Obama's Pakistan Campaign: Brilliant President Plus Smart Bombs Equal Humanitarian Success

I note with proud amazement a new article from Dubai's Gulfnews dot com, describing the ongoing campaign of bombing attacks by unmanned planes against Pakistan (which the American government and media will not usually talk about -- officially -- but which are widely understood to be undertaken by the CIA at the direction of the president).

Unofficial government sources have been weighing in lately, all unequivocally in favor of continuing the attacks. For instance, a July 14 editorial in the Wall Street Journal says that

Far from being "beyond the pale," drones have made war-fighting more humane.

This point of view may seem a bit strange, given that the "success" claimed on behalf of the drones has been rather spotty. In fact, according to Pakistani government sources, as of April 8 of this year, US attacks on Pakistan had killed 14 al Q'aeda terrorists and 687 civilians.

The success ratio -- with alleged terrorists accounting for nearly one-fiftieth of the people killed -- may have been slightly over-estimated in this government report, since one of the "high-value targets" allegedly killed in these attacks (and included among the 14) is Rashid Rauf, the alleged leader of (or at least an alleged key figure in) the supposedly dangerous transatlantic-airline liquid-bombing plot (which I have discussed at great length in the past: for a technical overview of the plot, see "Ludicrouser And Ludicrouser: The Alleged Liquid Bombing Plot, Revisited Again"; for an explanation of what this means, see "Inadequate Deception: The Impossible Plots Of The Terror War").

Rashid Rauf was reportedly killed in a drone attack in November of 2008, but his body has never been produced and his family's plea for the return of his remains was ignored by the Pakistani government; Rauf's family and his attorney say he may be dead, but they dispute the claim that he was killed then and in that manner.

You don't have to be a lunatic moonbat conspiracy theorist or a Pakistani terrorist-sympathizer to claim that Rashid Rauf probably wasn't killed in a drone attack. Long War Journal proprietor Bill Roggio, who usually gets inside information before the marginally-less-complicit-but-still-criminal mainstream press, declared back in April that Rashid Rauf is still alive and dangerous and plotting against us all.

If that's true, then the numbers would be more like: 13 terrorist leaders dead, and 688 innocent people. And that's giving the official statistician the benefit of every doubt. As Bill Roggio wrote just a few days ago,

Reports of senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in Pakistan have been highly unreliable. In the past, al Qaeda leaders Ayman al Zawahiri, Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, Abu Obaidullah Al Masri, Adam Gadahn, Ibn Amin, and Rashid Rauf have been reported killed in strikes, but these men later resurfaced. Similarly, Sa'ad bin Laden was recently reported killed, but he is now thought to be alive. And Abu Khabab al Masri was reported dead several times before he actually was killed in a July 2008 strike.

Given all the billions we spend on intelligence gathering, and all the billions we spend on developing smart weapons, you might think we should be doing a better job of killing terrorists and sparing innocents. But that's a shallow criticism, because after a shaky start we did start doing a better job, as you can see when I break the statistics down chronologically.

According to the report from Pakistan which I mentioned above,

Two strikes carried out in 2006 had killed 98 civilians while three attacks conducted in 2007 had slain 66 Pakistanis

for a total of 164 civilian deaths -- and no terrorists were among the dead in either 2006 or 2007!

By contrast, according to the same report,

385 people lost their lives in 2008 and 152 people were slain in the first 99 days of 2009 (between January 1 and April 8)

for a total of 537 innocent civilians killed, along with the "14 wanted al-Qaeda operatives".

It may not seem like much, but considering the opening phase of this campaign, these reports reveal a double-dose of success. The total of "wanted al-Qaeda operatives" allegedly killed has ballooned from 0 in 2006-7 all the way to 14 in 2008-9, and at the same time the number of innocents killed per terrorist has dropped from 164:0 (an infinite ratio) to only 537:14 (about 38:1) -- provided of course that Rashid Rauf and all the other terrorists described as dead are actually dead, and were actually terrorists.

Some people may have felt these improvements were good enough, but clearly Barack Obama was not among them. As we know, anything is possible for can-do Americans, and as the newest report from Dubai indicates, we have enhanced our performance significantly since the Pakistani report was compiled in April.

Here's the most amazing part: According to Gulfnews, the number of Pakistani civilians killed since the beginning of 2008 is now only 480! That's down by 57 since the total was 537 in April!

So think about this: In the last four months, we have continued bombing Pakistan, killing (or at least claiming to have killed) more and more "high-value targets", such as Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad (who in addition to probably surviving the attack in which he was "killed", may not have had anything to do with terrorism at all, other than being sired by an undercover CIA operative), and Baitullah Mehsud (who in addition to probably surviving the attack in which he was "killed", has likely been the CIA's most powerful weapon in South Asia since Osama bin Laden died in 2001).

We have been able to do all this without killing any additional civilians, and -- even more amazingly -- we have managed to revive 57 innocent people who were dead back in April but who are not dead anymore!

This is the sort of "humanitarian intervention" we were always hoping for but could never achieve -- not under Republican scoundrels such as Bush, Bush and Reagan; not under Democratic scoundrels such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Of all the presidents in the history of our great nation, only Obama The Wonderful has managed to turn America's awesome firepower into a healing force.

Clearly, none of this would be possible without Obama's brilliance. He's the first President we've ever had who has been smart enough to use our wonderful smart bombs to their maximum humanitarian potential.

Similarly, none of it would be possible without our fantastic remote-controlled planes and the computerized bombs they carry. The Wall Street Journal was right! Drones have made war-fighting more humane!

What? You doubt me? Oh, please!! You'd have to be awfully naive to think we could raise scores of people from the dead with conventional weapons!

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Anti-Semitism In Action: UK Lowers Terror Threat Level; Guardian Reports On The Change

Is anti-Semitism on the rise? You bet it is, and for good reason. It's well-funded.

Consider, for example, the following piece from Alan Travis, home affairs editor of The Guardian, which appeared on July 20, 2009. The headline reads: "Britain downgrades al-Qaida terror attack alert level". The sub-heading says "Officials reduce assessment of threat from 'severe' to 'substantial', its lowest level since 9/11", and the text of the article reads:

The official assessment of the threat level of an al-Qaida terrorist attack on Britain has been lowered from "severe" – where an attack is deemed highly likely – to "substantial", where an attack is considered a strong possibility.

The decision to lower the official threat level follows a new assessment by MI5 and the joint terrorism analysis centre, based on intelligence gathered in Britain and abroad on how close terrorist groups may be to staging an attack.

The designation of a "substantial" threat level is the lowest since 9/11. It confirms that the swine flu pandemic is now a bigger threat to the life of the nation than terrorism.

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, acknowledged that fact on Sunday, when he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme that swine flu came "above terrorism as a threat to this country". He said the long-term preparations had involved the whole "Cobra machinery", a reference to the Cabinet's emergency committe [sic] that handles major disasters.

The decision reportedly follows an official assessment of Operation Pathway, one of MI5's biggest counterterrorism campaigns, which led to the arrest of 11 Pakistani men in April. All those arrested were released without charge, and no explosives or weapons were found.

The system of threat levels is made up of five stages. At "critical", an attack is expected imminently. At "severe", an attack is regarded as highly likely. At "substantial", an attack is a strong possibility. At "moderate" an attack is possible but not likely. And at "low", an attack is deemed unlikely.

The home secretary said in a statement: "We still face a real and serious threat from terrorists and the public will notice little difference in the security measures that are in place, and I urge the public to remain vigilant. The police and security services are continuing in their thorough efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity."

Did you catch the anti-Semitism in this piece? Don't feel badly if you didn't; it's very subtle and it takes an expert to detect it. Fortunately, such an expert happened to be available -- eventually. But first, a number of Guardian readers made comments reflecting the obvious absurdity of the situation, such as this from nega9000:

Hang on a minute, weren't we being told just last month that a, quote, 'spectacular' attack was being planned?

Oh, I get it, whoever's our equivalent of Jack Bauer averted said attack in the nick of time, killed all the terrorists and is, as we speak, copping off with the foxy but feisty young agent who was there for no discernable reason other than to offer expository dialogue.

Phew. Was getting worried there for a minute.

and this from metalvendetta:

Let me get this straight, they arrested eleven Pakistanis and couldn't find anything to link them to terrorism, so now the threat is reduced? Could it be that they just arrested the wrong people? Or is this decision based on intelligence - the same kind of intelligence that led them to believe that those eleven innocent men were terrorists in the first place?

Haywire asks:

Does this mean i now have to stop rifling through my neighbours' bins looking for empty 'chemicals' containers which may well have been used for making bombs, as was suggested by a recent publicity awareness campaign? If so, what the hell am i now going to do with my Sundays? Go to church??!!

nimn2003 asks:

Does this mean we no longer need ID Cards and the Database? Thank the Lord for that!

and ChrisWoods answers:

No we still need ID Cards and database because although there is more chance of dying by eating peanuts, the risk of death by terrorism is still too great and we need total surveillance of you all the time and also need to know all your private details, phone conversations & email just to make sure you will be ok in the future.

Do you see it yet? Nobody has mentioned Israel, and nobody has said anything about any Jew or Jews in particular, nor has anyone said anything about Jews in general. But still, for those with the correct viewpoint, there's anti-Semitism dripping from every word.

Eventually -- belatedly but better late than never -- comes along GnosticMind, with a comment to set them all straight:

I am shocked at the inhrently anti semitic slant displayed in the entire article , not to mention in the tone of the public responses-- Only in the Guardian is such blatant anti semitism, and anti israel rhetoric allowed, and even considered manifestly praiseworthy.

The very next comment was from butteredballs, who wrote

@ GnosticMind

please explain yourself

but GnosticMind was busy elsewhere, apparently. And the comments on this article are now closed, so GnosticMind could not come back and explain, even if she wanted to. Not -- as I see it -- that she would want to.

You see? It's so ineffable, you could never explain it.

It's inherent. It's blatant. But it can't be put into words -- at least not by GnosticMind, or any of her cohorts... and not by anybody else who just happens to be working for the Israeli government.

According to an article published July 5th in Calcalist, a Hebrew-language paper based in Tel Aviv,

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy* is running the project, and it will be an integral part of it.

We're reading an English translation prepared by George Malent for Occupation Magazine, courtesy of MuzzleWatch.

In a footnote, Malent explains the asterisk: for "the Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy" you can read "the Ministry of Propaganda".

The piece continues:

“To all intents and purposes the Internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” Elan Shturman, deputy director of the policy-explanation department in the Foreign Ministry, and who is directly responsible for setting up the project, says in an interview with Calcalist. “Our policy-explanation achievements on the Internet today are impressive in comparison to the resources that have been invested so far, but the other side is also investing resources on the Internet. There is an endless array of pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets, rich with information and video clips that everyone can download and post on their websites. They are flooding the Internet with content from the Hamas news agency. It is a well-oiled machine. Our objective is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are taking place, where reports and videos are published – the blogs, the social networks, the news websites of all sizes. We will introduce a pro-Israeli voice into those places.

Yes, of course! That's exactly what's missing today, among the endless array of pro-Palestinian websites: a pro-Israeli voice!!

Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”?

“Of course,” says Shturman. “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.”

What will they be required to do? Shturman continues:

Their missions will be defined along the lines of the government policies that they will be required to defend on the Internet.

and here -- finally! -- is the explanation of the anti-Semitism in The Guardian.

The Israeli government wants you to be frightened of the militant Islamofascist suicide bomber jihadis and jihadi-wannabes who are everywhere and who are always plotting against you. The Israeli government wants you to be afraid of them, even if they don't exist, not because it's good for you to be afraid of things that don't exist, but because it's good for the Israeli government.

From the correct -- Israeli -- point of view, it's bad enough that Britain has downgraded the threat level. That's a blatant betrayal by a close ally, and it's inherently made worse by the Guardian's having the nerve to report on the government's downgrade. But worse still are the comments, making fun of the British government for taking so seriously -- or pretending to take seriously -- a threat which -- dare I say it? -- has been vastly overblown, if it existed at all.

But how can employees of the Israeli government say this? They can't, unless they are very highly placed, with chutzpah in professional abundance and a swarm of faux-journalists running interference for them.

Ordinary Israeli government employees can merely mouth the party line, as supplied by the Foreign Ministry's department of policy-explanation: the official propagandists cannot say "You must believe this lie even though it's bad for you, because it's good for us."

That would be just a touch too transparent.

Instead we get nonsense like this:

I am shocked at the inhrently anti semitic slant displayed in the entire article, not to mention in the tone of the public responses -- Only in the Guardian is such blatant anti semitism, and anti israel rhetoric allowed, and even considered manifestly praiseworthy.

which -- let's be honest -- is not transparent at all!

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Moonwalking To Oblivion Without A Billionaire Sponsor: What's A Blogger To Do?

The early death of Michael Jackson has triggered some powerful memories, very few of which have anything to do with Jackson or his sudden demise. Nonetheless, let me take you back 25 years...

In the summer of 1984, Michael Jackson was on his "Victory Tour", moonwalking his way through cuts from "Thriller" in his first public performances after he "set his hair on fire for Pepsi" in late January of that year.

I had spent the early months of '84 trying to piece together the remnants of a jazzy-punky rock band which had finally gelled after months of preparation, played a fantastic set on New Year's Eve, and then imploded -- in my own living room, on the same weekend when Michael's hair was burning.

In our case, the fragments which were not mortally wounded in the implosion eventually reunited, wrote some new material, and played in public together again just a few times before a second implosion. And one of those performances fell on a hot and humid Saturday night almost exactly 25 years ago, a night when Michael Jackson was in town.

Were we crazy to play opposite such a huge concert? Not at all. None of the people who went to see Michael Jackson could be bothered with us, and none of the people who came to see us could be bothered with moonwalking or "Thriller" or any of the other very popular, totally inane artefacts of the little dude who somehow became "The King of Pop".

Forgive me if a bit of disrespect is showing. I will not for a moment deny that Michael Jackson was a fantastic singer, especially as a youngster, or that we would have been very lucky to have such a talented vocalist in our band.

On the other hand, I remain convinced that we made a good move by scheduling a gig when his fans were elsewhere. Our music was direct and honest, often too raw but never too polished, not commercially marketed or even amenable to such treatment. Michael could not have said this of his material, in 1984 or at any stage of his long and very successful career.

We once wrote a song that (among other things) made fun of him. But he never mentioned us. So there's another point of asymmetry.

On the Monday morning after our simultaneous concerts, while I was returning the PA gear we'd rented from a local music store, I heard this on the radio: Scalpers had been getting more for a pair of tickets to see Michael Jackson than it cost us to stage our entire show.

He drew about a hundred thousand fans. We might have drawn a hundred. And we didn't even play well that night. I remember being disappointed about that.

But on the other hand, the people who came to see us that night, the people who came to hear us, the people who came with their eyes and ears open ... they got something they couldn't have found on the Victory Tour, or anywhere else, for that matter. Some of them still talk about that show -- in complimentary terms! It wouldn't have mattered whether we played well or not. What we were doing -- what we were trying to do -- appealed to a few people, maybe one in a thousand, maybe less. But it touched them in a much deeper way than the "King of Pop" -- or anything "pop" -- could have done.

There's a lesson in all this, or a moral to the story, and I'm still not sure what it is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it helps to explain why my blog readership never seems to grow, no matter how much or how well I write; neither does it seem to shrink, no matter how rarely I post and no matter what I choose to write about.

What you get here is direct and honest, often too raw but never too polished, not commercially marketed or even amenable to such treatment. It's no wonder so few people are interested. But you can't get it -- or anything similar -- anywhere else.

Maybe it's no big deal, but I got thinking of all this when I heard of Jackson's death, and it all came back to me again when I read this piece from Scholars and Rogues, and even more especially when I considered an earlier, related piece there which deals with a pointed political question: Why don't progressive billionaires fund progressive bloggers (in much the same way that conservative billionaires fund conservative bloggers)?

I would argue that such funding is neither to be expected nor to be welcomed. I would argue that there's no such thing as a progressive billionaire, although there are a few billionaires who might pretend to be leaders and/or funders of a "progressive" opposition.

The earlier S&R post -- "Devil, meet Deep Blue Sea: how much should progressives spend reaching out to progressives?" -- quotes Jane Hamsher of FiredogLake, Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos, and John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, all of whom are upset that major Democratic organizations are asking for (and receiving) their support, but aren't supporting them in any tangible way, not even by advertising on their sites.

It may be pointed out that those who obtain support for free have no incentive to pay for it.

Much more importantly, in my view, the sites in question share a common approach to all the most important issues: they bury them if they can't ignore them altogether. This tendency is unfortunately prevalent at all high-traffic "progressive" websites, including the one where I used to volunteer my services.

Markos Moulitsas, the founder and chief director of censorship at DailyKos, was trained by the CIA and makes no bones about the fact that posters who entertain conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 are not welcome at his site.

The other sites mentioned above are a bit less pointed and a touch more subtle but they are nevertheless written by and for people who are not much interested in certain very inconvenient facts: facts about 9/11 in particular; facts about bogus terrorism in general; facts about how the entire "global war on terror" (or whatever Obama wants us to call it this week) is based on a fictional view of history and our role in it; facts about how the Democrats have been complicit in selling both the fictional history and the endless, limitless war it entails.

Would I want to see these sites better funded? Would I want to see them drawing even larger audiences? Would I want their reporting even more constrained by vague doubts about what the billionaire sponsor might think? Dare I even hint of the possibility of explicit instructions from such a sponsor? Or, conversely, can anyone imagine a billionaire-sponsored website without an explicit list of instructions?

An alliance between faux-progressive billionaires and faux-progressive bloggers would be a powerful way to destroy any hope of a meaningful political opposition arising in 21st-century America. But then again, there's no need to destroy things that don't exist.

And that's why it won't happen. There's no need for it. And it wouldn't matter anyway, because 99% of all Americans surveyed have already said ... that given the choice ... they'd prefer moonwalking!

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Home Improvement, Post-9/11; Part II: Jackhammers? Who Needs 'Em?

My wife and I had a problem with the "steps" outside our "back door", if you don't mind what you say.

We call it the "back door", but it's at the side of the house, near the back corner. And we called them "steps" but they were actually concrete slabs, stacked and broken.

They were never properly grounded; they had shifted over the years and they were tilted in, toward the house. So water collected there, and the steps were always wet and moldy, except when they were icy, and we'd been hoping they would fix themselves, but that didn't happen, so we decided to do something about them.

At first we thought if we poured a cement cap over them and slanted it away from the house, that would do the trick, but then we had a home building specialist come and look at them and he could see that they were still moving. He told us pouring more concrete over the problem would only make it worse. And it was hard to argue with that.

But I did argue when he said the best thing we could do would be to rent a dumpster, score the concrete with a diamond-tipped saw, bust it up with a jackhammer, and haul it to the dumpster one piece at a time in a wheelbarrow.

"You could do it in a weekend," he said, "but you'd be sore by the time you were done!"

I couldn't believe it! That is so September 10th thinking! It was as if he had never seen the World Trade Center collapse.

I said, "Why don't we just crash an airplane into them?"

He laughed and said "That would be dangerous. What about the neighbors?"

I said, "Look, it's not as if we're trying to bring down a skyscraper. It's probably not even a yard of concrete. We could do it with a little remote-controlled toy. Fill it with kerosene, crash it into the steps. The concrete disintegrates, the wind blows it away. We don't have to carry anything anywhere."

He said, "No, no. You can't do it with fire alone, or with fire and a little bump. You need high-speed impact and a fire. And you don't have a good clear approach here, unless you fly through your neighbor's house. So that's really not a good idea."

I thought I was out of options but then I had a brainstorm. "Let's use the Building 7 method," I said. "We can pulverize the concrete by burning office supplies near it."

So that's what we did. But it took a few tries.

At first, we drilled little holes in the steps, and filled them with pens, pencils and sticky notes, plus some upholstery that I pulled out of an old chair. We lit it all on fire, but nothing happened.

"What have we done wrong?" I wondered, but just for a second. Then I had another brainstorm. "We forgot the diesel fuel!"

We went to a truck stop and bought a container of diesel fuel, sprayed it all over the steps, lit them again ... and again nothing! The fuel burned off, but the steps were still there.

"What else have we forgotten?" It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out.

Then we went to the local mosque, brought a couple of Muslims back with us, set it all up again and got them to light it. It burned a little better, but nothing spectacular, and they watched for a while and left, saying, "It's not happening."

For a while it looked like they were right. We couldn't put the fire out, but it didn't get any bigger, and we figured nothing special was going to happen.

But then a remote studio truck arrived from the BBC, and they did a live broadcast in which a reporter stood in front of our burning steps and announced that they had collapsed!

About ten minutes later the police came along and evacuated the neighborhood, and we all heard what sounded like strings of firecrackers going off, except they were a lot louder than firecrackers. Then we saw a big plume of dust, and it blew away in the wind, and when the police let us come back home, our steps were completely gone!

Unfortunately, most of our neighbors are now dead or dying of lung disease, and we can't use our basement anymore because it contains pools of molten steel. Also, the cops called the feds, who destroyed the mosque and apparently killed a large number of innocent people. But nothing about any of this ever made the news, so who cares?

All in all it worked out pretty well. We didn't have to rent a dumpster, we didn't have to carry anything, and we are now rebuilding our steps. Plus, the mosque is gone.

You don't believe me, do you?

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Home Improvement, Post-9/11; Part I: Wood Chips Tell A Sad Story

I've just finished helping a friend set up some new flower beds and trim them with a border of wood chips.

It's a good way to mulch, with recycled organic matter blotting out weeds on the way to becoming plant food.

We used 12 cubic yards of chips. That's not a lot by industrial standards, but it took us two days to put those chips where we wanted them.

And while we were doing that, I was playing around with a few numbers...

There are 3 feet in a yard and therefore there are 3x3x3 = 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. We moved 12 cubic yards or 12x27 = 324 cubic feet of wood chips.

That's enough to cover a path 3 feet wide, 4 inches thick, and 324 feet long.

On a football field, such a path would extend from one end zone to the other.

There are 12 inches in a foot and therefore there are 12x12x12 = 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot.

We moved 324 cubic feet or 324x1728 = 559,872 cubic inches of wood chips.

That's about half a million cubic inches of chips.

Picture a cubic inch: it's about the size of a golf ball. You can hold it between your thumb and forefinger. You can put it in your shirt pocket.

Remember that cubic inch; hold on to that image. Now let's get hypothetical...

If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth two dollars, the chips on that path -- three feet wide, four inches thick, from one end zone to the other -- would be worth about a million dollars. Even with inflation, a million is still a very large number.

If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth a million dollars, the chips on that path would be worth about $500 billion, which is roughly the size of the Pentagon's annual operating budget, not including black-budget programs or additional appropriations for actual wars, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Think of this: A million dollars per cubic inch. Three feet wide; four inches thick. One end zone to the other. Year after year after year. And that's just for standard operations.

Clandestine acts of terrorism and overt wars of aggression cost extra, of course.

How much extra? Look at it this way: If each cubic inch of wood chips were worth two hundred thousand dollars, the chips on that path would be worth about $100 billion, roughly as much as congress just approved to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going until the end of September!

And that's just the cost to America. It's a pittance compared to the cost borne by the rest of the world.

And how much is that? Consider Iraq:

If each cubic inch of wood chips represented three people killed, at least six others injured, and nine more refugees, the chips on that path -- four inches thick, three feet wide, from one end zone to the other -- would show just some of the damage we have done to Iraq.

The people of Iraq, if you recall, never attacked us, never intended to attack us, and never could have done us any damage even if they had wanted to. That didn't matter to the president who started the war, it doesn't matter to the president who is continuing it, and it doesn't matter to the Americans who support it.

We are talking about mass murder of innocent people as a matter of state policy. And there's no reason for it, none at all ... except:

If each cubic inch of wood chips were two million barrels of oil...

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Message From Guantanamo: "America is Double Hetler in unjustice"

I direct your attention to the following article, dated June 3, 2009, by Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star:

Gitmo protest captured on film

WASHINGTON – A Guantanamo Bay detainee committed suicide late Monday just hours after two Chinese Muslim captives staged the detention centre's first public protest, increasing the pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to outline his plan of how he will close the offshore prison.

Was it really a suicide? No details on which to base a judgment seem to be available, which is par for the course. And as for Obama and "pressure" to "outline his plan", that's not all the so-called "suicide" increases, but journalists can only say so much, even if they work in foreign countries.

Yemeni Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, 31, is the first prisoner to die since the White House changed hands four months ago. His suicide follows weeks of criticism from both ends of the political spectrum over the fate of the remaining 240 Guantanamo detainees.

News of the suicide was emailed to the media just as a flight bringing journalists from Guantanamo landed in Maryland.

Based on the track record of the organization sending that email, it might be best to refer to Muhammad Salih's death as a "so-called suicide", at least until further details emerge.

But I say this with two caveats, neither of which is likely to be satisfied, ever.

First, even if further details about Muhammad Salih's death do emerge, will they be credible? Probably not, especially if they are not corroborated. Will they be corroborated? Probably not, especially considering that detainees are being held at Guantanamo precisely to hide them, both from the media and from the protections normally afforded accused individuals under US and international law.

And second, how much is a man supposed to take? How much of the responsibility for Muhammad Salih's death must be laid at the feet of our government -- which held him for more than seven years, with no charge or trial or hearing, and no prospect of any of these in the near or distant future? -- which went to extreme lengths to deny him and all the other detainees any legal recourse or challenge, even though it never intended to charge them? -- which offered mountain tribesmen thousands of dollars apiece for any "terror suspects" they happened to capture, at the same time as innocent civilians were fleeing the bombing of their homes in Afghanistan?

Or to put it another way, given the scope and scale and ferocity of the forces arrayed in a deliberate and knowingly unjustified attempt to ruin the lives of Muhammad Salih and many others like him, how could his death be considered anything other than murder?

The press had been at the U.S. naval detention centre for the war crimes court hearing of Canadian Omar Khadr.

Khadr, 22, is accused of war crimes, including the murder of a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002.

And he's still in prison in Guantanamo despite two very inconvenient facts: that he was a child when he was captured, and that the "evidence" against him is clearly fabricated.

But then again, the same forces that ruined the life of Muhammad Salih are deployed against Omar Khadr, as they have been ever since ... since ...

Here's the big news! A protest! and information coming from detainees:

Hours after Khadr's brief hearing Monday, fewer than a dozen journalists on the trip, including a Toronto Star reporter, witnessed a rare unscripted moment on the base when two Uighur (pronounced Wee-gur) detainees managed to hold an impromptu protest.

The group was at an Oceanside prison known as "Camp Iguana," where 16 Uighur and one Algerian detainee are imprisoned.

As the journalists neared the fence line, the captives held up messages written in crayon on prison-issued sketch pads, knowing the Pentagon prohibits journalists from speaking to detainees.

For a few minutes they silently turned the pages quickly, as journalists shot video, photos and scribbled down their messages.

"We are being held in prison but we have been announced innocent a corrding to the virdict in caurt," one message said. "We need to freedom (sic)."

Most of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo are (or surely must be considered) innocent, either because they have been cleared of wrongdoing by a military court or because they have never been charged to begin with. And that's why

[a]nother stated, "America is Double Hetler in unjustice," seemingly comparing their treatment by the U.S. government to that of the Nazis.

Seemingly? Seemingly?? What else could they possibly be talking about? They were obviously comparing their treatment by the U.S. government to that of the Nazis. But then again, journalists can only say so much.

The Uighur prisoners with Chinese citizenship have been cleared for release but there's nowhere for them to go since the minority group is persecuted in its Communist-controlled homeland. The U.S. government has tried for months to find a country willing to provide the group asylum.

That's a laugh. It's a sick laugh, to be sure, but that's the only kind of laugh we get anymore.

The US government has spent years and years telling anyone who will still listen that these people are despicable terrorists, "the worst of the worst", and so on. Even now Dick Cheney is going around saying that if they are merely transferred to civilian prisons in the US, they will be plotting terrorist attacks against us from their cells. It's ludicrous, but that's what takes priority now according to the mainstream media. And reporters can only say so much ...

Reporters were ushered away from the fenced-in area shortly after the Uighurs had their written protest. One of the captives yelled as the gate was locked behind the group: "Is Obama Communist or a Democrat? We have the same operation in China."

Journalists were later forbidden from sending photos or video footage of the signs until Guantanamo officials received clearance from the White House – which didn't come until about 14 hours later.

No, truly. It's a free country. Always has been, always will be. Seriously.

But the best [read: worst] is yet to come:

Pentagon ground rules signed by reporters stipulate that images of detainees must be pre-screened and cannot identify the captives due to regulations in the Geneva Conventions prohibiting the exploitation of prisoners of war.

Isn't that just rich?

A whole new category of mock-legal language was created, and the prison camp at Guantanamo was built, precisely in order to circumvent the Geneva Conventions and their prohibitions against the exploitation of prisoners of war.

And that's why Guantanamo detainees like Muhammad Salih are not normally called "prisoners", much less "prisoners of war". Instead they are called "enemy combatants" or "illegal enemy combatants" or simply "detainees".

Long, involved, and utterly cynical "legal" documents were created in order to give a semi-plausible veneer to some of the most blatant falsehoods of the terror war, documents whose existence has never been a secret, documents some of which have themselves been coming into the public eye recently: documents whose purpose appears to have been to deny these people "prisoner of war" status so that the protections mandated by the Geneva Conventions can be semi-plausibly described as not applicable to them -- and so that the Pentagon can ignore the Geneva Conventions in dealing with them.

So for the Pentagon to turn around and say that journalists cannot publish the names or faces of the captives, because to do so would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions...!

They don't even care anymore how transparent their lies are. They really couldn't care less whether or not you can see through their charade instantly. Is it because they have the big bucks, and the big weapons, and the big media, and the big politicians on their side, while we only have one another and the truth?

Back to the alleged suicide.

Hours after the protest guards found Salih unresponsive in his cell in a separate area of the prison and attempts to revive him failed.

We can be sure that the attempts to revive him were most vigorous, but what happened to Muhammad Salih in the hours before he was found unresponsive? And what happened to him in the years before that?

At least we know the answer to the latter question.

He had been held without charges at Guantanamo since February 2002 and appeared to have joined a lengthy hunger strike, according to medical records released in response to an Associated Press lawsuit.

How many years could you be held incommunicado, halfway across the world from your family, with no charges or evidence filed against you, no right to challenge your incarceration, and no prospect of ever obtaining your freedom, much less justice -- how many years of that could you take, even without any "enhanced interrogation techniques", before you decided it might be a good idea to stop eating?

Then again, a journalist can only say so much.

On the other hand, Michelle Shephard does manage to provide the photo above, and some very telling context:

Three detainee suicides in June 2006 under the George W. Bush administration drew international outrage, further fuelled by comments about the military's reaction.

"They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," then-Guantanamo commander Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr. said. "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."

The psychopathy [*] on display here is striking, and perfectly fitting for a commander of a place such as Guantanamo.

They killed themselves -- and nobody else -- as an act of warfare against us!

We -- their oppressors: the people who held them in captivity for years, with no charges, no evidence, no due process and no hope -- are the victims of their deaths.

It doesn't get much more "Hetlerian" than that.

~~~

Psychopathy -- the personality disorder we see in the people-without-conscience who are variously called psychopathic, sociopathic, anti-social, and moral imbeciles -- comes in a variety of forms.

The most common psychopathic personality type is called "aggressive narcissism".

The following traits have been identified in a seminal work by Robert D. Hare as indicative of aggressive narcissism.

Read this list and try not to think of Harry Harris Jr., the former Guantanamo commander.

* Glibness/superficial charm
* Grandiose sense of self-worth
* Pathological lying
* Conning/manipulative
* Lack of remorse or guilt
* Shallow affect
* Callous/lack of empathy
* Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Read that list again and try not to think of the Pentagon, or the mainstream media, or the "leaders" of our mainstream political parties.

Read it one more time and try not to think of our long record of violent foreign intervention, or our history of slavery and racism, or the obliteration of the people who lived here before America was "discovered", and the utter contempt with which their cultures and their descendants have been treated ever since.

"Double Hetler in unjustice" may be spelled incorrectly, but it is seemingly an understatement.

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Too Obvious To Mention: Obama-Era Lies Protect Bush-Era Crimes

Our new transformative president Obama's decision to fight a court order requiring the release of photos depicting the well-documented abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib -- while entirely in character for this transformative new administration -- is being widely described as shameful enough on its own, let alone for a president who portrayed himself as a champion of transparency and accountability in government.

But then again Obama was once a candidate and now he's a president. And when he was a candidate, certain people (like his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright) were portrayed as troublemakers and cast out of the national scene because they dared to point out that Obama was a politician!

Seriously! The campaign pretended the candidate was not a politician. How transparently false is that? Fortunately for Obama, he had to run against a man who was obviously certifiably insane, and a woman who was obviously even crazier. In that respect Obama's victory in the November election was more inevitable than remarkable. So what if he's part black? A green and blue guy could have won that election, if he was a half-decent politician.

And yet somehow it comes as a big surprise that the tales told by a politician when he was a candidate turn out to be false once he gets elected. Thus people are shocked and even mildly disappointed when their man, now in office, turns out to be somewhat different than he was portrayed during the campaign. When will we ever learn? I'll rephrase that: Will we ever learn?

Obama wants to suppress the photos even though their release is required by law, under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. In his defense of his new position, Obama echoes Pentagon claims that the release of the photos would inflame our enemies and endanger our troops. And our old friends, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, have gone so far as to craft legislation that specifically exempts from FOIA any photographs

taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States ...

if the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, determines that the disclosure of that photograph would endanger (A) citizens of the United States; or (B) members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States.

Glenn Greenwald has been good on this topic, and so has Chris Floyd. I've read some others on the subject, not as many as perhaps I should have, but then again my eyes aren't what they once were. And they've had their fill. Nonetheless, I do report that in all my travels I have not once seen anyone make any hay via the the following obvious points:

First of all, it's the abuse that enrages and inflames people, not the photos. If we really want to avoid inflaming the rest of the world, the way to do that is to stop abusing people. And that means a lot more than the obvious facts that we have to stop smearing prisoners in excrement and dragging them around on leashes, and that we have to stop raping them or forcing them to engage in other sexual practices, and that we have to stop all the other indecent treatment. But we also have to end the despicable practice of indefinite detention without trial, without a hearing, without any evidence, and without any charges.

Aside from moral questions of right and wrong, there's also the obvious (but apparently unmentionable) fact that it's only propagandized and brainwashed Americans who don't know what's been going on at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and who would be shocked and enraged by the release of the photos. The people in Iraq, for example, and in Afghanistan, and in far too many other countries, know all about the torture that's been happening in the American and American-friendly torture chambers of the world. So how much will they really be inflamed by the photos? And conversely, how much will they be inflamed by the attempt to keep those photos hidden?

Second, if Obama and Graham and Lieberman and their ilk really cared about the safety of "members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States", they would not block the release of the photos, but instead they would vow to end the Bush-era wars immediately, and to quit attacking foreign countries that never did anything to us, never could have, and never even wanted to. But of course they will never do any such thing. They are obviously concerned about the safety of the troops, exactly to the extent that the troops further the goals of empire.

And third, if instead of destroying one country after another, based on one lie after another, the US spent its annual hundreds of billions building roads and schools and hospitals, and water treatment plants and electric generating plants, in one country after another, then "members of the Armed Forces" could go get real jobs, because "employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States" would be viewed outside the United States as friends, not enemies.

It's all so obvious. No wonder nobody mentions it.

What's also obvious is that Obama and the Pentagon don't want to release the photos because of the impact they would have on "the home front", where we're the enemy and the ongoing battle is about control of information.

But here's the rub: what would happen if Americans knew a bit more about what went on during the Bush administration?

Not much, probably. The usual goons would celebrate a few more "Ay-rabs" "getting what they deserve", and the rest of us would hang our heads in shame. But fundamentally nothing would change, not only because most of us don't give a damn, but also because the rest of us have no means by which to change the vicious and corrupt system.

When they hand out the prizes for the most pathetic remnant of a former democracy, we'll be Number One. And that's pretty obvious too.

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Pathway To Darkness, Part 2: Babar Ahmad and the TSG

In March of 2009, Babar Ahmad, who is Officially Described As (ODA) a "UK terror suspect", was awarded £60,000 in damages pertaining to an exceptionally violent arrest which he endured more than five years earlier.

Ahmad [photo] is accused of supporting terrorism by raising money and equipment for jihadi groups through a pro-terrorist website and is fighting extradition to the USA.

He is wanted in the case involving Hassan Abujihaad, in a story that involves William "Jameel" Chrisman and (tangentially) Derek Shareef, all of whose names have graced these pages in days past.

To recap briefly: Derrick Shareef, ODA "a mall bomber", is currently serving 35 years in federal prison after trading a pair of stereo speakers for a box which he thought contained four grenades. The grenades were non-functional, the arms dealer who took the speakers as payment was working for the FBI, and the bogus arms deal was arranged by William "Jameel" Chrisman, a convicted felon now also working for the FBI.

Although Chrisman is always ODA "an informant", it's quite clear that he is primarily an agent provocateur, and his primary target in this instance appears to have been Hassan Abujihaad, a former US Navy signalman who once lived with Derrick Shareef.

Abujihaad, a Muslim convert formerly known as Paul R. Hall, is serving 10 years after being found guilty of sending confidential US Navy information to Babar Ahmad in April of 2001, when Abujihaad was stationed aboard the USS Benfold and Babar Ahmad was allegedly running Azzam Publications.

For federal prosecutors, the main problem in the case against Abujihaad was that there was no "forensic footprint" on the information police say they found on a disk belonging to Babar Ahmad. In other words, they had no way of proving that the information was in fact sent by Abujihaad.

This wasn't their only problem, however, since it turned out that the information in question was not so secret after all.

To get a conviction in this case, the prosecution needed more than circumstantial evidence, and Abujihaad was convicted partially on taped conversations between Abujihaad and Chrisman.

William "Jameel" Chrisman [photo] was sent by the FBI from Buffalo, New York, to Rockford, Illinois, and was tasked with meeting Shareef and gaining his confidence.

As it turned out, Shareef was looking for a place to live when Chrisman walked into his life. So Chrisman took him home to live with him and his family -- his three wives and nine children.

From that point until he was arrested, Shareef was under Chrisman's roof as well as under his influence, although the FBI was careful not to divulge these facts until after Shareef had been convinced to plead guilty. (Chrisman testified against Abujihaad later the same day!)

As revealed by a close reading of the affidavit filed by the FBI against Shareef, Jameel Chrisman fabricated every important detail of the "terror plot" to attack CherryVale Mall in Rockford on the last Friday before Christmas, 2006. Chrisman suggested the target, he suggested the date, he suggested the hand grenades ... and Shareef went along with him every step of the way, up to and including the phony arms deal that sent Shareef to prison.

And while that was happening, Chrisman was encouraging Shareef to talk to his old friend Abujihaad, and get him talking about doing some "jihad". Unbeknownst to Shareef, Chrisman was recording all the conversations. But Chrisman wasn't getting anywhere through Shareef, so eventually he began to call Abujihaad directly, trying to get Abujihaad to incriminate himself.

Abujihaad [photo] apparently suspected that he was being set up, because he shifted into code, speaking of "fresh meals" and "cold meals" in response to questions about whether he had been planning any terrorist missions.

Since Abujihaad spoke to Chrisman in code, he must have been hiding something, and that something must have been related to terrorism, and therefore he must have been the one who delivered US Navy secrets to Babar Ahmad, or something like that ...

So Abujihaad is in jail, but the feds are still desperately looking for something to use as evidence against Babar Ahmad, who was arrested in December of 2003. After Ahmad's arrest, according to the AP via KTAR:

Ahmad was released without charge but was re-arrested in August 2004 on a U.S. extradition warrant. He remains in custody.

American officials accused the Pakistani native of running Web sites to raise money for the Taliban, appealing for fighters and providing equipment such as gas masks and night vision goggles to terrorists.

Babar Ahmad, as the AP notes, is still in prison, but the AP report fails to mention that he has never been formally charged with a crime and no evidence has ever been presented against him in a court of law.

On the other hand, Babar Ahmad can now expect five-figure "compensation" for what he endured on the day of his arrest. According to The Guardian,

During his arrest, Ahmad was punched, kicked and throttled, the court heard.

Officers stamped on the 34-year-old's feet and repeatedly punched him in the head before he was forced into the Muslim prayer position and they shouted: "Where is your God now? Pray to him."

After a sustained attack, he was forced into the back of a police van, where he was again beaten and punched before being put in a "life-threatening" neck hold and told: "You will remember this day for the rest of your life."

At one stage, one of the officers grabbed his testicles and he was also deliberately wrenched by his handcuffs – a technique known to cause intense pain.

The Guardian also notes:

The Met [Metropolitan London police] had repeatedly denied the claims, saying officers had used reasonable force during the arrest.

However, lawyers for the force's commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, today admitted at the high court that Ahmad had been the victim of gratuitous and sustained violence at his home in Tooting, south-west London.

"The commissioner has today admitted that his officers subjected Babar Ahmad to grave abuse tantamount to torture during his arrest," Ahmad's solicitor, Fiona Murphy, said outside the court.

During the hearing, it emerged that the Met had lost "a number of large mail sacks" containing details of other similar allegations against the officers who assaulted Ahmad.

Murphy said the few documents that had not been mislaid should have triggered a thorough investigation.

"The horrifying nature and volume of complaints against these officers should have provoked an effective response from the Metropolitan police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) long ago," she said.

"Instead, it has fallen to Babar Ahmad to bring these proceedings to achieve public recognition of the wrong that was done to him."

She said other crucial documents relating to the case were also lost.

They included all the officers' contemporaneous notebooks and the taped recording of an interview with the senior officer in the case.

Murphy added: "The papers will be referred to the director of public prosecutions for urgent consideration of criminal charges against the officers concerned and for an investigation as to whether events surrounding the mislaid mail sacks constitute evidence of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice."

The Guardian provides just enough context to dash any such hopes.

An IPCC investigation in 2007 ended with no action being taken against any officer.

The police officers who arrested Babar Ahmad in such a brutal fashion belonged to the Territorial Support Group (TSG), which is essentially the Met's SWAT team.

Assigned to deal with terrorism, public disorder, and high-priority crime, the TSG is never ODA a SWAT team, but there's no doubt that the TSG employs special weapons and special tactics.

The weapons include batons and shields and tasers, and the tactics are revealed in a subsequent article in The Guardian, which reports that

the Met was aware for years that the six [TSG] officers involved [in the arrest of Babar Ahmad] were the subject of repeated complaints. According to documents submitted to the court, four of the officers who carried out the raid on Ahmad's home had 60 allegations of assault against them - of which at least 37 were made by black or Asian men. One of the officers had 26 separate allegations of assault against him - 17 against black or Asian men.

The Met has confirmed that since 1992 all six officers involved in the Ahmad assault had been subject to at least 77 complaints. When lawyers for Ahmad asked for details of these allegations it emerged that the police had "lost" several large mail sacks detailing at least 30 of the complaints.

Senior figures in Scotland Yard admit there are concerns about the conduct of the officers. Although the Independent Police Complaints Commission supervised an investigation carried out by the Met, none of the officers has been disciplined for the assault on Ahmad and all but one are still working in the territorial support group. Asked about the string of allegations against the officers, the Met said that all but one had been found to be unsubstantiated following inquiries.

The Guardian lists some of the allegations.

Documents submitted to the high court and seen by the Guardian list details of some of the alleged assaults carried out by the officers:

• March 2007: one officer is accused of bundling a man into the back of a police van where he was told to "get on his knees". When he replied this was not Guantánamo Bay he claims the officer grabbed him round the neck and "discharged his CS gas while continuing to hold his throat". He says he was then thrown from the van, leaving him with eye, neck and head injuries. According to the document no action was taken because the complaint was either "incapable of proof" or there was "no case to answer".

• November 2005: two of the officers were accused by a "black male" of attacking him in the back of a police van. The document states that he was subjected to "constant kicking to his head and stomach (approx 12 kicks). Head lifted off the floor by grabbing his right ear and lifting head." The attack left the man with bruising and swelling to his face but the case was not pursued, the Met said, because of "non-cooperation" by the complainant.

• October 2005: the document stated that two of the officers were involved in another assault on a "black male". It read: "In van repeatedly assaulted - kicks to the face, stamps on his head whilst handcuffed." The victim said afterwards he "felt like he might die". Vomiting and blood coming out of his ears, black swollen eye, lip busted, hands very swollen.

• June 2003: two officers accused of beating a "black male" in the back of the TSG van. "The beating continued in the van and in a search room at the station."

The Guardian continues:

The allegations against the officers came to light after the high court issued a disclosure order on 13 February demanding that the Metropolitan police release all "similar fact allegations" against the officers involved in the Ahmad case.

The Met's legal team wrote to Ahmad's lawyers a few weeks later to say that "because of the sheer volume of unsubstantiated complaints" against the officers they would only be able to provide a schedule of the claims rather than the files in time for the deadline.

The schedule outlining 77 separate complaints against the officers was subsequently submitted to the court, along with a sample of complaints taken from 27 files containing some of the allegations. The police said they had lost several large mail sacks detailing at least 30 other files.

During the hearing it emerged that other crucial documents, including the officers' contemporaneous notebooks and a taped recording of an interview with the senior officer in the case, had also been mislaid.

Ahmad's lawyers say they are now calling for a judicial inquiry into the case and seeking a criminal prosecution against the officers involved. Murphy said: "The failure of the Metropolitan police and the IPCC to take effective action long ago against this group of officers can only be addressed by a full judicial inquiry and we will invite the director of public prosecutions to support the family's call for an independent judicial inquiry."

It doesn't take an independent judicial inquiry to figure out what's happening here. There's a reason why so many mailbags of complaints about police brutality have been lost. There's a reason why notebooks and tape recordings have disappeared. There's a reason why TSG officers with long histories of complaints about brutality remain on the force, without so much as a reprimand.

And it's all the same reason: they're simply doing what they're supposed to do.

~~~

Previous: Part 1: "The Easter Bombers"
Next: TBA

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Come, Let Us Celebrate The Best Of America, Living And Dead

To honor America and observe Memorial Day, let us now savor a few words from an anonymous AP stenographer, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times:

Obama marks Memorial Day with tribute at Arlington

In brief remarks after he laid the wreath and observed a moment of silence at Arlington, Obama saluted the men and women of America's fighting forces, both living and dead, as "the best of America."

"Why in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of narrowest self-interest have the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others?" he said. "Why have they been willing to bear the heaviest burden?"

"Whatever it is, they felt some tug. They answered a call. They said 'I'll go.' That is why they are the best of America," Obama said. "That is what separates them from those who have not served in uniform, their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met."

What kind of people are willing to risk their lives -- and throw away their souls! -- for the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, or Bill Clinton, or George H. W. Bush, or any of their predecessors?

Obama called them "the best"; he forgot to mention that they're also "the brightest".

Obama said he can't know what it's like to walk into battle or lose a child.

"But I do know this. I am humbled to be the commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world," he said to applause.

This is beneath derision, and it went down swimmingly, of course. I understand completely.

Let's all have big parades to honor our professional and patriotic mass murderers, living and dead!

Let us line the streets to watch the psychopaths and fools -- and those who support the psychopaths and fools -- march by.

Let us complain about how nothing much has changed since the election, how Barack Obama shows the same chicken-hearted reluctance to move that ruined the second Bush-Cheney administration, and how -- despite years of furtive planning -- we still haven't got off our butts and righteously obliterated Iran.

Let us join together and decry the incompetence in the Beltway, which explains why we haven't won yet in Iraq or Afghanistan, and why we may not make any real progress there until after the next election.

Let us weep for the "victims" of the seemingly endless series of "government accidents" which have got us involved in "the wrong wars" at "the wrong times".

But let us never say a word word about the millions of people our heroes have killed over the years; the tens of thousands our heroes have incarcerated and tortured; the tens of millions whose homes and families our heroes have destroyed; the hundreds of millions whose homelands our heroes have violated, overtly or otherwise, and in whose nations "democratic institutions" are allowed to exist only if the "duly elected representatives" find it politically expedient to toe the line.

That's our line, by the way.

So let us celebrate that line, just as we celebrate the psychopaths and fools who enforce it.

Let us wave our flags for those extroardinary people who have made sure -- on our behalf -- that the kids in these pictures, and millions of others just like them, never had a chance.

After all, we wouldn't want to be anti-American, would we?

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First Principles ... or Why I Cannot Support Barack Obama

Let us begin with the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney were never legitimately elected to the Oval Office: not in 2000, and not in 2004.

In the American system, the authority of our government is based on the consent of the governed. This consent was not earned in either "election".

Therefore, the Bush-Cheney administrations of 2001-2009 were illegitimate, and the policies implemented by these illegitimate administrations are themselves illegitimate. Period.

If somebody steals your credit card and you report the theft, you are not responsible for purchases made on that card after it was stolen. We reported the theft in 2000; we screamed about the theft in 2004; but it did us no good at all.

The most destructive "terrorist attack" that ever took place on American soil occurred during the first Bush-Cheney administration, and it was never legitimately investigated. The story that was told to explain it is not only false; it's impossible.

Therefore the policies implemented as "reactions" to the "terrorist attack of September 11, 2001" would be illegitimate even if they had been enacted by a legitimately elected government. But they weren't.

Furthermore, many of these same policies contravene both national and international law, and for this reason they would be illegal, and indefensible, even if they were enacted by a legitimately elected government in response to a legitimate threat.

But they were not: all these illegal, immoral, and deeply detrimental policies were enacted by an illegitimate government in "response" to a bogus event.

If we had legitimate opposition politics in this country, it would would begin by calling these policies what they are.

And if we had a legitimate successor government, it would begin by repealing every single one of them, holding accountable those responsible for their implementation, and making amends insofar as possible to those who have suffered the most.

In other words, if a legitimate opposition government had taken power in January, American use of torture against "terror suspects" would be history. All the secret prisons would now be closed. There would be no more extraordinary renditions, and no more military tribunals.

Warrantless surveillance would have been stopped. All American troops would have been removed from both Iraq and Afghanistan, including the "defense" and "security" contractors and clandestine special forces. Rather than propping up puppet governments and blackmailing them at the same time, we would now be financing -- but others would be building -- new infrastructure in both countries. We would also be paying reparations on a scale that would make the bank bailouts look like a drop in the ocean.

And the people most responsible for the abomination that America has become would be in prison by now, if they were allowed to remain alive.

But none of this has happened, and none of it is about to happen, soon or ever.

Instead we have a president who has declared that his first priority is the defense of Israel, and a vice president who has declared that during his 36 years in the Senate, no one has been a better friend to Israel than he has.

Why can't we have a president whose first priority is the defense of our own country?

Why can't we have a vice president who is prouder of having befriended his own nation than of having befriended a foreign one?

And why can't we find a single columnist in a single national publication asking questions like these? Because the system is broken.

We know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. We know that the story about the Iraqi WMDs was chosen for "bureaucratic reasons" -- in other words not because it was true but because it was the story we were most likely to believe. We didn't believe it, on the whole. But the war went ahead anyway.

Far more people believed the 9/11 story about Muslim hijackers and Osama bin Laden and skyscrapers "collapsing" due to "impact and fire", but some of us knew it was false on the day, and it has turned out that we were absolutely correct.

And yet the transparently false story about 9/11 has been used to "justify" all manner of abuses, from illegal surveillance to homeland "security", to an endless limitless war against the rest of the world. No matter how obviously false that story is, no matter how many people have learned since then that the story is false, all this has gone ahead anyway.

I cannot support any of it. I cannot support any politician who supports any of it, let alone a president who continues the worst of it. And I cannot support any journalist who supports that president, or who tells those murderous lies.

In my opinion, the people who support Obama now are at least as bad as -- if not much worse than -- the people who supported Bush when he was doing the things that Obama is now continuing, and expanding. It pains me to think of how much time and energy I spent trying to help some of them.

Even George Bush and Dick Cheney never managed to blackmail the Pakistani army into attacking its own people. And the Obama misery is just beginning.

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