Edited January 6,2012.
On the topic of Police State What police State??? Paul Craig Roberts in a scathing article argues the US is already a police state: " The Outlook For Liberty is Dismal By Paul Craig Roberts January 03, 2012 "Information Clearing House"
Meanwhile more criticisms and reality check on Obama's empty triumphalism over America's withdrawal from Iraq This is another example of Obama's chutzpah and disingenuous audacity by which Obama now says the Iraq war was worth it and that America has one again been victorious over its enemies. This is also part of Obama's magical thinking that once he thinks and says something publicly it is therefore transformed into reality as the reality is how he defines it.
as for the withdrawal and defeat of the American forces in Iraq the Obama administration has been able to use the media to sell the war to the American people a second time around. In other words American forces left not because they were told by the Iraqis to leave or else but rather erroneously claiming the US had won the war and accomplished its mission.
Telegraph that message to the million or more Iraqis killed or murdered during the eight years of "Occupation".
President Obama's chutzpah is breath-taking as he says with a straight face that America had won the war in Iraq and was leaving Iraq better off and more stable than it was before the US unnecessary and disastrous invasion and brutal jack-booted occupation of a sovereign nation.
In the end instead of arresting Bush and the gang for the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq President Obama through a bit of rhetorical and mental gymnastics has white washed the whole bloody mess. So America no longer fear war crimes trials ala Nuremberg instead the murderers in the two administrations and their gestapo (Pentagon, Special-ops ,death-squads) can now sit back and plan their next "triumph" to feed to the beast known as the Military Industrial Complex..
" Debacle!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower"
By Tom Engelhardt January 03, 2011 "Tom Dispatch"
On the topic of Police State What police State??? Paul Craig Roberts in a scathing article argues the US is already a police state: " The Outlook For Liberty is Dismal By Paul Craig Roberts January 03, 2012 "Information Clearing House"
...While America degenerates into a total police state, politicians constantly invoke “our values.” What are these values?
Indefinite imprisonment without conviction in a court. Torture.
Warrantless searches and home invasions. An epidemic of police brutality.
Curtailment of free speech and peaceful assembly rights.
Unprovoked aggression called “preemptive war.”
Interference in the elections and internal affairs of other countries.
Economic sanctions imposed on foreign populations whose leaders are not in Washington’s pocket..."
Meanwhile more criticisms and reality check on Obama's empty triumphalism over America's withdrawal from Iraq This is another example of Obama's chutzpah and disingenuous audacity by which Obama now says the Iraq war was worth it and that America has one again been victorious over its enemies. This is also part of Obama's magical thinking that once he thinks and says something publicly it is therefore transformed into reality as the reality is how he defines it.
And so on the topic of American troops finally being kicked out of Iraq commentator Tom Englehardt presents a devastating rebuttal to Obama's newest fantasy and propaganda in the article quoted below
" Debacle!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower" January 03, 2011 "Tom Dispatch" :
Anyway while Obama sugar coats the Iraq Debacle he is once again increasing the powers of the Executive and the government shredding what's left of the US constitution and The Bill of Rights.
He and future presidents can under a new bit of legal trickery or veneer issue a King's warrant to arrest or to summarily execute those labeled enemies of the state.
Even Obama doesn't understand or just ignores the letter or spirit of the law as put forward in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights or even for that matter The Declaration of Independence.
Under the new law National Defense Authorization Act the US Government has the right to arrest and detain suspects including US citizens for an indefinite/prolonged period without any real oversight.
It is somewhat disingenuous for President Obama so issue a signing statement authorizing indefinite detentions which could easily be abused while he claims his administration will not use this power.
So why does he believe he needs to give the executive branch such powers.
So Obama is giving the green light to those presidents who come after his term in office to use and abuse such powers.
So Obama tells the American citizenry to trust him in regards to this new extension of powers for thee Executive Branch.
But given that this is now the law President Obama might at some point while still in office feel it is his duty to use this draconian unconstitutional law.
Given the actions of Obama since he was elected president why would anyone trust him or take him at his word.
In fact Obama has shown that his administration is just as radical as was the Bush administration.
Obama has used targeted assassinations even of US citizens using drones or special forces ie murdering Bin Laden and allowing for the murder of Qaddafi and others.
Obama for example had suspected Whistleblower Bradley Manning arrested and kept in indefinite detention including prolonged isolation / solitary confinement based upon little or no evidence.
Obama has broadened the Global War on Terror to include Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iran etc.
In the cases of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain the Obama administration defends the use of violence on peaceful protesters in either country since he buys into the PR of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that those protesting are really terrorists who are egged on by "Evil" Iran. .
Meanwhile the Obama administration has continued to supply arms to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia while supplying Egypt's Military Junta with tear gas and other material to be used by them to crush the peaceful demonstrations taking place there . These protesters were naive enough to believe American rhetoric about spreading democracy and reform only to discover that Obama and his political allies are actually in favor of the status quo.
Obama also forced NATO to unnecessarily attack Libya to oust Qaddafi while NATO bombed indiscriminately murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
This action was taken to expand America and Western power and control over the region insuring a cheap supply of oil and to remove another possible ally of Iran or other nations on America and NATO's list of countries to be crushed and subdued .
Rachel Maddow - Radical NDAA bill would be dangerous in the hands of a radical president
Indefinite detentions without trial signed into law by President Obama
Obama Signs NDAA, ACLU Disgusted
Cenk Uygur of TYT agrees with Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turly, Rachel maddow, ACLU and Amnesty International that the new law Obama has enacted is disturbing and unconstitutional giving the president dictatorial rights and undermines the fifth amendment of due process.
NDAA : Obama: Defenders Are Wrong - Here's Why
" Debacle!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower" January 03, 2011 "Tom Dispatch" :
"...Still, set aside the euphemisms and the soaring rhetoric, and if you want a simple gauge of the depths of America’s debacle in the oil heartlands of the planet, consider just how the final unit of American troops left Iraq. According to Tim Arango and Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, they pulled out at 2:30 a.m. in the dead of night. No helicopters off rooftops, but 110 vehicles setting out in the dark from Contingency Operating Base Adder. The day before they left, according to the Times reporters, the unit’s interpreters were ordered to call local Iraqi officials and sheiks with whom the Americans had close relations and make future plans, as if everything would continue in the usual way in the week to come.
In other words, the Iraqis were meant to wake up the morning after to find their foreign comrades gone, without so much as a goodbye. This is how much the last American unit trusted its closest local allies. After shock and awe, the taking of Baghdad, the mission-accomplished moment, and the capture, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein, after Abu Ghraib and the bloodletting of the civil war, after the surge and the Sunni Awakening movement, after the purple fingers and the reconstruction funds gone awry, after all the killing and the dying, the U.S. military slipped into the night without a word.
If, however, you did happen to be looking for a word or two to capture the whole affair, something less polite than those presently circulating, “debacle” and “defeat” might fit the bill. The military of the self-proclaimed single greatest power of planet Earth, whose leaders once considered the occupation of the Middle East the key to future global policy and planned for a multi-generational garrisoning of Iraq, had been sent packing. That should have been considered little short of stunning... "
Anyway while Obama sugar coats the Iraq Debacle he is once again increasing the powers of the Executive and the government shredding what's left of the US constitution and The Bill of Rights.
He and future presidents can under a new bit of legal trickery or veneer issue a King's warrant to arrest or to summarily execute those labeled enemies of the state.
Even Obama doesn't understand or just ignores the letter or spirit of the law as put forward in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights or even for that matter The Declaration of Independence.
Under the new law National Defense Authorization Act the US Government has the right to arrest and detain suspects including US citizens for an indefinite/prolonged period without any real oversight.
It is somewhat disingenuous for President Obama so issue a signing statement authorizing indefinite detentions which could easily be abused while he claims his administration will not use this power.
So why does he believe he needs to give the executive branch such powers.
So Obama is giving the green light to those presidents who come after his term in office to use and abuse such powers.
So Obama tells the American citizenry to trust him in regards to this new extension of powers for thee Executive Branch.
But given that this is now the law President Obama might at some point while still in office feel it is his duty to use this draconian unconstitutional law.
Given the actions of Obama since he was elected president why would anyone trust him or take him at his word.
In fact Obama has shown that his administration is just as radical as was the Bush administration.
Obama has used targeted assassinations even of US citizens using drones or special forces ie murdering Bin Laden and allowing for the murder of Qaddafi and others.
Obama for example had suspected Whistleblower Bradley Manning arrested and kept in indefinite detention including prolonged isolation / solitary confinement based upon little or no evidence.
Obama has broadened the Global War on Terror to include Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iran etc.
In the cases of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain the Obama administration defends the use of violence on peaceful protesters in either country since he buys into the PR of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that those protesting are really terrorists who are egged on by "Evil" Iran. .
Meanwhile the Obama administration has continued to supply arms to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia while supplying Egypt's Military Junta with tear gas and other material to be used by them to crush the peaceful demonstrations taking place there . These protesters were naive enough to believe American rhetoric about spreading democracy and reform only to discover that Obama and his political allies are actually in favor of the status quo.
Obama also forced NATO to unnecessarily attack Libya to oust Qaddafi while NATO bombed indiscriminately murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
This action was taken to expand America and Western power and control over the region insuring a cheap supply of oil and to remove another possible ally of Iran or other nations on America and NATO's list of countries to be crushed and subdued .
Rachel Maddow - Radical NDAA bill would be dangerous in the hands of a radical president
Uploaded by heckofjob on Jan 2, 2012
Rachel Maddow reports on President Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes many radical and controversial provisions. Though President Obama issued a signing statement against indefinite detention for terror suspects, thanks to this bill, if President Obama changes his mind or some other President in the future does want to arrest Americans and lock them up in military custody forever without trial, our government statutorily now claims that as its right. (Originally aired on January 2, 2012.)
Indefinite detentions without trial signed into law by President Obama
Uploaded by brogan56 on Jan 1, 2012
"President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. "The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield." Quote from the ACLU in response to the signing of this bill.
Credits to the editor of this video Matt D and to YouTube user
clipofreality who uploaded this clip.
Obama Signs NDAA, ACLU Disgusted
Uploaded by TheYoungTurks on Jan 2, 2012
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law despite 'serious reservations'. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down, including Obama's signing statements and finally, thoughts from the ACLU.
Cenk Uygur of TYT agrees with Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turly, Rachel maddow, ACLU and Amnesty International that the new law Obama has enacted is disturbing and unconstitutional giving the president dictatorial rights and undermines the fifth amendment of due process.
NDAA : Obama: Defenders Are Wrong - Here's Why
Uploaded by TheYoungTurks on Jan 3, 2012
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, a decision being defended by some partisan Democrats. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks down specifics in the bill to refute the claims made by the defenders of Obama and the NDAA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/31/obama-defense-bill_n_1177836.html
Subscribe to The Young Turks: http://bit.ly/eWuu5i
as for the withdrawal and defeat of the American forces in Iraq the Obama administration has been able to use the media to sell the war to the American people a second time around. In other words American forces left not because they were told by the Iraqis to leave or else but rather erroneously claiming the US had won the war and accomplished its mission.
Telegraph that message to the million or more Iraqis killed or murdered during the eight years of "Occupation".
President Obama's chutzpah is breath-taking as he says with a straight face that America had won the war in Iraq and was leaving Iraq better off and more stable than it was before the US unnecessary and disastrous invasion and brutal jack-booted occupation of a sovereign nation.
In the end instead of arresting Bush and the gang for the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq President Obama through a bit of rhetorical and mental gymnastics has white washed the whole bloody mess. So America no longer fear war crimes trials ala Nuremberg instead the murderers in the two administrations and their gestapo (Pentagon, Special-ops ,death-squads) can now sit back and plan their next "triumph" to feed to the beast known as the Military Industrial Complex..
" Debacle!
How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower"
By Tom Engelhardt January 03, 2011 "Tom Dispatch"
- It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in a thousand-year Pax Americana. It was to be “mission accomplished” all the way. And then, of course, it wasn’t. And then, almost nine dismal years later, it was over (sorta). It was the Iraq War, and we were the uninvited guests who didn’t want to go home. To the last second, despite President Obama’s repeated promise that all American troops were leaving, despite an agreement the Iraqi government had signed with George W. Bush’s administration in 2008, America’s military commanders continued to lobby and Washington continued to negotiate for 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops to remain in-country as advisors and trainers.
Only when the Iraqis simply refused to guarantee those troops immunity from local law did the last Americans begin to cross the border into Kuwait. It was only then that our top officials began to hail the thing they had never wanted, the end of the American military presence in Iraq, as marking an era of “accomplishment.” They also began praising their own “decision” to leave as a triumph, and proclaimed that the troops were departing with -- as the president put it -- “their heads held high.”
In a final flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, clearly meant for U.S. domestic consumption and well attended by the American press corps but not by Iraqi officials or the local media, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke glowingly of having achieved “ultimate success.” He assured the departing troops that they had been a “driving force for remarkable progress” and that they could proudly leave the country “secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history, free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.” Later on his trip to the Middle East, speaking of the human cost of the war, he added, “I think the price has been worth it.”
And then the last of those troops really did “come home” -- if you define “home” broadly enough to include not just bases in the U.S. but also garrisons in Kuwait, elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, and sooner or later in Afghanistan.
On December 14th at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president and his wife gave returning war veterans from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units a rousing welcome. With some in picturesque maroon berets, they picturesquely hooahed the man who had once called their war "dumb." Undoubtedly looking toward his 2012 campaign, President Obama, too, now spoke stirringly of “success” in Iraq, of “gains,” of his pride in the troops, of the country’s “gratitude” to them, of the spectacular accomplishments achieved as well as the hard times endured by “the finest fighting force in the history of the world,” and of the sacrifices made by our “wounded warriors” and “fallen heroes.”
He praised “an extraordinary achievement nine years in the making,” framing their departure this way: “Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -- all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -- all of it has led to this moment of success... [W]e’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.”
...Still, set aside the euphemisms and the soaring rhetoric, and if you want a simple gauge of the depths of America’s debacle in the oil heartlands of the planet, consider just how the final unit of American troops left Iraq. According to Tim Arango and Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, they pulled out at 2:30 a.m. in the dead of night. No helicopters off rooftops, but 110 vehicles setting out in the dark from Contingency Operating Base Adder. The day before they left, according to the Times reporters, the unit’s interpreters were ordered to call local Iraqi officials and sheiks with whom the Americans had close relations and make future plans, as if everything would continue in the usual way in the week to come.
In other words, the Iraqis were meant to wake up the morning after to find their foreign comrades gone, without so much as a goodbye. This is how much the last American unit trusted its closest local allies. After shock and awe, the taking of Baghdad, the mission-accomplished moment, and the capture, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein, after Abu Ghraib and the bloodletting of the civil war, after the surge and the Sunni Awakening movement, after the purple fingers and the reconstruction funds gone awry, after all the killing and the dying, the U.S. military slipped into the night without a word.
If, however, you did happen to be looking for a word or two to capture the whole affair, something less polite than those presently circulating, “debacle” and “defeat” might fit the bill. The military of the self-proclaimed single greatest power of planet Earth, whose leaders once considered the occupation of the Middle East the key to future global policy and planned for a multi-generational garrisoning of Iraq, had been sent packing. That should have been considered little short of stunning.
No comments:
Post a Comment