Soul searching for Obama in Asia
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For US President Barack Obama, whose Democratic Party took a "shellacking" in the midterm election, his 10-day trip to Asia, that began on Friday, should be one of soul searching.
But that has not seemed to be the case so far.
With unemployment in the United States staying stubbornly above 9.5 percent for 15 consecutive months, Obama promised that the trip would focus on job creation.
However, the some 50,000 new US jobs that might be created by the $10 billion business deals with India are mostly in the defense industry. These are jobs to build weapons that could escalate a regional arms race. They are hardly jobs for people to be proud of.
Given the lobbying of the US defense industry, which employs an estimated 3 million people, it is perhaps not surprising that the US president serves as a broker for military contractors. The US is eager to replace Russia as the biggest arms supplier to India, the world's largest arms importer last year.
In fact, it is not just the arms deals that are worrying, both Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, display a Cold War mentality in dealing with other countries, particular Asian countries. By grouping countries into different categories such as allies, partners and rivals, the Obama administration is saying that in essence it has not changed much from the previous administration and it won't be able to remain impartial in mediating disagreements between these nations.
Obama should ask himself why the Muslims in Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood, stage protests instead of welcoming him.
Obama has not acted to end the war in Afghanistan as he promised. Rather, he has made it his own war. It is now the longest war in US history.
