BUTT OUT OF ETHIOPIA JEFFREY FELTMAN: MAKE WAY FOR PRESIDENT O! OBASANJO!
H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo, AU High Commissioner for Horn of Africa
On 9/11/2014, Feltman met with Afghanistan’s two presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani and said:
I was here to reinforce the message to the two candidates, on behalf of the Secretary-General, to please move forward… And if there are things we can do to help them, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Afghanistan decision about Afghanistan’s future.
What is good for Afghanistan ought to be good for Ethiopia but not so.
Feltman never said, ‘I am in Ethiopia to reinforce President Biden’s message. If there are things we can do to help the Ethiopians, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Ethiopian decision about Ethiopia’s future.’
Read more below.
Ethiopian solutions to Ethiopia’s problems
No more White Man’s Burden in Ethiopia.
No more bleeding heart, two-faced, double-dealing hypocritical liberals pontificating human rights and shedding crocodile tears for the wretched of the earth in Ethiopia!
On April 23, 2021, President Joe Biden announced he is going to appoint a “Special Envoy for the Horn Africa”, in so many words to save the “half devil, half child” Ethiopians from themselves, to borrow a phrase from Rudyard Kipling, the unabashed apologist of European and American colonialism.
The fact of the matter is that Biden just signed Feltman’s commission.
The whole “special envoy for the Horn of Africa” idea was the brainchild of the GRAND DUCHESS OF DARKNESS SUSAN ELIZABETH RICE.
Rice sought to achieve three clear strategic objectives with Feltman’s appointment:
1) Use Feltman’s appointment as a publicity stunt to give high global relations profile and legitimacy to the terrorist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) with whom she has been in bed for decades.
2) Use the might, prestige and power of the Office of the President of the United States to arm-twist the Ethiopian Government to negotiate with the terrorist TPLF and swiftly restore them to power, and
3) If all else fails, use Feltman, who is a behind-the-scenes specialist in breaking up countries and plunging them into chaos, to blow up Ethiopia into smithereens.
Jeffrey Feltman is nothing more than Susan Rice’s handmaiden and a TPLF hitman sent with the mission of taking out Ethiopia’s leaders with diplomatic, economic and political sanctions like the world has never seen and render Ethiopia a pariah nation in the world.
Since his appointment of April 23, 2021, Feltman has turned up in Ethiopia like the proverbial bad penny– unwelcome, uninvited, unwanted, unnoticed and unheralded.
I have followed Feltman’s diplomatic capers with amusement and have relished exposing his treacherous mission.[1]
Who is more qualified to lead a peace initiative in the Horn of Africa?
On August 26, 2021, Moussa Faki Mahama, the Chairperson of the AU Commission appointed former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as High Representative for the Horn of Africa Region.
Why would the AU appoint a distinguished African elder statesman to do the job of Jefferey Feltman appointed by the President of the U.S. to do the same job?
It is true that Feltman has been chasing his tail for four months around the Horn with nothing to show for it.
It is manifest to the reasonable observer that the AU chair had concluded Feltman’s appointment is an exercise in presidential futility as he has evidently no credibility with the Ethiopian Government and his unabashed partiality to the TPLF is evident in his condemnation of Ethiopia’s sovereignty and depraved indifference to the crimes, domestic terrorism, and insurrection of the TPLF.
The appointment of ex-President Obasanjo as High Commissioner in my view sends a polite but clear message to the Biden administration to butt out of Ethiopia.
Obasanjo’s appointment is the clearest affirmation of basic principles to the U.S., the European Union, and the U.N.:
Enough is enough, Uncle Sam! We got this! Butt out of Ethiopia. Ethiopians with their millennia-long history know how to solve their own problems in their own way. If they need help, their African brothers and sisters are there to help out. Africans can solve their own problems by themselves without the aid of the former colonial masters or others trying to play a dehumanizing game of sanctions-based neocolonialism.
Feltman was appointed by President Biden to save the Horn of Africa from the horns of a dilemma.
Obasanjo is appointed by the African Union to “engage with all relevant political actors and stakeholders in the region towards entrenching durable peace and stability within the Horn of Africa.” Obasanjo was selected for his “deep knowledge of the current situation in the Horn of Africa.”
Feltman’s singular declared mission is to force Ethiopia to “commit to an inclusive dialogue”. That is code for arm-twisting Ethiopia to negotiate and restore the terrorist TPLF to power as the U.S. did in 1991 with Herman Cohen, then Assitant Secretary of State for Africa.
Can Feltman cut the mustard in the Horn of Africa
The answer is a resounding, “Hell, No!”
Feltman is basically an apparatchik who asks, “How high?” when he is told t jump.
Feltman spent his professional life as a pencil pusher and gofer running errands and doing his bosses’ dirty work.
What experience or knowledge does Feltman bring to address the complex issues of the Horn or the Grnd Ethiopian Renaissance Dam?
What does Feltman know about Ethiopia, its glorious history, the pride and dignity of the Ethiopian people, their defiance against colonialism and white supremacy?
He does not know diddly squat!
Feltman’s own resume shows the following:
Master’s in law and diplomacy and a bachelor’s degree in history and art.
Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.
Under-secretary-general for political affairs at the United Nations in New York (“frequently briefed the Security Council in both public and closed-door sessions on a wide variety of peace and security issues such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation”).
Chairperson of the U.N.’s Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force and executive director of the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Center.
U.S. foreign service officer for over 26 years, “focusing largely on the Middle East and North Africa”.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, also served in other diplomatic roles in Erbil and Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Amman, Budapest, and Port-au-Prince.
What has Feltman done in Sub-Saharan Africa that he is proud of to include in his resume? Nothing!
What are the credentials and experience of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s justifying his appointment as AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa Region?
Obasanjo’s resume shows the following:
One of Africa’s distinguished elder statesmen and living legend.
21-year military career including serving in the UN peacekeeping mission in the former Zaire and commanding the 3rd Marine Commando Division during Nigeria’s 30-month Biafran civil war (1967-70).
Nigeria’s military ruler following the assassination of General Murtala Muhammad.
Presided over democratic elections in Nigeria won by civilian Shehu Shagari.
Nigeria’s first military ruler to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian government.
Following Shagari’s ouster from power in a military coup, Obasanjo became critical of subsequent military regimes.
Founded the African Leadership Forum.
Sought to become UN Secretary-General and came in third.
Political prisoner for allegedly plotting coup against General Sani Abacha and released after Abacha’s death and returned to politics.
Won presidential elections with 62 percent of the valid votes cast in 1999.
Gained international respect for his efforts to end white minority rule in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Highly respected for his mediation efforts in Angola, Burundi, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa.
Appointed in 2008 by the UN Secretary-General to serve as Special Envoy on the Great Lakes region.
Led African Union election observer team to Ethiopia in June 2021.
After retirement, authored some dozen books on various issues relevant to Nigeria and Africa in general.
So, we have two individuals tasked with the same exact mission.
To paraphrase the old western movies, “The Horn ain’t big enough for Obasanjo and Feltman. Mission failed. Feltman gotta hit the road!”
Biden administration’s “White Man’s Burden” and the Ethiopian “half child, half devil”
I had little problem with Donald Trump when it came to Africa policy. Trump did not mince his words.
For Trump, Africa was a continent of “s**t hole” countries.
What makes a country/continent “s**t hole”?
According to Trump, Africans live in poverty, war and conflict, disease, and starvation.
That is why never visited or paid any attention to the “s**t hole” continent of Africa.
Trump believed the “s**t hole” continent of Africa is not worth saving. His attitude was, “Let them kill each other. Who cares? Leave them alone.”
Biden and his crew believe they are divinely ordained to save the “half devil, half child” Ethiopians from themselves.
Rudyard Kipling, the foremost apologist for European colonialism penned a special poem in 1899, “The White Man’s Burden”, exhorting the United States to colonize the Philippine Islands.
Take up the White Man’s burden—/ Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile…/ Your new-caught, sullen peoples,/
Half devil and half child…
In 2021, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Jeffrey Feltman, Samantha Power, and their underlings bark out their orders to the “half devil, half child” Ethiopians from their White Man’s Burden high horse.
Robert Jensen in the “Heart of Whiteness” (contrast with Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” about the use of the fiction of racial superiority to legitimize imperialism and empire-building in the Congo), exposes the liberal platitudes that conceal the depths of racism among whites with a messianic mission to save black people.
Jensen advises, “The world does not need white people to civilize others. The real White People’s Burden is to civilize ourselves.”
The Biden administration could not save Afghanistan let alone Ethiopia. We saw how Biden saved the tens of thousands of Afghans who helped Americans in Afghanistan.
It is said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
When the going got tough in Afghanistan, the Biden administration got into its plane and flew out like a bat outta hell.
When Blinken testified during his confirmation hearing that Ethiopia will be one of three countries (Uganda, Cameroon) in Africa that will be a special target of the U.S. policy of “active engagement”, what he really meant was that he will make an example of these three “s**t hole countries” for the rest of Africa.
When Blinken commanded in a tweet on November 19 (certain in the belief he will be the next Secretary of State), “Ethiopian authorities should take urgent steps to end the conflict” in Tigray, he shows not only disrespect for Ethiopian sovereignty but also contempt for Ethiopia’s leadership.
He means that he can push around the sovereign government of Ethiopia and get them on their knees begging, “Please uncle… Uncle Sam!”
The Biden administration’s morbid attitude, fascination and obsession with Ethiopia reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King said about “white moderates” in his Letter From Birmingham Jail: “I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate…”
White Citizens Councilor, White Man’s Burden, two sides of the same coin.
The paternalism and condescension of the self-appointed liberal white supremacist saviors of Africa cum empire-builders does not surprise or disappoint me.
When the people stand up, imperialism’s feet of clay crumble.
The people of Ethiopia are standing tall against the white supremacist imperialism of the Biden administration.
What saddens and deeply disappoints me is the fact that African Americans drunk with the illusion of power should line up behind the empire-builders and become willing instruments of implementation of the mission of the White Man’s Burden in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
African American Congressman Gregory Meeks, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, African American Congressman Karen Bass, African American U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield led by overseer Susan Rice parrot the gospel of the White Man’s burden in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
These African Americans in “power” are just as quick to demonize and dehumanize Ethiopians as “half devil, half child” as those afflicted by the White Man’s Burden syndrome.
Despite my disappointment, I understand how the oppressed drunk with the illusion of power or the pursuit of profit can oppress the oppressed. Just like the drug dealer in the ghetto who enriches himself unconcerned about the lives of his people in his community.
As Bell Hooks observed, the “term ‘white supremacy’ enables us to recognize not only that black people are socialized to embody the values and attitudes of white supremacy, but we can exercise ‘white supremacist control’ over other black people.”
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back no more…
On September 11, 2014 (9/11/14) then-United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman met with Afghanistan’s two presidential candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, the same Ghani who skipped Kabul town in August 2021 with a $169 million in cash.
Following the meeting, Feltman said,
I was here to reinforce the message to the two candidates, on behalf of the Secretary-General, to please move forward… And if there are things we can do to help them, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Afghanistan decision about Afghanistan’s future.
What is good for Afghanistan ought to be good for Ethiopia but not so.
Feltman never said, “I am in Ethiopia to reinforce President Biden’s message. If there are things we can do to help the Ethiopians, we’re willing to do it; but this, obviously, is an Ethiopian decision about Ethiopia’s future.’
Feltman’s declared mission was to force Ethiopia to “commit to an inclusive dialogue”. That is code for arm-twist Ethiopia to negotiate and restore the terrorist TPLF to power.
Feltman and his bosses insist Ethiopia negotiate with the TPLF terrorists on penalty of sanctions and other punitive measures.
There will be inclusive dialogue with the TPLF on the Twelfth of Never after hell freezes over and pigs fly!
It’s time for Feltman to hit the road and go back to Brookings Institution.
I wish Feltman bon voyage with a song. Paraphrasing the lyrics of the great Ray Charles:
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back no more to the Horn of Africa
What did I say?
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back to the Horn of Africa
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road Jeff and don’t you come back no more, no more… to the Horn of Africa!
Perhaps Feltman would prefer I bid him farewell paraphrasing Michael Jackson’s song “Beat it”:
Jeff Feltman, don’t you ever come around here in the Horn of Africa
Don’t wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire’s is in the eyes of the Ethiopians and their words are really clear
So beat it, butt out and just beat it the hell outta the Horn of Africa…
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[1] My expository commentaries on Jeffrey Feltman:
http://almariam.com/2021/08/17/ahoy-jeffrey-feltman-remember-the-taliban-remember-the-tplf/
http://almariam.com/2021/08/14/tplf-hitman-jeffrey-feltman-slithering-back-to-ethiopia-again/
http://almariam.com/2021/05/08/what-is-an-ugly-american-diplomat-doing-in-ethiopia/
