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Amazingly, the U.S. has openly declared its intent to murder journalists.
As I wrote about yesterday, ["Obama Regime Codifies Policy of Murdering Journalists U.S. Doesn't Like"] under Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Barack Obama, the Department of "Defense" has issued a new manual giving its killers carte blanche to deal with journalists whose work it considers a "threat" in the same manner that "enemy combatants" and "terrorists" are dealt with. These journalists are now to be considered "unprivileged belligerents." A belligerent is an enemy soldier. "Unprivileged" means the normal laws of war do not apply. In short, the Obama regime's Pentagon has declared its intent to murder journalists who displease it too much. (One such journalist, Michael Hastings, was murdered by the government last year, apparently at the instigation of CIA boss John Brennan. Hastings was reviled by the military for "causing" the firing of general Stanley McCrystal, and held in contempt by establishment pseudo-journalists.) [1]
These categories were specifically created to dehumanize the intended targets of violence to legitimize, morally and pseudo-legally, torture, murder, and indefinite imprisonment in secret locations under barbaric conditions without having to bother with courts, lawyers, or trials. They create the psychological and political conditions to activate these crimes against basic human rights. Thus does Obama take the U.S. further into barbarism, continuing the evil project of his predecessors.
The fact that the U.S. is now openly declaring its "right" to treat journalists it finds annoying as subhuman scum to be eliminated at will moved the New York Times to publish a worried editorial on the matter. (Referenced and linked to in my previous essay noted above.)
The Pentagon document is a declaration of war against journalists who don't toe the U.S. line. Al-Jazeera journalists were targets of lethal U.S. violence from the very start of the "War On Terrorism" in 2001. In the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the target list of journalists was expanded to include "unembedded" journalists, that is, those who would not be stooges of the U.S. military.
What had been unofficial policy, a practice of selective murder thinly veiled under cynical claims of "accidents," is now openly proclaimed as stated U.S. military policy. As usual, the U.S. government does its Alice-In-Wonderland game of calling whatever they proclaim as "lawful." "Law is whatever the U.S. Killer State says it is."
U.S. involvement in or directly murdering journalists goes back at least to 1948, when CBS correspondent George Polk was murdered by Greek fascists and the Truman regime arranged to frame up communists for the crime. Polk had exposed corruption in the the fascist regime of former Nazi collaborations the Truman regime installed in Greece after World War Two. No less a personage than the notorious William "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the wartime OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, was detailed to arrange the coverup and frameup. (A communist journalist was tortured into "confessing," among other, ahem, irregularities in the "trial." Make that show trial, a term the self-proclaimed "Free World" was fond of throwing at its Bolshevik adversaries. Or as they say in Wonderland, first the verdict, then then trial.)
The U.S. media and "educational" system has done an assiduous job of erasing the story of George Polk from general knowledge, while cynically recognizing the journalism award named after him. Very little has been written about this tawdry crime of U.S. Imperialism and its fascist underlings. I first learned of it years ago when a now-defunct magazine named More published a cover story about it, telling the true story. Then Kati Marton, a former wife of ABC chief "news" reader Peter Jennings and U.S. State Department tough guy Richard Holbrooke (both now deceased) wrote a book that also endeavored to reveal the truth.
Over the decades, the U.S. has been involved in the murders of hundreds of journalists by the various neo-fascist regimes it has installed in its various satrapies around the world, especially in Latin America. It has directly killed a smaller number, some in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, some inside the U.S. (See my essay referenced above for examples.) The particulars of each case leave no doubt that none were accidents or "suicides," and all were deliberate murders.
The U.S. used to put up a facade of denial. Now they have announced they will no longer even bother with that.
1] For a discussion of the hatred and contempt U.S. corporate propagandists had for the genuine journalist Michael Hastings, see "Michael Hastings: my friend and his enemies," the Guardian, (UK), June 19, 2013.
As I wrote about yesterday, ["Obama Regime Codifies Policy of Murdering Journalists U.S. Doesn't Like"] under Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Barack Obama, the Department of "Defense" has issued a new manual giving its killers carte blanche to deal with journalists whose work it considers a "threat" in the same manner that "enemy combatants" and "terrorists" are dealt with. These journalists are now to be considered "unprivileged belligerents." A belligerent is an enemy soldier. "Unprivileged" means the normal laws of war do not apply. In short, the Obama regime's Pentagon has declared its intent to murder journalists who displease it too much. (One such journalist, Michael Hastings, was murdered by the government last year, apparently at the instigation of CIA boss John Brennan. Hastings was reviled by the military for "causing" the firing of general Stanley McCrystal, and held in contempt by establishment pseudo-journalists.) [1]
These categories were specifically created to dehumanize the intended targets of violence to legitimize, morally and pseudo-legally, torture, murder, and indefinite imprisonment in secret locations under barbaric conditions without having to bother with courts, lawyers, or trials. They create the psychological and political conditions to activate these crimes against basic human rights. Thus does Obama take the U.S. further into barbarism, continuing the evil project of his predecessors.
The fact that the U.S. is now openly declaring its "right" to treat journalists it finds annoying as subhuman scum to be eliminated at will moved the New York Times to publish a worried editorial on the matter. (Referenced and linked to in my previous essay noted above.)
The Pentagon document is a declaration of war against journalists who don't toe the U.S. line. Al-Jazeera journalists were targets of lethal U.S. violence from the very start of the "War On Terrorism" in 2001. In the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the target list of journalists was expanded to include "unembedded" journalists, that is, those who would not be stooges of the U.S. military.
What had been unofficial policy, a practice of selective murder thinly veiled under cynical claims of "accidents," is now openly proclaimed as stated U.S. military policy. As usual, the U.S. government does its Alice-In-Wonderland game of calling whatever they proclaim as "lawful." "Law is whatever the U.S. Killer State says it is."
U.S. involvement in or directly murdering journalists goes back at least to 1948, when CBS correspondent George Polk was murdered by Greek fascists and the Truman regime arranged to frame up communists for the crime. Polk had exposed corruption in the the fascist regime of former Nazi collaborations the Truman regime installed in Greece after World War Two. No less a personage than the notorious William "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the wartime OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, was detailed to arrange the coverup and frameup. (A communist journalist was tortured into "confessing," among other, ahem, irregularities in the "trial." Make that show trial, a term the self-proclaimed "Free World" was fond of throwing at its Bolshevik adversaries. Or as they say in Wonderland, first the verdict, then then trial.)
The U.S. media and "educational" system has done an assiduous job of erasing the story of George Polk from general knowledge, while cynically recognizing the journalism award named after him. Very little has been written about this tawdry crime of U.S. Imperialism and its fascist underlings. I first learned of it years ago when a now-defunct magazine named More published a cover story about it, telling the true story. Then Kati Marton, a former wife of ABC chief "news" reader Peter Jennings and U.S. State Department tough guy Richard Holbrooke (both now deceased) wrote a book that also endeavored to reveal the truth.
Over the decades, the U.S. has been involved in the murders of hundreds of journalists by the various neo-fascist regimes it has installed in its various satrapies around the world, especially in Latin America. It has directly killed a smaller number, some in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, some inside the U.S. (See my essay referenced above for examples.) The particulars of each case leave no doubt that none were accidents or "suicides," and all were deliberate murders.
The U.S. used to put up a facade of denial. Now they have announced they will no longer even bother with that.
1] For a discussion of the hatred and contempt U.S. corporate propagandists had for the genuine journalist Michael Hastings, see "Michael Hastings: my friend and his enemies," the Guardian, (UK), June 19, 2013.
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