Sri Lanka, déjà vu...

Since before the "victory" over the Tigers in Sri Lanka, I've been feeling constantly nauseated with the amount of pro-military propaganda that is being spread all over the world. People who talked about peace before decided to throw all that talk away and salute the Sri Lankan flag and bend over to the Sri Lankan military.

But we all know that in times of crises, people act strange and usually are overcome by the desire to find a quick solution. I'm not going to get into an analysis of which side was right here. What I do find troubling is how Sri Lanka was able to ignore the demands of the UN (hypocritical though the UN may be) and simply continue blasting away. The government won, but at a huge human cost.

Of course, Obama afterwards sent congratulations to Rajapakse and gang. It's a clear message that, "Shit, it was a little uncomfortable having all that blood on our hands, but good job! You did what we're trying to do!" I imagine that the US and others are preparing their speeches for Pakistan, lamenting the impending humanitarian catastrophe, but openly funding the war and secretly hoping that the Swat would just sink into the Earth.

What if Uribe decided to just blow up the entire southern third of Colombia? Or the world decided that piracy in Somalia was costing more to their economies that dropping a nuclear bomb on Puntland? Actually, it seems that now Somalia is asking for help to destroy Al-Shabaab, who is about to overtake the country. Doesn't it seem like Obama is "suddenly" running out of patience with North Korea? It just seems like we've headed down the wrong road, and that under the Bush-Obama presidency, the power of the sword will overcome the power of the pen.

Speaking of Obama's two-facedness, check out Carmen Andrea Rivera interviewing John Lindsay-Poland (yeah for people with three names!) about the fine-tuning of Plan Colombia on KPFA: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/51147 (starting at minute 15).