Protests at US embassies are occurring throughout the Middle East and beyond. Four days thus far and counting.
Over a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries.
The triggering catalyst was an ugly anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube but Bill Van Auken of wsws explains something even the most obtuse American should know by now, “underlying them [the upheavals] is deep-seated anger over the wars and oppression inflicted by American imperialism over the decades.”
The United States has a history -- a policy -- of backing right-wing regimes, in spite of the “spreading democracy” big fat lie to justify foreign engagement that has travelled down through the decades. That justification has now morphed into the “humanitarian intervention” lie. The welfare of foreign peoples is never a major consideration to US foreign policy, except for initial propaganda purposes. In fact, the will of the people to influence their governance in foreign lands is something NOT to be encouraged -- that is the realpolitik agenda of our American government leaders from BOTH legacy corporate political parties.
This week’s protests according to Alex Lanier of wsws have spread to at least ELEVEN COUNTRIES including Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, Morocco, Sudan, and Bangladesh.
This from Van Auken:
In Bangladesh, over 10,000 took to the streets of Dhaka, with protesters burning US and Israeli flags.
In Afghanistan, over 1,000 people demonstrated in the eastern city of Jalalabad, burning Obama in effigy.
snip
In the central Nigerian city of Plateau, thousands of youth gathered after Friday prayers at the city’s central mosque but were quickly dispersed by troops firing live rounds. “People said it was a peaceful demonstration, but as usual the military doesn’t believe anybody has the right to demonstrate,” said one of the protesters.
Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City and the southern Gazan city of Rafah, chanting, “Death, death to America, death, death to Israel.” Several hundred who attempted to protest outside the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem were met by Israeli security forces, who fired tear gas and stun grenades, wounding several.
The protests according to Van Auken began in Cairo.
How long ago was Obama’s Cairo speech about peace and partnership?
How long ago was the Arab Spring that toppled dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt? Not very.
Lanier emphasizes both Tunisia and Egypt had “US-backed dictatorships.”
Tunisia is where Mohamed Bouazizi in January 2011 set himself on fire in protest of his impoverished circumstances which martyrdom was a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring. Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Be Ali stepped down mid-January after 23 years in power.
The US embassy in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, was “stormed” by thousands of demonstrators Van Auken asserts. 28 people were wounded, two critically, and three killed. The crowds were made up of Muslims marching on the embassy directly from their mosques and young people from working class neighborhoods.
One of the Tunisian protest chants, according to Van Auken, has been used in a number of countries. “Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!” (In your face, America! Remember when following 9/11 we had the entire world’s empathy and Osama bin Laden was vilified?)
The Tunisian protesters broke through the embassy walls, set cars on fire in its parking lot, tore down the US flag and replaced it with a black banner that read, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his messenger.” They also attacked an American school, looting it and setting it on fire.
Police fired tear gas and live ammunition to fight the protesters. The US embassy was evacuated.
Lanier quotes one day laborer, Yassin Maher, at the US Embassy in Egypt protesting the US-backed regime of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and Mursi’s “police crackdown”: “As you can see, the security forces under Mursi are the same as those during the Mubarak era—both are defending America.”
The US Embassy in Sana’a, capital of Yemen, was attacked by workers and youth according to Lanier. Van Auken reports four people were killed there Thursday. Two more were killed on Friday. Police fired live ammo into the crowds as well as using a water cannon to stop the angry marchers.
Yemen. Profoundly poor country with a corrupt government. A corrupt government dominated by the family and operatives of former dictator Ali Abdullah Salhe, who was forced to resign by a people’s mass uprising. The present still corrupt authority is backed by Washington and it pushes back bloodily and earnestly at any protesting from the citizenry. Washington’s support? Periodic organized Special Forces raids and drone strikes. (Yemen was where Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was killed by a drone in 2011.) The government is pro-American. The people, not.
In Iraq thousands of BOTH Sunni and Shia protesters (that is telling) marched together in Baghdad and Basra. The US invaded Iraq in 2003. Devastated Iraq and occupied it for almost a decade. A common estimate is over a million deaths caused.
Van Auken on Iraq:
There were anti-American demonstrations in cities and towns across Iraq, which was occupied by US troops until the end of last year. The largest of the protests took place in the southern city of Basra, where thousands marched through the streets and burned US and Israeli flags.
On Friday, in Khartoum, Sudan, thousands tried to storm the US embassy. Guards inside the building fired shots as the protesters climbed over the security walls and ran up a black Islamic flag. Earlier there were 5000 demonstrators raiding the neighboring German and British embassies. The German embassy, having been evacuated, was set on fire and seriously damaged reports Van Auken.
In Libya, again from Van Auken, 200 gunmen raided the US consulate, killing the ambassador and 3 American staffers.
Libya, where Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government was “regime changed” last year with an illegitimate non-authorized by Congress US/NATO bombing campaign along with US/NATO special forces working on the ground and supporting “Islamist and tribal militias” including members of Al Qaeda. Lanier emphasizes that the US/NATO “intervention” (the faux-humanitarian intervention) “left a patchwork of right-wing militias fighting for control of the country.” How unsurprising though tragic members of one of these renegade groups violently invaded the consulate at Benghazi and savagely killed four Americans, including the US ambassador.
Washington. Lanier also explains, is following close to its Libyan “regime change” formula in Syria. It is backing a bloody proxy war against the Assad regime. As it did in Libya, cravenly and once again surreally using Al Qaeda jihadists as tools for that illegitimate “regime change” agenda. Disaster capitalism requires chaos -- shock and awe among populations -- for its opportunistic goals. The cost of human lives, collateral damage, so not a serious consideration.
Next stop for Washington: Iran?
Lanier on how “Washington” is responding to regional national protests:
Washington’s response to the latest upsurge of popular protests in the region is to mobilize its military power to intimidate popular opposition and set the stage for a new round of bloodshed. It has dispatched US destroyers to patrol the Libyan coast and fire cruise missiles at targets inside the country that it suspects of being responsible for the attack.
Van Auken explains in more detail. The Obama administration sent a unit of 50 Marine special forces known as a “Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST)” along with two naval destroyers armed with tomahawk cruise missiles to the Libyan coast.
Yesterday the authorities now in Libya closed down the Benghazi airport for several hours in fear of casualties involving civilian flights. US pilotless drones flying over the city were receiving anti-aircraft fire.
Obama sent another FAST Marine unit to Yemen.
Again according to Van Auken, yesterday Obama submitted a letter to Congress “formally announcing, in accordance with the War Powers Act (imagine Obama finally acknowledging that?), that he had dispatched troops ‘equipped for combat’ to both countries with the motivation of “protecting American citizens and property” and they “will remain in Libya and in Yemen until the security situation becomes such that they are no longer needed.” Until no longer needed? Put that cost on our near bankrupt national budget for ... what ... forever?
On Friday Obama declared at the Andrews Air Force Base hanger ceremony as the bodies of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his three US colleagues were returned to the US: “We will stand fast against the violence on our diplomatic missions.... Justice will come to those who harm Americans.”
What about justice for those who harm non-Americans, Mr. Obama?
Secretary of State Clinton warned Middle Easterners on the same occasion not to “trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob.”
Yes, Mrs. Clinton. The same tyrants the US spent so many years enabling. These “mobs” you "lecture" include oppressed and terrorized people infiltrated with the US/NATO-enabled avowed terrorists who were used as opportunistic tools for “regime change”, profound destabilization and displacement, and imperialistic advantage.
According to AP, a 56-year old Israeli named Sam Bacile, the central figure being cited as responsible for this week’s global outrage, is a filmmaker and real estate developer based in California. He has gone into hiding but defiantly managed to communicate to the press the message, “Islam is a cancer, period.”
AP reports that the two-hour movie, “Innocence of Muslims” cost $5 million to make and was financed by 100 Jewish donors according to Bacile. It was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and a crew of 45.
AP’s analysis of the film:
The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage.
Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.
Oh and one more disclosure from AP on this:
The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year, said Bacile.
I wonder how many of the outraged global protesters know that the film had only one pathetic showing and the theater was mostly empty.
I wonder how many of the outraged global protesters assume that all Americans have Bacile’s back and point of view of them and their religion. How many of them assume that the movie is playing to sold-out houses daily all over our seemingly Islamist-hating country?
After all, with so many of their loved ones killed or wounded, their homelands devastated by US military violence and/or US-enabled violence (again, even incredibly from the likes of selectively demonized Al Qaeda working with the CIA) how could they appreciate that we ordinary Americans -- you know, us good people doing nothing -- don’t feel responsible or significantly involved in the tax-paid genocidal USWarMachine ever mowing them down. Mowing down the Middle East ... for now.
It has been 11 years since 9/11 and too many of us in America are still bemused as to “why they hate us.” Too many will wrong-headedly speculate why especially after the dramatic protests of this week -- protests that even American corporate media can’t ignore but will assuredly disinform about soon enough and probably, cooperating with our craven politicians, build a renewed drum beat to escalate American military violence further from (useful for Obama's re-election "hard on terrorism" image). These Americans will probably ask each other why those Islamists seem so eccentrically, dangerously and seemingly pathologically touchy about how disrespected they and their religious beliefs are by Americans.
Truly amazing how that American exceptionalism bubble stays intact, and even enlarges, in defiance of horrifying reality.
[cross-posted at correntewire and sacramento for democracy]
--------------
Good post Libby, we must be on the same wavelength today... I just posted this a couple of hours ago:
http://open.salon.com/blog/jmac1949/2012/09/15/libya_the_costs_of_our_war_on_terrorism_-_some_perspective
http://open.salon.com/blog/jmac1949/2012/09/15/libya_the_costs_of_our_war_on_terrorism_-_some_perspective
What is frightening is that things are going to get worse - much, much worse - as the economic disaster in the US becomes a collapse. Sooner than they think, American citizens are going to feel the lash of their corporate masters wrath.
The days ahead will make many of us wish that we'd never had any children.....
.
The days ahead will make many of us wish that we'd never had any children.....
.
Great Post. It seems this film has ramifications worldwide and you are right skypixieo, things are going to get worse before they get better. Hope they get better. Pray they get better...They better get better or the doom would mean us all
@GypsyAngel,
With all due respect - and deep sympathy for how you feel - hoping and praying is what Americans have been doing for the last 4 or 5 decades. We can see how well THAT has worked out!
I'm afraid that all present indications there are that far too many people who will be shocked - briefly - to discover that there is no god who is taking special care of America. Then they'll die. Unpleasantly. Nature does not suffer fools; gladly or otherwise, for long.
;-)
.
With all due respect - and deep sympathy for how you feel - hoping and praying is what Americans have been doing for the last 4 or 5 decades. We can see how well THAT has worked out!
I'm afraid that all present indications there are that far too many people who will be shocked - briefly - to discover that there is no god who is taking special care of America. Then they'll die. Unpleasantly. Nature does not suffer fools; gladly or otherwise, for long.
;-)
.
Such a Hot Subject now, Libby - and you Aced it! R
Although I am in total sympathy with the general feeling that the reaction to the video was merely a spark to set fire to the frightful brutality the West in general has inflicted on the nations in the Middle East in their voracious efforts to control the oil supply, I do have to consider what appears to me to be total psychosis in the matter of opinions towards Islam. The video evidently was made to incite wild passions and that seems unacceptable but the reaction , it seems to me seems quite strange.
There is a rather long autobiographical description printed in the New Yorker Magazine writen by Salman Rushdie at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/17/120917fa_fact_rushdie?currentPage=all
which indicates there is something not quite rational over the way the Muslim world reacts to criticism. I cannot see such wildly furious responses to people who disagree to their religion as being acceptable in any way whatsoever and my sympathies are totally with Rushdie.
There is a rather long autobiographical description printed in the New Yorker Magazine writen by Salman Rushdie at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/17/120917fa_fact_rushdie?currentPage=all
which indicates there is something not quite rational over the way the Muslim world reacts to criticism. I cannot see such wildly furious responses to people who disagree to their religion as being acceptable in any way whatsoever and my sympathies are totally with Rushdie.
jmac, thanks for your comment. fascinating blog you wrote.
thanks, toritto.
sky, with 46 million is it under the poverty line we are sinking fast. And the police state ramp up is in direct proportion to the down spin. we need a humanist paradigm shift. Romney vs. Obama does not include humanism. how sad. but citizens are waking up. organizing is so hard, especially with an obstructionistic and confusing corporate media.
gypsyangel, thanks so much for your comment!
marilyn, thanks for your comment. the mass demonstrations are so staggering. the anti-Americanism so profound and tragically earned by our insane militarism. Secular governments in the mid-East are being toppled and fundamentalism is being encouraged by the Western nations and Israel from the destruction by war of these civilizations' cultural and physical infrastructure.
best, libby
thanks, toritto.
sky, with 46 million is it under the poverty line we are sinking fast. And the police state ramp up is in direct proportion to the down spin. we need a humanist paradigm shift. Romney vs. Obama does not include humanism. how sad. but citizens are waking up. organizing is so hard, especially with an obstructionistic and confusing corporate media.
gypsyangel, thanks so much for your comment!
marilyn, thanks for your comment. the mass demonstrations are so staggering. the anti-Americanism so profound and tragically earned by our insane militarism. Secular governments in the mid-East are being toppled and fundamentalism is being encouraged by the Western nations and Israel from the destruction by war of these civilizations' cultural and physical infrastructure.
best, libby
Jan,
Thanks for your honesty. You know I, too, had serious empathy for Rushdie and for the Danish cartoonists. And I do believe in freedom of speech. Sadly bigots like this Bacile and his donors have the profound power to provoke a situation already rife with colossal horror.
I guess what prompted me to write this particular blog was to counterpoint a too exclusive focus on the religious hyper-defensiveness with the pathology of my own national community!
I think a sense of tribalism within any community can reach pathological proportions, within a family, a small network, a group of sports or any kind of fans, a religious group, a military group, a political party, a nation, etc. Group-think that morphs into something malicious and wrong-headed and mired in exceptionalism. Enthrallment. A dangerous enthrallment that defies individual critical thought and basic human decency and common sense. Brotherly love.
The massive and violent defensiveness and protectiveness is I agree disturbingly profound among the Muslims in terms of their demand for respect for their religion.
But Jan, when you look at the INSANE lack of respect by the US/NATO/Israel for the sanctity of their human lives and you see this incredible global backlash which was triggered by the long term religious mandate but is obviously profoundly fueled by the decades' long devastating injustices from exploitive and murdering and amoral supposedly more "sophisticated" nations.
Along with that rage about the religious taboo, the rage about the serious exploitation after 9/11 and most recently the betrayal of the real Arab Spring there is also the issue of what is happening to and has happened to the Palestinians. The plight of Gaza, the unjust settlement building, the demonization of the Palestinians as a people. The apartheid conditions. That, too, is the motivator for so much ongoing rage and despair and helplessness in the Middle East.
Appreciate your comment and that is a very compelling Rushdie article for sure.
best, libby
Thanks for your honesty. You know I, too, had serious empathy for Rushdie and for the Danish cartoonists. And I do believe in freedom of speech. Sadly bigots like this Bacile and his donors have the profound power to provoke a situation already rife with colossal horror.
I guess what prompted me to write this particular blog was to counterpoint a too exclusive focus on the religious hyper-defensiveness with the pathology of my own national community!
I think a sense of tribalism within any community can reach pathological proportions, within a family, a small network, a group of sports or any kind of fans, a religious group, a military group, a political party, a nation, etc. Group-think that morphs into something malicious and wrong-headed and mired in exceptionalism. Enthrallment. A dangerous enthrallment that defies individual critical thought and basic human decency and common sense. Brotherly love.
The massive and violent defensiveness and protectiveness is I agree disturbingly profound among the Muslims in terms of their demand for respect for their religion.
But Jan, when you look at the INSANE lack of respect by the US/NATO/Israel for the sanctity of their human lives and you see this incredible global backlash which was triggered by the long term religious mandate but is obviously profoundly fueled by the decades' long devastating injustices from exploitive and murdering and amoral supposedly more "sophisticated" nations.
Along with that rage about the religious taboo, the rage about the serious exploitation after 9/11 and most recently the betrayal of the real Arab Spring there is also the issue of what is happening to and has happened to the Palestinians. The plight of Gaza, the unjust settlement building, the demonization of the Palestinians as a people. The apartheid conditions. That, too, is the motivator for so much ongoing rage and despair and helplessness in the Middle East.
Appreciate your comment and that is a very compelling Rushdie article for sure.
best, libby
I must admit I am torn between the sense of the insult to the religion where the reactions seem far beyond extreme and the death of hundreds of thousands from the military oppression by the West against Islamic countries in order to swipe their oil. The odd combination of factors makes it difficult to deal with.
This is from Pepe Escobar about the US getting into bed once again with terrorists in Libya and in Syria:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32440.htm
"What happened in Benghazi may have been just an out-of-control protest against a crude, amateur, made-in-California movie produced and directed by an Israeli-American real estate developer and certified Islamophobe (an identity now being reported as a guise), financed with US$5 million from unidentified Jewish donors, depicting Islam "as a cancer" and Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, a pedophile and most of all, a fraud. The movie was duly promoted by wacko Florida pastor and Koran-burning freak Terry Jones.
"Yet the killing of the US ambassador in Libya is just an hors d'oeuvre to what may happen in Syria - where scores of "freedom fighters" supported by the CIA, the Turks and the House of Saud are al-Qaeda-linked, either via the supposedly reformist Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) or acronym-infested subcontracting gangs such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM).
"So how will Washington "bring the perpetrators to justice" in Libya? After all this is the same gang that was hailed as "heroes" when they sodomized, lynched and snuffed out "evil" Gaddafi.
"Asia Times Online has been warning for over a year about blowback in Libya - and potentially in Syria, where medieval Saudi sheikhs frantically issue fatwas legitimating a widespread massacre of "infidel" Alawites. This is all a rerun of the same old 1980s' Afghan jihad movie; first you call them "freedom fighters", but when they attack us they revert to being "terrorists".
"Now we have NATO-armed Salafi-jihadis in Libya, and House of Saud-financed and Turkey-based Salafi-jihadis in Syria - deploying "terra" antics such as suicide bombers to bring down the Assad regime - all wired up and ready to roll. It certainly adds a new meaning to Obama's "kinetic action" gig.
"Blowback - as in Afghanistan - might have taken years. This time Mr Blowback reared its ugly head in only a few months. And that's just the beginning."
So what now? Who're you gonna bomb? Who're you gonna drone to death? What about bombing Benghazi a year after condemning Gaddafi to death because he might have threatened to ... bomb Benghazi?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32440.htm
"What happened in Benghazi may have been just an out-of-control protest against a crude, amateur, made-in-California movie produced and directed by an Israeli-American real estate developer and certified Islamophobe (an identity now being reported as a guise), financed with US$5 million from unidentified Jewish donors, depicting Islam "as a cancer" and Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, a pedophile and most of all, a fraud. The movie was duly promoted by wacko Florida pastor and Koran-burning freak Terry Jones.
"Yet the killing of the US ambassador in Libya is just an hors d'oeuvre to what may happen in Syria - where scores of "freedom fighters" supported by the CIA, the Turks and the House of Saud are al-Qaeda-linked, either via the supposedly reformist Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) or acronym-infested subcontracting gangs such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM).
"So how will Washington "bring the perpetrators to justice" in Libya? After all this is the same gang that was hailed as "heroes" when they sodomized, lynched and snuffed out "evil" Gaddafi.
"Asia Times Online has been warning for over a year about blowback in Libya - and potentially in Syria, where medieval Saudi sheikhs frantically issue fatwas legitimating a widespread massacre of "infidel" Alawites. This is all a rerun of the same old 1980s' Afghan jihad movie; first you call them "freedom fighters", but when they attack us they revert to being "terrorists".
"Now we have NATO-armed Salafi-jihadis in Libya, and House of Saud-financed and Turkey-based Salafi-jihadis in Syria - deploying "terra" antics such as suicide bombers to bring down the Assad regime - all wired up and ready to roll. It certainly adds a new meaning to Obama's "kinetic action" gig.
"Blowback - as in Afghanistan - might have taken years. This time Mr Blowback reared its ugly head in only a few months. And that's just the beginning."
So what now? Who're you gonna bomb? Who're you gonna drone to death? What about bombing Benghazi a year after condemning Gaddafi to death because he might have threatened to ... bomb Benghazi?
I'm not really in disagreement here, but I am curious as to what you think the answer is. With all that's gone before and all that's going on now, do we just retreat?
And, as to the movie, most protesters don't just think it's playing to full houses, they also think is was vetted and approved by the U.S. government, which makes me think that some of our apparently "vast" resources would be better spent on education and outreach.
And, as to the movie, most protesters don't just think it's playing to full houses, they also think is was vetted and approved by the U.S. government, which makes me think that some of our apparently "vast" resources would be better spent on education and outreach.
We're a big easy target and we're often hugely. blatantly obnoxious. Look hard enuf at any other culture and you can find plenty of reasons to hate them, too. Hatred. It's what makes the world go wrong. I wish everyone cared as much as you do, Libby.
A brilliant and passionate analysis, Libby. When a centuries old struggle between two cultures and religions combines with a struggle over a dwindling vital resource, the vicious mess we have today ensues. Makes you nostalgic for the good old days of the Cold War. R
Once again, I ditto what Gerald wrote. r
It really is a shame that we have to remind ourselves that we are equally as misinformed as our not so high consuming earthmates in the Arab world. Unlearning the myths and legends that have been taught us is just about as easy as it would be for a Tunisian to convert to Judaism.
The truth is a dangerous asset - and the price for putting to work is quite high - who needs bloodshed and fire? Profiteers - here there and everywhere. When do fools rush in? As needed. But they must be properly half baked - and nobody cooks a turkey better than America.
The truth is a dangerous asset - and the price for putting to work is quite high - who needs bloodshed and fire? Profiteers - here there and everywhere. When do fools rush in? As needed. But they must be properly half baked - and nobody cooks a turkey better than America.
Thanks for additional comments I will address soon. :-)
I just came across an interesting essay by Mark LeVine, a professor at UC Irvine. His take on the responsibility of the corporate-agenda predatory big countries like US, Europe, Russia and now China have been enabling the rampant violations of human rights for decades and looking the other way because of economic (sociopathic/psychopathic "corporation as legal personality" prioritizing) interests.
Enabling these horrific human-rights violating regimes with weaponry and exorbitant amounts of money for self-aggrandizing further economic interests.
The sanctity of human life has not been a priority it tragically and monumentally seems. The patriarchal paradigm of might makes right, gamesmanship not partnership, greed, winner take all, power and control. No humanism.
So when Hillary Clinton or some representative of the US government, say, generalizes optimistically about governments we are helping, and the media echoes a rose-colored picture, what is the real deal? Do we know? Do we know what gangsterism our advertising-warm-fuzzy corporations are doing to oppress other peoples in other countries? Do we know if our tax dollars are going to prop up insanely oppressive governments because for geographic strategic advantage from being frenemies or for oil resources, etc.
It seems insane the degree of money we have fortified horrific regimes with and the insane degree our government has looked the other way after ENABLING EVIL!!! Over and over and over. Values and respect for human rights!!! That is what we need. Now, alas, we are losing that in our own countries, these countries who have enabled extreme right wing regimes because that sociopathic culture of leadership is turning on us and we are beginning to get the kind of horrific indifference our country has exercised abroad as it exploited opportunities to advance the corporate cartel.
Our military is serving that corporate cartel as are our governmental representatives. Obama is a front man for oligarchs as glen ford of black agenda report said from the get-go. So would Romney be. Neither one of these men is our salvation.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32434.htm
"As I flew home yesterday from Europe, unaware of what had transpired in Libya, I read through the 2008 report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, titled "From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Oppression: Human Rights in the Arab Region".
"The report described the often unbearable levels of abuse suffered by citizens across the region is one of the most depressing reads imaginable. Every single government, from Morocco to Iraq, was defined by the systematic abuse of its citizens, denial of their most basic rights, and rampant corruption and violence. And in every case, such abuses and violence have been enabled by Western, Russian and other foreign interests.
"Simply put, each and all the policies and actions described in the report - and 2008 was no better or worse than the years that proceeded or followed it - are as much forms of terror as the destruction of the World Trade Centre, invasion of Iraq, or attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi.
"In fact, the Middle East and North Africa have for over half a century constituted one of the largest and most pernicious terror systems of the modern era. And the US, Europe, Russia, and now increasingly China have been accessories, co-conspirators, and often initiators of this terror throughout the period, working hand-in-hand with local governments to repress their peoples and ensure that wealth and power remain arrogated by a trusted few."
I just came across an interesting essay by Mark LeVine, a professor at UC Irvine. His take on the responsibility of the corporate-agenda predatory big countries like US, Europe, Russia and now China have been enabling the rampant violations of human rights for decades and looking the other way because of economic (sociopathic/psychopathic "corporation as legal personality" prioritizing) interests.
Enabling these horrific human-rights violating regimes with weaponry and exorbitant amounts of money for self-aggrandizing further economic interests.
The sanctity of human life has not been a priority it tragically and monumentally seems. The patriarchal paradigm of might makes right, gamesmanship not partnership, greed, winner take all, power and control. No humanism.
So when Hillary Clinton or some representative of the US government, say, generalizes optimistically about governments we are helping, and the media echoes a rose-colored picture, what is the real deal? Do we know? Do we know what gangsterism our advertising-warm-fuzzy corporations are doing to oppress other peoples in other countries? Do we know if our tax dollars are going to prop up insanely oppressive governments because for geographic strategic advantage from being frenemies or for oil resources, etc.
It seems insane the degree of money we have fortified horrific regimes with and the insane degree our government has looked the other way after ENABLING EVIL!!! Over and over and over. Values and respect for human rights!!! That is what we need. Now, alas, we are losing that in our own countries, these countries who have enabled extreme right wing regimes because that sociopathic culture of leadership is turning on us and we are beginning to get the kind of horrific indifference our country has exercised abroad as it exploited opportunities to advance the corporate cartel.
Our military is serving that corporate cartel as are our governmental representatives. Obama is a front man for oligarchs as glen ford of black agenda report said from the get-go. So would Romney be. Neither one of these men is our salvation.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32434.htm
"As I flew home yesterday from Europe, unaware of what had transpired in Libya, I read through the 2008 report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, titled "From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Oppression: Human Rights in the Arab Region".
"The report described the often unbearable levels of abuse suffered by citizens across the region is one of the most depressing reads imaginable. Every single government, from Morocco to Iraq, was defined by the systematic abuse of its citizens, denial of their most basic rights, and rampant corruption and violence. And in every case, such abuses and violence have been enabled by Western, Russian and other foreign interests.
"Simply put, each and all the policies and actions described in the report - and 2008 was no better or worse than the years that proceeded or followed it - are as much forms of terror as the destruction of the World Trade Centre, invasion of Iraq, or attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi.
"In fact, the Middle East and North Africa have for over half a century constituted one of the largest and most pernicious terror systems of the modern era. And the US, Europe, Russia, and now increasingly China have been accessories, co-conspirators, and often initiators of this terror throughout the period, working hand-in-hand with local governments to repress their peoples and ensure that wealth and power remain arrogated by a trusted few."
America is fuckin done and everybody fuckin knows it...time to feed on this rotten dead monster
jlsathre, thanks so much for commenting! To me it all comes down to the golden rule. Humanism.
Somehow us as citizens organizing and using some leverage against the corporate sociopathic ruling culture. We have media being used for propaganda so that is really insidious and obstructionistic and hypnotic for the dark side for sure. Encourages citizen narcissism rather than empathy.
I met Jill Stein of the Green Party and was so impressed. What impressed me most was how she encouraged me to tell her what I felt and it all came pouring out of me and her responses were so sharp and empathetic. And I realized I wanted to hear from her more and needed to shut up, but I also felt impressed that she was smart but also a listener. And we need listeners and carers in power.
I can't remember exactly the statistics but Congress has upped its income considerably in the last ten years, while the rest of us have dropped. That is an in your face reality that there is something rotten in Washington.
America had an image abroad of being a leading moral country. Now it no longer even has the image. I look back and wonder how awful we have been during my ostrich history as a citizen. I know there was a lot more institutionalized morality and attempts at that then there is now. The AMORALITY since the Bush torture regime and gutting of the bill of rights with no due process and illegitimate right to assassinate Americans is horrifying. We need a moral leader. People wanted Obama to be MLK and he was an anti-MLK.
As for the immediate question at hand, YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABOUT EDUCATION AND OUTREACH!!! There has to be a sense of caring there. Not a manipulative we will talk caring but we will not walk the walk caring. There has to be moral strength.
And the military industrial security and prison complex is so entrenched and so mighty. We wouldn't need to be so insanely defensive if we were not so amorally offensive to the world! And now the corporatization of the school system, that needed help, but not this. This is not help!!! This is more exploitation.
best, libby
Somehow us as citizens organizing and using some leverage against the corporate sociopathic ruling culture. We have media being used for propaganda so that is really insidious and obstructionistic and hypnotic for the dark side for sure. Encourages citizen narcissism rather than empathy.
I met Jill Stein of the Green Party and was so impressed. What impressed me most was how she encouraged me to tell her what I felt and it all came pouring out of me and her responses were so sharp and empathetic. And I realized I wanted to hear from her more and needed to shut up, but I also felt impressed that she was smart but also a listener. And we need listeners and carers in power.
I can't remember exactly the statistics but Congress has upped its income considerably in the last ten years, while the rest of us have dropped. That is an in your face reality that there is something rotten in Washington.
America had an image abroad of being a leading moral country. Now it no longer even has the image. I look back and wonder how awful we have been during my ostrich history as a citizen. I know there was a lot more institutionalized morality and attempts at that then there is now. The AMORALITY since the Bush torture regime and gutting of the bill of rights with no due process and illegitimate right to assassinate Americans is horrifying. We need a moral leader. People wanted Obama to be MLK and he was an anti-MLK.
As for the immediate question at hand, YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABOUT EDUCATION AND OUTREACH!!! There has to be a sense of caring there. Not a manipulative we will talk caring but we will not walk the walk caring. There has to be moral strength.
And the military industrial security and prison complex is so entrenched and so mighty. We wouldn't need to be so insanely defensive if we were not so amorally offensive to the world! And now the corporatization of the school system, that needed help, but not this. This is not help!!! This is more exploitation.
best, libby
Chicken Maaan, so well and concisely said! Blatantly obnoxious is a good way to put it. The corporate-induced sociopathy is what I see as having happened to our leadership. Human values no longer in the equation for foreign policy and even domestic policy. Thanks, CM, I care but I know I don't do enough myself! IRL gets stressful and we all lose the reins of being proactive enough citizens! But expressing things here makes me feel I am doing something as well as leaning! best, libby
Gerald, another master writer concisely distills the main issues! Thank you. We need that kind of insight really grasped by the majority of our citizens if there is any hope. Again, we need a paradigm shift in leadership to serious humanism! best, libby
Ande!!! Thanks so much for commenting! :-)
Snowden, what a well-done metaphor (pun intended) about our half-bakedness with the truth or as Colbert talks about, that dangerous "truthiness" that gets tapped into especially at lying election time! You write "Unlearning the myths and legends that have been taught us is just about as easy as it would be for a Tunisian to convert to Judaism." So agree. And the profiteers, those conscienceless sociopaths who have captured our government. We must rout them!!!! best, libby
DaveyMarx!!!! I keep thinking we have hit bottom as a country, and then we go down deeper! best, libby
Gerald, another master writer concisely distills the main issues! Thank you. We need that kind of insight really grasped by the majority of our citizens if there is any hope. Again, we need a paradigm shift in leadership to serious humanism! best, libby
Ande!!! Thanks so much for commenting! :-)
Snowden, what a well-done metaphor (pun intended) about our half-bakedness with the truth or as Colbert talks about, that dangerous "truthiness" that gets tapped into especially at lying election time! You write "Unlearning the myths and legends that have been taught us is just about as easy as it would be for a Tunisian to convert to Judaism." So agree. And the profiteers, those conscienceless sociopaths who have captured our government. We must rout them!!!! best, libby
DaveyMarx!!!! I keep thinking we have hit bottom as a country, and then we go down deeper! best, libby
I think that similar problems exist in all 'western' countries, but as Chomsky has said USA happens to be so big that its administration manages to generate problems everywhere in the world...
But America is a multicultural society. How can such a society generate the system of the leadership, which seemingly thinks to have the right to rob other countries' wealth and to demand them to change their leaderships for Americans' favorites..? Is it in the Middle East simply because of the oil?
---
From my viewpoint 'Arab Spring' was mainly machined by Americans; to prepare the area for the next big war, against Iran.
---
Internet and so-called social media was a big part of CIA's work in the area to achieve regime changes and 'Arab Spring'. Now others are fighting back using quite similar tools.
The film was just an excuse for the pre-planned attack; it created the atmosphere so that locals could accept the attack?
But America is a multicultural society. How can such a society generate the system of the leadership, which seemingly thinks to have the right to rob other countries' wealth and to demand them to change their leaderships for Americans' favorites..? Is it in the Middle East simply because of the oil?
---
From my viewpoint 'Arab Spring' was mainly machined by Americans; to prepare the area for the next big war, against Iran.
---
Internet and so-called social media was a big part of CIA's work in the area to achieve regime changes and 'Arab Spring'. Now others are fighting back using quite similar tools.
The film was just an excuse for the pre-planned attack; it created the atmosphere so that locals could accept the attack?
Of course, it didn't help that in June Obama okayed a multimillion dollar arms shipment to the Bahraini royal family to use against their pro-democracy activists. The unfortunate position he has taken on Bahrain receives little attention in the US media, but lots in the international press, which means it's well known in the Middle East. During the London Olympics, 450 buses featured large signs depicting torture and other human rights abuses in Bahrain and Palestine.
After all, with so many of their loved ones killed or wounded, their homelands devastated by US military violence and/or US-enabled violence (again, even incredibly from the likes of selectively demonized Al Qaeda working with the CIA) how could they appreciate that we ordinary Americans -- you know, us good people doing nothing -- don’t feel responsible or significantly involved in the tax-paid genocidal USWarMachine ever mowing them down. Mowing down the Middle East ... for now.
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Thank you for this post, Libby. Ruling the world sounds much better in cartoons. When will we start to act as a super power should? R
Thanks for all this context. It is so frustrating that the MSM promotes violent, dramatic outbursts as coming out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, with no meaning. Once someone has a sense of the context, it starts to make real sense. But there are those invested in presenting events as "senseless". [r]
Hannu, thanks for commenting! Your question is right on point. You write:
"But America is a multicultural society. How can such a society generate the system of the leadership, which seemingly thinks to have the right to rob other countries' wealth and to demand them to change their leaderships for Americans' favorites..? Is it in the Middle East simply because of the oil?"
Yes. The Cheney et al. cabal, those cockroaches who learned much from what happened during the Nixon administration to survive and twist the law for their own protections and the selective prosecution of their enemies certainly did put us there. The CIA was their own little Gestapo. Still being used as such by the Dem administration.
I think there was a very healthy and courageous pushback against the far right regimes the US has enabled. And I think the craven imperialist opportunists among our and the western nations and Israel decided to play with shock and awe and disaster capitalism to take advantage of it all and to throw any dictatorial puppets (our bastards) no longer operable under the bus and LIE and MANIPULATE and DESTROY for DOLLARS any vulnerable countries possible.
The reality of what the US has become in other countries and their own desperation at times with their own leaderships I suspect made them gullible and desperate enough or vulnerable enough to be manipulated and bullied and destabilized by the US/NATO/Israel and CIA/black ops at the beginning of their horrors and then reality caught up to them. Also many see the reality of what the US/NATO/Israel alliance have done in neighboring countries. The "humanitarian intervention" prospect is a death sentence for a sovereign nation. Afghanistan and Iraq are two of the five poorest nations in the world. I think the imperialists at every opportunity did all they could to flare up ethnic discord. Willfully!!! That is so evil.
Many people across the world think they want what we the American citizens are quickly losing, freedom and security and the right to happiness and upward mobility and education and etc.
I agree with you that the death of Stevens as martyr and the backlash against the movie will be used as more justification for more violence and to distract people from the history of our violence and the present violence and the probable violence with Iran which violence will be perpetual until the citizenry rallies the will to say NO!!!! Our government and its bully cabal allies are provoking China and Russia, too,
Addicts, war addicts or any addicts, escalate and raise the stakes. Part of the nature of addiction it would seem.
best, libby
best, libby
"But America is a multicultural society. How can such a society generate the system of the leadership, which seemingly thinks to have the right to rob other countries' wealth and to demand them to change their leaderships for Americans' favorites..? Is it in the Middle East simply because of the oil?"
Yes. The Cheney et al. cabal, those cockroaches who learned much from what happened during the Nixon administration to survive and twist the law for their own protections and the selective prosecution of their enemies certainly did put us there. The CIA was their own little Gestapo. Still being used as such by the Dem administration.
I think there was a very healthy and courageous pushback against the far right regimes the US has enabled. And I think the craven imperialist opportunists among our and the western nations and Israel decided to play with shock and awe and disaster capitalism to take advantage of it all and to throw any dictatorial puppets (our bastards) no longer operable under the bus and LIE and MANIPULATE and DESTROY for DOLLARS any vulnerable countries possible.
The reality of what the US has become in other countries and their own desperation at times with their own leaderships I suspect made them gullible and desperate enough or vulnerable enough to be manipulated and bullied and destabilized by the US/NATO/Israel and CIA/black ops at the beginning of their horrors and then reality caught up to them. Also many see the reality of what the US/NATO/Israel alliance have done in neighboring countries. The "humanitarian intervention" prospect is a death sentence for a sovereign nation. Afghanistan and Iraq are two of the five poorest nations in the world. I think the imperialists at every opportunity did all they could to flare up ethnic discord. Willfully!!! That is so evil.
Many people across the world think they want what we the American citizens are quickly losing, freedom and security and the right to happiness and upward mobility and education and etc.
I agree with you that the death of Stevens as martyr and the backlash against the movie will be used as more justification for more violence and to distract people from the history of our violence and the present violence and the probable violence with Iran which violence will be perpetual until the citizenry rallies the will to say NO!!!! Our government and its bully cabal allies are provoking China and Russia, too,
Addicts, war addicts or any addicts, escalate and raise the stakes. Part of the nature of addiction it would seem.
best, libby
best, libby
Stuart, it is tragic the loss of an independent media in America. The corruption/money/cronyism has totally saturated it. The "news" for what it is worth, has all the credibility of the lying commercials that surround it. Gamesmanship not truth, not honor, not altruism, not intellectual integrity.
Thanks for the disclosures about Bahrain. Dear God. You write:
"Of course, it didn't help that in June Obama okayed a multimillion dollar arms shipment to the Bahraini royal family to use against their pro-democracy activists."
We are so on the wrong side of history. I am glad the international press is giving it some attention and also re Palestine.
No wonder Assange is such an enemy and the American but even much intl media is going after him as hard as the US government. Those with hard evidence of the war crimes of our government and other governments illuminate the evil and those committing evil refuse accountability of course. They exploit their twisting of the law to protect themselves and scapegoat the very whistleblowers calling them out.
best, libby
Thanks for the disclosures about Bahrain. Dear God. You write:
"Of course, it didn't help that in June Obama okayed a multimillion dollar arms shipment to the Bahraini royal family to use against their pro-democracy activists."
We are so on the wrong side of history. I am glad the international press is giving it some attention and also re Palestine.
No wonder Assange is such an enemy and the American but even much intl media is going after him as hard as the US government. Those with hard evidence of the war crimes of our government and other governments illuminate the evil and those committing evil refuse accountability of course. They exploit their twisting of the law to protect themselves and scapegoat the very whistleblowers calling them out.
best, libby
TL, thanks for dropping by! Yes, that is the truly tragic dimension. Good people doing nothing. Consciences in the deep freeze. Authoritarian following of government and corrupt media on steroids. best, libby
Thoth, nice to see you. Yes, there seems to be no sense of identity with humanism on the part of our leaders. All lost to gamesmanship. They are cynical. Americans are cynical and passive, those who bother to pay enough attention to get at least some of what is actually going on. Short term narcissistic needs, even to sacrificing democracy for fascism. It is heartbreaking! best, libby
Donegal, Thanks. I so agree with this:
"But there are those invested in presenting events as "senseless"."
Shock and awe, disaster capitalism, deliberately confusing the public and stirring up its jingoism for ulterior motives.
Human life is so cheap according to our leaders, and that attitude has filtered down to many of our citizenry, tragically. Numb, passive, shallow and willing to be swept up in the media propaganda so very very often!
best, libby
Thoth, nice to see you. Yes, there seems to be no sense of identity with humanism on the part of our leaders. All lost to gamesmanship. They are cynical. Americans are cynical and passive, those who bother to pay enough attention to get at least some of what is actually going on. Short term narcissistic needs, even to sacrificing democracy for fascism. It is heartbreaking! best, libby
Donegal, Thanks. I so agree with this:
"But there are those invested in presenting events as "senseless"."
Shock and awe, disaster capitalism, deliberately confusing the public and stirring up its jingoism for ulterior motives.
Human life is so cheap according to our leaders, and that attitude has filtered down to many of our citizenry, tragically. Numb, passive, shallow and willing to be swept up in the media propaganda so very very often!
best, libby
Obama's administration is thinking that America is at war. Obama said in his inaugural address: "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28751183/ns/politics-inauguration/t/time-has-come-reaffirm-our-enduring-spirit/
Obama'administration is just continuing 'the war' of the previous administration by Bush. It is significant that during the election campaign American arms companies backed Obama against McCain. And in reality during Obama 'the war' has expanded.
More and more sophisticated weapons and means are being used, the idea is that America is ahead of most 'enemies' in modern technology's usage. CIA used especially the Net and social media to arrange regime changes in the Middle East and during this war computer malware is as well used:
“Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss are just a peek into the future. More and increasingly sophisticated malware is constantly being developed around the world. It is quite interesting that Kaspersky has discovered all the most significant malware that has recently been featured in the media. It is also quite likely that all four have been developed at the same location. President Obama has already announced that Stuxnet was produced by the United States. This may be the case also with regard to Gauss."
http://www.stonesoft.com/en/press_and_media/releases/en/2012/13082012.html
---
It is no wonder 'enemies' have started using similar tools, social media and many kinds of information available in the Net. They are using these new tools in combination with other weapons, which they already knew to be effective: it means often sudden attack against such target, which is not much protected by America's army, but is anyway important at least symbolically. For example Embassies.
On the other hand besides the Net Obama's administration is seemingly using printed media to mislead American public; to spread war propaganda. Propaganda about 'bringing democracy' to other countries.
Maybe in America some people still are believing this propaganda story of 'democracy'. Among American allies in NATO many people have already opened their eyes, because European media has already printed the other story:
---
"... the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla...
... at least three major German newspapers – Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild – have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.
Writing in Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of “deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government”. He described this “massacre-marketing strategy” as being “among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict”. Todenhofer had recently been to Damascus, where he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for Germany’s ARD public television."
http://open.salon.com/blog/hannu_virtanen/2012/08/12/americas_syrian_policy
Americans have already admitted that they are backing 'the rebels' in Syria.
---
Obama said in his inauguration speech " our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please... our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."
-------------------------------------------
"the justness of our cause" ??!
-------------------------------------------
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28751183/ns/politics-inauguration/t/time-has-come-reaffirm-our-enduring-spirit/
Obama'administration is just continuing 'the war' of the previous administration by Bush. It is significant that during the election campaign American arms companies backed Obama against McCain. And in reality during Obama 'the war' has expanded.
More and more sophisticated weapons and means are being used, the idea is that America is ahead of most 'enemies' in modern technology's usage. CIA used especially the Net and social media to arrange regime changes in the Middle East and during this war computer malware is as well used:
“Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss are just a peek into the future. More and increasingly sophisticated malware is constantly being developed around the world. It is quite interesting that Kaspersky has discovered all the most significant malware that has recently been featured in the media. It is also quite likely that all four have been developed at the same location. President Obama has already announced that Stuxnet was produced by the United States. This may be the case also with regard to Gauss."
http://www.stonesoft.com/en/press_and_media/releases/en/2012/13082012.html
---
It is no wonder 'enemies' have started using similar tools, social media and many kinds of information available in the Net. They are using these new tools in combination with other weapons, which they already knew to be effective: it means often sudden attack against such target, which is not much protected by America's army, but is anyway important at least symbolically. For example Embassies.
On the other hand besides the Net Obama's administration is seemingly using printed media to mislead American public; to spread war propaganda. Propaganda about 'bringing democracy' to other countries.
Maybe in America some people still are believing this propaganda story of 'democracy'. Among American allies in NATO many people have already opened their eyes, because European media has already printed the other story:
---
"... the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla...
... at least three major German newspapers – Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild – have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.
Writing in Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of “deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government”. He described this “massacre-marketing strategy” as being “among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict”. Todenhofer had recently been to Damascus, where he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for Germany’s ARD public television."
http://open.salon.com/blog/hannu_virtanen/2012/08/12/americas_syrian_policy
Americans have already admitted that they are backing 'the rebels' in Syria.
---
Obama said in his inauguration speech " our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please... our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."
-------------------------------------------
"the justness of our cause" ??!
-------------------------------------------
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