How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Welfare State (31 page)

Obama had convinced the electorate that he would end the wars, stop the violation of law by the US government, end the regime of illegal torture, close the torture prison of Guantanamo, and attend to the real needs of the American people rather than stuff the pockets of the military/security complex with taxpayers’ money.

Once in office, Obama renewed and extended the Bush/Cheney/ neoconservative wars.

He validated the Bush regime’s assaults on the US Constitution. He left Wall Street in charge of US economic policy, he absolved the Bush regime of its crimes, and he assigned to the American people the financial cost necessary to preserve the economic welfare of the mega-rich.

One would think such a totally failed president would be easy to defeat. Given an historic opportunity, the Republican Party has put before

the electorate the most amazingly stupid and vile collection of prospects, with the exception of Ron Paul who does not have the party’s support, that Americans have ever seen.

In the November 22 presidential “debate,” the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, revealed themselves as a collection of ignorant warmongers who support the police state. Gingrich and McCain said that Muslims “want to kill us all” and that “all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives.”

Bachmann said that the American puppet state, Pakistan, is “more than an existential threat.” The moron Bachmann has no idea what is “more than an existential threat.”

However, it sounded heavy, like an intellectual thing to say for the candidate who previously declared the long-defunct Soviet Union to be today’s threat to the US.

Any sentient American who watched or read about the Republican presidential debate must wonder what there is to be thankful for as the national holiday approaches.

The Russian government, which prefers to use its resources for the economy rather than for the military, has decided that it has been taking too many risks in the name of peace. The day before Thanksgiving, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, in a televised address to the Russian people, that if Washington goes ahead with its planned missile bases surrounding Russia, Russia will respond with new nuclear missiles of its own, which will target the American bases and European capital cities.

The President of Russia said that the Russian government has asked Washington for legally binding guarantees that the American missile bases are not intended as a threat to Russia, but that Washington has refused to give such guarantees.

Medvedev’s statement is perplexing. What does he mean “
if
Washington goes ahead?” The American missile and radar bases
are already in place
. Russia is already
surrounded
. Is Medvedev just now aware of what is already in place?

Russia’s and China’s slow response to Washington’s aggression can only be understood in the context of the two countries’ experience with communism. The sufferings of Russians and Chinese under communism was extreme, and the thinking part of those populations saw America as the ideal of political life. This delusion still controls the mentality of progressive thinkers in Russia and China. It might prove to be a disaster for Russia and China that these countries have citizens who are aligned with the US.

Belief in Washington’s trustworthiness even pervades the Russian government, which apparently, according to Medvedev’s statement, would be reassured by a “legally binding guarantee” from Washington. After the massive lies told by Washington in the 21st century—”weapons of mass destruction,” “Al Qaeda connections,” “Iranian nukes”—why would anyone put any credence in “a legally binding guarantee” from Washington? The guarantee would mean nothing. How could it be enforced? Such a guarantee would simply be another deceit in Washington’s pursuit of world hegemony. The day prior to Thanksgiving also brought another extraordinary development—the failure of a German government bond auction, an unparalleled event.

Why would Germany, the only member of the EU with financial rectitude, not be able to sell 35 per cent of its offerings of 10-year bonds? Germany has no debt problems, and its economy is expected by EU and US authorities to bear the lion’s share of the bailout of the EU member countries that do lack financial rectitude.

I suspect that the answer to this question is that the failure of the German government’s bond auction was orchestrated by the US, by EU authorities, especially the European Central Bank, and private banks in order to punish Germany for obstructing the purchase of EU member countries’ sovereign debt by the European Central Bank.

The German government has been trying to defend the terms on which Germany gave up control over its own currency and joined the EU. By insisting on the legality of the agreements, Germany has been standing in the way of the ECB behaving like the US Federal Reserve and monetizing the debt of member governments.

From the beginning the EU was a conspiracy against Germany. If Germany remains in the EU, Germany will be destroyed. It will lose its political and economic sovereignty, and its economy will be bled on behalf of the fiscally irresponsible members of the EU.

If Germany had political leaders committed to Germany instead of to “Europe,” Germany would exit the EU and NATO, bring back the Deutschmark, and form an economic partnership with Russia.

MISREADING THE FIGHT OVER

MILITARY DETENTION

December 4, 2011

During an interview with RT on December 1, I said that the US Constitution had been shredded by the failure of the US Senate to protect American citizens from the detainee amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill sponsored by Republican John McCain and Democrat Carl Levin.

The amendment permits indefinite detention of US citizens by the US military. I also gave my opinion that the fact that all but two Republican members of the Senate had voted to strip American citizens of their constitutional protections and of the protection of the Posse Comitatus Act indicated that the Republican Party had degenerated into a Gestapo Party.

These conclusions are self-evident, and I stand by them.

However, I jumped to conclusions when I implied that the Obama regime opposes military detention on constitutional grounds.

Ray McGovern and Glenn Greenwald might have jumped to the same conclusions.

An article by Dahlia Lithwick in
Slate
reported that the entire Obama regime opposed the military detention provision in the McCain/ Levin amendment. Lithwick wrote: “The secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence, the director of the FBI, the CIA director, and the head of the Justice Department’s national security division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the bill are a bad idea. And the White House continues to say that the president will veto the bill if the detainee provisions are not removed.”

I checked the URLs that Lithwick supplied. It is clear that the Obama regime objects to military detention, but Lithwick mistook this objection for constitutional scruples.

On further reflection I conclude that the Obama regime’s objection to military detention is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because
the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war
. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin put it: Should somebody determined “to be a member of an enemy force who has come to this nation or is in this nation to attack us as a member of a foreign enemy, should that person be treated according to the laws of war? The answer is yes.”

Detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights
. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas. This is what the Obama regime means when it says that the requirement of military detention denies the regime “flexibility.” The Bush/Obama regimes have evaded the Geneva Conventions by declaring that detainees are not POWs, but “enemy combatants,” “terrorists,” or some other designation that removes all accountability from the US government for their treatment.

Requiring military detention of those captured would undo the accomplishment of the two regimes of removing POW status from detainees. A careful reading of the Obama regime’s
objections
to military detention supports this conclusion.

The November 17 letter to the Senate from the Executive Office of the President says that the Obama regime does not want the authority it has under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Public Law 107-40, to be codified. Codification is risky, the regime says. “After a decade of settled jurisprudence on detention authority, Congress must be careful not to open a whole new series of legal questions that will distract from our efforts to protect the country.”

In other words, the regime is saying that under AUMF the executive branch has total discretion as to who it detains and how it treats detainees. Moreover, as the executive branch has total discretion, no one can find out what the executive branch is doing, who detainees are, or what is being done to them. Codification brings accountability, and the executive branch does not want accountability.

Those who see hope in Obama’s threatened veto have jumped to conclusions if they think the veto is based on constitutional scruples.

WASHINGTON MOVES THE WORLD CLOSER TO WAR

January 16, 2012

Since my
January 11 column
and the news alert posted on
January 14
, more confirmation that Washington is moving the world toward a dangerous war has appeared. The Obama regime is using its Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a., the American media, to spread the story that President Obama, Pentagon chief Panetta, and other high US officials are delivering strong warnings to Israel not to attack Iran.

For someone as familiar with Washington as I am, I recognize these reports for what they are. They are Br’er Rabbit telling Br’er Fox “please don’t throw me in the briar patch.”

If you don’t know the Uncle Remus stories, you have missed a lot.

Br’er Rabbit was born and raised in the briar patch.

What these “leaked” stories of Washington’s warnings and protests to Israel are all about is to avoid Washington’s responsibility for the war Washington has prepared. If the war gets out of hand, and if Russia and China intervene or nukes start flying, Washington wants the blame to rest on Israel, and Israel seems willing to accept the blame. Nikolai Patrushev, who heads Russia’s Security Council, has apparently been deceived by Washington’s manipulation of the media. According to the Interfax news agency, Patrushev condemned Israel for pushing the US towards war with Iran.

You get the picture. The helpless Americans. They are being bullied by Israel into acquiescing to a dangerous war. Otherwise, no more campaign contributions.

The facts are different. If Washington did not want war with Iran it would not have provided the necessary weapons to Israel. It would not have deployed thousands of US troops to Israel, with a view to putting American soldiers in the line of fire in an Iranian response to Israel’s attack, thus “forcing” the US to enter the war. Washington would not have built a missile defense system for Israel and would not be conducting joint exercises with the Israeli military to make sure it works.

If Washington wants to stop Israel from starting a war, Washington would inform the Israeli government in no uncertain words that an Israeli strike on Iran means that the US will
not
veto the UN’s denunciation of Israel and the sanctions that would be placed on Israel as a war criminal state. Washington would tell Israel that it is good-bye to the billions of dollars that the bilked American taxpayers, foreclosed from their homes by fraudulent mortgages and from jobs by offshoring, hand over by compulsion to Israel to support Israel’s crimes against humanity.

If Washington did not want war with Iran, Washington would not have prepared for war by surrounding Iran with fleets and military bases, and Washington would not have prepared the public for war by demonizing Iran. Washington’s NATO puppets would not be an obstacle. “Great”

Britain does as it is told, subservient and occupied Germany, bankrupt France, Italy occupied with US air bases with a government infiltrated by the CIA, bankrupt Spain and Greece will all, in hopes of an outpouring of US dollars and devoid of any dignity or honor, support the war that could end life on earth.

Only Russia and China can prevent the war.

Russia took the first step when the newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister for military affairs, Dmitry Rogozin told a press conference in Brussels that Russia would regard an attack on Iran as “a direct threat to our security.”

Washington is counting on subverting Russia’s opposition to Washington’s next war. Washington can time the attack on Iran after the March elections in Russia. When Putin wins again as he will [and did], the treasonous Russian opposition parties, financed by the CIA, will unleash protests in the streets [as they did]. The subservient and corrupt Western media will denounce Putin for stealing the election [as they did]. The orchestrated protests in Russia could turn violent and discredit, if not prevent, any Russian response to the naked aggression against Iran.

For Rogozin’s warning to be effective in preventing war, China needs to enter the fray. Washington is banking on China’s caution. China deliberates and never rushes into anything. China’s deliberation would serve Washington’s war.

It is possible that the crazed neocon Washington government will have one more “victory” before Russia and China comprehend that they are next on the extermination list. As this date cannot be far off, life on earth might expire before the unpayable debts of the US and EU countries come due.

[Despite the late 2013 diplomatic initiative with Iran, US Representative Duncan Hunter, Jr. (R.CA) told C-SPAN on December 4, 2013, that it could still be necessary to set Iran “back a decade or two or three” by bombarding Iran “with tactical nuclear devices.”]