‘Richard Seymour reviews 24, Zero Dark Thirty, and Homeland and explains that what they all have in common is that they emerge from a cultural terrain formed by the ‘war on terror’ and its aftermath.’
Tariq Ali’s blog » http://tariqalitv.com/portfolio/27-extra-judicial-killings/
Bruce Ackerman writes:
‘…The problem is the double-barreled position advanced by Mr. Obama. He asserts that he already has sufficient congressional authority for an open-ended war with the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. He bases this claim on an expansive reading of Congress’s 2001 resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to make war on Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. As long as this resolution remains on the books, Mr. Obama claims, he can continue fighting, even if Congress never agrees to a new resolution.
[….] In short, “Heads I win; tails you lose.” Whether or not Congress passes Obama’s new resolution, the next president can continue making war indefinitely….’
via Congress, Don’t Be Fooled; Obama Still Believes in Unlimited War – NYTimes.com.
Just wow.
‘…A federal appeals judge wrote in a column published on Sunday that people who accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq War are peddling myths like those that led to the rise of Hitler….’
via Federal Appeals Judge Compares People Who Say Bush Lied To Rise Of Nazis.
and, as if facts mattered, read this:
CNN 2008: ‘President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups….’
via Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war – CNN.com.
Ted Rall asks:
‘Americans were shocked by a video released by the Islamic State depicting the execution by immolation of a captured Jordanian pilot. But the United States burned many, many Iraqis to death in 2004 – and nobody cared. Why the different reactions?’
via Burning with Rage at The Other | Ted Rall’s Rallblog.
Slavoj Žižek writes:
‘…Why do Muslims who were undoubtedly exposed to exploitation, domination and other destructive and humiliating aspects of colonialism, target in their response the best part (for us, at least) of the Western legacy, our egalitarianism and personal freedoms, including the freedom to mock all authorities?
One answer is that their target is well chosen: the liberal West is so unbearable because it not only practises exploitation and violent domination, but presents this brutal reality in the guise of its opposite: freedom, equality and democracy….’
via Slavoj Žižek · In the Grey Zone · LRB 5 February 2015.
Juan Cole writes: ‘…In the 2003 invasion, The Guardian reported,
“The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force crossed the Tigris at the town of Kut, reporting only occasional fire from the Baghdad infantry division of the Republican Guard, which had suffered days of intense bombardment, including two massive 15,000lb “daisy-cutter” fuel-air bombs. Gen Brooks said the Baghdad division, which originally had up to 12,000 troops, had been “destroyed”.
[….]
The ex-Baath officers learned from seeing their colleagues and troops burned up by the Bush fireworks. According to that doctrine, you want to shock the enemy with your brutality and destructiveness, and awe him into submission by your crazed irrationality. But the Daesh commanders also took the lesson that dropping 15,000 pound bombs in the dead of the night away from cameras isn’t very effective, since the populace is insulated from the horror. Burning up even one captured enemy pilot alive on video, in contrast, would be broadcast by the internet and by Rupert Murdoch to the whole world, and a few thousand thugs could arrange for themselves to take on global importance and appear truly menacing to Jordan and even to the city of Rome (so they claim). All this publicity and fear accomplished not with billions in military spending but a smartphone camera, a single captive, and a few psychopaths with matches.
Now that is Shock and Awe….’
via Is ISIL’s ‘Shock and Awe’ more Awe-ful because One Victim? | Informed Comment.
Remember folks, most certainly the Pentagon and US Intel agencies knew of Brian Williams’ lie for the past 12 years and could have easily blackmailed him for positive uncritical news coverage of American wars and policies. Just saying!
‘…NBC News anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday admitted that he was not on a helicopter that hit with enemy fire during the Iraq invasion in 2003, a story he has told numerous times, including last week…’
via Brian Williams Told A Far Different Story About Iraq RPG Attack In 2007.
Tom Engelhardt writes…
…In the last six decades, the American national security state has succeeded strikingly at only one thing (other than turning itself into a growth industry): it freed itself of us and of Congress. In the years following the Vietnam War, the American people were effectively demobilized, shorn of that sense of service to country, while war was privatized and the citizen soldier replaced by an “all-volunteer” force and a host of paid contractors working for warrior corporations. Post-9/11, the citizenry was urged to pay as much attention as possible to “our troops,” or “warriors,” and next to none to the wars they were fighting. Today, the official role of a national security state, bigger and more powerful than in the Vietnam era, is to make Americans “safe” from terror. In a world of war-making that has disappeared into the shadows and a Washington in which just about all information is now classified and shrouded in secrecy, the only way to be “safe” and “secure” as a citizen is, by definition, to be ignorant, to know as little as possible about what “our” government is doing in our name. This helps explain why, in the Obama years, the only crime in official Washington is leaking or whistleblowing; that is, letting the public in on something that we, the people, aren’t supposed to know about the workings of “our” government….
via Tomgram: Engelhardt, I.F. Stone and the Urge to Serve | TomDispatch.
Garett Reppenhagen writes…Unlike Chris Kyle, who claimed his PTSD came from the inability to save more service members, most of the damage to my mental health was what I call “moral injury,” which is becoming a popular term in many veteran circles.
As a sniper I was not usually the victim of a traumatic event, but the perpetrator of violence and death. My actions in combat would have been more acceptable to me if I could cloak myself in the belief that the whole mission was for a greater good. Instead, I watched as the purpose of the mission slowly unraveled.
I served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During that time, we started to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, the 9/11 commission report determined that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, false sovereignty was given to Iraq by Paul Bremer, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were exposed, and the Battle of Fallujah was waged.
via I was an American sniper, and Chris Kyle’s war was not my war – Salon.com.
just in case you had any doubts.
‘The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age. The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong and formed of units drawn from across the army…’
via British army creates team of Facebook warriors | UK news | The Guardian.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) got heated Thursday when protesters disrupted a hearing featuring the 91-year old Henry Kissinger.
The Code Pink protesters repeatedly yelled “Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes!” as he entered the room to speak.
McCain initially asked the Capitol Police for order but the protesters continued as Kissinger, the former secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, sat down at the hearing on global security challenges.
“I’d like to say to my colleagues, and to our distinguished witnesses this morning, that I have been a member of this committee for many years and I have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that took place,” McCain said, as the protesters resumed. “You know, you’re going to have to shut up or I’m going to have you arrested.
“If we can’t get the Capitol Hill police in here immediately —get out of here you low life scum,” McCain said as one man was escorted out. “So Henry, I hope you will —Dr. Kissinger, I hope on behalf of all of the members of this committee on both sides of the aisle, in fact on behalf of all my colleagues, I’d like to apologize for allowing such disgraceful behavior towards a man who served this country with the greatest distinction. I apologize profusely.”
via McCain Boots ‘Low Life Scum’ Protesters Out Of Hearing With Kissinger (VIDEO).
more photos from Code Pink
“The United States has spent about $65 billion to build Afghanistan’s army and police forces, and until this month the American-led coalition regularly shared details on how the money was being put to use and on the Afghan forces’ progress.
“But as of this month, ask a question as seemingly straightforward as the number of Afghan soldiers and police officers in uniform, and the military coalition offers a singularly unrevealing answer: The information is now considered classified.
“The American outlay for weapons and gear for Afghan forces? Classified. The cost of teaching Afghan soldiers to read and write? Even that is now a secret.
“The military command’s explanation for making the change is that such information could endanger American and Afghan lives, even though the data had been released every quarter over the past six years, and Afghan officials do not consider the information secret.
“But as the Obama administration is seeking to declare the long war in Afghanistan officially over, at least from an American standpoint, the move to classify data about the Afghan forces removes one of the most crucial measures for assessing the accomplishments of the international coalition there. And it raises stark questions about the state of the fight against the Taliban, coming after a year in which the Afghan forces took record-high casualties as they battled heavy militant offensives.”
via U.S. Suddenly Goes Quiet on Effort to Bolster Afghan Forces – NYTimes.com.
another day in America’s endless war.
A U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed at least 50 Syrian civilians late last month when it targeted a headquarters of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria, according to an eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights organization.via GAZIANTEP, Turkey: U.S. airstrike in Syria may have killed 50 civilians | World | The Bellingham Herald.