Forcing down Evo Morales's plane was an act of air piracy

[Octafish]

125. The progress on issues that have nothing to do with power and profit are nice.

Equal Rights, Civil Rights, Marriage Equality in the "Homeland" have certainly improved. But, each and every issue having to do with power and profit have gone the warmongers' way, including the disrespect shown toward the non-white world, from Bolivia, Haiti and Honduras to Pakistan, DR Congo, Egypt and any place else where the people are being separated from the resources by Wall Street and the ownership class.

Cruise Missile Liberals might want to read Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report's take on things:

Is This Barack Obama's 2nd Term or Bill Clinton's 3rd Term, or Ronald Regan's 9th?

They say that elections do matter, and that there are real differences between Republican and Democratic presidents. But backing up the view to 30 years, that difference looks a lot more like continuity, both at home and in America's global empire.

By Bruce A. Dixon
Black Agenda Report managing editor

The answer is yes to all three. Ronald Reagan hasn't darkened the White House door in decades. But his policy objectives have been what every president, Democrat and Republican have pursued relentlessly ever since. Barack Obama is only the latest and most successful of Reagan's disciples.

SNIP...

In Barack Obama's case all he had to say was that he wasn't necessarily against wars, just against what he called “stupid wars.” Corporate media and “liberal” shills morphed that lone statement into a false narrative that Barack Obama opposed the war in Iraq, making him an instantly viable presidential candidate at a time when the American people overwhelmingly opposed that war. Once in office, Barack Obama strove mightily to abrogate the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq which would have allowed US forces to remain there indefinitely. But when the Iraqi puppet government, faced with a near revolt on the part of what remained of Iraqi civil society, dared not do his bidding, insisting that uniformed US troops (but not the American and multinational mercenaries we pay to remain there) stick to the withdrawal timetable agreed upon under Bush, liberal shills and corporate media hailed the withdrawal from Iraq as Obama's “victory.”

Barack Obama doubled down on the invasion and occupation of large areas of Afghanistan, and increased the size of the army and marines, which in fact he pledged to do during his presidential campaign. Presidential candidate Obama promised to end secret imprisonment and torture. The best one can say about President Obama on this score is that he seems to prefer murderous and indiscriminate drone attacks, in many cases, over the Bush policy of international kidnapping secret imprisonment and torture. The Obama administration's reliance on drones combined with US penetration of the African continent, means that a Democratic, ostensibly “antiwar” president has been able to openly deploy US troops to every part of that continent in support of its drive to control the oil, water, and other resources there.

The objectives President Obama's Africa policies fulfill today were put down on paper by the Bush administration, pursued by Bill Clinton before that, and still earlier pursued by Ronald Reagan, when it funded murderous contra armies of UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambque. It was UNITA and RENAMO's campaigns, assisted by the apartheid regimes of Israel and South Africa that pioneered the genocidal use of child soldiers. Today, cruise missile liberals hail the Obama administration's use of pit bull puppet regimes like Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, all of which shot their way into power with child soldiers, to invade Somalia and Congo, sometimes ostensibly to go after other bad actors on the grounds that they are using child soldiers.

CONTINUED...

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th

Those interested in the oilier aspects of foreign policy might enjoy Michael Klare of TomDispatch's take on things:

Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney?

Four Ways the President Is Pursuing Cheney’s Geopolitics of Global Energy

By Michael T. Klare
TomDispatch.com
June 21, 2012

EXCERPT...

For Cheney, the geopolitics of oil lay at the core of international relations, largely determining the rise and fall of nations. From this, it followed that any steps, including war and environmental devastation, were justified so long as they enhanced America’s power at the expense of its rivals.

Cheney’s World

Through his speeches, Congressional testimony, and actions in office, it is possible to reconstruct the geopolitical blueprint that Cheney followed in his career as a top White House strategist -- a blueprint that President Obama, eerily enough, now appears to be implementing, despite the many risks involved.

That blueprint consists of four key features:

1. Promote domestic oil and gas production at any cost to reduce America’s dependence on unfriendly foreign suppliers, thereby increasing Washington's freedom of action.

2. Keep control over the oil flow from the Persian Gulf (even if the U.S. gets an ever-diminishing share of its own oil supplies from the region) in order to retain an “economic stranglehold” over other major oil importers.

3. Dominate the sea lanes of Asia, so as to control the flow of oil and other raw materials to America’s potential economic rivals, China and Japan.

4. Promote energy “diversification” in Europe, especially through increased reliance on oil and natural gas supplies from the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea basin, in order to reduce Europe’s heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas, along with the political influence this brings Moscow.

CONTINUED...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175560/

I don't know what others heard in 2008, but I was led to believe there would be change in the government's approach to matters of war and peace, as well as in economic and energy policies. Looking back, I can see I was misled or some new philosophy took hold of the leadership.