Robert Bales Is A Victim Too

Robert Bales, the American Army Sergeant who went off base and killed 16 Afghan civilians in their homes, including 9 children, and then burned their bodies, is a disposable cog in a massive military machine designed for global domination, a willing tool of an Imperialist power system. Deployed four times into war zones (3 times in Iraq), separated cumulatively for years from his wife and two small children, under financial strain, and finally, seeing one of his comrade's legs blown off a day or two earlier by a mine courtesy of the ungrateful Afghans, who at a minimum protect by their silence (sometimes fear-induced) the Taliban trying to kill the Americans, he finally snapped under the strain put on him. That is, his emotions of rage overwhelmed his self-control.

Bales joined the military shortly after the flashy attention-grabbing 9/11/01 Al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. Like many people, his sense of dedication to his country and people was used against him, to make him a tool of cynical power-wielders (Bush, Obama, and the entire gang of apparatchiks constituting the U.S. Government institutional machinery), a chump, a fool, whose instincts of group loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for the group made him vulnerable to exploitation. (1)

One argument being planted in the U.S. media by anonymous military/official “sources” is that lots of soldiers have done multiple tours of “duty” in the war zones and didn't snap. That's reminiscent of the argument that not all poor people commit crimes, therefore poverty has nothing to do with crime.

That's just silly of course. Consider this analogy; parts in machines fail all the time. Why don't all the parts fail? Because 1) the parts have a different history of stresses on them, 2) the parts may look identical outwardly but have subtle differences on a structural and/or molecular level. People are incredibly complex. When you subject large numbers of them to stress, it is predictable that some will “snap” (break) under the stress over time.

The people calling the shots in the U.S. system are attempting to deflect blame from themselves for using loyal soldiers as cannon-fodder as they pursue a hopeless Obama “strategy” of seeking the unattainable goal of “victory,” or at least “stability” for the corrupt Karzai kleptocracy. They keep whispering in reporters' ears that Bales was drunk, and had marital difficulties- assertions denied by his family's lawyer. Already a battle of dueling narratives of who Bales is has begun, fought out on the terrain of the U.S. media. Thus has the trial already begun, in the media.

The military has a pro forma system of pseudo-mental health screening in place, purely for show. Military psychologists and psychiatrists understand, and do, their real job: making sure the maximum number of personnel are deemed “fit for duty” and deployed. This is what happens when an Empire can no longer involumtarily press men into the military to fight its wars for it. Shortages result.

The amazing thing is that there aren't more Baleses breaking under the stress. Mostly U.S. troops are keeping their resentment and hatred and fury towards the Afghans under sufficient check that it doesn't manifest itself in murder.

We must also hold open the possibility that Bales did not act alone, contrary to the U.S. media depiction of events and its tacit portrayal of Afghan claims to the contrary as hysterical and irrational. The U.S. has, throughout its Afghan “campaign,”repeatedly committed war crimes and atrocities, and then lied throughits teeth about them. [Click for examples.] Sometimes it has gotten away with it, sometimes not. (“Not” means finally being forced to do a limited hangout and admit to a watered-down version of the truth, “apologize,” and pay a few bucks to survivors. In one case, of the serial killers exposed by Rolling Stone, the soldiers were actually court-martialed, although not punished appropriately for cold-blooded murders.) Of course, this is a U.S. military pattern that extends back to Iraq, Vietnam, the conquest of the Philippines, and numerous other places. Guess you could call it a “tradition.”

In face, none other than notoriously tactless Special Forces GeneralStanley McChrystalblurtedout "We'veshot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to myknowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

More and more, the Afghan crusade is becoming reminiscent of Vietnam. A hopeless attempt by U.S. Imperialists to impose their will on a small, seemingly weak country, using misguided patriots to do the dirty work, which inevitably degenerates into atrocities and war crimes as the war is revealed as a war against the people of the target country, with feckless, cynical, thieving indigenous “allies” the U.S. thinks it can prop up as a “Government.” Which it can't.

Once again, the hubristic American Imperialists (and the two parties are identical in this regard) think that since they are so powerful, with a military capable of wreaking such great destruction, that surely they can impose their will on the situation. They don't seem to learn the fundamental lessons from experience. Instead they continue to craft techno pseudo-solutions, as epitomized by fancy “counterinsurgency doctrines” and fancy weaponry like drones, using them to commit more murder and mayhem, which thrill then and fill them with pride. (2)

Make no mistake, Afghanistan is an awful place, with a horrible, anti-human, backward culture. Of course, that's thanks to the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, which prevented the Soviets from dragging the country kicking and screaming into the 20^th century.

Deliberately letting bin Laden escape from Tora Bora, as the Bush regime apparently did, set the stage for an endless, futile war. Bush didn't want to fight it- he immediately turned his attention to settling scores with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And as long as the U.S. Imperialists refuse to face the real problem- Pakistan, the nuclear-armed patron, sponsor, and enabler of the Taliban, which provides them sanctuary, Afghanistan can be nothing more but an unhealable wound. And if carpet bombing North Vietnam with B-52s and fighter-bombers, and invading and/or bombing Laos and Cambodia didn't solve the “sanctuary problem” in that war, it's laughable for Obama and his regime to think that a few hundred CIA drone assassinations will win this war. But the way they keep tacitly boasting about it with planted articles in the media, that's what they seem to think. They're delusional.

In fact, given that Obama is using drone warfare in a number of countries now, apparently the plan is permanent global assassinations to try and contain Islamic jihadism. My guess would be it will make it worse, as the more murders the U.S. commits, the more Muslims become radicalized and replenish the ranks of the jihadists. It's rather like the situation in The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

1. Bales has a bit of an unsavory past. In 2000, he was fined for defrauding a couple in his work as a Wall Street broker. He refused to pay the fine and was kicked out of the securities industry. (New York Times, 3/20/12.) He also has a record of an assault, which he was allowed to get away with, and a hit and run accident causing property damage, also swept under the rug, presumably because he was needed as a soldier. (Both occurred after he joined the Army.) Being white no doubt helps too.
2. In 2009, a CIA drone killed Baitullah Mehsud, head of an Islamofascist group called Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The upshot? He was succeeded by an even more vicious terrorist fanatic named Hakimullah Mehsud. (Mehsud is a Pashtun tribal name.) Now, Baitullah doesn't deserve having a single tear shed for him. Among his many crimes, he apparently arranged the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, with the connivance of then-”President” Pervez Musharraf. (Musharraf was head of the Pak armed forces who came to power in the traditional way, via a coup that overthrew the actually-elected civilian president. For awhile, he affected to call himself “President” while continuing to be the top general, until, partly due to external pressure, he figured it would look better- more legit- if he resigned his military command and just went with “President.” The U.S. media virtually never mentioned how the loathsome and extremely mendacious Musharraf came to power, so as to not embarrass him. They, like the U.S. Government, were invested in shoring up Musharraf's faux legitimacy just as Musharraf himself was.) Bottom line, the U.S. won't defeat this malign ideology via decapitation, no more than killing the President of the United States, or the CIA Director, or Secretary of “Defense,” or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would call the collapse of the U.S. Government or military or secret police. It's not like when the CIA murdered Martin Luther King, Jr, and Robert Kennedy, which ended political movements. Maybe that spoiled them.

Or it could be force of habit, as the CIA's stock in trade is preparing death lists and arranging

killings. That's what they did all over Latin America, and in Vietnam (the Phoenix program), and

even in places most Americans would be surprised to learn about, like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where they helped him exterminate communists. But that was when he was a “friend.” Oh, the CIA also fingered Nelson Mandela for capture by the South African apartheid racist regime- that cost Mandela 25 years in prison- but at least he lived, unlike literally millions of other people the CIA has helped arrange to be killed or killed directly.

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

taboo-truths.blogspot.com

All Hail The Conquering Theocrat!

The Establishment media is all agog over medieval sex repressor Rick Santorum’s Great Victory in the darkest backwaters of the U.S., Mississippi and Alabama. He won- with one third of the primary votes in 4-way contests. A whole  308,000 primitives voted for him in the two states. See? That proves America's a  far right wing country!

In fact, as the numbers below show, Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich each got about a third of the votes in both redneck states. Functionally it was a three-way tie. But the media distorted the result to present it as a smashing victory for Santorum. Just about every newspaper and broadcast outlet ran with the same false narrative.* (There might as well be a Bureau Of Propaganda in the U.S., giving order, so slavishly conformist to their group distortion are the media in this case. The “coverage” could hardly be more uniform.) And speaking of distorting reality, indeed of creating a false reality to confuse people about actual reality, the corporate media insist on pretending Romney is a “moderate.” As a description of his political, ideological, and economic positions, he can only appear “moderate” from an extreme reactionary perspective.

And once again a tiny sliver of the U.S. population, a group of extreme right wing religious fundamentalists, (pretty racist too- you never see a single black face in all the photos of the GOP’s Southern rallies) is given the task of acting as gatekeeper for who can be the candidate of one of the only two parties that is allowed to meaningfully exist in the U.S. Thus are all normal people forced to vote for whatever slimy con man the awful Democratic Party happens to cough up. It’s a political extortion racket, forcing people to vote for the lesser of two evils.

The neofascist Wall Street Journal was pleased and offered Santorum free advice in an editorial on how to advance his candidacy.

By the way, the two corporate-oligarchic parties don’t assign delegates to states based on population. They “reward” “loyal” states (states that vote for their party’s candidate in the general election) with extra (“bonus”) delegates. So the backward redneck state of Alabama has the same number of delegates (50) at the GOP convention as New Jersey, which has almost twice “‘Bama’s” population.  Mississippi gets more delegates than Maryland, again with half the actual population.

Georgia is smaller in population than Ohio but has more delegates at the GOP convention. Nevada has about four times as many actual people living in it as North Dakota, but gets the same number of Republican delegates.  Plus even the tiniest states get a minimum of 10 delegates.

Yet another mechanism for skewing politics in the U.S. as far to the right as they can.

Results Of Alabama Republican Primary – March 13- 100% of precincts reporting:

Rick Santorum			214,545	34.5%
Newt Gingrich			182,197	29.3%
Mitt Romney			180,250	29%
Ron Paul			30,892	5%
Other			13,858	2.2%
Results Of Mississippi Republican Primary-			March 13-  99% of precincts:
Rick Santorum	94,981	32.8%
Newt Gingrich	90,409	31.2%
Mitt Romney	88,715	30.6%
Ron Paul	12,749	4.4%
Other	3,081	1.1%

*One typical example: His victories are “big news,” says Michelle Martin on NPR, where she has her very own show, Tell Me More. Of course the rest of the corporate media treated the Santorum “victory” as the top story of the day.

See? U.S. Marines Really ARE Like the Waffen-S.S.

Marine Sniper Unit displaying their political/ideological loyalties.

Some Marines displayed a flag with the S.S. lightning bolt insignia. Oh, an aberration, you say?

They don’t see a need to hide it. They even photographed themselves proudly displaying their Nazi killer elite banner.

And one institutionally protected. The Corps decided that the Marines were just naïve and ignorant (never heard of Nazism, apparently, perhaps thought “SS” was a logo of the Social Security Administration) and SHOULD NOT BE DISCIPLINED.

The excuses- they're young and didn't know better (really, the media said this) and those stylized lightning bolt S's really stood for "scout snipers." Which doesn't explain how or why they came to choose the EXACT STYLE of S's unique to the Waffen-SS. So it's bullshit.

Of course, this is small beer compared to the USMC refusing to punish anyone for the war crime massacre of 24 civilians in their own homes, shot at pointblank range, in Haditha, Iraq. (Guess someone is going to quibble with me because a single sergeant was busted in rank.)

In general, American “elite” forces, especially “Special Forces,” have a history of fascistic fanaticism, which manifests itself in symbols reminiscent of the Third Reich, even directly derivative of Nazi emblems. For example, during the Vietnam War the Green Berets informally adopted the Nazi Death’s Head skull emblem, their version being a demonically angry skull wearing a beret.

U.S. “elite” forces have to have a fascistic mentality, because one of their key roles is to wage terroristic war against civilian populations in Third World countries. These forces are the trainers and advisers of death squad military units all around the world, especially in Latin America historically. A communistic ideology would hardly be the right fit. And of course, there is the matter that they are defending capitalism in its most virulently exploitative forms in these nations. Fascism is the ideology that provides the rabid rage and ruthless muscle for this task.

[See: “How The U.S. Marines Are Like The Waffen SS”]

Donald Trump Being Donald Trump Again

Donald Trump “endorsed” Mitt Romney for President recently. (Why anyone should give a rat's ass about this is a mystery.) He'd been hinting and teasing and “expected” (by the corporate media) to endorse Newt Gingrich.  Both candidates had visited Trump to kiss his ring.

In other words, he jerked Gingrich around, and grabbed attention for himself. As usual.

That's what Trump does- he jerks people around. And he's an attention-glutton. And the $ media played along, for some reason. 

So important is this "endorsement" that it's already been forgotten.

The U.$. media would do better to analyze the noxious, destructive policy proposals of the GOP, instead of turning the election into a circus freak show. But that would serve the American people, not the interests of the corporate oligarchy, which “the media” is the propaganda arm of.

Santorum Sweeps 3 States In Stunning Victory! Wins Zero Delegates! Media Hypes His New “Momentum!

I guess my title pretty much sums up what just happened in Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota. Meaningless “votes” by a few tens of thousands of arch-reactionary whites that didn't even choose convention delegates. Excuse enough for the corporate propaganda system to indulge in two of its favorite games, Presidential election as horse race, and hyping “momentum.” (“Big Mo!”)

For example, these meaningless glorified opinion polls among small bunches of reactionary fanatics “gave him an important  lift,” the NY Times “reported.” As if that's a fact and not an opinion. [“Another Twist for G.O.P.  As Santorum Fares Well,” 2/8/12, p. A1.] “With his unexpected victories, Mr. Santorum was also suddenly presenting new competition to Newt Gingrich as the chief alternative to Mr. Romney, the front-runner.” “His performance added another twist to an unruly nominating contest that has seen Republican voters [cadres of arch-reactionary whites] veering among candidates...”and blah blah blah. It's extra-exciting because Santorum's “candidacy [was] all but dismissed just days ago...;” by the mediaocracy, I guess they mean. Santorum's pointles victory [sic] comes “after Romney won Nevada, a “contest” in which a grand total of 16,000 (white reactionaries) voted for all four of the GOP horses still in the race.

The corporate media breathlessly narrates the competition among the reactionary politicians to be President exactly like a horse race: “Gingrich is surging, HE PASSES ROMNEY! But now Romney's in the lead, AND NOW SANTORUM HAS COME FROM BEHIND TO OVERTAKE HIM! and Ron Paul's at the back of the pack. Folks, this is the most exciting race we've seen in a long time!”

Gee, I can hardly wait to see which extreme right-wing Republican politician wins! Will it be “moderate Mitt,” a centimillionaire who insists that “corporations are people, my friend,” and thinks the poor are sitting pretty in America? (Go check out the things he's been saying during his campaign, and indeed during his last run for President, and in the intervening years, to see what the corporate oligarchy's propaganda system means by “moderate.”) Or Gingrich, a crazed liar who has declared his intention to ignore court decisions he decides are “wrong,” thus crowning himself an absolute monarch? Or maybe it'll be Rick Santorum, the sex-hating fanatic who wants to control everyone's sex lives through brutal state repression, equates homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia, is chomping at the bit to go to war with Iran, destroy the EPA (but he's not the only one). Or could it be Ron Paul, who “the” media would have us believe is beloved by youth, a Texas Confederate who would revert to “states' rights” racism (his naked racism is thoroughly documented in his newsletters, which he now claims to have never read  and was unaware of their content, an absurd claim now refuted by ex-employees who state that he assiduously proofed each issue prior to publication) and who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve? (Who needs a central bank anyway? We got along fine in the 18^th century without one.) Can we even measure the difference between these sick bastards under a microscope?

Thus does the corporate media continue provide a running narration of the thrilling horse race between a gang of extreme reactionary politicians, one worse than the other, hyperventilating the whole time, while legitimating the extreme ideology and vicious policy promises on display by treating them as wholly normal and respectable. Indeed, since now in America “conservatism” is the ONLY respectable ideology, even “liberal” denigrated as weak and surrenderist on “national defense,” “hollowing out” the military, coddling of criminals, spoiling of “welfare cheats,” (those lazy [black] poor people,) “conservatism” owns the commanding heights of political and ideological legitimacy.

Of course “conservatism” is a respectable-sounding euphemism which dignifies the most vile, anti-human, immoral policies, namely; even more aggression abroad, killing masses of Third World people; ever-increasing immiseration of the poor domestically; making the cancer epidemic even worse by eliminating environmental regulations; more and more power for the secret police state and increased repression of dissent [the Democrats are doing that too, as much as the GOP, so there's no difference there- we dissidents are now subject, thanks to Obama, to permanent imprisonment in military gulags with no legal process whatsoever, merely by having the label “terrorist” applied to us, as the FBI and police routinely do to protesters of all progressive stripes]; virtual elimination of taxation of the rich with an increasing tax burden on the middle and lower classes; elimination of the basic human right of women to control their own bodies by terminating pregnancies and using birth control; elimination of the few remaining workers' rights, targeting their organizations for destruction or impotence; continued mass imprisonment (with 5% of the world's population, the U.S. already has 25% of the world's prisoners) which is another bipartisan policy; and ever-increasing amounts of money shoveled into the maw of the military-industrial complex. (The Democrats what to level it off at the current enormous amounts.)

The extreme reactionaryism and racism of the GOP makes the evil conniver Barack Obama look good by comparison, if only because he isn't openly demented in what he advocates. His policies are typical Democratic policies, Republican-Lite. I've documented many of his evil crimes in other essays. So we're supposed to breathe a sigh of relief that the next wave of vicious assaults on our lives aren't as bad as we were made to fear they could be, had we failed to panic and rush to the polls to save ourselves by voting for the lesser evil once again.

This sick con game actually dates back to Woodrow Wilson, who inaugurated the systematization of political repression in America with the Alien and Sedition Act. It's long past time for people to see through the game and organize a genuine political opposition. Why more people don't rally to the Green Party, for example, or vote for Ralph Nader, which are just the first steps towards actually seizing real power and changing this evil system, is somewhat unfathomable. In historical terms it's analogous to trying to puzzle out the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler; while there are lots of explanations, at some fundamental level it seems inexplicable.

China and Russia Give Green Light To Assad Regime Savagery

China and Russia both vetoed a milquetoast UN Security Council Resolution put forth by the Arab League with backing from the U.S. and European powers that would have rebuked Assad and told him yet again to stop his slaughtering. It didn’t do much more than that. No mandatory sanctions, no arms embargo (Russia is right now resupplying the armory of the Syrian murder regime), no much of anything beyond more calling on Assad to do the right thing.

The repressive duo vetoed it anyway.

The vote was 13-2.

But first Russia and China jerked everybody around by negotiating concessions in the resolution, forcing it to be watered down, and then pulling the rug out from under the rest of the Council by killing it anyway. Part of a strategy, also employed by the Assad gangsters, to stall for time while they try to drown the people's rebellion in blood. (Like father, like son. There was a lot of idiotic prattle that Assad junior would be some kind of  "reformer," different from his father. Hopefully we won't hear more of that. We are hearing slimy blather from Assad and his minions from time to time about "reform" and "dialogue:" a really sick joke given the actual reality.)

Meanwhile, Homs is bleeding. Assad's barbarians are shelling residential neighborhoods, shelled the makeshift hospital, uses snipers to assassinate people at random. [BBC]. The bombardment intensified in wake of dual veto of Security Council condemnation. Hundreds have been killed already in just a few days, many have lost limbs.

The nationwide death toll in ten months of violent repression has surpassed 6,000. Innumerable more have been wounded, many maimed for life.

The assault began on earnest on the very day of the scheduled UN vote, before the vote; thus do the cynical Assadite barbarians underline their contempt for world opinion.

To top it off, the Assad regime is showing its usual cynical contempt for everybody’s intelligence by lying through its teeth and denying it’s killing anybody in Homs. It’s “terrorists” killing people in Homs. (Somehow “terrorists” have brought tanks and artillery into Syria, which has a 200,000 man army, and the regime is powerless to stop them.) But just in case you don’t believe that, they also say everything is peaceful in Homs. So the Sado-murder regime provides freedom of choice! Pick the lie you like!

Oh, and by the way, this is all about “Syria” (the sado-murder regime) being victimized by “foreign plots.” So say they and their loathsome fellow-travelers (various pseudo-academics of a faux-leftist persuasion).

Western “leftist” fellow-travelers back Assad, draw idiotic parallels to Libya, which they mindlessly see as an example of “Western Imperialist aggression.” The fact is, if NATO (and a few Arab states) hadn't used air power to help the Libyan people throw off the suffocating yoke of the tyrant Qaddafi, “rivers of blood” would have flowed as per the Qaddafi family's vow. (The intervention was pursuant to a UN mandate which was instigated by the Arab League. But ideologues are always selective when it comes to acknowledging facts.) I guess it’s easier to be an ideologue than to comprehend reality in all its complexity. Applying knee-jerk, simple-minded templates on all situations is easier than having to think, for the mentally slovenly. Although I don’t see what’s so hard to figure out. To say, West always Bad, foes of West always Good, reveals mindlessness, and a sickening moral abandonment of human beings who are being savagely oppressed.

But for some reason people with an ideological doctrine they hew to always believe it to be more moral than actual human morality. (See: all religious fundamentalists; Ronald Reagan; etc.)

Certain leftists have an ironclad, if unacknowledged, rule they follow in terms of their attitude towards dictatorships: if the oppressors are supported by or have friendly relations with Western powers, the dictator is BAD. If it's on the outs with the West, it's GOOD. Rightists have an exact mirror image of that rule. [See Wall Street Journal, National Review, et al for endless examples.]

This phenomenon makes a fine illustration of the adage: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

NYPD Secret Police Operation Helps Finger Targets For Death

A somewhat amazing- or at least it should be amazing, in a normal society it would be amazing- revelation occurred on a radio program today. The New York City National Public Radio affiliate WNYC has a show, the Brian Lehrer show, which consists mostly of political and other issues chats with guests. Today's guest was one  Mitchell Silber, "director of Intelligence Analysis" for the New York Police Department (NYPD). Silber proved to be a typical apparatchik of the "counterterrorism" bureaucracy, low key in manner, not a rabble-rousing threat-monger of the private sector right (although the two are allied with one another and have numerous linkages).   [1]

Silber was on to promote a book written under his name,  "The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West." From his description, it's basically a rehash of various plots that have already been obsessively covered by the media (the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, London bombers, etc.)

Silber is a smooth operator, which makes him an effective mouthpiece for the secret police state. 

About ten minutes into the interview, they took a call from a listener, who if he's not already on the U.S. shitlist, just put himself there with his angry call. A Muslim, he attacked the U.S. wars abroad and basically said "You carpetbomb entire Iraqi villages" and the orphans grow up "and take revenge, and then you call them terrorists."

Brian Lehrer cleared his throat and then blunted the question, rephrasing it as "are there things that the NYPD does, that the military-industrial complex does," like drone strikes, that "radicalize some people now, that have backlash effects, that you have to be careful of." (A reasonable "pragmatic" question for the U.S. side in the "terror war" to ask.)

Silber starts by conceding some "tactics are a double edged sword," than says drone strikes are effective "in taking top Al-Qaeda leadership off the battlefield," but "collateral damage" when you "take out" some Al-Qaeda target can cause a backlash, so there has to be "a cost-benefit analysis." Very clinical and calculating. A cunning guy, Silber says U.S. has to avoid "triggering events" that cause a radicalization. He's keen to make sure his "analytic cadre" and "our detectives" don't miss anything and be sure to pick up on something "that's triggering a radicalization  we're unaware of." All this spying and surveillance he calls "keeping on eye on the trendlines."

So Lehrer asks if he or NYPD Commissioner Kelly ever spoke to the Feds and said the U.S. "war policy" "may actually endanger New York [City] more than protect it."

Silber replies:  "You know we have ongoing and frequent conversations with the Federal Government on a variety of different levels. I think one of the things that we're useful in that we see these trendlines on the ground and we can [his emphasis] pass that  to the Federal Government in essentially seeing an individual like an Anwar al-Awlaki we picked up someone like that and his  radicalizing ability and passed that on to the Federal Government. So we are seeing trendlines at the local level and passing that on on a regular basis." I.e. fingering people addition to the Federal shitlists of the police state, which at a minimum means all records about you are searched, a life history of you constructed, and at the other extreme, your murder. So the NYPD is in the business of helping finger people for the U.S. to assasinate.

This is not mere "analysis." This is surveillance, harassment, persecution, entrapment, and assassination.

Lehrer then took a station break. He never asked Silber about this targetting of an American citizen for assassination based on "his radicalizing ability." In other words, the U.S. has a policy of killing anyone they regard as an enemy propagandist in the "war on terror."

Back from the break, Silber took a swipe at Samir Khan (another American citizen assassinated by drone) for writing an article about bombmaking and working on Inspire magazine (the Al-Qaeda agitprop publication). His point was that the danger is everywhere, since Khan came from Queens. 

Neither Lehrer nor Silber even bother offering justification for killing people based on speech, if indeed loathsome speech, even "inciting" speech.  Again, Lehrer sees no mention to discuss whether it's okay to kill people for publishing things the Government regards as potentially threatening.

So we really are in the realm of thought crimes here. And the U.S. Government is assasinating people it convicts in secret, convictions done by secret policemen in their lairs, for committing these thought crimes.

That should make anyone fearful, not just jihadists.

And "mistakes" happen. All the time. Lethal ones. But being a secret policeman or military assassin means never having to say you're sorry.

Of course, right wingers for years have had an extensive literature of bombmaking instructions, "How To Kill" books (there's a whole series of exactly that title), and nobody's assassinating them, or even "detaining" them.

Basically Silber is a technician of the secret police state, big on "data analysis" under a pretext of neutral, objective, non-ideological facts.

Which is a fraud, as Silber and his ilk definitely have an ideology. Furthermore, some of his "facts" aren't. Like claiming that the NYPD isn't infiltrating mosques (a well-established fact at this point) but is merely "following leads." (Lehrer didn't question or challenge this falsehood.)

Also there is the usual omission of significant facts leading to disingenuousness, for example a lame set-up in which the NYPD set up a loser-schlup (Jose Pimentel) to assemble a pipe bomb in an apartment rigged up with camera to which he was lured by an agent provocateur. It took the provocateur an entire year to goad and groom the victim to play his assigned role in this local production of Political Terrorism Theater. (The FBI rebuffs two attempts by the NYPD to have them join in the fun. Supposedly the reason was the FBI thought the case was weak- which is ironic, since the FBI does exactly the same thing all the time. Maybe they just didn't want to share credit with the NYPD, a more likely explanation.) Silber mentioned this "case" as part of his litany of "terrorist plots." Lehrer said nothing in demurral.

The point of the show apparently was to justify and reinforce the whole repressive regime of an endless "war on terrorism." Are there real threats? Of course. But promoting a freak-out every time some malcontent tries to plant a bomb is disproportionate and politically motivated. Almost daily people are blown up in places like Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan. Other than the spectacular plane kamikaze attacks of 9/11/01, the casualties in the West of these attacks has never been more than a few hundred, and more often ZERO. Plus the foiled attacks have mostly been foiled by average citizens combined with the bungling of the terrorists.

And as to the extent of the threat, Silber sites two dozen New Yorkers who allegedly became jihadists. Two dozen, out of a population of 8 million people. Somehow that justifies a massive, permanent, secret police state. 

In terms of our lives and liberties, we'd probably be better off completely ignoring this threat. Not that I recommend that course. There should be a balance between need to protect against real dangers, and our human rights, instead of hollow lip service to civil rights and law, which is all that exists now. For example, having radiation monitors checking incoming cargo is fine. No problem with that. Or keeping one's ears open and monitoring some people, as opposed to instigating "plots" that are creations of the Government staged for political gain and ongoing ideological indoctrination and fear-mongering.


1]  Getting Good Intel, Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, 1/30/12. WNYC has been playing games with accessing this program. That page doesn't play the episode. Here are alternative URLs to try that as of 6/16/16 lead to the segment. (The original URL was deleted by WNYC since I originally posted this.)

First try another station owned by WNYC, WQXR, which has the episode. Here is the URL of the WNYC podcast player you can also try.  This podcast link has the title "NYPD Intel" but it's the same episode. NYPD Intel. Finally just search Mitchell Silber at WNYC.org or WQXR.org. When I tested the podcast for "Getting Good Intel," it plays a completely unrelated episode of the Brian Lehrer show! 

How The U.S. Marines Are Like The Waffen-SS

[Besides the similar extreme rightwing ideology, that is. For a peek into the ideological affinity for fascism of at least some Marines, and the institutional tolerance of it, see "U.S. Marines Really ARE Like the Waffen-S.S."]

The Haditha, Iraq, massacre of unarmed civilians in their homes by U.S. Marines unavoidably looks just like the behavior of the Third Reich's military in World War Two. The defenders of this and other atrocious war crimes by the U.S. military, after the initial stonewall of flat denials and lies gets penetrated, typically fall back on justifications of “scared soldiers in unfamiliar territory” who can't tell who the enemy is, and their comrades were just killed (usually by a planted explosive), so they were angry and upset, which somehow excuses and justifies cold blooded murder. (Funny, that doesn't work when you or I get angry and kill someone. And we aren't trained, disciplined soldiers under someone's command, so that should be an even better excuse for us civilians.)

Typically the Germans would take small numbers of casualties at the hands of resistance fighters- just as some U.S. military unit would suffer a small number of casualties- in the case of the Haditha war crime, one death. In retaliation, the enraged Germans would murder whatever civilians they could get their hands on in the vicinity, typically killing multiples of their own casualties. Likewise, the enraged Marines avenged their comrade's death by attacking and slaughtering two dozen residents of the nearest village in their homes. This is exactly what the Germans did in World War II in the countries they occupied. Nor was Haditha a unique event.

Self-defense is also trotted out as justification for the U.S. Military killing civilians. Of course that doesn't wash under the rules of war. And the U.S. brands it a war crime when its enemies do it. (It's almost redundant to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy on this score: hypocrisy is so routine for the U.S. in almost everything, it practically can go without saying. Perhaps we should just assume that the U.S. is being hypocritical at all times unless otherwise stated.) Self-defense as justification is no more valid for the U.S. than for the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, which could also use it as an excuse.

The U.S. Army behaves the same way in many war crimes- in fact sometimes they just kill for pleasure, as in the infamous joy killing of Reuters employees, and other defenseless civilians walking down the street in Baghdad by a helicopter gunship manned by murderers, as revealed in the infamous video dredged up out of U.S. military secrecy and  brought to the world thanks to WikiLeaks and, possibly, the persecuted scapegoat Bradley Manning. In such cases, after the stonewall of denial and lying falls apart, excuses other than “payback” for casualties have to be invented. Like: Videos lie, or are being “taken out of context.” Or those cameras the slain reporters carried looked like guns. (No they don't.) Or the pilots couldn't see what was plainly visible on the video. (So why are they so eager to mow down some people just walking down the street in broad daylight? And to shoot up a van full of children which stopped to pick up the dead and dying to take them to hospital? And then sneer “they shouldn't take their children into combat”?) And the act of murder is called “engagement” by both the Marines and Army. The civilians being “engaged” refers to the moment when the trigger is pulled- a chilling, emotionally distancing, morally dishonest and despicable euphemism designed to evade reality, evade truth, evade recognition of their own evil, that they are murdering defenseless CIVILIAN human beings.

No, the uniformed killers are NOT honorable. They are NOT “misunderstood,” they SHOULD BE reviled, not feted as “heroes” “defending the nation” (or Reich, as the case may be- at least the Germans honestly called themselves an Empire- Reich- not just a “nation”).

To U.S nationalists, that probably makes me a “traitor.” No, not really. I don't support or work for the U.S.' chosen enemies (although smearing dissidents as foreign agents has long been U.S. standard procedure). I pledge no allegiance to any nation or group, “terrorist” or otherwise. But I sure don't owe a debt of loyalty to an empire which commits mass murder- and has for centuries- and has oppressed me personally for my entire adult life, because I happened to be born here. I didn't get to decide where to be born. (Any sensible person, if given such a choice, would surely choose a Scandinavian nation.)

Soon of course they will be consigning people like me to their global military gulag, their own gulag archipelago, in secret dungeons all around the world, even on ships at sea, as happened to a Somali pirate recently. Like I said, who with any humanity would choose to be born in and stuck in this self-proclaimed “Greatest Nation On Earth”? (It sure can't claim to be the most modest, or modest at all. Notice how they claim the U.S. Has the Best of Everything, even things that are glaringly, patently inferior to some others, like its health care system. And phone system.  Internet access. And legal system.  And their Congress- with the ridiculous U.S. Senate, in which the 21 least populous states, which combined have fewer people than California, have 42 Senators, to California's 2. And lots of things in which the U.S. is patently nothing to brag about, yet brag the jingoists and national chauvinists do.)

Well, one comfort is realizing that nothing lasts forever, including empires. And this one is so badly screwing up its finances that it seems to be slowly self-destructing. The Arab Spring shows that unexpected upsurges of the suppressed human spirit inevitably occur some places, sometimes.

The historian David Kennedy warned some years ago that the U.S. Empire could go the way of the British empire by bankrupting itself through wars of Imperial control and overreach. As trillions of debt, present and future, has been created by the ruinous wars of the Bush-Obama era (including future costs of maimed vets) this looks to becoming at least possibly true. Of course the American bourgeoisie never believed it. Narcissistic and egotistical, they truly believe in “American exceptionalism,” that the U.S. is unique and different, (and Americans are supermen, I guess, somehow different from other peoples). (Didn't a delusion of superiority get the Germans in trouble? Oh, but America is exceptional. No Imperialism, no militarism, no delusions, and certainly no fascists here!)

U.S. military vets should use their skills to train others, so someday there could be a basis for resistance to the inevitably death squad military police state the U.S. is going to have to become. That would be the best way for them to redeem themselves for serving U.S. Imperialism.

Cynical apologists for war crimes say that armies have always done nasty things. If the Bible is to be believed, armies have been slaughtering civilians “since time immemorial.” (Which doesn’t make it right, whatever Bible-thumpers think. Their Holy Book gives its seal of allegedly-divine approval to slavery, genocide, and incest. It should be a scandal, not revered and beyond reproach.)

Postscript: the last murderous war criminal in the Haditha massacre was let off virtually scot-free. [Unlike Bradley Manning, who after a year in solitary confinement- stripped of all clothes- in the notorious Marine brig at Quantico, a domestic version of the Guantanamo Bay political prison, is now being put through a sham Army court-martial that will result in a life sentence unless he cooperates with framing up Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. More below. (1)]

I originally wrote this essay in December 2011 while musing on the Haditha massacre, a U.S. atrocity that haunts me. Now I will summarize what happened with the “case.”

As I said, the Marines invades homes and slaughtered the inhabitants to “avenge” the death of their comrade by a roadside bomb. Shortly thereafter, an Iraqi approached a Time magazine reporter with video of the aftermath. Time approached the Marines, and sat on their story while the Marines “investigated.” The Marine Corps story was that the residents were all killed outside by the road by the bomb that killed the Marine- a preposterous lie in light of the physical evidence, blood-soaked rooms, bodies in bedclothes, and so forth. More Marine lies followed, like they were shot at, etc.

The Marines dragged the matter out for years. Eventually 6 of the culprits had their charges dropped, a seventh of acquitted at “trial,” and now a Sergeant, who rolled a grenade into a bedroom and gunned down terrified families at point blank range, was left, facing only involuntary manslaughter for premeditated murder (he had arranged in advance with his squad to go on such a rampage if one of their number were killed) had his charges reduced to “dereliction of duty,” with a possible penalty of 3 whole months in lockup. His sentence- zippo. So the last murderous war criminal gets off virtually scot-free. (Maybe the Marines figured he’d already “suffered” enough.)

Now, this shows why the Iraqis were right to demand that for U.S. soldiers to remain in Iraq past December 2011, they must not have immunity to prosecution under Iraqi law. Obama tried hard until the last minute to get the Iraqis to grant continuing immunity to U.S. soldiers so he could keep U.S. troops in Iraq, but failed. Cynically, he then claimed “credit” for “ending the war in Iraq” and withdrawing the troops he had tried to leave there. Amazingly, or cynically, the U.S. media went along with this obvious falsehood, even though the facts I just mentioned were in the U.S. media itself.

Just as My Lai was no aberration in the Vietnam War, but a common event, so the Haditha massacre was unusual only in that it received attention through the accident of an interested American journalist with a normal human conscience. (Had a Vietnamese or Iraqi journalist reported these stories, no doubt they would be dismissed to this day as mere enemy propaganda. Just like U.S. germ warfare during the Korean War is. Hey, was that real or not? I don’t even know.)

1)     The reason I call the Marine prison at Quantico, VA, a political prison is the history of its use to psychologically break- indeed destroy- political prisoners. Before Manning was sent there for special treatment, political prisoner Jose Padillo, a civilian, was kept there for years and mentally destroyed. Padillo, a U.S. citizen by birth, was seized upon arrival at Chicago’s O’Hare airport by the Bush regime. That regime, for propaganda purposes, sought scalps it could brandish in public, both as evidence of its fearless terrorist-fighting prowess, and to keep the public in a state of fear in order to have a fertile climate in which to continue to ram through draconian repressive legislation and expand executive power by fiat a la Hitler, following the Cheney “doctrine.” Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fanatic reactionary and ex-Missouri U.S. Senator, claimed Padillo was planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a U.S. city. (A bomb of conventional explosives laden with radioactive material, which would spread contamination.) Padillo was imprisoned, incommunicado and completely illegally, in the Marine Corps brig at their base in Quantico for years, not actually legally charged with anything, and unable to communicate with anyone, until finally his mind was destroyed.

On the eve of the case being taken up by the Supreme Court (there were lawyers challenging this illegal imprisonment using a writ of habeas corpus) the Bush regime mooted the case by suddenly bring an indictment against Padillo and transferring him into the civilian Federal prison system, in order to avoid a judgment setting a precedent in the matter. The indictment said nothing about any dirty bomb. Instead Padillo was charged with ‘terrorist” offenses for – remember?- aiding Muslims being killed by Serbs in the Balkans. Duly convicted and sentenced to a long prison term, no one remembers Jose Padillo, victim of a cynical regime who victimized him for propaganda purposes.

One can remark on the irony of Padillo being viciously punished for defending the Balkan Muslims when it was precisely to defend them that was part of the reason the U.S. militarily intervened against the Serbs. That’s just another one of those infuriating mind-fucks you get so often from the U.S. Following the changing political line of the U.S. is kind of like playing Simon Says. Saddam Hussein kills Commies in Iraq- Friend! Saddam Hussein invades Iran- Friend! Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait- Enemy! Mujahideen fight Soviets- Allies! Brave Freedom Fighters! Mujahideen give sanctuary to Al-Qaeda- Evil Terrorists! Get caught on the wrong side of Simon’s latest instruction, go to prison.

In the Third Reich, those who conspired against Hitler were traitors and executed. War criminals were honored for their “heroism” and devotion to “duty.” In the U.S., Bradley Manning is a “traitor” who “aided the enemy,” and was threatened with the death penalty, although for political reasons they probably won’t execute him. Julian Assange, who exposed just a few U.S. war crimes, is under full scale assault by the U.S. Not a U.S. citizen, a number of U.S. citizens still consider him a traitor and have publicly called for his death. Murderers are heroes and patriots; those who expose their misdeeds are evil scum worthy of death, or life imprisonment.

Thus do criminal empires invert the natural moral order.

Obama Kills 9 Somalis To Aid Reelection Campaign

In the hours before delivering his State of the Union address, Obama cleverly ordered an attack by Navy SEALs on a Somali camp where “pirates” were holding 2 Western aid workers hostage. This enabled Obama to publicly congratulate Secretary of War Leon Panetta inside Congressional chambers before the Congresspeople assembled for his speech and on camera in front of millions of viewers. That left it to the media to whisper breathlessly what the congratulations were for. Smooth, Barack!

The two hostages, a Dane and an American, were seized way back in October. So I don’t think the timing of this mission was mere coincidence. According to the BBC, the captors were stoned on quat, and as it was the middle of the night, were asleep. The SEALs dispatched 9, described as “gunmen” by the NY Times. The NY Times also claims that ransom negotiations had “broken down” after the Somalis rejected $1.5 million in ransom. However the BBC interviewed their employer, the head of the aid agency, who said that they were in the middle of negotiating, but he had previously asked for U.S. help.

Personally, I don’t care for hostage takers. These aid workers were part of a demining operation. It doesn’t help Somalis in general when hoodlums target do-gooders trying to make their miserable lives better. On the other hand, I don’t feel like celebrating another U.S. death squad operation. Obama more and more is relying of assassination to get his sorry ass reelected. That should chill anyone’s blood.

His state of the Union speech was extremely militaristic. Both the opening and closing paragraphs, as well as some in the middle, consisted of military jingoism and boasting of his great victories over Al-Qaeda. I suppose that befits the head of an Empire.

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

No Surprise Supreme Court “Surprised” Over Citizens' United Case Backlash

There's continuing grumbling about the Citizens' United decision, even a movement to amend the Constitution to overturn it. Protests have been staged outside the Supremes’ Temple of Justice and at other Federal courthouses around the U.S.

This is said to be surprising to the Court.

Well why shouldn't at least the five GOP apparatchiks on the Supreme Court be surprised that there's so much ferment and continuing opposition to the oppressive Citizens' United decision, that gives even more power to corporate money? They figured it would be just another esoteric decision that the sheeplike public wouldn't even know about.

Here's why it's no surprise they're surprised- people took it LYING DOWN when those reactionary buzzards STOLE THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. If people swallowed that, why would the “Justices” think they'd get aroused over some campaign finance case decision?

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

The Grotesque Economic Demagoguery Of The GOP

Say anything about the superrich, you're attacked for waging “class warfare” and practicing “the politics of envy.” (Mitt Romney recently played the latter rhetorical card.)

Meanwhile, blacks are still demonized as lazy welfare-cheating parasites who'd rather live off food stamps than work. (Newt Gingrich.)

Class envy? For decades, white racist politicians have been stoking sick envy against those on the very bottom of the class pyramid. Even though “welfare” was always a pittance, which to obtain required and requires undergoing repeated humiliation rituals, a system of abasement. And since Clinton there is a lifetime limit of five years for receiving it. So how can they still run that tired demagoguery?

Wait, there's more. Talking about the class divide between the superrich and the majority is “dividing us,” says Romney and others.

Constantly stoking racism isn't divisive, right? And bashing Hispanic immigrants? Not divisive, huh?

Cynical bastards are expert at protecting the superrich by pitting ignorant whites against blacks and Hispanics, and generating hatred and contempt for the poor.

Maybe when the 99% are submerged into poverty, they'll look for another explanation of the world they live in.

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

Tabootruths.blogspot.com

Gingrich Vows To Create Constitutional Crisis On First Day As President

Newt Gingrich promised a gang of anti-abortion fanatics in South Carolina that on his very first day in office, he'll set up a showdown with the Supreme Court by ordering the military to defy court rulings on the extremely limited rights for "terrorism suspects/enemy combatants/terror war detainees,"  meaning no lawyers, no limits on torture, no releasing anybody, ever.


Gingrich also hinted that he would tear up Roe v. Wade, claiming the right to ignore court decisions that he decides are legally flawed- in effect appointing himself as a one-made Ultimate Court.


"If the court makes a fundamentally wrong decision, the president can in fact ignore it," said Gingrich, eliciting cheers from the abortion-haters.


This madman's worse than Bush, Reagan, Obama, and Nixon. And the corporate media is so pro-authoritarian now, that they treat this matter-of-factly, instead of raining a chorus of denunciation and outrage down on this would-be dictator's head.


["Newt Gingrich: I would ignore supreme court as president" -the guardian]


jasonzenith.blogspot.com
taboo-truths.blogspot.com