Philip Giraldi

Re-elected President Barack Obama’s first foreign policy challenge is likely to be Syria and one has to hope that he will have the wisdom to avoid grasping the nettle. After watching last week’s video of rebels lining up twenty-eight captured soldiers and executing them at close range with machine guns, one might well ask what has been going on in that country. It is the repetition of a familiar pattern for the US, beginning with fundamental failures on the part of Washington and its surrogates to understand the internal dynamics of a foreign land, resulting in bad decisions that have produced even worse results. Since 9/11 the United States has invaded two countries and interfered with a heavy hand in a handful more, with nary a good outcome to be seen. If Washington has a genuine national interest that is at stake in Syria, it would be that the country stay united and stable to keep it from becoming the latest playground for Jihadi warriors. Inevitably perhaps, it appears to be dissolving in chaos and that is precisely what it has become.

The Syrian debacle began as part of the Arab Spring in March 2011 as demonstrations swept the country demanding the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and a new constitution that would remove the Ba’ath Party from power. The Ba’ath Party was then and is now dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shi’ite Islam. Al-Assad is himself an Alawite but has a British-born wife and is regarded as non-religious. Sunnis, the majority religious group in the country long resentful of Ba’athist Alawite rule, joined minority Kurds in the initial demonstrations, which were violently suppressed by the government.

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John Pilger

Dr. Rafil Dhafir. Dhafir Trial Info

It [is] a political show trial of Stalinist dimensions, an anti-Muslim sideshow to the "war on terror".

In 1999, I travelled to Iraq with Denis Halliday who had resigned as assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations rather than enforce a punitive UN embargo on Iraq. Devised and policed by the United States and Britain, the extreme suffering caused by these "sanctions" included, according to Unicef, the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five.

Ten years later, in New York, I met the senior British official responsible for the imposition of sanctions. He is Carne Ross, once known in the UN as "Mr.Iraq". I read to him a statement he made to a parliamentary select committee in 2007 : "The weight of evidence clearly indicates that sanctions caused massive human suffering among ordinary Iraqis, particularly children. We, the US and UK governments, were the primary engineers and offenders of sanctions and were well aware of this evidence at the time but we largely ignored it or blamed it on the Saddam government. [We] effectively denied the entire population a means to live." I said, "That's a shocking admission."

"Yes, I agree," he replied, "I feel very ashamed about it... Before I went to New York, I went to the Foreign Office expecting a briefing on the vast piles of weapons that we still thought Iraq possessed, and the desk officer sort of looked at me slightly sheepishly and said, 'Well actually, we don't think there is anything in Iraq.' "

That was 1997, more than five years before George W. Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq for reasons they knew were fabricated. The bloodshed they caused, according to recent studies, is greater than that of the Rwanda genocide.

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Eric Peters

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The countdown just started. The re(s)election of Barack Obama has assured not only economic collapse (equally inevitable had The Wall Street Stooge been selected) but also a guaranteed gun grab in the coming months prior to the collapse.

Mittens was no friend of the 2A – but BHO is openly its enemy. We have the man’s own statements – and we have the man’s own actions, including the actions of his personally selected attorney general. A man publicly and virulently opposed to peaceful American citizens possessing guns – who ran guns to Mexican drugs cartels in the hope these guns would then be used to perform violent crimes – crimes that could then be used as emotional fodder for gun-grabbing demagoguery. That backfired – but now that Obama (and Holder) are secure in their offices, rest assured that “Fast and Furious” was merely a prelude.

Here is what’s coming: The Supreme Court, already densely marbled with authoritarian-minded collectivists such as “wise Latina” Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsberg, will be further tilted collectivist when – not if - the aging “conservatives” who still linger either give up the ghost or just give up and retire. Antonin Scalia is not far from 80. Neither is Anthony Kennedy. They will be over 80 before 2016. Clarence Thomas is no spring chicken, either. One – or several – are going to go during the next four years. Roberts has already proved to be agreeable to whatever the authoritarian state demands. It’s a fait accompli.

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Stephen Lendman

Haaretz used most of its November 7 issue covering it. Doing so reflects the importance of America to Israeli interests.

Netanyahu and Obama don't like each other. Nonetheless, the Israeli prime minister extended congratulatory best wishes, saying:

"The strategic alliance between Israel the U.S. is stronger than ever. I will continue to work with President Obama to protect the security interests of Israeli citizens."

Expect both leaders to continue working with each other normally. Personal likes and dislikes won't interfere. Even when doing so harms US interests, American presidents and Congress yield to Israeli Lobby pressure. In September, a non-binding sense of the Senate resolution reminded Obama in case he forgot. At issue was open friction with Netanyahu. Senators voted 90 - 1 for action against Iran to prevent it developing nuclear weapons. It was a thinly veiled pro-Netanyahu motion. Senators supported him over their own president. It shows the power of Israeli influence in America. Netanyahu accepted Obama's victory. He expressed certainty of continued US support. It's forthcoming no matter who governs both countries.

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Anonymous

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? ?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
Answer: Israel.

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
Answer: Israel.

Question: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
Answer: Israel.

Question: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?
Answer: Israel.

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Stephen Lendman

An honest election is impossible in a one-party state.

Stephen Lendman: Obama's Legacy of Shame
Stephen Lendman: Obama's Failed State of the Union
Stephen Lendman: Murder, Inc: Official Obama Policy
Glen Ford: Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil
Yves Smith: Barack Obama, the Great Deceiver
Philip Giraldi: Obama’s Report Card

The same party wins every time. Duopoly power rules. America is a one party state with two wings. Each replicates the other. On major issues mattering most, not a dime's worth of difference separates them.

The late Gore Vidal explained it as well as anyone. Some of his best comments included:

■ "Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."
■ "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so."
■ "By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over."
■ "Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be."
■ "The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return."
■ "We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth."

He also said America is "rotting away at a funereal pace. We'll have a military dictatorship pretty soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together." He thought of himself as a modern-day Voltaire. We need a legion of them at perhaps the most perilous time in world history.

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Jack D. Douglas

There comes a time finally when the accelerating crises and sufferings and rages become too much to bear and something sets off an explosive cascade of events that quickly leads to a vast social explosion.

Vast social revolutions and wars are often preceded by periods of giving up on reforms, despairing withdrawal from public life by the best and brightest, and even peacefulness which seems to have become the normal condition in spite of deep conflicts and growing crises beneath the surfaces of public life. Often, earlier periods of intense conflicts and crises have been overcome and resolved, so it comes to look like that is the normal in life. This lulls most people into assuming their worse fears cannot happen, but this leads them to lowering their guards against growing conflicts and crises, so small ones can more easily cascade down into massive ones. If people expected they could become vast wars or revolutions or implosions, they would take more precautions to prevent that. But when lulled in expecting the worst cannot happen, the worst than they could ever imagine often explodes suddenly.

The cataclysmic French Revolution came after many decades of attempted reforms and conflicts which people had come to think of as unending. It started with new attempts at reforms, then incidents that did not seem so important, then all of it a sudden it exploded. WWI came after so many decades of peace in Europe, in spite of imperial conflicts around the world and an arms race, that most people thought a major war was impossible. Then a single murder in the far away Balkans set in motion an explosive cascade of events that led to a cataclysmic war. The Russian Revolution was preceded by such a long "lull" encouraged by European peace and reforms by the tsar that even Lenin was near despair and was living abroad. After several years of WWI and growing poverty at home, the Russian front imploded and a small event at home triggered a revolution that started small and democratic and then exploded into one of the vastest social revolutions in history. The beginning of WWII on the crucial German-French front was so quiet for so many months after France and Britain had declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland that it was called the "Sitzen Krieg" in Germany, the sit-down war, then it exploded as Germany invaded through the Ardennes. This was repeated near the end of the war as Germany built up its forces secretly for attacking through the Ardennes again.

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Bill Van Auken

US imperialism has a long and sordid record of bloody military interventions and interference in the affairs of other countries for the purpose of securing the interests of Wall Street and corporate America.

Ever since William Howard Taft declared that “our little brown brothers” of the Philippines would need “50 to 100 years of close supervision” to develop functioning self-government, these interventions have been justified with assertions of Washington’s unique role in bringing democracy to less fortunate peoples of the world, generally at the point of a gun.

Seldom, however, has this pretense been proclaimed so shamelessly as in the announcement last week by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington had decided to appoint a new leadership for the “Syrian revolution.”

Clinton unceremoniously dismissed the former leadership, the Syrian National Council, a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated outfit that Washington had proclaimed little more than a year ago as the “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people. Now she says they are just a bunch of out-of-touch exiles who haven’t set foot in Syria for decades.

The problem is, Clinton declared, the SNC is insufficiently representative of the Syrian people. So the US State Department has handpicked a new group of individuals and organizations that is to form the basis of a transitional government. “We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” Clinton told a press conference in Zagreb, Croatia on October 31.

Here one has a text-book example of democracy “made in the USA,” or, more precisely, neocolonialism.

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Glen Ford

BAR executive editor Glen Ford made the following presentation at the Left Forum, Pace University, New York City, March 17. On the panel were Gloria Mattera, Margaret Kimberley (BAR), Suren Moodliar, John Nichols, and Victor Wallis. The discussion was titled, The 2012 Elections: Lesser Evil or Left Alternative?

No matter how much evil Barack Obama actually accomplishes during his presidency, people that call themselves leftists insist on dubbing him the Lesser Evil. Not only is Obama not given proper credit for out-evil-ing George Bush, domestically and internationally, but the First Black President is awarded positive grades for his intentions versus the presumed intentions of Republicans. As the author says, this “is psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it.”

Let me say from the very beginning that we at Black Agenda Report do not think that Barack Obama is the Lesser Evil. He is the more Effective Evil.

He has been more effective in Evil-Doing than Bush in terms of protecting the citadels of corporate power, and advancing the imperial agenda. He has put both Wall Street and U.S. imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks – just as he hired himself out to do.

That was always Wall Street’s expectation of Obama, and his promise to them. That’s why they gave him far more money in 2008 than they gave John McCain. They were buying Obama futures on the electoral political market – and they made out like bandits.

They invested in Obama to protect them from harm, as a hedge against the risk of systemic disaster caused by their own predations. And, it was a good bet, a good deal. It paid out in the tens of trillions of dollars.

If you believe that what Wall Street does is Evil, then Obama’s service to Wall Street is Evil, and there is nothing lesser about it.

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Stephen Lendman

Arrogance defines US imperialism. In 1945, America's economic, political and military dominance stood unchallenged.

In his book titled, "The World in Crisis: The End of the American Century" historian Gabriel Kolko said US decline "began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam - but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further." Obama exceeded the worst Bush policies. If reelected, he'll surpass what he's already done. So will Romney. Will waging war on humanity be America's Waterloo?

Immanuel Wallerstein also sees US dominance declining. He dates it from the 1970s. Post-9/11, it accelerated. "The economic, political and military factors that contributed to US hegemony are the same (ones) inexorably produc(ing) the coming US decline," he believes.

Chalmers Johnson wrote extensively on America's decline. His trilogy covers it in detail:

● "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire,"
● "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic" and
● "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic."

They discuss imperial arrogance, hubris, and overreach. Johnson described what he called

"arrogant and misguided American policies [that] headed us for a series of catastrophes comparable to our disgrace and defeat in Vietnam or even to the sort of extinction that befell....the Soviet Union [that he believes is]) now unavoidable." [It's] "too late for mere scattered reforms of our government or bloated military to make much of a difference," [he added.]

America is plagued by the same dynamic that doomed other empires unwilling to change. Elements include "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy." Tyranny and loss of personal freedom follow. It arrived unannounced. It's wrapped in an American flag. It'll harden. It's heading the nation for ruin.

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Patrick Martin

Neither candidate will tell the American people the truth: the next administration, whether headed by a Democrat or a Republican, will launch attacks on the living standards, social benefits and democratic rights of the American people on a scale never before seen. This will be combined with stepped-up military aggression overseas, from the Middle East to the Pacific.

The last weekend of the 2012 US presidential election campaign was marked by rallies for both Democratic President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a handful of closely contested states, while the deluge of television commercials continues right up to the opening of the polls on Tuesday.

The itineraries of the two candidates were limited to the so-called battleground states, with Obama traveling on the weekend from Ohio to Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado and back to Ohio. On Monday he visits Colorado and Wisconsin before a final campaign rally in Iowa.

Romney scrapped plans to visit Nevada, where Obama has pulled ahead, in favor of visits to New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Iowa again, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The electoral map has remained virtually unchanged since the summer, with Obama leading in 18 states and the District of Columbia, accounting for 237 electoral votes, while Romney leads in 23 states with 191 electoral votes. A majority in the Electoral College is 270 electoral votes. Of the nine remaining states, with 110 electoral votes, Obama is leading in pre-election polls in eight, all but North Carolina, but in some cases only by a narrow margin.

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James Petras

Introduction: There is ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political spectrum further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues Obama has embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor and in the process devastating what remained of the peace and social movements of the past decade.

Moreover, the Obama Presidency has laid the groundwork for the immediate future promising a further extension of regressive policies following the presidential elections: cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Incumbents and their opposition compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding from wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the post-election period in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements, anti-labor and environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put forth by the Obama campaign but numerous militarist and regressive social policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign, playing off of the reactionary proposals of the Romney-Tea Party alliance: a cover for his own record of unprecedented military spending, sequential wars, immigrant expulsions, mortgage foreclosures and Wall Street bailouts.

In the process, critical liberals have crossed the line, surrendering their integrity by deflecting attention from Obama’s militarist-socially regressive policies to focus on “opposing Romney” as a “greater evil”: progressives and critical liberals have multiplied and magnified the duplicity of the Obama political apparatus. In the name of opposing the current ‘greater evil’ (Romney) they dare not enumerate and specify the wanton political crimes and monumental socio-economic injustice perpetrated by their “lesser evil” candidate (Obama). Will the “progressives” ever play honest and publically state: we back Obama in “swing states” because he has “only” murdered 10,000 Afghans, 5,000 Iraqis, is starving 75 million Iranian’s via sanctions, gives $3 billion for Israeli displacement of millions of Palestinians, personally oversees the arbitrary executions of US citizens and promises an extended kill list … because Romney promises to be worse … Expecting honesty from the proponents of ‘lesser eviles’ is as farfetched as taking serious their criticisms between elections.

The political damage incurred by the social movements and US working class under the Obama presidency is unprecedented and has laid the groundwork for further social regression and greater imperial bellicosity.

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Philip Giraldi

The choice for the voter comes down to how one prefers to see worldwide chaos and the death of the Constitution develop. It would be in heavy doses wrapped in the flag with Romney, while Obama would take pains to hide what he is doing as he marches down what is pretty much the same road.

Many Americans are rightly disgusted by the non-choice they are offered in the presidential race every four years. This year is no different despite the serious problems that the United States faces at home and abroad. Mitt Romney has no actual plan to fix the economy, and the record of President Barack Obama over the past four years speaks for itself. Romney is a big-government Republican, while Obama is an even-bigger-government Democrat. Either will increase the deficit to the bankruptcy point; Romney through more spending on arms, soldiers, and wars, Obama with a sorely needed health-care program that will break the bank because it was created in collusion with the health-care and insurance industries and makes no effort to limit costs.

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Stephen Lendman

A previous article discussed what perhaps is the most perilous time in world history. American-led Western societies are waging war on humanity.

Imperial war is a way of life. Social democracies are being eliminated. Freedom is on the chopping block to be crushed. Elections are meaningless and farcical. America's are the worst. They mock legitimacy. Money power controls them. It runs the country and most societies. People have no say. They're ill-served and stomped on by governments in bed with corporatist rogues.

Media scoundrels serve wealth and power interests. Managed news misinformation is featured. Former Wall Street Journal writer Greg Jaffe now writes on military issues for the Washington Post. His latest article calls the world "safer." Measured by most relevant statistics, he says, America and the world "have never been safer." No legitimate journalist would claim it. No respectable editor would publish it. At a time Western nations wage permanent war, crack down repressively against dissent, and inflict unprincipled hardships on people, Jaffe claims "global statistics point undeniably toward progress in achieving greater peace and stability." He credits massive military spending. He advocates "peace through strength." He wants more of the same at a time America spends more than the rest of the world combined.

Unprincipled amounts of dollars devoted to foreign and domestic militarism make everyone less safe. Humanity may be destroyed to save it. Nuclear war is possible. The Middle East cauldron could erupt in mushroom-shaped cloud destruction. Nuclear winter could follow. When America and other nuclear powers consider these type weapons king-sized hand grenades, the worst of all outcomes is possible.

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Justin Raimondo

Patras could be anywhere. Patras could be where you are.
Patras could be what your future looks like. Ready for it?

All the themes of incipient fascism are present, to some degree, in our present-day political culture.

Here in America we have only just begun to feel the social and political effects of the worldwide economic crisis: rising unemployment, a wave of bankruptcies and foreclosures, and a general contraction in economic activity. State and local governments are imposing austerity measures, and the federal government faces a “fiscal cliff” that may be much steeper than anyone now imagines. In Europe, however, they are already halfway down into the abyss, with Greece falling faster and harder — and several southern European countries not too far behind.

The response of governments throughout the continent has been a regime of “austerity” designed to reduce deficits piled up as a result of many decades of extravagance: populations which have come to expect government subsidies as their just due are being subjected to draconian budget cuts, and the social and political structures built up since the end of the second world war are in danger of collapse. The decline and probable fall of the euro augurs worse to come, with the spillover effect threatening us here in the US.

The last worldwide economic depression led to the rise of national socialism in Germany, fascism in Italy, and ultimately to a devastating global conflict that killed millions: could it happen again?

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Stephen Lendman

Washington wages direct and proxy wars dirty. Favored allies are cold-blooded killers. Cutthroats are America's favorites. The more vicious the better. America's so-called responsibility to protect (R2P) is a license to brutalize and kill. Guns for hire willing to commit unspeakable crimes for a buck are recruited, armed, funded, trained, and deployed to commit the most heinous ones imaginable. Nothing too gruesome is out of bounds. Killing goes on daily like sport. Massacres are strategically timed. Last June, death squads murdered over 100 Houla civilians. They were executed in cold blood. Children were slaughtered like adults. Pro-government loyalists were targeted. Assad was wrongfully blamed for terrorist killings and atrocities. It wasn't the first time or last. Weeks later, death squads murdered dozens of Treimseh civilians. Assad was again blamed. Western and UN Human Rights Council reports were fabricated. Media scoundrels repeated them like gospel. Facts don't interfere with propaganda. It's standard policy.

Last March, a rare exception reported accurately. Der Spiegel discussed the "The Burial Brigade of Homs." An insurgent "executioner" said

he and comrades "kill in the name of the Syrian revolution. They leave torture (to) the so-called interrogation brigade...." "They do the ugly work." He believes in violence, he explained. He "cut the throats of four men." He machine-gunned many more. Executions happen regularly, he said.

Assad loyalists are targeted, brutalized and murdered. Women and children aren't spared. Der Spiegel's "executioner" article explained. The publication said little more by way of follow-up.

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Stephen Lendman

For years, America has been on a fast track to tyranny. Duopoly power runs things repressively. Government of, by, and for the people never existed and doesn't now. Homeland repression is policy. Police state laws target resisters. Elections are farcical, rigged, and illegitimate. People have no say. Corporate controlled electronic voting machines decide for them. Money power is firmly in charge. Democracy is illusory, not real.

Corporate/party boss-run Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) members exclude alternative voices. Money power operates secretly with no public oversight. A sham process repeats each electoral cycle.

On October 16, Green Party presidential and vice presidential candidates learned firsthand. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala were arrested, detained, and held handcuffed uncomfortably to metal chairs in a remote police warehouse for hours. They were charged with "obstructing traffic." None at the time was visible. That's how tyranny works. Challenging authority risks prison or worse. Many are tortured and abused. Some end up dead. Obama appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. He decides who lives or dies. Romney won't change a thing. No matter who wins, expect police state America to be more repressive than ever post-election.

Alternative party presidential candidates risk arrest for showing up to watch debates. Participation is out of the question. If presidential challengers can be arrested and abused, what chance have ordinary people. Step out of line and expect the worst. Stein learned firsthand a second time. Her web site explained. She supports activists opposing the environmentally destructive Keystone XL (KXL) project. More about it below.

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Gilad Atzmon

Peter Jenkins, Britain’s former representative on the International Atomic Energy Agency, has told the debating union at Warwick University that a ‘just war’ is not a Jewish notion. Jenkins was obviously telling the truth but the Zionist Jewish Chronicle (JC) is not happy.

The retired Foreign Office diplomat, speaking in a debate on nuclear proliferation in Iran, said: “Israelis don’t practise an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they practise ten eyes for an eye and ten teeth for a tooth.” He also added that “the idea that a just war requires the use of force to be proportionate seems to be a Christian notion and not a Jewish notion.”

The JC reported this week that the remark prompted the Zionist Federation opposition speaker Jonathan Sacerdoti to call out “shame”.

Sacerdoti spoke to the audience in a capacity of "a son of a Holocaust survivor", he said “I suggest that the speech that we heard first, laced with its subtle attempts at antisemitism, masked behind polite diplomatic chatter is exactly the problem in this debate… this is not a Jewish issue, this is not an Israel issue, this is a worldwide issue.” I actually agree with Sacerdoti -Zionist madness is the biggest threat to world peace. it is not just a Jewish issue, it is not an Israel issue, it is a worldwide issue, it is a universal concern.

Yet, I am slightly perplexed, why is telling the truth about Jewish culture anti-Semitic? Is not the Old Testament far more violent than any Quentin Tarantino film? Needless to mention the Jewish State has, also managed to buy itself quite a reputation by now.

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William T. Hathaway

Endless war … endless despair. America's military juggernaut continues to roll, crushing multitudes of soft, breathing human beings, creating more counter-violence at every turn, lumbering toward annihilation. We finally elect a leader who pledges to bring peace, and he morphs before our incredulous eyes into a war president, shifting the fighting onto mercenaries and local soldiers and claiming that's peace. We're still killing thousands of people, manipulating other nations, modernizing our nuclear weapons, forcing our financial will around the world, and jailing dissenters at home. Fortress America continues to expand globally as prison, sweatshop, and fire base. After all our years trying to change this country, how could we end up with this?

To answer this question and avoid falling into catatonic despondency or self-destructive rage, it might help to review the history of the age we live in. More than revolution or reform, what has shaped our times most strongly is revanchism. Rolling back change and reinstating the old order has been the dominant current.

This began immediately after the Russian Revolution, when the USA, Britain, France, and Japan sent in soldiers to try to reverse it. Although they failed, this marked the beginning of 70 years of military and economic warfare. The capitalist powers were so threatened by communism that they pulled out all the stops to overthrow it, unleashing an offensive of sabotage, espionage, and armed conflict that killed millions in Korea and Vietnam, brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation, and eventually brought the Soviet government to its knees. If communism hadn’t been under this relentless attack, it might have developed into a much different system.

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Chris Floyd

The Washington Post has just laid out, in horrifying, soul-slaughtering detail, the Obama Administration's ongoing effort to expand, entrench and "codify" the practice of murder and terrorism by the United States government. The avowed, deliberate intent of these sinister machinations is to embed the use of death squads and drone terror attacks into the policy apparatus of future administrations, so that the killing of human beings outside all pretense of legal process will go on, year after year after year, even when the Nobel Peace Laureate has left office.

They have even come up with a new euphemism for state murder: "disposition." The new "counterterrorism matrix" is "designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the 'disposition' of suspects beyond the reach of American drones," the Post reports.

In other words, it involves expanding and varying the menu of arbitrary murder, mixing the blunderbuss of drone blasts and night raids with more selective "bullet-in-the-brain," "bomb-in-the-car-engine," "polonium-in-the-pea-soup," and "doping-and-defenestration" approaches. Arbitrary murder by unaccountable elites and their spies, paid for by money taken from ordinary citizens who have no say in and no knowledge of what is being done in their names (and who will be the victims of the inevitable blowback from the state terror and murder campaign): this is now being "codified," officially, formally, as the American way.

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