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Cynthia McKinney In Libya

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on May 22, 2011.

05-22-2011 by Linda S. Carbonell

Wearing a deep-V strapless top lavished in gold beading and sequins, with a bolt of white gauze half-twist-draped across her shoulders, her patented corona of braided hair atop her head, Georgia’s former Rep. Cynthia McKinney looked more like she was auditioning for a role as a Nubian princess than as a serious human rights advocate when she appeared on Libyan State Television yesterday to condemn the NATO operation trying to protect the civilian population of that country from the murderous campaign launched by demented despot Moammar Qaddafi. She called for an end to the multi-national action against Qaddafi. She has also recently appeared on Iranian State Television to condemn the United States’ position against that country.

McKinney used to be a fairly respectable Democratic Congresswoman from the Atlanta area. Her positions were on the far liberal end of the party, but no further left than, say, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. She was always a very vocal opponent of American military action. Then, in her fifth and sixth terms in Congress, she took a tangent into a territory the exact opposite of Michele Bachmann’s extreme right-ism. Her voice became shrill and her accusations became ridiculous. She’s still demanding a 9-11 inquiry to prove that Bush did it. She lost her Congressional seat to Denise Majette in the primary. McKinney became a professional victim – everything that was every wrong in her life was because she was a victim of bigotry starting with accusations that in Georgia’s open primary system, she had been dumped by Republicans not by her own party, even though she was at that time coming under scrutiny for allegations of monetary mismanagement involving her father, State Representative Billy McKinney. She is now a prominent member of the Green Party, and has been a resident of California since 2007. She has also become a defender of anyone she feels is part of any group being oppressed by Western interests, like the residents of the Gaza Strip, and now the Iranians and Libyans.

Since she can’t get on American television news, she’s found a new forum for herself – the television networks controlled by two of the most despotic rulers on Earth. Allegedly, a non-profit, anti-war, human rights group invited her to Libya and paid for her trip. McKinney lacks the capacity to understand which groups are being oppressed by whom. Someone needs to send her the video of Neda Agha-Solton dying in the street in Tehran and ask her who the real victims are in that country – the government that is charging ahead with plans to put nuclear plants on active fault lines or the people in the street who were protesting a repressive theocracy. Then, send her some video from Misrata so she can see what Qaddafi is capable of – the wanton leveling of a city of 300,000 to retain power.

If McKinney wants to carve out a new career as a human rights advocate, she might want to start by learning who the real victims of human rights violations are, then take a page from Angelina Jolie’s fashion guide – dress local with only as much make-up as is locally acceptable. Decked out in her glittering gold dress and gauzy drape, McKinney certainly could not have climbed on to the top of refugees’ bus to talk to women fleeing a battle zone.