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'Six Muslim nations bombed': Minister calls out Obama’s hypocrisy on Indian minorities

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman ( photo courtesy PTI)

A senior Indian official has called out the hypocrisy of former US President Barack Obama’s remarks about the condition of Muslim minorities in India, pointing out that the United States bombed six Muslim nations when he was in office.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday hit out at Obama saying he bombed six Muslim countries during his time in the White House.

"I was shocked. When PM Modi was campaigning in the US - and by campaigning I mean speaking about India - a former President of the US is speaking about [the condition of] Indian Muslims,” Sitharaman said.

"And I am saying this with restraint because it involves another country,” she added.  

“We want friendship with the US but there too we get remarks about religious freedom in India. A former President - under whose rule six Muslim-majority countries were bombed with more than 26,000 bombs - how will people trust his allegations?" she stated.

Hours before Biden’s meeting with the visiting Indian prime minister on Thursday, Obama said in an interview, “If the President meets with Prime Minister Modi, then the protection of the Muslim minority in a Hindu majority India is worth mentioning.”

Former US president Barack Obama speaks during a discussion at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in Athens, Greece, Thursday, June 22, 2023. (AP photo)

“If I had a conversation with Prime Minister Modi, who I know well, part of my argument would be that if you don’t protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, there is a strong possibility that India would at some point start pulling apart,” Obama added.

“We have seen what happens when you start getting those kinds of large internal conflicts. So that would be contrary to the interests of not only the Muslim India but also the Hindu India. I think it is important to be able to talk about these things honestly,” he noted.

Biden, however, did not pay any attention to Obama’s advice during his meeting with Prime Minister Modi in the White House.  

On the other hand, Biden rolled out the White House red carpet for Modi and hailed a new era in the US-India relationship.

The US-India partnership is “stronger, closer and more dynamic than at any time in history,” Biden declared during a joint press conference with Modi.

In his eight years in office, Obama, a recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, had actually bombed seven countries, not six. These countries are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

Based on the US military’s own assertion, the Pentagon has conducted almost 100,000 illegal airstrikes since the so-called “war on terror” was launched in October 2001 following the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.  

US officials assert that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists but many experts have raised questions about the official account. They believe that rogue elements within the US government orchestrated or at least encouraged the 9/11 attacks in order to accelerate the US war machine and advance the Zionist agenda.

Wesley Clark, a retired 4-star US Army general and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia, said in a 2007 interview that the purpose of the 9/11 attack was to take out the governments of seven countries in five years. These seven countries were Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran.

All of these countries have been directly or indirectly the object of US aggression.

According to estimates from Brown University, about 387,000 civilians were killed during the “war on terror.”

But other studies have estimated that millions of Muslims have been killed and injured by the US and its allies since the September 11, 2001 attacks.


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