Above photo: Pakistan, 2012.
President Obama’s assertion that the US Military Industrial Complex should punish Bashar Al-Assad because of an alleged chemical attack that resulted in 1,400 deaths, including 426 kids, by dropping bombs on Syria that will surely kill even more children is utterly absurd. The notion that the US can bomb a civil war into peace and has no motive other than the humanitarian concerns of preserving life would be laughable if the insinuation weren’t so deadly or profitable.
Beyond the immediate similarities of the call for War by the Bush Administration’s false claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the basic issue being overlooked here is that this is another example of American Exceptionalism, as the Lone Ranger policing the entire world on its own and a further continuation of imperialistic “Preemptive Strikes.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/31/122789/wikileaks-iraqi-children-in-us.html#.UiimnzbS_EJ#storylink=cpy
Contrary to popular beliefs, preemptive strikes were not invented by the Bush Administration. Rather, it was initially introduced by the man that Presidential Candidate Barack Obama said that he admired so much during the Democratic Primary against Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan. Reagan “convinced” the Western World that the Island of Grenada under the leadership of Maurice Bishop poised an eminent threat to the security of the United States. In actuality, Bishop was only leading his small tropical island country in an experiment in socialism. This proved to be a deadly undertaking as it garnered the full wrath of the world’s greatest military power who would not tolerate another anti-capitalist economy in the Caribbean.
Before the bombs of the next preemptive strike started to fall in Iraq, causing nearly half of all the surviving children to become orphans, there were crippling US sanctions against the country supposedly to punish the Saddam regime. When Madeline Albright appeared on 60 Minutes on May 12, 1996 she was questioned, “What about the sanctions that had resulted in over 500,000 children’s deaths? That is more than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagaski. Was this worth it?” Without even flinching, Madeline Albright quickly responded, “Yes it was.”
President Obama would presume to disagree with her genocidal notion of child welfare when he provided a challenge to Congress and the international community when he said, “What message would we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plan sight and pay no price?”
Well, apparently it depends on who the dictator is and where the children died.
Candidate Barack Obama went a step further when he went on record saying that, “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” (Boston Dec. 20th 2007)
That was then, this is now. President Obama now reports, “I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization.”
Glenn Greenwald from the Guardian went on to say, “It’s hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one’s national credibility depend upon periodically bombing other countries.”
Could it be that after the British Parliament surprised the international community by disagreeing with the Bush Administration, I mean the Obama Administration, that they then decided to seek Congressional approval? Followed by Congresswoman Barbara Lee who sponsored the “Peace Department” going on MSNBC (Must Show No Blacks Criticizing the administration) to throw her support behind the President? Or could the reports be true that Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria after the ‘civil unrest’ began and refused to support a military strike to have denial of culpability?
For if there were any remote chance of sincerity on the part of the Obama administration to preserve life it should come in the form of a demand for a cease fire. Immediately followed by negotiations of a peace treaty with the threat of war only as the premise to bring representatives from both sides to the table. This would be the logical and humane response to “Crimes against Humanity” as Kerry puts it since his entire administration openly admits that military intervention won’t solve a civil war. Apparently, peace isn’t as attractive or as profitable as war, disaster capitalism or even rebuilding contracts going to American private companies.
It would be interesting to compile a list of countries since Post 9/11 that have benefitted from being invaded, bombed and droned into a shining beacon of democracy and freedom that the masses of people now enjoy here in the United States. With the greatest disparity in wealth in the industrialized world, the largest prison population in the entire world and 30% of the children in the very capital of the nation living in poverty echoes the hypocrisy of democracy.
The late great Hip Hop artist Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan famously interrupted a nationally televised award show by bum rushing the stage, taking the mic and declaring, “Wu Tang loves the kids!” That little stunt stole the show and the Obama administration is doing just that, by pulling its own stunt to put on another show of force as the empire strikes back for the world to see, all for the love of the children.
