Obama's speech in Jakarta

In his speech in Jakarta's National University yesterday, Obama said that in the seventeen months that have passed since his Cairo speech in which he addressed the muslim world some progress has been made in his heralded 'new beginning' "but much more work remains to be done."

Now, in understanding progress to be synonymous with wanting to repair relations with the Muslim world, we might at least expect an investigation into those war crimes that have been documented by 'Wikileaks' or, if that is too much to hope for, expect no more killing of innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. However, the reality is very different. Not only will the slaughter in those places continue and increase, but we also now have the opening of the "Yemini front in the "war on terror".

Still, there is hope or there is if anyone actually believes the drivel that comes from a man who in Jakarta actually reminded me of his predecessor right down to the stutters and the platitudes. Regress and not progress is what sprang to mind and one couldn't help think, just one more babbling incoherent gobbledegooker. ...... Oh, and the hope for the myopic among us, for the cretins?

Well, while there will be no investigation into war crimes in Iraq and while there will be no retreat from the killing fields of Afghanistan, regarding Palestine we were told that, the United States "will spare no effort in working for the outcome that is just, and that is in the interest of all the parties involved: two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security." Does this mean that the United States will force Israel to comply with international law, lift the illegal blockade of Gaza, stop building illegal settlements? Of course, it doesn't and it certainly doesn't mean that he will be applying international jurisdication and arresting those responsible for the slaughter of men, women and children in Gaza and for the boarding and murdering of passengers on a ship in international waters.

Still, if it is any consolation to Muslims, they might rest assured that it just "happens" to be them at the moment. Yes, the strategists in Washington are probably not even Islamophobic. The lies, the slaughters, the hypocrisy, have been going on for a long, long time and I am sure that the killing of Catholics all over Latin America and the massacre of millions in South East Asia, was nothing personal ..... After all, it is just business.