Lord of the Drones

Perhaps one of the more insidious developments of the Barack Obama presidency has been the normalization as well as public acceptance of the murder by drone policy of the Empire. The man who gets his daily kill list delivered to him along with his orange juice in the morning has not only refined the Bush-Cheney "war on terror" by expanding the use of the killer drones, juicing the surveillance state and further presiding over the looting of the average American in order to finance Wall Street and their foreign  wars of profit but institutionalized it. With the mounting toll of civilian casualties, dismissed by the warmongers so "collateral damage' doing nothing to win hearts and minds and more to create lifelong enemies of the United States one has to wonder whether the creation of the legions of relatives of the dead sworn to avenge the deaths of their loved ones is actually the intent. Nothing quite justifies the beggaring and criminalizing of the lower classes to fund a bloated military and surveillance beast as does an abundance of so-called "terrorists" that provide a constant line of bogeymen.

Former Congressman Ron Paul who is a libertarian calls it like it is in a recent piece published at antiwar.com entitled "Obama's Drone Wars Undermine American Values" where he shows again why he has become a respected elder and a seriously legitimate critic of US foreign policy in the neocon era:

Earlier this month, CIA-operated drones killed as many as 55 people in Yemen in several separate strikes. Although it was claimed that those killed were “militants,” according to press reports at least three civilians were killed and at least five others wounded. That makes at least 92 US drone attacks against Yemen during the Obama administration, which have killed nearly 1,000 people including many civilians.

The latest strikes seem to contradict President Obama’s revised guidelines for targeted killings, which he announced last May. At the time he claimed that drones would only be used against those who posed a “continuing and imminent threat to the American people,” that there must be a “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,” and that safeguards to prevent civilian casualties were at “the highest standard we can set.”

None of these criteria seem to have been met. In fact, the threshold in Yemen is considerably lower than the president claims. In 2012 President Obama approved “signature strikes” in Yemen, a criteria for attack that is not based on actual or suspected wrongdoing, but rather on a vague set of behaviors that are said to be shared by militants.

This means that the individuals killed in the most recent drone attacks were not necessarily terrorists or even terrorist suspects. They were not proven to have committed any crime, nor were they proven to have been members of al-Qaeda or any terrorist organization. Yet they were nevertheless targeted for attack, and the sovereignty of Yemen was violated in the process.

Some may claim that we need to kill suspected terrorists overseas so that we can be safer at home. But do the drone attacks in places like Yemen really make us safer? Or are they actually counterproductive? One thing we do know is that one of the strongest recruiting tools for al-Qaeda is the US being over there using drones against people or occupying Muslim countries.

How can we get rid of all the people who may seek to do us harm if our drone and occupation policies continually create even more al-Qaeda members? Are we not just creating an endless supply of tomorrow’s terrorists with our foolish policies today? What example does it set for the rest of the world if the US acts as if it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere, based simply on that individual’s behavior?

We should keep all of this in mind when the US administration lectures world leaders about how they should act in the 21st century. Recently, the US administration admonished Russian president Vladimir Putin for his supposed interference in the affairs of Ukraine, saying that violating the sovereignty of another country is not the 21st century way of conducting international relations. I agree that sovereignty must be respected. But what about the US doing the same thing in places like Yemen? What about the hundreds and even thousands killed by US drones not because they were found guilty of a crime, but because they were exhibiting “behaviors” that led a CIA drone operator safely hidden in New Mexico or somewhere to pull the trigger and end their lives?

What about a president who regularly meets in secret with his advisors to determine who is to be placed on a “kill list” and who refuses to even discuss the criteria for placement on that list? Is this considered acceptable 21st century behavior?

The Obama Administration needs to rein in the CIA and its drone attacks overseas. They make a mockery of American values and they may well make us less safe.

In addition to his latest spot on critique of post September 11, 2001 American foreign policy - sure to set off the puckering assholes at the neocon central propaganda transmission command center The Washington Post or Pravda on the Potomac - but of the "CIA drone operator safely hidden in New Mexico or somewhere to pull the trigger and end their lives". As the Empire evolves into a more efficient killing machine the use of the drones by non-military joystick fondling geeks to murder in the sanitized manner of playing a goddamned video game is another illustration of the moral rottenness that has consumed America carried in like smallpox infected blankets by neoconservative ideologues - cowards who never served one day in the US military.  Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters has a great term for it in a song from his powerful but far too critical for mass consumption "Amused to Death" album, the song is called "The Bravery of Being Out of Range":

Hey bartender over here

Two more shots

And two more beers

Sir turn up the TV sound

The war has started on the ground

Just love those laser guided bombs

They're really great

For righting wrongs

You hit the target

And win the game

From bars 3,000 miles away

3,000 miles away

We play the game

With the bravery of being out of range

What a better way to wage modern war for a nation of detached sheep than turning it into nothing more than a video game where the killer doesn't have to look into the eyes of the victims. Dropping bombs and incendiaries were certainly as detached and cowardly but Obama's drone strikes represent a new level of monstrous immorality. They won't stop either now that the corrupt and contemptible US Senate has bowed to pressure from DNI James Clapper, the man whose main claim to fame is lying to Congress about NSA surveillance of Americans. Language requiring the disclosure of civilian victims of Obama's murder by drone program from a bill has been removed, despite her recent kerfuffle with the CIA DiFi remains an impenetrable firewall of cellulite protecting the criminal activities of the US regime.

Fuck the victims, they were brown-skinned, non-Christian dirty foreign devils anyway, just collateral damage like something icky to be wiped off of the red, white and blue jackboot simply because that is the just way that we roll anymore in our god-kissed, flag-wrapped most of exceptional nations.

Flip Flopper John Kerry Strikes Again

John "Skull and Bones" Kerry's tour de force as Obama's Secretary of State continues. Taking a break from his tirades against Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the refusal of Eastern Ukraine to fall into line to support the US installed, neo-Nazi infested puppet government in Kiev the esteemed Mr. Kerry stumbled into dangerous territory for a US establishment figure. In a speech at what has been described as a closed door meeting of The Trilateral Commission in a Daily Beast exclusive, Kerry bemoaned the demise of the latest round of Israel-Palestine peace talks and commented that Israel was on the way to becoming an "apartheid state", a similar accusation that had poor old Jimmy Carter nailed to a cross of anti-Semitism several years back when he wrote a book with the same dreaded A word in the title.

It was astounding, after racking up the frequent flyer miles and preaching falsehoods from everything on that now retracted New York Times story by Michael Gordon on the presence of Russian special forces troops in Ukraine that was bullshit to the trumped up case for war on Syria over a mysterious use of Sarin gas on civilians that Kerry would actually blurt out something that was true. It was like the movie Liar, Liar in which a serial fibber played by Jim Carrey was as a consequence of his young son's birthday wish forced to tell the truth for one whole day. I excerpt the following from the Daily Beast Story:

Senior American officials have rarely, if ever, used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel, and President Obama has previously rejected the idea that the word should apply to the Jewish state. Kerry's use of the loaded term is already rankling Jewish leaders in America—and it could attract unwanted attention in Israel, as well.

It wasn't the only controversial comment on the Middle East that Kerry made during his remarks to the Trilateral Commission, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible. He lashed out against Israeli settlement-building. And Kerry said that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the current impasse in the talks.

Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

Kerry's comments in addition to his own "take it or leave it" deal immediately enraged people from Washington to Jerusalem and the backlash was severe. One of the few bipartisan things that the dysfunctional and corrupt pack of perverts, jackals, crooks, Birchers, Christian nutcases and reprobates in Congress can agree on besides wars and the increased power vested in the NSA Stasi surveillance machine is of course their slavering support for a foreign country that is Israel. Kerry was right this time too much like the common phrase about the broken clock but for this he is being vilified. Long known as a flip-flopper, an accusation that he was beaten to a pulp with in the 2004 presidential election Kerry did it again and has since issued an apology. This also was in The Daily Beast:

In a statement issued Monday evening, Kerry defended his record as a supporter of Israel but also said, "if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."

Jewish organizations in the United States like AIPAC and the Anti Defamation League quickly expressed their dismay at Kerry's private Apartheid remarks. In a statement, Abe Foxman, the president of the Anti Defamation League said ”it is startling and deeply disappointing that a diplomat so knowledgeable and experienced about democratic Israel chose to use such an inaccurate and incendiary term.” These remarks were echoed in a statement from AIPAC, the bipartisan pro-Israel lobby, which said “Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate.”

Politicians also got involved in the brouhaha. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) urged Kerry to apologize, saying that the Secretary of State’s remarks "are extremely disappointing. The use of the word apartheid has routinely been dismissed as both offensive and inaccurate, and Secretary Kerry's use of it makes peace even harder to achieve." Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, shared Cantor’s outrage, saying “these comments are outrageous and disappointing.”

While it is very amusing to see Kerry hoisted upon his own petard today I am curious as to where the denunciations are from AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and other US domestic Israeli groups over the puppet government in Keiv's alliance with some of the most loathsome neo-Nazis in Europe. The hits from the Republicans are expected in an election year with both Eric Cantor and Marco Rubio being overly ambitious little shits trying to curry favor from the Israel Lobby. This could though provide a wonderful opportunity for Obama to jettison Kerry before the stupid bastard ends up starting World War III because the knives are now out for Kerry.

I am sure that Putin is kicking back with a bowl of popcorn laughing his ass off at Obama's pet buffoon at Foggy Bottom.