Obama
Dodges
Critique of
Spying, Spins
Syria, Delegates
Africa to
France
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 24
-- Before US
President
Barack Obama
began his
speech Tuesday
in the UN
General
Assembly,
Brazil's Dilma
Rousseff
devoted much
of hers to
denoucing US
spying
programs.
Obama
may have
foreseen that
-- Rousseff
canceled a
planned
meeting with
him -- but
barely
mentioned it.
Rather as his
staff had
predicted, in
a pre-speech
call Inner
City Press reviewed
here, he
focused on
Syria, Iran
and "the
Middle East,"
meaning
Palestine and
Israel.
Even
on that, the
US for example
has delayed or
denied the
visa of a
State
of Palestine
First
Secretary from
coming to the
GA, see Inner
City
Press story,
here.
On
Syria, Obama
said that
neither the US
nor any other
country should
decide who
will take over
in Syria. One
wonders if he
says that to
Saudi Arabia,
which
sponsored
Syria rebel
boss Ahmad
al Jarba,
poised
for a
back-door faux
"UN briefing"
hosted by a
group of
Gulf and
Western
journalists.
As
predicted,
Obama's speech
was light on
Africa.
The mentions
came near
the end, of US
support for
France and
then the
African Union
in Mali,
chasing the
Lord's
Resistance
Army in "East
Africa," and
bombing Libya
-- with the
fig leaf of a
Security
Council
resolution,
of course.
There
was no mention
of Sudan,
which Obama
and his
adviser have
said they
care so much
about. While
Obama used
"Rwanda" as a
trope of
genocide,
along with
Srebrenica, he
did not
mention the UN's
one-sided
approach in
the Democratic
Republic of
the Congo
-- another
country, like
Mali and Ivory
Coast, which
the US
has left to
France.
Obama
cited Bahrain,
calling it
sectarian --
no mention of
the 10 year
sentence of US
national Taqi
Al Mayden. In
the middle of
his speech,
the UN loud
speaker in the
UN
Media Center,
without enough
seats or
electrical
outlets,
pitched first
a treaty
signing by
Russia's
Sergey
Lavrov, then a
photo op of
Ban Ki-moon
and the State
of Palestine's
Abbas.
Later
today Ban will
also press the
flesh with Sri
Lanka's
president
Mahinda
Rajapaksa.
Obama said the
US will take
action to stop
"mass
atrocity" --
but it did not
in Sri Lanka
in 2009, and
Obama did
not mention
the country.
(As Inner City
Press noted
on Sunday,
Samantha Power
did, at the
Social Good
Summit.)
After
Obama,
Turkey's
president Gul
zoned in on
Syria, no
mention of
spying, nor of
Rousseff's
indirect
criticism by
contrast of
Turkey's
crackdown on
Occupy Gezi in
Taksim Square
and elsewhere.
Let
the speech
count begin:
how many
mentions of
Syria? How
many of the
attack at the
Westgate Mall
in Nairobi,
Kenya? How few
other mentions
of Africa? How
many mentions
of the US'
spying? Watch
this site.
, 
