NYC, NY – On April 25, at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, a group of student activists shut down a speech by former Obama Middle East adviser Rob Malley.

Student activist Val Reynoso stood up during Malley's talk and said, “The U.S. is responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent civilians in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Pakistan over the last decade and more. The U.S. also supplies Saudi Arabia and settler-colonial state Israel with decades-long military aid deals of billions of dollars and arms jihadist groups in Syria and Saudi Arabia – all of which are used to terrorize and massacre innocent Palestinians, Syrians and Yemenis. The U.S. is among the last of nations that should have the right to speak on human rights abuses, when they are historically one of the biggest perpetuators of oppression. U.S. imperialism is the number one terrorist of the world and our terrorism, which Trump is continuing, disproportionately affects women and kids in said regions.”

Reynoso concluded, “Obama killed thousands more in drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa than Bush Jr. statistically did, but CNN and BBC won’t tell you that, because what we do is drop ‘liberation’ bombs to forcefully import foreign commodities like petroleum oil. The U.S. is the real terrorist, the West doesn’t care about human rights.”

Malley was instrumental in Middle Eastern foreign policy under the Obama administration, which included unprecedented drone bombings, regime change in Libya as well as escalated bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When asked by Fight Back! what student activists should do when speakers like Malley come on their campus, Reynoso said, “Activists and comrades should shut it down, interrupt them and speak the truth like we did and make sure everyone hears.”

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