. And if they want to bomb Iraq or Kosovo or impose economic sanctions resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties, it is justifiable because the Americans say so even when international opinion is against such an action and is without any mandate from the UN.”
The after math of these economic sanctions in Iraq he says are unbelievable and makes one wander why no one brings criminal charges for crimes again humanity against the perpetrators. Vinod Anand further describes his research as follows:
“…In August 1999, a US Congressional group visited Iraq to see at first hand the living conditions of Iraqi people, especially the children. They visited Ammara, Nasirya and Basra—the three cities in the southern part of Iraq which have been at the receiving end since the Gulf War of 1991 and the ten-year-old UN trade sanctions since then. The Iraqi doctors informed them that two in ten babies born in southern Iraq were deformed. According to official statistics the number of babies with defects had increased threefold in the south, the main battlefield of Iraq's wars. The number of Iraqi children with cancer rose to 130,000 in 1997 from 32 in 1990.4 This phenomenon was largely due to the use of depleted Uranium used in US and British anti-tank armour piercing shells during the war. It is believed that over 700 tons of such ammunition was used. According to a research document prepared by former US Attorney General Ramsay Clerk, the effect of the depleted Uranium will last for eight million years.5 Other than cancer, many cases of genetic disorders, water and weather pollution have been found in southern Iraq.” ( http://www.idsa-india.org/an-may-06.html)
Then there is the more infamous sanctions more commonly known as Trade embargo against Cuba, another Sovereign State. Salim Lamrani of the Sorbonne University, writing in thirdworldtraveller.com states :
« As far back as the middle of the 19th century, U.S. expansionist Willia m Gilpin announced: "The destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent." The primary goal of the United States is to make sure that the resources of the countries of the South remain at hand of the capital of the masters of the universe. The case of Cuba is exceptional because it is the only country that has dared to refuse to follow the orders set by their northern neighbor, designing its political, economic and social system, at once sovereign and independent, despite the unilateral constraints imposed by Washington. »
Further details with regard to the embargo on Cuba are as follows:
“Titled the Cuban Democracy Act, the embargo was codified into law in 1992 with the stated purpose of maintaining sanctions on Cuba so long as the Cuban government continues to refuse to move toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights.” In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which further restricted United States citizens from doing business in or with Cuba, and mandated restrictions on giving public or private assistance to any successor government in Havana unless and until certain claims against the Cuban government are met. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by ending the practice of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies trading with Cuba. In 2000, Clinton authorized the sale of certain "humanitarian" US products to Cuba. “(Wikipedia)
Then the United States of America imposed Sanctions against Iran in 1984. The sanctions to Iran prohibits weapons sales and all U.S. assistance to Iran. The United States also opposed all loans to Iran from international financial institutions. In 1987, the United States further prohibited the importation and exportation of any goods or services from Iran.
Nevertheless, these sanctions have not been productive. “ The U.S. policy of imposing unilateral trade and investment sanctions against Burma has proven to be a failure on all fronts. By forcing U.S. firms to disengage from Burma, that policy has harmed American economic interests and done nothing to improve the living conditions or human rights of the people of Burma. “Then the USA’s more concerned Asian political regime North Korea backed up with it’s nuclear arsenal has been imposed with Sanctions which are incidentally considered a violation of a state backed right to health .
On 12 June,2009, UNO at the behest of USA, is supposed to have made the strictest economic sanctions to North Korea for detonating a nuclear device, which USA, and France had been doing innumerable times.
Now USA is considering further sanctions to North Korea. And these proposed “…. economic sanctions with virtually no public discussion of their potential effects on the North Korean people…..”
(http://www.kpolicy.org/documents/policy/091023shinchoinovotnysanctions.html)
Now USA is considering further sanctions to North Korea. And these proposed “…. economic sanctions with virtually no public discussion of their potential effects on the North Korean people…..”
(http://www.kpolicy.org/documents/policy/091023shinchoinovotnysanctions.html)
Howard Brenan, the President Barack Obama’s top member of the panel, does not seem to be helping the President Barak Obama with is promises for hope and change, but fishing out the dead carcasses of past American irrelevancies, dressed up as “new hope’ for the world “ to impose its imagined Superiority over all nations “, making President Barack Obama whiter than the previous white Presidents and no messiah of change.
With regard to US Intervention in Latin America with its well known Monroe Doctrine , it has been said, “..The United States has always prided itself as the “Great Bastion of Democracy”. However, the history of the US in Latin America is much more ambiguous than the vision of a great nation freeing Latin Americans from dictatorship and sowing the seeds of liberty and democracy; instead, the US has all too often acted in its own interests…..”
That piece of legislation ………… which established the United States as the sole police power for the Western Hemisphere and called for an end to European interference in American affairs. At the time, the United States was too weak to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. However, this document would set an important precedent for future US intervention.”
That piece of legislation ………… which established the United States as the sole police power for the Western Hemisphere and called for an end to European interference in American affairs. At the time, the United States was too weak to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. However, this document would set an important precedent for future US intervention.”
We saw the effect of that in Salvador Allende’s murder in a CIA initiated manifestation of the “people”, which today reminds us of the “rebels” in Bengazi that started off the NATO bombardments in Libya.
The Heritage Foundation, reporting on the wisdom of imposing Sanction by the USA states, “During his first term, President Bill Clinton imposed new unilateral economic sanctions on 35 countries that make up 42 percent of the world's population and consume 19 percent of its exports. This trend raises important questions for U.S. policymakers: (1) Are economic sanctions an effective way to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives? (2) What do economic sanctions cost the U.S. economy, and how do they harm American workers? (3) Do unilateral state and local economic sanctions undermine the coherence of U.S. foreign policy, reduce policy flexibility, and violate the U.S. Constitution? (4) What strategic doctrine should govern the use of economic sanctions to ensure that they actually advance U.S. interests?
Had House Representative Howard Brandon considered these implications before recommending imposition of sanctions against Sri Lanka ? Well to round up the quotes to point out that sanctions that have been proposed against Sri Lanka is not any part of President Barrack Obama’s old visions when he was eyeing to be the President of USA. He is not fulfilling the hopes the people of America and the World placed on him that November, 2008 listening to his acceptance of his speech of hope and change.
Finally let me propose a short excerpt from a report on “hubpage.com”
President Obama campaigned on the promise of change and the audacity of hope, and yet his newly inducted administration is a blatant continuation of the politics of old. The vast majority of his appointments and promises are sadly just regurgitations of past administrations; repeats of the last 45 years plus of political figures running around behind the scenes. Now before anyone starts parroting the talking heads of the media, saying, “President Obama is wise to surround himself with more experienced people,” remember that this country has cried out for change, and Obama won his election by promising as much. President Barack Obama has already failed to keep his promise to the American people and here are just a few reasons why.
It ends, “…… If you are one of the millions who voted for Obama with the hope that he would bring real change. Well, that was a very audacious thing to do.” (http://hubpages.com/hub/Barack-Obama-Does-Not-Bring-Change)
It is best that the President Obama looks into what is going around him and specially what Hillary Clinton and Howard Brandon are up to, and review whether his vision of hope and change for American people and the world as a “world leader” requires a revamping before his nomination for the Presidential election of 2012.
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