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Guest Post: Obama’s Speech.

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Susan Stark

Susan here. This is a quote from Obama’s speech:

“To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain, and going still on a cold hospital floor. For sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.”

My response is this:

Fuck you, Obama. Fuck you for trying to come to us on the Left when you need us, and then shitting on us when you don’t. You do NOT have my permission to bomb Syria, and you will NEVER get it. You will NOT get my permission to bomb Syria based upon a YouTube video that conveniently surfaced just as the UN weapons inspectors were checking into their Damascus hotel. There are hundreds of videos of the so-called Syrian opposition al-Qaeda “rebels” committing atrocities like beheading Christians, practicing cannibalism, and sawing a little girl’s arms and legs off while she is still alive. And yet, we are supposed to ignore these atrocities and focus on the one (conveniently-timed) atrocity that Assad would never actually be stupid enough to commit.

I am tired of your patronization. I am tired of your lies. I am tired of looking at your face. I am tired of hearing your voice. And I’m tired of you trying to soften up Syria for the kill, and slouching us inch by inch into World War III. Because unlike Libya in 2011 and Iraq in 2003, Syria has allies, allies who are likely to retaliate. If Iran retaliates, the price of oil will go sky high, and we will freeze in winter-time, and the price of just about every product will go up due to the higher cost of shipping. Because 50% of the world’s oil comes from the Persian Gulf. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Mr. Obama. That’s what you pay that useless Cabinet of yours to do.

But since you did address Leftists such as myself in your speech, I will tell you this: The US used chemical weapons in Vietnam (Agent Orange), and used them again in Iraq and Afghanistan (White Phosphorus, Depleted Uranium). So we are in NO position to lecture others on the use of chemicals as weapons. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Escalation of Force

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Ted Rall

Writing in the Washington Post, a veteran who served in the occupation of Afghanistan reminisced about killing innocent civilians, including children, and wondered aloud whether such killing was wrong. He justified his actions based on the military’s escalation of force guidelines. Of course, every military has had such guidelines in order to justify doing whatever it is that they felt like.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: The Pravda-ization of the News

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Ted Rall

No Context, But Propaganda Is Amusing

Try as they may to make the news as boring as possible, U.S. media outlets keep churning out hilarious “news” stories. Hardly a day passes without the release of some piece whose content is so ridiculous, its tone so absurdly credulous, that it makes us feel as if we live in a bizarre reincarnation of the propaganda-soaked Soviet Union.

Remember “Baghdad Bob”? Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s information minister during the 2003 U.S. invasion, kept denying reality, insisting that Saddam’s regime was winning even as attacking tanks appeared in the background of his camera shots. I had a Baghdad Bob flashback moment earlier this week while listening to NPR’s afternoon news program “All Things Considered.”

“President Obama toured the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington today joined by Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel. Mr. Obama said the U.S. must never again allow such atrocities to take place,” said Melissa Block.

Whaaaaa…?

The implication is that Obama cares about protecting innocent people from state-run mass murder. That the U.S. has moral standing. But…but…

The U.S. is currently the world’s leading perpetrator of atrocities!

American wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have slaughtered at least two million people and injured many millions more. The U.S. maintains a network of “black site” secret prisons and concentration camps around the world. President Obama claims the right to assassinate anyone, including U.S. citizens, anywhere in the world, without having to explain himself to a court. We’re the #1 arms dealer on the planet. And, as a British newspaper has learned, the military maintains dozens of secret drone bases here inside the U.S., obviously for future use against the enemies of our increasingly oppressive police state.

The Obama Administration isn’t killing as many people as were killed during the Holocaust—but that’s not saying much. Does NPR think we’ve forgotten that the hands of our political leaders are dripping with blood? Or is NPR trying to compete with Comedy Central?

The report included an Obama sound bite: “And when innocents suffer, it tears at our conscience. Elie alluded to what we feel as we see the Syrian people subjected to unspeakable violence simply for demanding their universal rights. We have to do everything we can.”

When innocents suffer. Well, not all innocents, right, Mr. President? Like, we’re not supposed to lose sleep over the thousands of detainees—including children—in U.S. concentration camps at Guantánamo, Bagram, Diego Garcia, Thailand, and Bulgaria. All of who are, under U.S. law, innocent of any crime (because they’ve never been charged, much less convicted, in court).

Anyway, it’s not like the U.S. is doing “everything we can” for the Syrian resistance. Not that we should. But coverage like this—it really does hearken back to the glory days of Pravda and Izvestia.

It’s bad enough to be fed propaganda. But at least make an effort when you lie. This crap is insulting.

In the same report, Don Gonyea let loose this howler: “Mr. Obama announced new sanctions against nations that commit grave human rights abuses through technology that includes cell phone tracking and monitoring citizens on the Internet.”

What a kidder! Such awesomely dry delivery!

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported: “The President took aim at Syria and Iran, whose leaders have tapped compliant phone companies and Internet services to hunt down dissenters.”

Listening to and reading that, you could almost forget that Obama voted for FISA, which retroactively legalized Bush’s illegal domestic wiretapping program, which was carried out by the National Security Agency and—ahem—compliant phone companies such as AT&T. FISA also radically expanded the federal government’s right to listen to your phone calls and intercept your email without a warrant.

Obama’s own commission of “grave human rights abuses through technology that includes cell phone tracking and monitoring citizens on the Internet” is context worth mentioning in a story about Obama imposing sanctions on other countries that do the same things. Maybe something like this: “Mr. Obama, whose Administration vigorously asserts its right to track Americans’ cell phones and track them on the Internet, announced sanctions against other countries that do the same thing.”

They wouldn’t be telling us anything we didn’t already know. But here’s the thing—as ignorant and stupid as the American public is, the media thinks we’re even stupider and more ignorant!

If nothing else, our neo-Soviet media sure is funny.

(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)

Focus on the Good Apples

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Ted Rall

After Sgt. Bales shoots 16 unarmed civilians in Afghanistan, the Army and the U.S. urge Afghans to focus on the good work being done by U.S. occupation troops.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: We Have Found the “One Bad Apple” And It Is Us

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Ted Rall

Excuses Ring Hollow in U.S.-Occupied Afghanistan

Staff Sargeant Robert Bales is the man accused of going on a March 11th shooting spree that left 16 civilians dead in southeastern Afghanistan. As the New York Daily News put it: “The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend American policy over the decade-old war.”

Why the fuss? This is nothing new. Not to the Afghans.

Over the last ten years U.S. forces have been slaughtering Afghan civilians like they were going out of style. There have been countless massacres of supposed “insurgents” or “terrorists.” Who invariably turned out to have been ordinary men, women and children going about their daily routines.

The only difference between the Bales massacre and other acts of bloodshed is that he acted on a freelance basis, minus orders from his commanding officer. Bales’ actions were so similar to the “normal” behavior of U.S. soldiers that Afghan witnesses weren’t surprised.

Atrocities are business as usual. Afghans have learned that their lives are cheap–not to them, but to the young men and women who patrol their streets and man explosives-laden drone planes from the other side of the world.

On July 7th, for example, an airstrike in Khost province killed at least 13 civilians, mostly women and children. On December 19th, U.S. occupation troops and Afghan collaborators conducting a “night raid” on the home of an anti-narcotics official in Paktia province shot and killed his pregnant wife. At least eight children died in a February 9th airstrike in Kapisa province. A helicopter gunship opened fire on a school in Nangahar province on February 22nd, injuring nine girls.

I literally don’t have enough space to provide a complete accounting of recent U.S. atrocities in occupied Afghanistan. Here’s a brief taste: U.S. Special Forces operatives alone admit killing over 1,500 Afghan civilians in night raids alone during 10 months in 2010 and early 2011.

Afghans know the deal.

Americans don’t.

It’s intentional. The U.S. government doesn’t want ordinary American citizens to know how their “heroic” soldiers behave in remote combat zones. America’s cult of militarism, so important to the Congressmen whose careers depend on defense contractor contributors and to the media outlets for whom war means higher ratings, requires a placid, compliant populace lulled into the ridiculous belief that the U.S. military is defending freedom.

Sgt. Bales is a PR problem. His decision to blow away women and children for no reason whatsoever belies the hero-troops narrative. It’s too icky for even a “support our troops”-besotted public to ignore. So Sgt. Bales has become a political football.

Shortly after the suspect turned himself in, the Army spin machine revved up.

“When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues–he just snapped,” an unnamed “senior government official” told The New York Times. Just one of those things. What can you do?

Pointing to the fact that Bales’ spree took place while he was on his fourth tour of duty, his lawyer is laying the groundwork for a PTSD defense. “We all know what’s going on over there [in Afghanistan], but you don’t really know it until you listen to somebody like him,” John Henry Browne said to reporters. In other words: war makes people nuts. Blame war, not my client.

After incidents like this, one can always count upon the political class to unleash the “one bad apple” chestnut.

“This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” President Obama read from a prepared statement. “Obviously what happened this weekend was absolutely tragic and heartbreaking, but when you look at what hundreds of thousands of our military personnel have, have achieved under enormous strain, you can’t help but be proud generally and I think it’s important for us to make sure we are not in Afghanistan longer than we need to be,” he added in a Denver TV interview.

Don’t blame the war, says Obama. Don’t blame the troops. Whether they’re shooting up their high school or their post office, some people go nuts sometimes. Can’t be helped.

Of course, from the Afghan point of view, this is low-grade, elementary-school-level spin.

Afghans don’t wonder whether the former All-American footballer from Norwood, Ohio was driven crazy by combat, was like that all along, or if this is another Jessica Lynch/Pat Tillman Pentagon lie that will wind up as something completely different than what we’re being told now.

Afghans don’t care why.

The way the Afghans see it is straightforward. The U.S. invaded their country. Without just cause. The U.S. has imposed a ruthless and cruel occupation that has left tens of thousands of their countrymen dead or seriously wounded. The U.S. has installed and propped up Hamid Karzai’s corrupt puppet regime in Kabul.

To the Afghans, Sgt. Bales didn’t kill those 16 people in Kandahar province. The U.S. did. Obama did. We did. After all, if we hadn’t invaded and occupied Afghanistan, Bales wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Reporters are digging up dirt on Sgt. Bales’ marriage and supposed drinking problems in order to distract us from this simple fact.

(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)

The Real Concern

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Ted Rall

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but whenever the U.S. commits some atrocity, news coverage focuses on how it makes the U.S. look bad–not the fact that an atrocity has been committed and that the wrongdoers ought to be punished.

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