At his inauguration on the 20th January 2009, President Barak Obama promised, among other things, to strive for the emergence of an internationally more humane, more acceptable America. He was of course referring to the need to change the visage, the ‘persona’ of the USA, as then shown, and known to the world, that of a bullying, dictatorial, ugly, politically dishonest Nation, interfering in other countries’ affairs even to the point of violating all norms. In short, he promised to kill off the "Ugly American" who was seen to "bestride this narrow world like a colossus," strutting across the inalienable sovereignties of less powerful nations, with an exaggerated hubris of military power. Vietnam, Panama and Central America, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq to name most of the countries trod underfoot by the Ugly American.

Has Obama kept his word? If American intentions towards Afghanistan (proposal to increase US troop strength there) is a pointer, it does not look like he has done so, or intends to do so. Nor even, as was more clearly evident, did US tactics/strategy in respect of Sri Lanka in its final battle with the LTTE (eg, Hilary Clinton’s attempts to sabotage the Army’s campaign to finish off Prabhakaran and the LTTE are too well known to bear repetition here) show any inclination to make the Ugly American less ugly. But if the latest American outrage, meaning the episode involving General Sarath Fonseka, is any guide, it would seem that the Obama Administration , in its relations with some foreign countries like ours, who do not cow down to American pressure, is changing the ‘persona’ of the American from the Ugly American to the Slimy American. The Slimy American, or even the Ugly and Slimy American? Yes. Note these recent US ploys:

1. Proposing that hostilities against the LTTE be terminated on the basis of permitting the LTTE to surrender to a 3rd Party! How much more cunning, more slimier can one get?

2. Gen. Fonseka’s case - attempting to get the General to rat on his superior in office, the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as regards alleged war crimes, on the pretext that it was part of his Green Card Retention Interview and Examination! The US Homeland Security Dept. was assigned to bell the cat so to say, perhaps in order to hide State Dept. interests in the matter of hounding the Defence Sec. Why? For his remorseless persistence, together with the President and the Service Commanders, in pursuing the LTTE and its leaders to almost total annihilation in the face of persistent opposition from the US, UK and EU.

The Ugly American is today the Slimy American, or still Ugly, but Slimy as well.