Barack Obama – Page 5 – Antiwar.com Blog

Why you MUST be shielded from Wikileaks!

You will know you have spoken the truth when you are angrily denounced; and you will know you have spoken both truly and well when you are visited by the police. –J. B. R. Yant

Apparently the folks from Wikileaks.org have spoken both truly and well. Which is why you must be shielded from them – – –

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." –Chief Nazi "Information Officer" Dr. Joseph P. Goebbels

Thus the American establishment — including opinion mills from both halves of the War Party — is actively looking for any which-way it can to repress the release of more of it’s mortal enemy to "we the people." The methods of repression include a very shakey prosecution of head Wikileaks dude, Julian Assange, threats in fact, to persecute him all over the world, an on-going investigation of Wikileaks by Mr. Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, presumably to invoke the Espionage Act, etc.

There have also been calls to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by U.S. Representative Peter King (R-NY) to have Wikileaks declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization, or FTO on a par with al’Qaeda. That would open Wikileaks associates to assassination, etc. as per the latest White House push to authorize executive kill lists.

Is it just me, or does it seem as if the U.S. establishment — in fact, establishments world wide [1] — are as terrified by the truth as they want us to be of al’Qaeda?

Perhaps Wikileaks front dude Julian Assange and company aren’t aware of the dangers the truth poses, not only to the state as Goebbels revealed, but to those ill-advised enough — or brave enough — to reveal it.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. –George Orwell

If you’re going to start talking the truth, keep one foot in the saddle of your fastest horse. –Chinese proverb

So, is your foot in the saddle?

No? It’s OK, but how about the next best thing: Support these brave folks, not only wikileaks, but the folks brave enough to put antiwar.com up for more than 12 years, etc.

Notes:

[1]

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community," Clinton said, following talks in Washington with Turkey’s foreign minister. –[Hillary] Clinton accuses WikiLeaks of ‘attack’ on the world return

Dubya was right??

From film-maker Oliver Stone’s interview with former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, we discover:

Oliver Stone: "Were there any eye-to-eye moments with President Bush that day, that night?"

Nestor Kirchner: "…I said that a solution to the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. …He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war and that the United States has grown stronger with war."

Stone: "War. He said that?"

Kirchner: "He said that. Those were his exact words."

Stone: "Was he suggesting that South America go to war?"

Kirchner: "Well, he was talking about the United States. …All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by the various wars. He said it very clearly. –Fmr. Argentine President Kirchner Dies of Heart Attack, Democracy Now!, Oct. 28, 2010

So, WAS Dubya right?

"War" [1] is indeed a key part of the U.S. economy. Some folks call this "military keynesianism."

Consider: Despite one of the most defensible geographic situations on earth — unless you fear the Canadians — the U.S. Government spends more on "defense" than almost the rest of the world combined. AND, not surprisingly, U.S.A. is the biggest arms merchant in the world.

So, Mr. Bush was exactly right.

If you’re a U.S. Citizen, approximately 43% of your income taxes go to pay for wars, past and present. And that’s before Uncle Sam is forced, kicking and screaming, into officially admitting PTSD is nearly universal in combat veterans, lasts a lifetime, and is expensive to treat. According to former IMF Chief Economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, the two current "wars" will eventually cost U.S. taxpayers between four and six trillion dollars. That’s trillion. With a "T."

And don’t fret about the militaryindustrial budget. While Mr. Obama isn’t yet responsible for killing as many men, women and children as Mr. Bush — and hasn’t spent as much doing so, give him a chance — he’s not even two years into his presidency and he’s already sent at least 60,000 new U.S. troops into Afghanistan and has plans to escalate the U.S. presence in Pakistan, and the largely ignoredU.S. presence in Yemen too.

With these kinds of numbers — that 43% of your income tax spent for “wars” for example — maybe a bit of money invested in antiwar.com to stop them might be a good investment, not only for you, but for your kids, grand kids and the yet unborn. What do you say?

Notes:

[1] The U.S. Government hasn’t been at war according to its Constitution since the end of World War II. That would require the U.S. House of Representatives to vote for war, which it hasn’t done. This means the so-called "wars" — the Korean "War," the Vietnam "War," The Iraq "Wars," the "War" in Afghanistan, etc. — must be something else. Or, since they insist on calling them "wars" anyway, unconstitutional. But as George W. Bush is reported to have claimed, "The constitution is just a damned piece of paper." So, who cares? return

Mass murder: Monkey see monkey do?

JUAN GARCÃ‰S: "… Hitler asked his generals to be ready to invade Poland, and to exterminate the population in those territories, because German population should replace this population. Some generals say, "My FÃ¼hrer, there will a provoking of cry in the world. Thousands of people will be killed, and there will be blame for us." And the answer from Hitler was, "Why? Twenty years ago was a massacre of Armenians. More than one million Armenians were massacred by the Turkish, in the Turkish Empire. Who remembers now the Armenians?" So, the forgiveness of the first big massacre in the twentieth century was the pretext for encouraging a second wave of massacre that was in World War II." –Another 9/11 Anniversary: September 11, 1973, When US-Backed Pinochet Forces Took Power in Chile

That’s why they MUST be prosecuted!

You know who they are.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Who’s JUAN GARCÃ‰S, you ask?

AMY GOODMAN: Our next guest, Juan GarcÃ©s, was a personal adviser to Salvador Allende. Juan GarcÃ©s was with the president when revolting troops bombed the presidential palace and found himself the sole survivor among Allende’s political advisers when the coup had run its course.

More than twenty years later, Juan GarcÃ©s has led a legal effort to sue Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity in the Spanish courts. Juan GarcÃ©s is now focused on getting the Spanish courts to investigate for the first time the crimes against humanity committed under General Franco’s dictatorship.

Droning On. And On & On & On

Unfortunately, that’s not just Mr. Obama’s speeches – – –

AMY GOODMAN: "…the Obama administration’s drone war in northwest Pakistan is continuing. There have been at least nine drone attacks this month, the latest killing five people in North Waziristan Sunday. The United States has carried out at least sixty-three drone strikes inside Pakistan this year, killing an unknown number of civilians."

KATHY KELLY: …the United States is, at an alarming rate, moving into robotic warfare, kind of a mission creep, that could lead us into perpetual war. … children are among those who are being killed. And this is happening with such regularity in Pakistan and Afghanistan. … It’s clear that targeted assassinations, these arbitrary killings, extrajudicial killings, are not allowed and that citizens have a duty, a responsibility, to prevent it….

There certainly is a constant construction. Our friends at the Nevada Desert Experience tell us that the cement trucks are arriving every day, … in Ellsworth, South Dakota, Whiteman, Missouri, those bases are now developing the technology so that drone attacks can be operated by people inside of those bases, and also, of course, at Hancock Field, where people in Syracuse are demonstrating on a daily basis. –Activists Go on Trial in Nevada for Protesting Obama Admin Drone Program

It’s not here, it’s there. It’s not us, it’s them. It’s not murder, it’s collateral damage.

And it could NEVER happen here.

ANOTHER U.S. washout?

The Obama Administration has been catching choreographed flack — from the militaryindustrialcongressional complex — ever since it announced a now wimped down withdraw from Afghanistan beginning no later than July, 2011:

Gen. James Conway: "In terms of the July 11 issue …In some ways, we think, right now, it’s probably giving our enemy sustenance. We think that he [Taliban fighters] may be saying to himself… ‘Hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long.’" –Top US Marine: Withdrawal Deadline Boosting Taliban Morale

What the Taliban fighters are REALLY thinking:

"No amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us."

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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, The Fog of War

"We were fighting for our independence and we would fight to the last man and we were determined to do so and no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us." –Vietnam Foreign Minister Thieu to Vietnam era U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, The Fog of War

The "ground truth" – – –

Col. Douglas Macgregor: "The entire COIN strategy [the COunterINsurgency strategy engineered by Petraeus and McCrystal et.al.] is a fraud perpetuated on the American people," says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. "The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense." —The Runaway General, Stanley McChrystal By Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, Jun 22, 2010 10:00 AM EDT

The only winner? Our Childrens’ Children’s War.

“The American Combat Mission in Iraq Has Ended …”

And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge you might be interested in buying. It connects my oceanfront properties in Kansas (also for sale) to the magical island where I keep my leprechaun-sourced gold hoard.

From the Washington Post‘s account of an attack on an Iraqi army base today:

The Americans provided covering fire while Iraqi soldiers pursued the attackers who had entered the compound, said Lt. Col Eric Bloom, a U.S. military spokesman. The U.S. intervention also included helicopters and drones, he said.

50,000 US troops remain in Iraq. Re-labeling them (“advisers”) doesn’t take them out of harm’s way. No magic, bulletproof “we’re not combat troops any more” force field pops into existence around them just because POTUS made a speech. They’re still there, and the fighting continues.

The American combat mission in Iraq has ended? I need not deplete my own meager rhetorical arsenal for a pithy response — Confederate cavalry warlord (and, to his eternal discredit, Ku Klux Klan founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest provided that response 140-odd years ago:

Damn such nonsense. War means fightin’ and fightin’ means killin’. Turn the grindstone.