Tag: Pakistan

WORDS AND DEEDS

June 9, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Despite being hosted by an authoritarian regime that practices torture and crushes dissent, the words delivered in Cairo by the master orator were at times thoughtful, wise, empathetic, measured and hopefully game changing.

Obama’s speech was clearly a reversal of the previous administration’s crusader mentality. Obama greeted the audience in Arabic, outlined the bountiful scientific and cultural contributions of Islamic civilization, and noted that “Islam has always been a part of the American story.”  In short, he proposed to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Moreover, no president has ever publicly admitted to the U.S. role in the 1953 overthrow of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. And no recent president has spoken so firmly on the need for Israel to acknowledge the right of Palestine “to exist”, even going so far as to say that “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.” And he even recognized Iran’s right “to access peaceful nuclear power.”

This is all worthy of approbation, of course, but there were other moments where Obama continued to speak with the blind hypocrisy of the American exceptionalist…

For example, Obama pledged to “ruthlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our national security.  Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women and children.”

Coming from the man who protects the violent extremists in the previous administration from accountability, and who has himself ordered drone attacks on Afghan villages that predictably kill innocent men, women and children, these word are hypocrisy pure and simple.

The hypocrisy of deploring the “violent extremists” who have “killed in many countries” and who have “killed people of different faiths” and whose “actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings” is too obvious to require elucidation.  Without a hint of irony, Obama said that he supports “transparent government” and that “violence is a dead end” and that “it is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children”.

Obama said that “we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan” and that “we seek no military bases there”.  And yet he is sending an additional 17,000 troops there, not including the 68,197 private mercenaries under Department of Defense contracts, and is building gargantuan “embassies” in Kabul and Islamabad.

Obama said that “we would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.”

To translate: “We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home just as soon as hell freezes over.”

Obama got applause when he reiterated his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo (where detainees are still being tortured and are commiting suicide in dispair), but that action is irrelevant since “unlawful combatants” are now simply shipped to the extrajudicial prison in Bagram.

I could go on. If you want more, check out Chomsky or Hedges. If you want to see what drunk Zionists thought of Obama’s speech, go here.

CONTINUITIES 2

May 2, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

After 100 days in office it is clear that the candidate who ran on “change” is continuing, and even amplifying, many of the worst policies of the Bush years: continued war and occupation of Iraq, escalation of war in Afghanistan, expansion of war into Pakistan, increased military funding, using “state secrets” to block torture victims from having their day in court, continuing the practice of rendition, expanding the American gulag at Bagram, and arguing against prosecution for war criminals.

Regarding this last point, Obama has rendered himself as incoherent as his predecessor ever was.  Upon the release of the torture memos, he issued a statement that included the following two contradictory claims:

  1. “The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals.”
  2. “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

You can’t coherently maintain that the U.S. is a nation of laws AND that U.S. government officials who break the law should not be subject to prosecution.  (Even if they were torturing people “in good faith”.)

And it is mind numbingly hypocritical to say that your administration “will always act in accordance with those laws” and in the very same speech assert your intention to break them. Here are the relevant quotes from Article 2 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, signed by Reagan in ’88 and ratified by Congress in ’94:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or athreat of war, internal political in stability or any other publicemergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

“An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.”


In his remarks to the C.I.A., Obama has (again) exposed himself as a liar, a hypocrite and, now, a criminal.

ATTACK ON MUMBAI

December 1, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

Al-Jazeera English has posted a video of the incident here.

Alternet tries to piece together the story here, linking to other writers who suggest responsibility lay with either Kashmir separatists, or Al-Qaida, or the gangster Ibrahim Dawood, or disaffected Indian youth.

BUT… politically timed attacks on Mumbai have been going on since 1993.

Friend of the blog MTK digs a little deeper over at Fifty Foot Pine Tree Press, and presents an original analysis that seeks the hands behind the hands that pulled the triggers:

It could be, for example, Hindu Nationalists seeking a harder-line policyregarding Kashmir and Pakistan, and against Muslims more generally.Such groups have been involved in false flag operations in the recent past, and they were under investigation by the Anti-Terrorism Squad Chief Hemant Karkare, who was killed in the attack. There is also the possibility, perhaps less likely, of an alliance between such Hindu extremists and Mossad.

There are also “unseen hands” in Pakistan who could be responsible. China, Russia and the United States all have competing interests in Pakistan, and may be exploiting the chaos resulting from the collapse of Musharraf and the murder Bhutto.

The possibility of U.S involvement is buttressed by the reporting Seymour Hersh has done regarding U.S. covert operations in Iran. Is something analogous happening in India and Pakistan?