Monday, September 5, 2016

Smart power: G-20 economic summit off to smashing start for US. Thus far, the global confab appears more like a contest as to who can insult and humiliate Obama more.







China’s not the only country feeling bold enough to disrespect Obama on this trip, either. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte referred to Obama with a colorful local epithet while warning him via the media not to ask him about internal matters:
Duterte said before flying to Laos that he is a leader of a sovereign country and is answerable only to the Filipino people. He was answering a reporter’s question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings to Mr. Obama. More than 2,000 suspected drug pushers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office on June 30.

In his typical foul-mouthed style, Duterte responded: “I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase for son of a bitch. …

It isn’t clear whether Mr. Obama had planned to raise the issue of extrajudicial killings with Duterte during the scheduled meeting on the sidelines of the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“Who is he to confront me?” Duterte said, adding that the Philippines had not received an apology for misdeeds committed during the U.S. colonization of the Philippines.
Unlike with China, we actually had a friendly relationship with the Philippines a few years ago. What happened?











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