“A police autopsy report, finally released in February, shows Abdullah died from twenty-one gunshot wounds and was found with his wrists handcuffed. At least one of the gunshot wounds entered through Abdullah’s back.”

In a related story, just when you thought the Bush era was over, President Obama makes W proud.   Obama has apparently implemented a Bush-conceived “presidential assassination program.”  Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com elaborated on President Obama’s role and the apparent presence of “hit lists.”  The executive now has the right to target and assassinate American citizens without due process of law, outside of battle, and only on the suspicion of criminal activity.   Greenwald writes:

“. . . in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist.  He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. “

In other empire news, WikiLinks.org released military video this week showing US military forces killing plain clothes Iraqis and two Reuters reporters.  Though several of the men appeared armed, the attack from an American Apache helicopter was unprovoked.  The American soldiers heard on the video come off as trigger happy and looking for justification to shoot.  The attack footage eventually shows the evisceration of an unmarked van which had arrived to rescue one of the wounded reporters.  Inside the van were two young children.  Upon realizing the children were in the van, one of the US soldiers over the radio blames the Iraqis for bringing the kids “into battle.” Two versions of the video are available at the link above. The following link is the shorter, edited version:

Collateral Murder

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ableman/351362491/

Barack Obama’s apparent descent into unreason—manifest in the nation’s renewed commitment to military adventure, creditors’ rights, and subsidized markets—is not what it seems. The remarkable dumbing-down of this seemingly rational man marks the passing of the imperial torch ignited for Ronald Reagan and kept burning by each his successors, the flame kindled by the nation’s proprietors, the one percent of us who control nearly all the wealth. These very rich men depend on a state of war, chronic indebtedness and unregulated markets to maintain their status, and they anoint our rulers and let them know what is and isn’t allowed. Presidents since Reagan have routinely engaged in logical sleight-of-hand to carry out this mandate, which runs counter to the public interest.

That’s why Obama got so exercised when a North Korean rocket fell harmlessly to earth after a test last week. If he were to acknowledge the absurdity of a state of war between the most lavishly armed force in history and this miniscule principality half a world away, he might threaten the status of the proprietors, who profit from national insecurity. Appeals to fear have been incessant from all Reagan dynasty presidents, as in Obama’s reminder, in an earlier speech, of the threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, a threat we wouldn’t worry about but for his reminders. In that speech, Obama invoked 9/11 with all the mock conviction of his predecessor (finessing, apparently, the critical questions every logical mind in America still has about what really happened). It’s government by insecurity, in defiance of reason and in line with time-tested Reagan government practice.

Government by insecurity is not the only principle shared by Reagan and his progeny, but it’s the key to their success. The whole good-versus-evil rap has worked to distract the people from the subversion of republican government by the rich. This is why the Reagans have all been good-looking guys. Ron, himself, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama cut a pseudo-rugged figure that is just what the proprietors are looking for in a spokesman. “If I looked like that,” we’re meant to think, “Maybe I could be president. ” If you’re willing to sit on your principles and suspend logic, maybe.

In his scolding of North Korea, Obama’s illogic was compelling. “Rules must be binding,” he said. “Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. ” No matter how you parse them and in whatever language you care to express them, the words in these three sentences convey nothing. Logically speaking, if it’s not binding, it’s not a rule, if it’s not punished, it’s not a violation, and if it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not a word. Obama’s expressions are tautologies—he is what he is, after all—and he follows the Reagan line in just this sort of appeal to fallacy and unreason.

Law buffs worldwide might ask whether there aren’t also rules against incinerating shepherds in their fields, dropping bombs on wedding parties, and flying unmanned, heavily armed aircraft over terrorized populations in foreign lands, practices Obama engages in, all in accordance with the Reagan ethic. Inquiring minds might wonder how long war criminals like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will be allowed to wander among us, or whether we feel the slightest embarrassment in complaining about the acts of other nations’ leaders when our own leaders have killed and displaced millions and devastated the world economy under the Reagan dynasty. Many would regard Washington, DC, and not Pyongyang, as the rational starting point for the punishment of violations. Obama seems to favor rules that disable competitors and adversaries, but, like the other Reagans, he’s a scofflaw when it comes to compliance at home.

Obama talks about “the threat” to us from people far away but he can’t mention the threat that looms when one of his pilotless bombers buzzes distant villages, able to unleash a holocaust at the press of a button by an airman at a console in Nevada. “What does America signify to people under the drones?” he can’t ask. His convictions and principles exist only as mild intestinal discomfort. Instead of doing the right thing, he worships God and pops a Tums every so often. No King, this guy. Imperial, rather. Reagan the Fifth.

Steve Fournier is contributor to HIMC and writer/editor of
Current Invective:
www.currentinvective.com

Photo credit: afagen – http://www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/3209082746/

It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early colonists at Plymouth — by giving thanks to the Christian God who supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The real meaning of all that, then and now, needs to be continually excavated. The myths and lies that surround the past are constantly draped over the horrors and tortures of our present. (full article)