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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 11/24/12

President Obama's Conflicted, Indefensible Position On Human Rights

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Message Michael Payne

 

We've often heard it said: "He says one thing and does another." Quite recently President Obama has made statements about human rights that raise very serious questions about their true meaning and intent. It's absolutely amazing how he is able to make such statements that clearly are a direct contradiction of his personal actions involving this very important moral issue. Just consider his words relative to human rights versus his specific actions.

 

"There's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." That's what President Obama said in an address in Thailand on November 19, 2012. He made that statement with reference to the Israeli/Gaza conflict and the fact that Hamas was launching rockets into cities in Israel. Of course, as expected, he didn't mention any actions on the part of the government of Israel that may have prompted the attacks by the Gaza militants.

 

On September 26, 2012 he told the UN General Assembly: "There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents." The majority of members of that international body must have been stunned at those words as most of them are, no doubt,   fully aware that Mr. Obama has been conducting a program in which drones have killed many innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

 

This is simply astounding. By those explicit words in the two statements President Obama has just made the case for bringing a complete end to the drone programs that he has been directing; those programs in which drones have been continuously launched by the U.S. Air Force and the CIA and have been raining down hellfire missiles on nations, from outside their borders, upon both suspected enemies of the U.S. as well as innocent men, women and children.

 

Can it be that Mr. Obama has suddenly become very attentive to the mounting criticism that has been raining down on him by respected journalists and humanitarian organizations around the world, demanding that these drone attacks that are killing innocent civilians must, in the name of humanity, be brought to an end? Could it be that he has taken those harsh criticisms to heart and decided to either eliminate these programs entirely or to use them in only the most extremely necessary cases where civilians would not be subjected to attacks?

 

Or is it, rather, the same old message that he brings out each and every time to defend Israel's latest eruption of brutality against the city and people of Gaza? By now the world has heard enough of that biased, indefensible interpretation of human rights in which missiles raining down on civilians and the killing of innocents apply to Israel exclusively and not to other countries and people.

 

There is a way by which these questions about Mr. Obama's remarks and intent can be addressed and, perhaps, resolved. What we need is to have a world respected journalist with impeccable credentials come forward and request an interview with the president in order to clarify his remarks and their exact meaning.

 

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