{"id":52977,"date":"2015-01-26T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=52977"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:11","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:11","slug":"compare-and-contrast-obamas-reaction-to-the-deaths-of-king-abdullah-and-hugo-chavez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/01\/compare-and-contrast-obamas-reaction-to-the-deaths-of-king-abdullah-and-hugo-chavez\/","title":{"rendered":"Compare and Contrast: Obama\u2019s Reaction to the Deaths of King Abdullah and Hugo Ch\u00e1vez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hugo<\/a>23 Jan 2015 – <\/em>Hugo Ch\u00e1vez was elected President of Venezuela four times from 1998 through 2012 and was admired and supported by a large majority of that country\u2019s citizens, largely due to his policies<\/a> that helped the poor<\/a>.\u00a0King Abdullah was the dictator and tyrant<\/a> who ran one of the most repressive regimes<\/a> on the planet.<\/p>\n

The effusive praise<\/a>\u00a0being heaped on the brutal Saudi despot\u00a0by western<\/a> media<\/a> and political<\/a> figures<\/a> has been nothing short of nauseating; the UK Government, which arouses itself on a daily basis by issuing self-consciously eloquent lectures to the world about democracy, actually ordered<\/a> flags flown all day at half-mast to honor this repulsive monarch. My\u00a0Intercept\u00a0<\/em>colleague Murtaza Hussain has an excellent article about this whole\u00a0spectacle, along with a real obituary, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"hugo<\/a><\/p>\n

I just want to focus on one aspect:\u00a0a comparison of\u00a0the statements President Obama issued about the 2013 death of President Ch\u00e1vez and the one he issued today about the Saudi ruler. Here\u2019s the entire Obama statement<\/a> about Ch\u00e1vez (h\/t Sami Khan<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"hugo<\/a>Now here is the one today about Abdullah:<\/p>\n

\"hugo<\/a>One obvious difference between the two leaders was that Ch\u00e1vez was elected and Abdullah was not. Another is that Ch\u00e1vez used the nation\u2019s oil resources to attempt to improve<\/a> the lives of the nation\u2019s most improverished while Abdullah used his to further enrich Saudi oligarchs and western elites. Another is that the severity of Abdullah\u2019s human rights abuses and militarism\u00a0makes Ch\u00e1vez look in comparison like Gandhi.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to western political and media discourse, the only difference that matters<\/a> is that Ch\u00e1vez was a U.S. adversary while Abdullah was a loyal U.S. ally\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which, by itself for purposes of the U.S. and British\u00a0media, converts the former into an evil villainous monster\u00a0and the latter into a beloved symbol of peace, reform and progress. As but one of countless examples:\u00a0last year, British Prime Minister David Cameron \u2013 literally the best and most reliable friend<\/a> to world dictators after Tony Blair \u2013\u00a0stood in Parliament after being questioned by British MP George Galloway and said: \u201cthere is one thing that is certain: wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he will have the support of [Galloway]\u201d; last night, the very same David Cameron pronounced himself<\/a> \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d and said the Saudi King would be remembered for his \u201ccommitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why there is nobody outside of American cable news, DC think tanks, and the self-loving Oxbridge clique in London which does anything but scoff with scorn and dark amusement when the US and UK prance around<\/a> as defenders of freedom and democracy. Only in those circles of tribalism,\u00a0jingoism and propaganda is such tripe taken at all seriously.<\/p>\n

_______________________<\/p>\n

Email the author: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugo Ch\u00e1vez was elected President of Venezuela four times from 1998 through 2012 and was admired and supported by a large majority of that country\u2019s citizens, largely due to his policies that helped the poor. King Abdullah was the dictator and tyrant who ran one of the most repressive regimes on the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}