Lupe Fiasco Defends his Corner after Calling President Obama a Terrorist
The controversy all started during an interview between Lupe Fiasco and Shira Lazar on the CBS News show ‘what’s happening’. When asked about the politically charged track ‘words I never said’ and his views on Obama he responded with:
“In my fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. For me, I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s actually causing the other forms of terrorism. The root cause of the terrorism is the stuff that you as a government allow to happen and the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.”
This obviously sparked a storm of controversy and debate quickly ensued, prompting people to take sides. Mobb Deep front man Prodigy quickly stepped in to side with Lupe stating that:
“Most of these politicians and these government officials … most of them are the real terrorists.”
Lupe was invited to discuss the Fiasco with O’Reilly and he agreed to join him on ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ to explain his comments and give his opinions. He attempted to explain that his terrorist remarks were not so much a personal attack on Obama but rather an attack on the governments foreign policy initiatve. He explained that “every president before and after” Obama could also be described as a terrorist, because of American foreign policy. He then added that “If you’re going to fight terrorism, to me, you fight the root causes of terrorism.”
This quickly led to a heated debate about the current war in Afghanistan and the reasons behind entering the country with Lupe adding “Why are we in Afghanistan if it wasn’t to hunt down Al Qaeda and the terrorist network?”
Many people will undoubtedly realise the timing of these controversial comments shortly before the release of his upcoming album ‘Food and Liquor 2’ and the fact that this could be a PR stunt to promote the release.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the comment it has opened the doors to a passionate and important debate. The United States government are by no means terrorists and there had to be a response to terror attacks such as 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombing but we believe that the point Lupe was trying to make was; what were the root causes of these initial attacks? Has western foreign policy in general been partly to blame in igniting this terrorism? And although there are undoubtedly genuine reasons for the ‘War on Terror’, are there other less noble political agendas at work that will only lead to further fractions and distrust further down the line?
PR exercise or not, this is one of the most important debates of our time and bringing this debate to the public forum can only be a good thing.
Please leave comments and let us know your thoughts…
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