Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tarnished

President Obama's outrage over the North Korean's nuclear test is understandable but rife with troubling inconsistancies.
He points out that the second nuclear test of the North Korean's is a "blantant violation of international law".
Is it a violation? The North Koreans withdrew from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 2003 when Bush began threatening them. As a designated member of the "axis of evil" the North Koreans were quick to note Americans did not bomb or invade nations who had a nuclear arsenal.
As long the US continues to flaunt international law itself, the president stands on shrinking ground. The list of our crimes are long and varied; aggressive war, illegal occupation, torture, rendition, the use of banned weapons, failure to protect civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, failure to provide aid and medical services to civilians, extra judicial detention, assassination by drone, stealing national resources and supporting the expansionist and genocidal agenda of other nations.
America's "soft power", the ability to influence others to operate in the common good will continue to be enfeebled as long as the policies that undermined it remain.
Obama's cries of "foul" will continue to have the ring of blatant hypocricy as long as he refuses to prosecute those Americans that did so much harm to so many.
Carol DW

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

President Obama

Your selection of General McChrystal, a man tainted by his past, to head the ill advised expansion of the war in Afghanistan exposes the fallacy of the position you outlined to the American people.
It seems clear that your refusal to prosecute torture is not because it's "litigating the past" but because you want torture in your tool box. Abuse continues apace at Guantanamo. Bagram, where torture began is open for business. You have all ready authorized rendition flights and now you select a man associated with brutality to run operations in Afghanistan. His soldier's may have been advised not to abuse civilians and prisoners but the CIA and mercenaries, those who have been most deeply involved in torture, are under no such constraints.
There are no fledgling democracies in the Middle East for you to protect only the degenerate remains of western meddling headed by our corporate lapdogs.
Aggressive war is a more serious war crime than even torture yet you are fully committed to a militant Afghan policy. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9-11 and no threat to the US.
Your willingness to flaunt legality and constitutional restraints is equal to that of the last president who the world is now demanding be brought to justice.
The folly of escalating military operations in Afghanistan exceeds the hubris and willful ignorance of the last administration. You have the advantage of seeing that years of unnecessary bloodshed, destruction and crippling expense in Iraq has produced nothing lasting.
There are reasons Bush and Cheney shunned Afghanistan and why you should also.
In the late 19th century a group of Afghans calling themselves The Taliban destroyed British forces and drove out the Empire. The Afghans beat the Persians, the Turks and the Russians.
The landscape is unbelievably rugged, infrastructure is non-existant and the climate much harsher. An air war will only harden innate national and cultural resistance.
You are squandering your presidency on an undertaking that is wrong in its inception, murderous in its conduct and futile in its outcome.
Carol DW