If you’re looking to help people impacted by the floods in Libya, check out these organizations providing relief.

— Barack Obama

If it can be said that one person is responsible for the awful death toll from the recent flooding in eastern Libya, Barack Obama should be named as the culprit. If nothing else, Obama certainly has a lot of nerve. The person who was determined to destroy the Libyan state did just that. His personal hench lady, aka Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, carried out the dirty work. Along with allies like the UK and France, she made the case for a “no fly” zone, which prevented Libya’s army from being protected by its air force. For good measure she whipped up a phony human rights case, complete with claims about troops taking viagra in order to commit mass rapes.

 

By Margaret Kimberley

 

The end result of these criminal machinations was a destroyed nation, a race war against African migrants and darker skinned Libyans, the murder of the president, and the beginning of a migration crisis which continues to this day. Obama can’t stop himself from commenting on that either. After the U.S. waged a war of aggression against Libya with the help of jihadist groups, the Obama administration then turned to Syria and tried to do the same thing. The Syrian state lives on but is diminished by the displacement of millions of people, sanctions, the U.S. theft of its oil, and its own migration crisis.

Citizens of western Asia and African nations flee instability on boats and rafts that are not seaworthy in hopes of reaching asylum in Europe. These risky trips result in terrible tragedies, as happened in June 2023 when an overloaded ship carried more than 700 migrants from Libya, trying to reach Greece. The boat sank and only 104 survivors were rescued.

There were no such conditions before the U.S. and NATO destroyed Libya, but Obama didn’t disappoint. He pondered why there was more news about the sinking of a small submersible at the site of the Titanic than about the migration tragedy. That question would be normal for anyone else, but not for a man who played a leading role in creating the conditions for some 20,000 people to die while trying to cross the Mediterranean between 2014 and 2023.

Right here off the coast of Greece we had 700 people dead, 700 migrants who were apparently being smuggled into here. It’s made news but it’s not dominating in the same way. In some ways it’s indicative of the degree to which people’s life chances have grown so disparate. It’s very hard to sustain a democracy when you have such massive concentrations of wealth. And so part of my argument has been that unless we make people feel more economically secure and we’re taking more seriously the need to create ladders of opportunity and a stronger safety net that’s adapted to these new technologies and the displacements that are taking place around the world, if we don’t take care of that, that’s also going to fuel the kind of mostly far right populism, but it could also potentially come from the left that is undermining democracy because it makes people angry and resentful and scared.

It isn’t just the Libya disaster that Obama opines upon as if he were uninvolved. In one fell swoop he managed to connect two disasters which were created entirely by him. Under his administration, the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing transferred more than $1.5 trillionto Wall Street banks, fattening the pockets of the 1% in the biggest transfer of wealth in history while working people languished in precarity.

Yes, people are scared of wars and unemployment and so they flee wherever they can. But if democracy is being undermined it isn’t because anyone departs from the two-party duopoly. Obama explained why the system is lacking in legitimacy but then points the finger elsewhere as if were uninvolved in all these crises.

Obama does what other former presidents do. He gives speeches and has a foundation and he is building a library. He also reappears when Biden needs cover for his disasters. When the Ukraine war was instigated by the U.S. in 2022, Obama was suddenly giving speeches in which he claimed concern for “disinformation” when he was really advocating for big tech censorship.

Obama can’t seem to be quiet. George W. Bush is also a war criminal who devastated Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the nations whose citizens are among those fleeing their homelands on rickety boats. But Bush paints pictures of puppies and acts like a grandfatherly figure. He doesn’t usually weigh in on the issues of the day. Aside from Donald Trump, who is now fighting a torrent of legal troubles, former presidents get a pass and are thought of in positive ways no matter how much damage they did.

Obama is made of sterner stuff than Bush or his other predecessors. He is dedicated to being the errand boy of the 1% for the rest of his life. He impoverished millions of people, destroyed countries, but now falsely appears bewildered about the conditions he brought about. He knows exactly what he is doing though. He has pledged lifelong devotion to capitalism and imperialism. Obama even stopped a nascent NBA strike in 2020, keeping Black athletes in line even in his quasi retirement.

We will never be rid of this man. As long as he lives, he will claim innocence and practice misdirection to keep millions of people confused about the cause of their travails. Those of us who pay attention know better. Barack Obama will always act like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It is up to everyone else to tell the truth about him.

 

Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds. https://mronline.org/2023/09/21/why-barack-obama-cant-shut-up/  FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....