Written by Brian Kalman exclusively for SouthFront;
Brian Kalman is a management professional in the marine transportation industry. He was an officer in the US Navy for eleven years. He currently resides and works in the Caribbean.
Introduction
Barack Hussein Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just over eight months into his first term as president of the United States. The reason given by the Nobel committee was that the organization,
“…has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Apparently, the Nobel organization was just as duped as the American electorate in believing that this man’s promised hope and change was one of positive intent, and that he possessed integrity. After almost eight years of Obama’s presidency, the world stands witness to both his unparalleled lack of integrity and utter hypocrisy. Not only has Barack Obama resorted to the use of force over diplomacy countless times during his presidency, exponentially increased the extrajudicial killing of yet-to-be identified persons via drone strikes, engaged in violent regime change in the middle east and fomented “color revolutions” across the globe, but he has also reinforced the United States’ position as the unquestioned chief arms dealer to the world. No other president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with his Lend-Lease program to support the Allies during the Second World War, has altered U.S. law to such a degree to allow the export of more weapons to more state and non-state actors the world over.
As he chastises state leaders for their failure to support his humanitarian wars in Libya and Syria and castigates his own citizens for their desire to maintain the natural and god given right of self-defense, he sells weapons to despotic regimes and to UN recognized terrorist groups. He vilifies Russia for conducting announced military exercises within their own borders while at the same time establishing anti-ballistic missile systems along their borders, complete with grandiose ribbon cutting ceremonies. He scolds China for militarizing the South China Sea while he positons THAAD anti-ballistic missiles in South Korea, revokes the 50-plus year arms trade restrictions on Vietnam, and parades aircraft carriers through the same regional waters that China claims sovereignty over.
Barak Hussein Obama has done more than any other human being over the course of his presidency to make the world less safe and secure, has provided more weapons to all of the biggest human rights abusers in existence, all the while violating the U.S. constitution that he swore to uphold. As the people of the world overwhelmingly professed in a worldwide poll conducted by Gallup International/WIN in 2013, including the majority of Americans polled, Barack Hussein Obama’s administration is the largest threat that exists to world peace.
Global arms sales in 2014. These figures have remained approximately the same through 2016.
I Profess Peace, But Sell Weapons to the Worst of the Worst
In October of 2013, the Obama administration formalized the largest deregulation of arms exports in U.S. history. Many thousands of previously restricted military items, including military small arms, were deregulated. Seventy-five percent of U.S. arms exports were moved from the jurisdiction of the State Department to the Department of Commerce, with export restrictions removed. This undoubtedly aided the Obama administration in arming Syrian “rebels” engaged in engineering regime change in Syria at the behest of the U.S. and various Gulf States, which aim to control the flow of oil and natural gas from the Arabian Peninsula to Europe. But what about the legal prohibitions on aiding and abetting know terrorist groups? Oh, he took care of that one too.
In September of the same year, the Obama administration waived the provisions of the federal Arms Export Control Act (AECA) that prohibit the U.S. government from providing monetary and material aid to U.S. and internationally recognized terrorist groups. It has become very apparent, and has been admitted by the U.S. State Department on numerous occasions, that the U.S. government, both through CIA and DOD programs, has been funding, training and arming Syrian Islamic militant groups that are nationally and internationally recognized terrorist organizations. The United States has been providing such support, in concert with Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A.E., since the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”.
Does the American public truly believe, after five years of bloody, barbaric conflict at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in Syria, and the deaths of 350,000 to 400,000 or more lives, that the Obama administration is acting in the best interests of the United States? Who does all of the death, destruction and instability truly aid? Surely, not the common people of the U.S. or Syria. As Russian military forces intervene to try to provide stability once again, the Obama administration labels them as the imperialistic forces of a resurgent Soviet threat. Do the American people buy this obvious propaganda?
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive, totalitarian and theocratic regimes to ever plague human history with its existence. Embracing and promoting the Wahhabi school of Islam, the Royal House of Saud has promoted terrorism, slavery, death and destruction across the globe for generations. They are a “most favored” trading partner of the United States and the recipient of tens of billions in U.S. arms exports. Although the fomenters of radical Islam, the world’s most prolific executioner, and most likely implicated to some degree in the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil, the Obama administration has seen fit to support the Saudi regime with arms exports in excess of $60 billion USD. This comes with U.S. intelligence support for the Saudi intervention in Yemen, and the injection of U.S. Special Operations “boots on the ground” in helping the Royal House of Saud reinstitute a friendly regime in the region’s poorest nation.
Birds of a feather flock together. U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama meeting with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
In late April of this year, President Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on an official visit. He was met at the airport after Airforce One touched down, by the lowly Mayor of Riyadh. Snubbed by an autocratic monarchy that deemed the U.S president unable or unwilling to sacrifice American interests and lives to advance Saudi royal interests, Obama proceeded to prostrate himself and kowtow to Saudi royalty. The leader of the world’s sole super power bowed down to the heirs of Arabian caravan raiders and gave them everything they asked for, while promising to mitigate any fall-out resulting from the release of the “28 pages” of classified proof of Saudi involvement in 9/11. This occurred with the backdrop of a U.S. Congressional push to hold the Saudi government accountably for its involvement in 9/11, and the ongoing Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict.
The Obama administration pushed ahead with its arms deals to Riyadh, and the deployment of U.S. troops to Yemen, regardless of the growing opposition in the U.N. to Saudi involvement in this conflict, due to the increasing evidence of war crimes and humanitarian violations. While the world comes to consensus on an arms embargo of Saudi Arabia, Obama commits the U.S. to sell them more weapons that they can use to kill children and level the meager infrastructure of an impoverished nation, whose only crime is rejecting a Saudi-friendly puppet government.
Do as I Say, Not as I Do
Barack Obama has approached every tragic situation during his presidency, where a mentally unstable individual or group of individuals decided to murder his fellow citizens with firearms within the United States, as if the firearm itself was to blame. In sighting the inherent evil of an inanimate object, and not the human intent and free will behind its use, President Obama repeatedly says that there are too many weapons of war on our streets. This rhetoric is inaccurate and inflammatory on its face, and when put into the context of his own behavior as the world’s preeminent international arms trafficker and proliferator, reeks of the most bald-faced hypocrisy. Maybe he should try leading by example?
The United States has the highest private ownership of firearms in the world, and has held this title since its independence from the British Empire. The right to keep and bear arms and the idea that the nation should be defended by an armed citizenry, as opposed to a permanent standing army, is legally embodied in the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This was a major point of contention between the Federalist and Anti-Federalist factions prior to and during the Constitutional Convention that finally ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1789. The U.S. Constitution recognizes the inalienable right of the people (all people) to defend themselves from all forms of oppression, especially at the hands of a tyrannical state. Article II of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, commonly referred to as the “Bill of Rights”, due to their acknowledgement of inalienable human rights that no government may restrict, nor claim to bestow on its citizenry, clearly states:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, Shall not be infringed.”
The concept of the natural right of self-defense spans millennia, and has been eloquently defended by the likes of the Roman Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero, the English Philosopher and “Father of Liberalism” John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, amongst countless other honorable and historically recognized men and women. Barack Obama, as the President of the United States, swore an oath to uphold and to defend the U.S. Constitution. It is the supreme law of the land, yet he is actively working to undermine it, especially the 2nd Amendment, while he at the same time alters U.S. laws to make it easier to arm dictatorships, terrorist groups and legally recognized enemies of the United States, with both firearms and weapons of far greater destructive capability. President Obama preaches the disarming of the American people and the violation of the U.S. Constitution, while shipping hundreds of tons on arms to terrorists and dictatorships in the Middle East. This all occurs in clear violation of international law, in the case of fomenting a civil war in Syria, and increasingly against the wishes of an international community that recognizes the illegality of the human rights catastrophe in Yemen.
U.S. and Saudi arms supplied via C.I.A. operation Timber Sycamore (begun in 2013) to Syrian non-state groups. These arms were funneled through Jordan, with many of them stolen and re-directed by Jordanian intelligence services to the international black market.
Should I, as a U.S. citizen, surrender my firearms so that they can be given over to a Wahhabi terrorist murdering civilians in Syria? Or maybe to a Saudi soldier occupying a poor village in Yemen that has been cluster bombed by Saudi aircraft supplied by the Obama administration? It is the duty of all moral citizens of the United States, and the world, to refute the status quo, and to label the Obama administration for what it is, an illegal regime that is breaking national and international law to promote unjustified war.
The Children of Newtown, and the Children of Pakistan
While feigning tears before a nationally televised audience after the horrible school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama said, “’We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom”. In speaking after the Orlando shooting massacre, where a self-professed ISIS supporter murdered 49 people, he stated,
“So today once again, as has been true too many times before, I held and hugged grieving family members and parents, and they asked why does this keep happening? And they pleaded that we do more to stop the carnage. They don’t care about the politics. Neither do I. Neither does Joe (Biden). And neither should any parent out here, just thinking about their kids being not in the wrong place, but in places where kids are supposed to be.”
While speaking these words to the nation, and before so many rightfully aggrieved people, did he for once think about his own actions over the past eight years? What carnage is acceptable in the Middle East for the price of U.S. hegemony? How many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians need to be sacrificed on the altar of defense industry profit? How many children need to die to advance the global aspirations of politicians and an industry whose product is death and misery? Tell us Barack Hussein Obama, what is an acceptable number of lifeless and mutilated children? You should know, you personally signed-off on drone strikes that killed almost 200 children in Pakistan during your first term in office alone, not to mention those killed in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.
After taking office after George W. Bush in 2009, Barack Obama increased the fledgling, extra-judicial assassination of individuals by armed drone. He embraced the idea of being judge, jury and executioner of largely unknown individuals, whose crimes and any connected evidence need not be made known to anyone. Were bad actors eliminated? I am sure they were. Were ten times as many innocent people killed in the process? The evidence, despite U.S. government contradiction, stipulates that 90% of casualties from U.S. drone strikes were un-targeted civilians. Numerous well respected institutions of journalism such as The Guardian and The New York Times, and numerous international NGOs have investigated the issue and concluded that such “targeted” drone strikes killed far more innocent people than intended targets.
Are the lives of these children less sacred than any other?
In Pakistan alone, during Obama’s first term as president, he personally signed-off on drone strikes that resulted in the deaths of almost 200 young children. Were these children in the wrong place at the wrong time Mr. Obama? Is a family wedding or funeral the wrong place? Or how about playing in your back yard, or next to a sidewalk café? I guess there are no areas where parents should feel that their children are safe from Barack Obama if they happen to reside in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya or Somalia. Maybe American children would be safer if we all gave the U.S. government our firearms so that they could be shipped to these poor nations, to arm more Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that enjoy murdering men, women and children in the most barbaric and sensationalist ways? Of course, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Electric and Boeing wouldn’t make any money off such a program, so I doubt that this would be a viable solution for the Obama administration.
Conclusion
When did the United States stop being a constitutional republic based on classical liberal ideas, and left the rest of the nations of the world alone to live as they saw fit, as long as they did not obstruct our pursuit of liberty and violate our sovereignty? When did Americans abandon their vigilance of their own liberty, sacrificing it on the altar of comfort, entertainment, and promised security from the unending host of boogey men that the federal government declares war on every few years? After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1964, the U.S. entered a period of relatively endless war that continues to this day. What has been the result?
How do you think this Yemeni man views U.S. foreign policy? What does he contemplate as his sits amongst the devastation of his home? Barack Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize perhaps?
Barack Hussein Obama is just the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents that care not for the U.S. Constitution that he swore to protect, the citizens he swore to serve, nor the political institutions or laws that he swore to uphold. He follows the likes of George W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and George H.W. Bush in protecting and enriching the U.S. military industrial complex and international banking cartels, at the expense of the rest of us. He is a liar and a charlatan at best, and at worst a conspirator in international war crimes, a terrorist supporter and an international arms dealer. Barack Obama is not a unique phenomenon in history, just the predictable offspring of a government that has been allowed to centralize power and be consumed by the corruption that such power breeds.
I would ask all readers, especially my fellow Americans, the next time you see Barack Obama on television, or hear him on the radio, clamoring for gun control, just look at his own actions over the past eight years. Does a man that has sold more arms to the world than anyone else, being particularly generous to Middle Eastern despots and terrorist groups, and that has personally ordered the killings of so many innocent civilians, including hundreds of children, have any right to speak on the matter? Do you want your tax money putting an Ak-47 or an M-14 into the hands of the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra, the “Free” Syrian Army, or even ISIS? Or more F-15s and bombs for the Royal Saudi Air Force perhaps? As for me, I would rather keep my hard earned money, and my firearms.
I am curious on what kind of a impression people got of both Norway and the “Peace Prize”, but also just Norway and what it is and wants…
Think they also give Peace for for hoping for more peace.
Then better rename it to such…
Think the procedure started with Peres and Arafat. You can write and ask. Perhaps they cant find anyone better for the time being. Foundations cant be changed. Easyer with the Holy Quaran.
Bob Dylan is fine choise. many songs for peace.
Well people could say no and ask for food or something else.
And Obama doesnt decide everything in USA. He is no dictator and their parlament can even stop all money for US wars all over. Furthermore US gouverment dont produce those weapons – not Obama as well – most is bought from private companies which sell to everybody, if they can pay for it.Of course there are some restricktions for export.
And why so many US weapons: Well it could be because they are among the best.
Obama has during 8 Years tried to reduce use of local weapons opposit whats written in this article, but the republikan majority says – no way.
I wont defend Obama and US for everything they do, but to much dirty hot air in the blimping ballon from Brian Kalman.
Although the weapon are manufactured by private company, the sale to foreign country must be approved by the government. Saying Congress and Obama is guilty free of whoever purchase them is false. Obama has approved more arms deal to Saudi Arabia during his presidency than any president before him.
Yes, but its not exactly like that and Obama dont sign. US is the biggest exporter of weapons and they use a lot themselves. Therefore most of normal weapons are not restricted. Above that You have very good allies. They can buy much more without restrictions. Saudi-Arabia and probatly Israel are such close friends. Most of that are made in letters for many Years.
Only the most advanced weapons are restricted and need approval by the goverment and even that does not alway involve any president.
Obama has a parlament. You forget he is no dictator, but he can make seperate political agreement, but the parlament has to have a majority for it. Here You also have divide in 2. You have the buying procedure – BUT You also have gifts. Israel get gifts every time they have need of more weapons. Im almost sure Saudis has to pay for most of its own. US know, that Saudis in some matters dont agree with USA and they in some matters are scums.
For the moment Saudis dont do in Yemen as US hope for. Think its very much thing about ISIS. ISIS didnt became, what Obama(and Hillary) had hoped for and Obama stopped the US support of ISIS pretty fast. Saudis didnt and ISIS got help from official Saudi as well as the private.
Obama has changed the priorities in the iddle East, but he is no pacifist. They are involved a few places more – too. We dont have to forget that.
Where the story on Trump’s arms deal to the Saudis on this website??? Oh right, IOKWYAR.