Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque
May 15, 2008
06:17
They cry peace, peace, but there is no peace -- not when American missiles are around to derail any talks that might hamper the profitable operations of the Washington war machine. On Wednesday, missiles from an American drone destroyed a house (http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=169385) in the Pakistani village of Damadola, killing at least 15 people, with women and children reportedly among the dead. The ostensible target was a gathering of Taliban fighters, who control the surrounding area in this border region with Afghanistan.But the real target of the attack, no doubt, was the peace process now underway between the local militants and the new Pakistani government. As AP notes:The explosions came as Pakistani authorities and Taliban militants exchanged dozens of prisoners in the latest step in a peace process that is stirring growing alarm in the West. NATO claims [that] militant incursions into Afghanistan have increased.This is a familiar pattern of the worldwide Terror War launched by the Bush Administration. We saw it a few weeks ago in Somalia (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1503/135/), when national unity talks between the government and insurgents were disrupted at a delicate stage by the "targeted assassination" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050100274.html)of a rebel leader (and the usual assorted civilians) by U.S. missiles. In the American imperium, subject nations are not permitted to work out their internal conflicts on their own -- especially if this involves a cessation of hostilities that leaves any group or faction disfavored by Washington still standing. Obliteration of the disobedient is the ultimate goal, as Hillary Clinton put it so well the other day. But the Terror War policy of disrupting peace talks has some short-term objectives as well. These include the continuation of the war profiteering that now greases the entire American system; and, perhaps above all, the ape-like show of dominance that gives such deep psychological...
May 13, 2008
10:35
What's going on in Lebanon? Nothing you haven't seen before -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and other places where "the United States is basically instigating and funding civil wars." So says Professor Asad AbuKhalil (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/12/81_dead_in_lebanon_as_hezbollah)-- better known perhaps as the "Angry Arab," for his indispensable website (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/) of the same name. AbuKhalil was born and raised in Lebanon and has an intimate knowledge of troubled land's warring factions there -- and their external backers. Needless to say, the American media's framing of the current flare-up of violence in Lebanon is the usual sinister caricature of reality, with "bad guys" attacking "our friends" out of pure, malevolent, world-gobbling evil. In fact, "our friends" in Lebanon are actually in league with our allegedly erstwhile friends Al Qaeda. The Hariri faction backed by the Bush Administration is drawing upon the most extremist Sunni armed factions in an attempt to counteract the power of Shiite Hezbollah. This is of course just a continuation of current American strategy in the region, as Sy Hersh outlined last year (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?printable=true): giving arms and money to extremist Sunni groups allied with al Qaeda in order to ward off Shiite factions making trouble in our client regimes.This in turn is part of a broader, more long-standing strategy, going back to 2004, as we noted in a recent report (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1500/1/): a global program of arming and funding militias and other violent "non-state actors" to foment trouble where Washington wants trouble, and pressure recalcitrant regimes to bend to the imperial will.And no, Washington is not "behind" every twist and turn in Middle East politics. But American interventions, direct and covert, are responsible for exacerbating and intensifying conflicts, enflaming sectarian and ethnic divides (or literally building giant concrete walls between them, as in Baghdad today), bolstering tyrannical and/or ineffectual, illegitimate...
10:35
What's going on in Lebanon? Nothing you haven't seen before -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and other places where "the United States is basically instigating and funding civil wars." So says Professor Asad AbuKhalil (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/12/81_dead_in_lebanon_as_hezbollah)-- better known perhaps as the "Angry Arab," for his indispensable website (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/) of the same name. AbuKhalil was born and raised in Lebanon and has an intimate knowledge of troubled land's warring factions there -- and their external backers. Needless to say, the American media's framing of the current flare-up of violence in Lebanon is the usual sinister caricature of reality, with "bad guys" attacking "our friends" out of pure, malevolent, world-gobbling evil. In fact, "our friends" in Lebanon are actually in league with our allegedly erstwhile friends Al Qaeda. The Hariri faction backed by the Bush Administration is drawing upon the most extremist Sunni armed factions in an attempt to counteract the power of Shiite Hezbollah. This is of course just a continuation of current American strategy in the region, as Sy Hersh outlined last year (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?printable=true): giving arms and money to extremist Sunni groups allied with al Qaeda in order to ward off Shiite factions making trouble in our client regimes.This in turn is part of a broader, more long-standing strategy, going back to 2004, as we noted in a recent report (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1500/1/): a global program of arming and funding militias and other violent "non-state actors" to foment trouble where Washington wants trouble, and pressure recalcitrant regimes to bend to the imperial will.And no, Washington is not "behind" every twist and turn in Middle East politics. But American interventions, direct and covert, are responsible for exacerbating and intensifying conflicts, enflaming sectarian and ethnic divides (or literally building giant concrete walls between them, as in Baghdad today), bolstering tyrannical and/or ineffectual, illegitimate...
05:49
To divert from atrocity and anguish and political folly for a moment: over at the MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/wheelofheaven), there are four new songs up, with more to come. These are demos, self-produced, rough-sketch possibilities for the second album, which, if all goes well, might be recorded this summer with Nick Kulukundis, the extraordinary producer, arranger and musician. There are also two songs from the first album with Nick, Wheel of Heaven (available through iTunes), still up on the page. Give 'em a listen if you take a notion.*(Harmony vocals on "Only Now" by Christina Kulukundis (http://www.christinakulukundis.com/).)
May 12, 2008
09:55
Civilians are still streaming out of Baghdad's Sadr City, despite the announcement of a truce late last week designed to avert or at least give the appearance of diverting a major bloodbath from an all-out assault on the densely-populated area by U.S. forces and their local junior partners. Announced on Saturday, the deal was immediately eviscerated by U.S. forces, who bombed three neighborhoods in Sadr City that very afternoon, as dpa reports (http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1404678.php/US_air_strike_on_Baghdads_Shiite_area_ahead_of_ceasefire__Extra_).Oddly enough, when Iraqi government forces tried to enter disputed Sadr City quadrants the next day, they were attacked, the New York Times reports. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/world/middleeast/12sadr.html?_r=1 partner=rssuserland emc=rss pagewanted=all oref=slogin) The Times' intrepid correspondents, including the ever-reliable spin-funnel Michael Gordon (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1502/135/), professed to be shocked shocked! at such rude behavior, which they presented as clear and unprovoked violations of the nascent truce. Naturally, they omitted any unseemly and unnecessary mention of the American bombing of the day before.The fighting is Sadr City is concentrated along a demarcation line, Al Quds Street (Jerusalem Street), between areas loyal to nationalist cleric Motqada al-Sadr and areas now under the control of the violent sectarian factions backed by both the United States and Iran; i.e., the Iraqi "government." In addition to bombing residential areas and leading Iraqi government troops in attacks, American forces are also erecting a massive concrete wall (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0282.html), 12 feet high, along three miles of Al Quds street, in attempt to seal off the recalcitrant neighborhoods. Of course, it was considered poor form or rather, an international outrage when the Soviets did this kind of thing in Berlin; but in our brave new world, it is now an accepted, even celebrated policy. (Just like torture, concentration camps, aggressive war, warrantless surveilance, etc.) During the past 17 months, throughout the vaunted "surge," U.S. forces have...
May 11, 2008
17:33
Arthur Silber needs your help (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/very-sorry-but-some-trouble-again.html). It's as simple as that. One of the most insightful, original, informed and meaningful voices in our political discourse today, Silber must scrape by from month to month on the jagged edge of circumstance, battling ill health with notable courage, surviving on nothing but what his blog can bring in. This is a shameful reflection of how our society regards wisdom and truth: as something to be cut off, unsupported, crushed if possible, and if not -- as in the case of Silber's indomitable spirit -- then marginalized, battered, made to suffer.In recent weeks, Silber has roared back from a particularly vicious bout that laid him low to write a remarkable string of essays, full of the learning, passion, perception -- and wicked wit -- that is a trademark of his work. Some particularly choice example can be found here: Let the Victims Speak (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/choosing-sides-iii-let-victims-speak.html); Why America May Go to Hell (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/choosing-sides-i-why-america-may-go-to.html); and Cultivate Your Sense of Wonder (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/cultivate-your-sense-of-wonder-and-live.html).In the latter piece, Silber combines older and new material to speak eloquently about the vision that drives his work: If I had to select just a single word to express my deepest feeling about the world, and about humankind, it would be that one: wonder. I consider it a measure of how unevolved we are that so many people appear to be capable of that feeling only when they contemplate an imaginary, supernatural plane. It is hardly surprising that our world holds so much unnecessary suffering, when so many people are willing and eager to condemn it to second-rate status in favor of one they've made up out of whole cloth...I think it highly probable that our circumstances will continue to get significantly worse, although this deterioration may come quickly or comparatively slowly. You may...
May 9, 2008
06:09
Tell me that this doesn't sound like something out of a history of Nazi tactics in World War II:The rules [of engagement]t explicitly allowed the killing of unarmed Iraqis under certain circumstances...Specifically, the snipers were allowed to shoot unarmed people running away from explosions or firefights....Of course, it's not unusual for innocent people to run from explosions.Didier, who has since been promoted to captain, said that "if that individual makes contact with you and then breaks contact of their own accord and disarms themselves while they are breaking contact, they are still an engageable target because they are not wounded, nor did they surrender." He explained, "They are only breaking contact so that they can engage coalition forces at a later time." In court, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, one of the snipers who was responsible for a questionable kill, testified that he interpreted this order about breaking contact so they can engage at a later time as: "Engage fleeing local nationals without weapons." In other words, if an innocent, unarmed Iraqi runs away to seek safety from a suicide bombing, a missile attack or a gunfight -- which any human being would instinctively do -- then he is fair game to be killed by an American sniper. The excerpt above comes from a story in Salon.com, "Killing by the Numbers, (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/05/09/snipers/)" about an "elite" U.S. sniper squad that murdered a captured, unarmed civilian in cold blood. A more detailed excerpt follows below, but I'd like to deal briefly with one ancillary aspect first.The story expands to talk more generally about the sniper program in Iraq, and is careful -- overly careful -- to emphasize that the snipers responsible for so many "questionable kills" are operating in very stressful conditions: sleep-deprived, sweltering in deadly heat, surrounded by potential "hostiles," at constant risk...
May 8, 2008
20:03
I.George W. Bush and David Petraeus are preparing to make a new Fallujah (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1358/135/) in Sadr City, home to two million Shiites in Baghdad. Thousands of people are already fleeing the area before the full-scale slaughter and destruction begin. As in Fallujah (http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content task=view id=294 Itemid=1), the multitudes who cannot escape will be trapped in a "free fire zone", subjected to ruthless bombardment and ground assault. Thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- of innocent civilians stand in the shadow of imminent death.The assault is part of the run-up to the coming attack on Iran -- an attempt to secure the rear of that new front by destroying Iraq's Shiite nationalist forces. It is also part of an on-going effort to eliminate the strongest rival to the Shiite extremists that Bush has installed in office in Iraq, before the conquered land's fall elections.The preliminary assault on Sadr City has already begun, of course. As the BBC notes, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7387960.stm) in the last seven weeks around 1,000 people -- most of them civilians -- have already been killed by the Bush-Petraeus "surge" into the area. Petraeus is frantically building high-walled ghettos in Sadr City, slicing neighborhoods in half, sundering families, destroying communities and livelihoods. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is circulating leaflets in Sadr City districts, warning the people to leave -- or else.This, you understand, is liberation. This is freedom. This is the glorious "surge" to victory. As Tacitus noted:A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them.... To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of "government"; they create a desolation and call it peace.That translation of the quote was taken from a remarkable article by David Bromwich in the New York Review of Books, a...
11:32
Arthur Silber has the second part of his powerful "Choosing Sides (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/choosing-sides-i-why-america-may-go-to.html)" series up now: Killing Truth and Hope -- The Fatal Illusion of Opposition (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/choosing-sides-ii-killing-truth-and.html). There is little I can add to the insight and eloquence of the piece -- just go read the whole thing, and follow up on the links provided there as well. But I would like to highlight two particular aspects of the post. First is Silber's succinct description of the "corporate-authoritarian political system" that confronts us at every turn with its soul-crushing, death-dealing power:This system encompasses every area of our national life....The military-industrial complex -- or what is now often more accurately described as the military-industrial-congressional complex -- is the most significant component of these interrelationships, but there are many other parts. They encompass all major industries, and almost every minor one, as well as many of our educational and cultural institutions....This system as it exists today consists of innumerable interrelated, constantly moving parts. Countless agencies, commissions and bureaucrats act in concert and on their own to expand their power, and that of government generally. The system has a life of its own; it is its own reason for being. It sustains itself, and it seeks more and more territory for its dominance. The exercise of power and the acquisition of still more power are not directed at the improvement of the lives of "ordinary" Americans, whoever they may be; ordinary Americans are of no interest or concern to the ruling elites, except insofar as their labor and often their lives are necessary for the maintenance of the lives of immense comfort and privilege enjoyed by the powerful. Power is not the means to some other end, although that claim is a crucial element of the extraordinarily successful propaganda so willingly swallowed by the...
May 7, 2008
09:52
Do you want to know what the entire American political establishment -- Democrat and Republican, conservative and "progressive" -- really stands for? Do you want to know what they all support, whole-heartedly, without the slightest objection or demur? Do you want to see their true vision for the world, behind all the pious rhetoric and poisonous lies? Then look no further; here it is, in the raw:A leading human rights group on Tuesday accused Ethiopian troops in Somalia of killing civilians and committing atrocities, including slitting people's throats, gouging out eyes and gang-raping women. (AP (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/06/AR2008050600646.html))"The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighbourhoods are being destroyed," said Michelle Kagari, Africa Programme Deputy Director at Amnesty International, speaking from Nairobi.Witnesses described to Amnesty International an increasing incidence of Ethiopian troops killing by what is locally termed "slaughtering" or "killing like goats" -- referring to killing by slitting the throat. The victims of these killings are often left lying in pools of blood in the streets until armed fighters, including snipers, move out of the area and relatives can collect their bodies.In one case, a 15-year-old girl found her father with his throat cut upon returning home from school, after Ethiopian security forces swept through her neighbourhood.Other cases in the report include:Haboon, a 56-year-old woman from Mogadishu, who said her neighbour's 17-year-old daughter was raped by Ethiopian troops. When her 13 and 14-year-old sons tried to defend their sister, the soldiers beat them and took their eyes out with a bayonet. The mother fled. It is not known what happened to the boys. This girl is in a coma as a result of the injuries she sustained during the attack.Guled, aged 32, who said that he saw his neighbours "slaughtered". He said he saw many...
May 5, 2008
13:11
Judith Miller might have been the poster child for the corporate media's collaboration with the Bush Administration's war of aggression against Iraq -- but her New York Times colleague and co-writer, Michael Gordon, (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08182003.html)was every bit as culpable and complicit, happily playing stovepipe to the bloodthirsty bullshit gurgling up from the White House and Pentagon cesspits.Miller is gone from the mainstream heights, but Gordon soldiers on at the Times (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/judith-miller-was-the-tra_b_42102.html) -- literally. Although he is probably not paid directly by the Bush Regime to peddle their propaganda, he serves precisely the same function as the military brass that the Administration embedded as "independent analysts" on the network news shows -- a nefarious practice most recently exposed in great detail by...the New York Times.But the Times, like most of our great institutions, piously follows the scriptural injunction, and lets not the right hand know what its left hand is doing. And so while it exposes television's willing collusion with White House warmongering, the paper continues its own collaboration with fomenting aggression -- this time, the conflict with Iran.Gordon's latest is a classic of this sinister genre. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html?pagewanted=2 ei=5070 en=d58df1772a5d3ef1 ex=1210651200 emc=eta1)He dutifully stovepipes claims by the usual unnamed "American officials" who tell him that Iranian agents have revealed that Hezbollah is training anti-American Iraqi Shiites inside Iran. This information, we are told, comes from "interrogations" of four Shiite militia members who were captured by American forces last year.In other words, four Shiites who have been subjected to George W. Bush's beloved (and personally approved) "harsh interrogation techniques" for an entire year have -- surprise, surprise! -- told American officials exactly what they want to hear: that Iran is training Iraqi insurgents to kill Americans. Or to speak plainly and with no addition: four men have been tortured into...
May 4, 2008
19:57
You want a "national dialogue on race"? Arthur Silber's got one for you (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/choosing-sides-i-why-america-may-go-to.html): a real one, not the heartland hokum being (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1495/135/)served up on the campaign trail, or the panicky poltroonery issuing forth from the "progressive" commentariat. In his latest piece, Choosing Sides, Silber digs deep and ranges far, taking off from the Jeremiah Wright "controversy" -- if that's a fit word for the congealed mass of willful ignorance, partisan zeal and national delusion that has gathered around Wright's name. Silber examines liberation theology, the unacknowledged history of hideous medical experiments on black Americans from colonial times to the present day, and the "loony anti-Americanism" of Martin Luther King Jr. -- whose last scheduled sermon, forestalled by his murder, was entitled, "Why America May Go to Hell." You should read the whole piece -- which is framed with a moving and pertinent autobiographical aspect, with the personal element illuminating our political moment. But here are a few choice morsels to whet your appetite:It is only one of the many calumnies heaped on Wright's head that the mythical, non-existent King is used to condemn him. There is no question that, if King were to reappear among us and speak as he did in the last few years of his life, he would be vilified and loathed in terms at least as harsh as those now directed at Wright. This is to not even mention what some of these same liberals and progressives might say about certain of the views of radicals such as Thomas Jefferson (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-tremble-for-my-country.html%20). As I often note these days, we are drowning in lies. Yet it is still no small wonder that this entire conversation about Wright, King, et al. proceeds in the almost complete absence of a discussion of what Wright has actually said, just...
May 3, 2008
14:02
The world's most dangerous terrorist, who has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, has launched yet another campaign of murder and destruction.A few days ago, we wrote that the Bush Administration has systematically removed the last remaining barriers (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1498/135/)for a military attack on Iran. Now Andrew Cockburn reveals in Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html) that George W. Bush has ordered a major escalation of the long-running covert war the United States has already been waging inside Iran itself.With the approval of top Democrats, Bush has ordered vast new support for extremist terrorist groups operating inside Iran, and has okayed the assassination of Iranian officials. Here's Cockburn:Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope."Bush's secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area from Lebanon to Afghanistan but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or "army of god," the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan just across the Afghan border -- whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law's throat. Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi arabs of south west Iran. Further afield, operations against Iran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon will be stepped up, along with efforts to destabilize the Syrian regime.MEK, as...
May 2, 2008
07:28
We've examined various aspects of America's Torture State many times at this site (most recently here (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1494/135/%20)), but in his latest column, Ted Rall pulls it all together (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/30/8611/) and provides a succinct and powerful bill of indictment (excerpts below), drawing the only conclusion that anyone not corrupted or cowed into servility can possibly draw: George W. Bush and his chief advisers should be arrested and tried on charges of torture and murder.Anyone who actually believed in democracy and the rule of law -- anyone who actually believed that the constitutional republic of the United States was worth preserving and strengthening -- anyone who had even a vestigial sense of morality or the most flickering commitment to the idea of justice -- would already be calling for the prosecution of Bush and his minions for these capital crimes. This goes double for anyone in public life, holding public office, with a national platform to speak from, and institutional tools at their disposal for investigating these crimes.So where are these voices in the citadel of power calling for justice to be done? They are silent. In both houses of Congress, in both major parties, they are silent. On the campaign trail, preening before the public as wise and virtuous leaders worthy to lead a nation, they are silent. It is clear -- clear beyond all doubt or dispute -- that our public officials do not believe in democracy and law. They don't want to preserve the constitutional republic. They have no sense of morality or the slightest commitment to justice. If they did, they would already be taking action, standing up, leading the nation out of this blood-drenched cesspit. Barack Obama -- whom we are told is performing a transcendent miracle (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/04/little-progressives-that-could.html)by "changing the very nature of politics" -- doesn't...
May 1, 2008
10:03
Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration does not intend to attack Iran either has rocks in the head or their head in the sand. The warmongers have raised their cacophonous howling of threat and accusation against Iran to entirely new levels. Every day now, some major Administration figure makes fiery charges that Iran is directly, deliberately killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq: a clear casus belli, if it were true, which it almost certainly is not.(That is, it a clear cause for war in the perverted logic of Establishment discourse, which ignores the fact that U.S. forces have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, and the fact the Bush Administration itself supports the same violent sectarian Shiite factions that Iran does in Iraq, factions responsible for killing thousands of innocent people. What's more, Bush and his beloved General Petraeus are now directly paying extremist Sunni factions, including members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who are likewise engaged in murder, repression and "ethnic cleansing," like their Bush-supported Shiite counterparts. George W. Bush and his minions and handlers have deliberately, knowingly, purposely created a slaughterhouse in Iraq, and they keep it going 24/7 with the fresh meat of murdered innocents. This is the true context of the Administration's charges against Iran: mass murderers accusing others of malevolent intent.)The latest and most explicit salvo of warmongering comes from CIA honcho Michael Hayden, who finally crossed the red line (http://wbztv.com/national/cia.michael.hayden.2.712975.html) that Bush officials have been tip-toeing up to for months: the charge that Iran's top government leadership is directly involved in "facilitating the killing of Americans in Iraq." As late as last week, the nation's top military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said there was "no smoking gun proof" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080427/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestiran) that Iran's leadership was involved in the alleged Iranian support for attacks on American forces. And Petraeus,...
April 30, 2008
18:29
When the murderous absurdity of our times swells to high tide, few are those who can cling fast to the rock and sing songs of scorn against the fools. One such rare singer is Arthur Silber, who here demolishes (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/04/those-clever-dastardly-iranians.html)the New York Times' portentous hand-wringing (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/science/29nuke.html?_r=1 oref=slogin)over Iran's release of photos showing its not-so-top-secret nuclear site, giving the world an intimate look at the supposed furnace of evil wherein the cloven-footed Persians are plotting the destruction of all humankind.As Silber notes, the Times does its best to whip up war-favoring hysteria over Iran's self-exposed nuclear site:But you must always remember to be afraid, very, very afraid, as the Times helpfully reminds us at the end of the story:Some analysts see the centrifuges, despite the disclosures of the presidential tour, as a continuing enigma. Ultimately, Tehran could use them for good or ill, for lighting cities or destroying them. Only time, they say, is likely to reveal Iran's true intentions.Only time will tell! DA DUH DUMMMMMM!!!!Has Iran invaded and occupied any of its neighbors? Nope. Has Iran traveled halfway around the world to invade another country? No way. Has Iran's criminal invasion and endless occupation of a country that never threatened it unleashed a series of events that have led to the slaughter of more than a million innocent people, (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/09/lets-make-it-about-you-can-we-stop.html) and made four million additional people refugees? No, sir. Does Iran keep threatening the United States by saying that "all options are on the table" (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/05/songs-of-death.html)? Does Iran threaten to attack the United States because the U.S. actually has a huge nuclear arsenal?A huge nuclear arsenal that, by the way, the U.S. and all its leading politicians keep threatening to unleash on Iran -- keeping in mind that all of this happens as the signs continue to mount...
07:13
The picture above shows a two-year-old child killed when American forces fired rockets (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0259.html) into a heavily populated area of Baghdad's Sadr City. Pentagon spokesmen said the operation was "force protection;" U.S. forces had come under sniper fire from the neighborhood. No doubt this is true; when you invade a country for no reason, drive it into ruination, chaos and civil war, then continue to occupy it year after year, why then, sometimes the natives will get restless and fire back at you. In such situations, the best method of "force protection" is not to call in airstrikes and missile attacks on crowded civilian neighborhoods and kill two-year-old children -- but to REMOVE your forces from the invaded land altogether, and stop using them to perpetuate a war crime that has already caused the death of a million innocent people. Yet the plain, common-sense logic of this proposition continues to elude our military and political leaders -- including the two "progressive" presidential candidates -- and all of the "serious" analysts of public policy as well.So for years to come, we will continue to see pictures such as the one above -- for which As'ad AbuKhalil, the "Angry Arab (http://angryarab.blogspot.com/)," provides an apt caption:What? This two-year child? Well, he was killed in US bombing on Sadr city but there is evidence that he was one of the commanders of the Mahdi Army. But here we must disagree with the esteemed professor; surely the child was an Iranian belligerent, a Quds Force officer, committing acts of war against the United States at Tehran's order. Surely now we should put our new "Attack Plan (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/29/eveningnews/main4056941.shtml)" against Iran into action, before any more of these two-year-old evildoers who hate us for our freedoms can try to destroy our shining city on the hill.
April 29, 2008
21:13
On Monday, Barack Obama humiliated and demeaned himself with yet another denunciation (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/29/obama_strikes_back_denouncing.html?hpid=topnews) of his old friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright. But there was no "national dialogue on race" this time around -- just cold, flat-out condemnation. Obama even declared that Wright was "not the same man I've known for 20 years" anymore -- echoing the newly crowned King Henry's blast at Falstaff: "I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers." There were even gospel echoes in Barack's blast: And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. They said therefore unto him, "Art not thou also one of his disciples?" He denied it, and said, "I am not." (John 18:25)*Right now, you should stop and go read Arthur Silber's brilliant analysis (http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/04/messiahs-just-arent-what-they-used-to.html)of Obama's denunciation, and its implications. I won't excerpt it here, because it deserves to be read in full. You should also follow the links in his post, where you will find this narrow political imbroglio opening up into a deeper and broader understanding of the corruption and degradation of what Silber rightly calls "our corporatist-authoritarian state." When you're finished there, come back here for a closer look at the details of Wright's remarks, and Obama's hysterical -- and hypocritical -- reaction to them. You can find that after the jump.
April 28, 2008
09:57
As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd -- Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration!-- it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture.Specifically, the use of torture as an openly admitted, formally recognized instrument of national policy, approved at the highest level of government (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1478/1/). The Bush Administration has now dropped all pretense that it is not engaging in interrogation techniques and incarceration practices long recognized by both international and U.S. law as blatantly crimina (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002745)l. What's more, the Administration boldly asserts that the president can simply ignore laws prohibiting torture if he feels that circumstances warrant the use of "interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law," the New York Times reported over the weekend (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/washington/27intel.html?hp). (The Washington Post had a similar story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/27/AR2008042700016.html) -- similarly buried deep inside the paper. A brazen declaration of presidential tyranny -- in the service of torture, no less -- was considered worth mentioning somewhere in the "papers of record," but obviously not worth making a big fuss about.)Torture is at the very heart of the Bush presidency (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1259/135/), the most quintessential manifestation of its governing philosophy: a "Commander-in-Chief" state, where presidential directives can override any law in the name of "national security." The use of torture demonstrates that not even the most heinous crimes -- including techniques used by Nazi sadists and KGB brutes -- are beyond the pale of the "unitary executive's" arbitrary will. On the basis of this authoritarian power -- established through a series of presidential orders and "legal" opinions by appointed lackeys -- many other crimes (http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1272/135/%20)can be "justified": aggressive war; kidnapping and rendition; indefinite detention; secret prisons; warrantless surveillance; even the "extrajudicial killing" (http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content task=view id=331 Itemid=1) of people the president designates as terrorists or terrorist...
April 27, 2008
12:53
On Friday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave an interview to Carlotta Gall (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?scp=6 sq=karzai st=nyt)of the New York Times, in which he blasted American and British conduct of the war in his country. Karzai said the Anglo-American powers should stop their incessant killing of civilians and quit conducting their "War on Terror" against Afghan villagers. Perhaps most remarkably, he called on the Western forces to stop targeting Taliban members and suspected sympathizers. The interview represented the harshest criticism he has ever levelled against the Western powers. The very next day, in an amazing coincidence, Karzai was the target of a spectacular assassination attempt (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/world/asia/28afghan.html?hp), on national television, with mortar fire and bullets raking a review stand at a military parade in the center of Kabul. Three people were killed, including a 10-year-old boy -- but Karzai escaped unhurt, as did the American ambassador, the New York Times reports. A purported Taliban spokesman later claimed credit for the attack, saying it was carried out to demonstrate that the Karzai regime could not provide security anywhere in Afghanistan -- even while surrounded by the military in the center of nation's capital.We can only hope that this remarkable -- not to say incredible -- coincidence of events teaches the ungrateful Karzai some valuable lessons: He should not try to protect his people. He should not negotiate with the Taliban. He should never question the wise and benevolent policies of his imperial patrons. And above all, he should keep in mind one ever-salient fact:Puppets are always expendable.
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