Obama must act courageously keep his campaign promises

Editor,

It is refreshing to see this country finally - after eight endless catastrophic years - represented by an intelligent face, a face that beams of common sense because it is enlightened by a basic sense of justice. The final vindication came with President Obama's coronation.

Not just this country, the whole world and even George Bush, participated in the historic festivity of Bush's dethronement. Obama's election became Bush's worldwide rejection. Finally, the end of error has come. Has it really come? Hope can blur the vision for reality, especially when the media are doing everything to corrupt it. To say that America's image around the world has been steadily improving under Obama does both: It speaks to its criminal ugliness under Bush to bury it under the triumphant praise of Obama. America is a master of ignoring the past, forgetting history to continue and repeat it. What is needed is a radical break away from this cowardly tradition.

The divorce from Bush's illegitimate presidency requires unprecedented courage. Such courage would disown all of Bush's monstrous crimes, not secretly endorse them. It would end Bush's imperial wars, not celebrate the lies behind them, as Obama did in Baghdad to escalate more wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It would release the tortured detainees in Guatanamo, Bagram and secret CIA prisons and not continue their abuse. It would prosecute torturers on all levels everywhere and not give them amnesty. It would stop renditions immediately, not continue this practice of global kidnapping. It would condition Israel's existence on mutual recognition, not promote the annihilation of Palestine with billions in military aid to Israel. It would prosecute Bush for his countless human rights violations to prevent future imbeciles who usurp power from wrecking the planet completely. It would never cover up Bush's bloody tracks, as Obama is doing, especially in the case of the just-released British Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, whose sliced penis has become emblematic of Bush's war on terror.

Whether Obama will act on such courage becomes increasingly doubtful if he keeps dropping his campaign promises. As the commander in chief of the most destructive military, Obama is no longer a free man of principled conscience but stands under the political demand for war and militarism. Under such dire circumstances his talk of peace may be just this: only words, as Clinton said during the campaign.

Today Obama stands at a crossroad of history. Will he become a historic blessing Ö la Mikhail Gorbachev and relent the legal and extra-legal impunity of U.S. hegemony? His political confession would then come as a sincere apology by paying reparations to America's victims at home and abroad. Or does he become, as Malcolm X would say, "Uncle Sam's leading Uncle Tom," whose conscience is only skin-deep to serve the political, financial and global elites in shameful betrayal of the people? Obama cannot have it both ways, protect politically what he rhetorically rejects. The myth of American exceptionalism is a monstrous joke. Bush and his allies must be brought to justice, if justice is to rule the world.

Joachim L. Oberst

UNM staff