Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama
In his usually powerful way, the Minister
Louis Farrakhan has taken to the public airwaves to address the U.S. government's decision to attack
Libya. The United States has joined with allied forces to (in their words) protect the Libyan people from the alleged tyranny of their leader,
Muammar Gadhafi.
Since it has been alleged that Gadhafi used his military forces to attack his own people, the U.S. government has spoken against Libyan leadership and has also begun air strikes on Libyan soil. Gadhafi has warned the United States that a war against his country will be long and that he will emerge victorious.
Minister Louis Farrakhan, who has a long-standing friendship with Gadhafi, went to
WVON in Chicago to speak on the situation. As expected, Farrakhan is not happy with the invasion and openly spoke about U.S. policies that involve deliberate destabilization of nations with whom they have a financial interest.
In the case of Libya, Farrakhan openly asks President
Barack Obama why he and his administration are suddenly concerned with alleged atrocities in this country while the U.S. government looked the other way a few years ago, when the
Israelis were engaged in relentless bombing of Palestinians, many of them women and children.
Farrakhan also noted that the U.S. government showed no interest in becoming involved when numerous human rights violations were occurring in
Rwanda and the
Congo. He argued that the U.S. government's goal has been to spend funds arming dissidents in Libya who do not want to see Gadhafi in power.
In an even more telling fashion, Farrakhan noted similarities between Gadhafi and President Obama: He mentioned that similar to Gadhafi,
there are millions of Americans who don't want to see Obama in power, and that intervening with internal dissent in Libya would be no different from someone doing the same here in the United States.
Farrakhan asks the president, "Who in the hell do you think you are that you can talk to a man that built a country over 42 years and ask him to step down and get out? Can anybody ask you ... to step out of the White House 'cause they don't want no black face in the White House?"
Farrakhan notes that dissatisfaction with Obama and the U.S. government has reached a boiling point and that the president should be careful about intervening in another nation's internal discord. The
Council for Afrika International, a UK-based think tank, also
takes issue with the United States' decision to circumvent the African Union in its decision to create a no-fly zone around an African country.
As arguably the most persuasive speaker in the United States, Minister Louis Farrakhan lays out a very clear and poignant case for his objections with the U.S. military action in Libya. The United States government is already facing massive budget deficits and two expensive wars in
Iraq and
Afghanistan, so one can only wonder how we expect to afford yet another intervention in the Middle East.
Farrakhan's points about selective morality of the government are also quite interesting. The United States stands idly by during countless revolts in countries around the world and usually doesn't have much to say when a government responds with violence toward its citizens, but for some reason, the case is different in Libya,
and it appears to be more than coincidental that the nation just happens to be sitting on a great deal of oil.
Rev.
Al Sharpton and I have spoken extensively about the Libyan issue. It appears that this intervention is something of significant interest to the African-American community, particularly black Muslims. President Obama is not only the first black president in U.S. history, he also has the strongest ties to the Muslim community of any president our nation has ever had.
Obama is indirectly linked to Louis Farrakhan given their mutual relationship with
Jeremiah Wright (Obama's former pastor) and his roots in the South Side of Chicago. So Farrakhan's message has a special degree of power and value, at least to black Obama observers.
Farrakhan also makes a strong point regarding the nature by which the United States government justifies its invasions of other countries. He mentions that in order to get American support for preconceived decisions, the government engages in a concerted effort to make the other nation's leader look like (in his words) "the boogeyman." To Farrakhan's point, public perception of Gadhafi seemed to change overnight, as celebrities who were fine with performing for the Libyan leader just three months ago were suddenly expected to give the money back.
Rev. Sharpton's position appears to be one that is based on fact-finding and determining whether there is merit to the populist uprisings occurring all through the Middle East. Given that there appears to be a newfound hunger for democracy in the region, Sharpton doesn't rule out the possibility that the rebellion taking place among the Libyan people has roots in genuine dissent that has not been impacted by outside forces.
While I see merit to Sharpton's point, I am personally concerned with the fact that the U.S. government has a history of sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. For example, the
Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s led to rebel groups being allowed to sell drugs and weapons in black communities to raise money for a U.S.-sponsored rebellion that was being illegally funded by drug proceeds.
This created the crack-cocaine epidemic, urban decay, out-of-control violence and mass incarceration within black communities for the next 30 years.
There's something fishy going on in Libya, and I suspect that if the country didn't have any oil, we wouldn't even be talking about it in the news. We must also wonder if it makes sense
to give President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, when we are making questionable declarations of war on smaller nations. Farrakhan has a point in his argument, and perhaps black America should listen. But I have a feeling that this situation goes much deeper than Barack Obama.
Watch Farrakhan talk about Obama and Libya here:
http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,localizationConfig,entry&id=868400&pid=868399&uts=1300197954
http://www.aolcdn.com/ke/media_gallery/v1/ke_media_gallery_wrapper.swf
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Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here. To follow Dr. Boyce on Facebook,
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