Obama’s new tune rings old bells

Barack Obama has accounted in Congress for the controversial achievements of his presidency while aiming for a second term, but the new set of ‘change’ programmes he presented sound similar to those he used to lure votes in his previous campaign.

­Obama spoke a lot about wrapping up operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but never mentioned any cuts in the military budget. On the contrary, he stressed that America must ensure its global military domination in the future.

America’s ambitions to expand its military voiced by Barack Obama sound strange for a country that already has the world’s biggest military and a national debt of $15 trillion, says Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour MP and a member of the Stop the War Coalition.

“Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of George W. Bush in his inability to reign in the whole of the military-industrial complex.”

Corbyn recalled that since Bush was terribly unpopular, when Barack Obama succeeded to office, there was “an enormous good will towards him.”

But today, he says, “the soaring rhetoric of Barack Obama does not fit in with the reality of his presidency.”

Meanwhile, US military presence in every corner of the world has long since become a standing joke, he believes.

Dr. James Lark, a professor at the University of Virginia and former chairman of the Libertarian Party, told RT he supports a very strong military – but a military that protects the lives and property of Americans in America.

“The US is not a world policeman and should not serve as one. We neither have the moral charge nor the technical competence to serve in such a role,” Dr. Lark says.

­Obama’s speech exposed the American political system as being completely sclerotic, believes Jerome White, a writer for the World Socialist website and former presidential candidate for the Socialist Equality Party. Despite the promises given, the Obama administration continues to cut wages and social programmes domestically while waging unending wars internationally.

“The Obama administration, since coming in has continued to bail out Wall Street while cutting the wages of workers. They did everything on behalf of Wall Street and they rewarded him [Obama] by making sure that his campaign has received millions of dollars,” Jerome White says, stressing that Obama’s last three chiefs-of-staff were delegated from Wall Street.

“The entire political structure, Democrats and Republicans alike, are thoroughly impervious to the needs of the population. They are in the pocket of the wealthiest one per cent,” he told RT.