[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Anti-Empire Report

[Bill Totten]

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org (December 01 2008)


Vote First. Ask Questions Later.

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. It was historic. I choked up
a number of times, tears came to my eyes, even though I didn't vote for
him. I voted for Ralph Nader for the fourth time in a row.

During the past eight years when I've listened to news programs on the
radio each day I've made sure to be within a few feet of the radio so I
could quickly change the station when that preposterous man or one of
his disciples came on; I'm not a masochist, I suffer fools very poorly,
and I get bored easily. Sad to say, I'm already turning the radio off
sometimes when Obama comes on. He doesn't say anything, or not enough,
or not often enough. Platitudes, clichés, promises without substance,
"hope and change", almost everything without sufficient substance,
"change and hope", without specifics, designed not to offend. What
exactly are the man's principles? He never questions the premises of the
empire. Never questions the premises of the "War on Terror". I'm glad he
won for two reasons only: John McCain and Sarah Palin, and I deeply
resent the fact that the American system forces me to squeeze out a drop
of pleasure from something so far removed from my ideals. Obama's votes
came at least as much from people desperate for relief from
neo-conservative suffocation as from people who genuinely believed in
him. It's a form of extortion - Vote for Obama or you get more of the
same. Those are your only choices.

Is there reason to be happy that the insufferably religious George W is
soon to be history? "I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am
redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a
daily basis." That was said by someone named Barack Obama {1}. The
United States turns out religious fanatics like the Japanese turn out
cars. Let's pray for an end to this.

As I've mentioned before, if you're one of those who would like to
believe that Obama has to present center-right foreign policy views to
be elected, but once he's in the White House we can forget that he
misled us repeatedly and the true, progressive man of peace and
international law and human rights will emerge ... keep in mind that as
a US Senate candidate in 2004 he threatened missile strikes against Iran
{2}, and winning that election apparently did not put him in touch with
his inner peacenik. He's been threatening Iran ever since.

The world is in terrible shape. I don't think I have to elucidate on
that remark. How nice, how marvelously nice it would be to have an
American president who was infused with progressive values and political
courage. Just imagine what could be done. Like a quick and complete exit
from Iraq. You can paint the picture as well as I can. With his
popularity Obama could get away with almost anything, but he'll probably
continue to play it safe. Or what may be more precise, he'll continue to
be himself; which, apparently, is a committed centrist. He's not really
against the war. Not like you and I are. During Obama's first four years
in the White House, the United States will not leave Iraq. I doubt that
he'd allow a complete withdrawal even in a second term. Has he ever
unequivocally called the war illegal and immoral? A crime against
humanity? Why is he so close to Colin Powell? Does he not know of
Powell's despicable role in the war? And retaining George W Bush's
Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, a man against whom it would not be
difficult to draw up charges of war crimes? Will he also find a place
for Rumsfeld? And Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a supporter of the
war, to run the Homeland Security department? And General James Jones, a
former NATO commander (sic), who wants to "win" in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and who backed John McCain, as his National Security Adviser? Jones is
on the Board of Directors of the Boeing Corporation and Chevron Oil. Out
of what dark corner of Obama's soul does all this come?

As Noam Chomsky recently pointed out, the election of an indigenous
person (Evo Morales) in Bolivia and a progressive person (Jean-Bertrand
Aristide) in Haiti were more historic than the election of Barack Obama.

He's not really against torture either. Not like you and I are. No one
will be punished for using or ordering torture. No one will be impeached
because of torture. Michael Ratner, president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, says that prosecuting Bush officials is necessary
to set future anti-torture policy. "The only way to prevent this from
happening again is to make sure that those who were responsible for the
torture program pay the price for it. I don't see how we regain our
moral stature by allowing those who were intimately involved in the
torture programs to simply walk off the stage and lead lives where they
are not held accountable." {3}

As president, Obama cannot remain silent and do nothing; otherwise he
will inherit the war crimes of Bush and Cheney and become a war criminal
himself. Closing the Guantanamo hell-hole means nothing at all if the
prisoners are simply moved to other torture dungeons. If Obama is truly
against torture, why does he not declare that after closing Guantanamo
the inmates will be tried in civilian courts in the US or resettled in
countries where they clearly face no risk of torture? And simply affirm
that his administration will faithfully abide by the 1984 Convention
Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, of
which the United States is a signatory, and which states: "The term
'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether
physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such
purposes as obtaining information or a confession ... inflicted by or at
the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public
official or any other person acting in an official capacity".

The convention affirms that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever,
whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political stability
or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of
torture".

Instead, Obama has appointed former CIA official John O Brennan as an
adviser on intelligence matters and co-leader of his intelligence
transition team. Brennan has called "rendition" - the kidnap-and-torture
program carried out under the Clinton and Bush administrations - a
"vital tool", and praised the CIA's interrogation techniques for
providing "lifesaving" intelligence. {4}

Obama may prove to be as big a disappointment as Nelson Mandela, who did
painfully little to improve the lot of the masses of South Africa while
turning the country over to the international forces of globalization. I
make this comparison not because both men are black, but because both
produced such great expectations in their home country and throughout
the world. Mandela was freed from prison on the assumption of the
Apartheid leaders that he would become president and pacify the restless
black population while ruling as a non-radical, free-market centrist
without undue threat to white privilege. It's
perhaps significant that in his autobiography he declines to blame the
CIA for his capture in 1962 even though the evidence to support this is
compelling {5}. It appears that Barack Obama made a similar impression
upon the American power elite who vetted him in many fundraising and
other meetings and smoothed the way for his highly unlikely ascendancy
from obscure state senator to the presidency in four years. The
financial support from the corporate world to sell "Brand Obama" was
extraordinary.

Another comparison might be with Tony Blair. The Tories could never have
brought in university fees or endless brutal wars, but New Labour did.
The Republicans would have had a very difficult time bringing back the
draft, but I can see Obama reinstating it, accompanied by a suitable
slogan, some variation of "Yes, we can!".

I do hope I'm wrong, about his past and about how he'll rule as
president. I hope I'm very wrong.

Many people are calling for progressives to intensely lobby the Obama
administration, to exert pressure to bring out the "good Obama", force
him to commit himself, hold him accountable. The bold reforms of
Roosevelt's New Deal were spurred by widespread labor strikes and other
militant actions soon after the honeymoon period was over. At the moment
I have nothing better to offer than that. God help us.


The future as we used to know it has ceased to exist. And other happy
thoughts.

Reading the accounts of the terrorist horror in Mumbai has left me as
pessimistic as a dinosaur contemplating the future of his grandchildren.
How could they do that? ... destroying all those lives, people they
didn't even know, people enjoying themselves on vacation ... whatever
could be their motivation? Well, they did sort of know some of their
victims; they knew they were Indians, or Americans, or British, or
Zionists, or some other kind of infidel; so it wasn't completely
mindless, not totally random. Does that help to understand? Can it ease
the weltschmerz? You can even make use of it. The next time you
encounter a defender of American foreign policy, someone insisting that
something like Mumbai justifies Washington's rhetorical and military
attacks against Islam, you might want to point out that the United
States does the same on a regular basis. For seven years in Afghanistan,
almost six in Iraq, to give only the two most obvious examples ...
breaking down doors and machine-gunning strangers, infidels,
traumatizing children for life, firing missiles into occupied houses,
exploding bombs all over the place, pausing to torture ... every few
days dropping bombs on Pakistan or Afghanistan, and still Iraq, claiming
they've killed members of al-Qaeda, just as bad as Zionists, bombing
wedding parties, one after another, twenty or thirty or seventy killed,
all terrorists of course, often including top al-Qaeda leaders, the
number one or number two man, so we're told; so not completely mindless,
not totally random; the survivors say it was a wedding party, their
brother or their nephew or their friend, mostly women and children dead;
the US military pays people to tell them where so-and-so number-one bad
guy is going to be; and the US military believes what they're told, so
Bombs Away! ... Does any of that depress you like Mumbai? Sometimes they
bomb Syria instead, or kill people in Iran or Somalia, all bad guys ...
"US helicopter-borne troops have carried out a raid inside Syria along
the Iraqi border, killing eight people including a woman, Syrian
authorities say" reports the BBC {6} ... "The United States military
since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen
previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in
Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials
... The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda
terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to
conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States", the
New York Times informs us {7}. So it's all nice and legal, not an attack
upon civilization by a bunch of escaped mental patients. Maybe the
Mumbai terrorists also have a piece of paper, from some authority,
saying that it's okay what they did ... I'm feeling better already.


The mythology of the War on Terrorism

On November 8, three men were executed by the government of Indonesia
for terrorist attacks on two night clubs in Bali in 2002 that took the
lives of 202 people, more than half of whom were Australians, Britons
and Americans. The Associated Press {8} reported that "the three men
never expressed remorse, saying the suicide bombings were meant to
punish the United States and its Western allies for alleged atrocities
in Afghanistan and elsewhere".

During the recent US election campaign, John McCain and his followers
repeated a sentiment that has become a commonplace - that the War on
Terrorism has been a success because there hasn't been a terrorist
attack against the United States since September 11 2001; as if
terrorists killing Americans is acceptable if it's done abroad. Since
the first American strike on Afghanistan in October 2001 there have been
literally scores of terrorist attacks against American institutions in
the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, more than a dozen in
Pakistan alone: military, civilian, Christian, and other targets
associated with the United States. The year following the Bali bombings
saw the heavy bombing of the US-managed Marriott Hotel in Jakarta,
Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th of July
celebrations held by the American Embassy. The Marriott Hotel in
Pakistan was the scene of a major terrorist bombing just two months ago.
All of these attacks have been in addition to the thousands in Iraq and
Afghanistan against US occupation, which Washington officially labels an
integral part of the War on Terrorism. Yet American lovers of military
force insist that the War on Terrorism has kept the United States safe.

Even the claim that the War on Terrorism has kept Americans safe at home
is questionable. There was no terrorist attack in the United States
during the 6 1/2 years prior to the one in September 2001; not since the
April 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. It would
thus appear that the absence of terrorist attacks in the United States
is the norm.

An even more insidious myth of the War on Terrorism has been the notion
that terrorist acts against the United States can be explained, largely,
if not entirely, by irrational hatred or envy of American social,
economic, or religious values, and not by what the United States does to
the world; ie, US foreign policy. Many Americans are mightily reluctant
to abandon this idea. Without it the whole paradigm - that we are the
innocent good guys and they are the crazy, fanatic, bloodthirsty
bastards who cannot be talked to but only bombed, tortured and killed -
falls apart. Statements like the one above from the Bali bombers blaming
American policies for their actions are numerous, coming routinely from
Osama bin Laden and those under him. {9}

Terrorism is an act of political propaganda, a bloody form of making the
world hear one's outrage against a perceived oppressor, graffiti written
on the wall in some grim, desolate alley. It follows that if the
perpetrators of a terrorist act declare what their motivation was, their
statement should carry credibility, no matter what one thinks of their
cause or the method used to achieve it.


Just put down that stereotype and no one gets hurt.

Sarah Palin and her American supporters resent what they see as the East
Coast elite, the intellectuals, the cultural snobs, the politically
correct, the pacifists and peaceniks, the agnostics and atheists, the
environmentalists, the fanatic animal protectors, the food police, the
health gestapo, the socialists, and other such leftist and liberal types
who think of themselves as morally superior to Joe Sixpack, Joe the
Plumber, National Rifle Association devotées, rednecks, and all the Bush
supporters who have relished the idea of having a president no smarter
than themselves. It's stereotyping gone wild. So in the interest of
bringing some balance and historical perspective to the issue, allow me
to remind you of some forgotten, or never known, factoids which confound
the stereotypes.

* Josef Stalin studied for the priesthood.

* Adolf Hitler once hoped to become a Catholic priest or monk; he was a
vegetarian and was anti-smoking.

* Hermann Goering, while his Luftwaffe rained death upon Europe, kept a
sign in his office that read: "He who tortures animals wounds the
feelings of the German people".

* Adolf Eichmann was cultured, read deeply, played the violin.

* Benito Mussolini also played the violin.

* Some Nazi concentration camp commanders listened to Mozart to drown
out the cries of the inmates.

* Charles Manson was a staunch anti-vivisectionist.

* Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, charged with war crimes,
genocide, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, had been a psychiatrist specializing
in depression; the author of a published book of poetry as well as
children's books, often with themes of nature; and a practitioner of
alternative medicine.

I'm not really certain to what use you might put this information to
advance toward our cherished national goal of becoming a civilized
society, but I feel a need to disseminate it. If you know of any other
examples of the same type, I'd appreciate your sending them to me.

The examples above are all of "bad guys" doing "good" things. There are
of course many more instances of "good guys" doing "bad" things.

Notes

1. Washington Post, August 17 2008

2. Chicago Tribune, September 25 2004

3. Associated Press, November 17 2008

4. New York Times, October 03 2008

5. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994), page 278; William Blum,
Rogue State, chapter 23, "How the CIA sent Nelson Mandela to prison for
28 years"

6. BBC, October 26 2008

7. New York Times, November 09 2008

8. Associated Press, November 09 2008

9. See my article at: http://www.killinghope.org/superogue/terintro.htm


William Blum is the author of:-

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War Two
(Common Courage Press, 1995)

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (Zed Books, 2002)

West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2002)

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (Common
Courage Press, 2004)

Portions of the books can be read, and copies purchased, at
http://www.killinghope.org and previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read
at this website.

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