“You Grow Up Wanting to be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You’ve Become a Stormtrooper for the Empire”

Idealism betrayed

A POWERFUL STORY: Read this shocking account of how U.S. Iraq War veterans had their 9/11 patriotism crushed & replaced with something far more alarming…

Someone asked:

How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in america every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.

Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:

“Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media’s definition of the attack as an act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the “us vs. them” good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter’s office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn’t full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.

Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn’t been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.

So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other.

They learn to kill.

Then some of these people, perhaps while sitting hungover in the platoon area in the Republic of Korea hear that we have invaded Iraq. They have “Big Scary Bombs”, and Saddam Hussein, the secular Arab dictator had somehow colluded with the devoutly religious OBL to attack the US. They hated our freedom, you see.

Then some of these young American men might transfer back to Georgia and be assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and end up in Iraq in January of 2005. And maybe these kids, still drunk on Fox News and fantasies of glory and renown being enough to win their ex-girlfriends back, are excited to go to Iraq. Sure, we hadn’t found any WMDs yet, and we had Hussein in custody, but they were still somehow a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Jeffersonian democracy. Inside every dirka is a good American, yearning to be free.

So you fight. You kill. Watch friends die. Its usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they’re blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy’s, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy’s jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he’s screaming.

You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did. There were a few times when we had deliberate raids based on solid intel and we’d turn up some stuff, but generally we were just tossing houses because we could.

“You start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering…”

Then maybe your FISTer forgets to carry the remainder, and drops a mess of mortars on the village you’re supposed to protect. Maybe the big Iraqi running at you screaming was just mentally ill. Of course, you won’t know this until after you’ve put seven rounds through his ribcage, and his wailing, ancient mother is cradling his body, spitting at you.

Maybe when you get back to the FOB, the Platoon Sergeant tells you you did the right thing; next time, it might be a suicide bomber. They tell you it was an honest mistake, it wasn’t your fault. They tell you to go get some chow, take a shower if the water works, and sleep it off. You did good work that day, apparently.

During chow, the TV is on AFN, and they are rebroadcasting some Fox News show, and you’re hearing about drone strikes, and all the great things we’re doing, and you can’t help but see that poor dumb asshole’s face, looking past his mother as he bleeds to death. He’s in pain, obviously, but he has the most perfectly confused look on his face. He doesn’t comprehend what’s happening. Little more hot sauce on your eggs doesn’t really help.

Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all the contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.

A nonstop barrage of lies and decontextualized pronouncements. All print and television media are involved. Here CNN’s Blitzer offers his platform to perennial warmonger John McCain.

Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.

Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.

Maybe your heart breaks a little every time some asshole brags about a “successful” drone strike.

Your statement is correct enough; if all of America was one dude, that dude would not give a shit about the little brown people we’re burning and crushing and choking to death. We aren’t all like that, but it makes me incredibly, profoundly sad to see what my country actually is.

Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.”

~ Daniel Crimmins

Reprinted with permission from Daniel. Source

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U.S. sanctions against Venezuela draw objections worldwide

EMILE SCHEPERS | People’s World

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Monday, President Obama announced a “special state of emergency,” saying that the situation in Venezuela is one that represents an extraordinary danger to U.S. interests and foreign policy. He also imposed sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials, claiming that they were complicit in repressing Venezuelan civil society and freedom of the press.

Worldwide, and within the United States also, this set off an epidemic of head scratching, as people tried to figure out how internal developments in Venezuela somehow represent a danger for the United States. In Latin America, the reaction was more intense, as leaders and ordinary citizens recalled past instances in which U.S. interventions have led to “regime change” involving the deaths of thousands.

In the 19th century, the United States seized more than half of Mexico and all of Puerto Rico, plus the Guantanamo Bay area in Cuba. In the first half of the twentieth century, U.S. troops directly intervened in all of the countries of Central America, plus Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and some South American countries. In these interventions peoples’ movements for democracy were crushed, dictators put in and propped up in power, and dissident leaders murdered, such as Augusto Cesar Sandino in Nicaragua and Charlemagne Peralte in Haiti.

The CIA-engineered overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, set off decades of civil war in which at least 200,000 people, mostly poor indigenous farmers, died. Multiple projects to destabilize Cuba began with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, including the disastrous Bay of Pigs adventure.

Chilean left newspaper El Siglo asking the masses to support the socialist candidate, Don Salvador Allende. (1972)

In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson ordered the invasion of the Dominican Republic to prevent a dictator from being overthrown by pro-democracy forces. In 1973 the U.S., after having done everything possible to destabilize the Chilean economy, backed a military coup against Socialist Party President Salvador Allende which led to the death of at least 3,000 and the imprisonment or exile of tens of thousands.

In the 1970s, the U.S. government collaborated in “Operation Condor” in which South American dictatorships carried out mass killings of dissidents. In the 1980s, U.S. interventions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras created more bloodbaths. The United States was complicit in coups in Venezuela (2002), Haiti (2004) and Honduras (2009).

In all of these interventions the purpose was to protect U.S. corporations’ ability to exploit local populations and get hold of poor countries’ national resources. But always a pretext was proclaimed that the United States was defending human rights, democracy and good government. Today it’s “humanitarian intervention.”

So when this past week U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki faced a press conference and claimed that the United States does not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, she was met with incredulous responsesfrom the reporters.

Reminded of past interventions, Psaki said it would be better not to get into history. But history happened and cannot be wished away. People in the United States are often unaware of this history, while people in Latin America are very acutely aware of it.

An appeal for support from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro got an immediate positive response. Governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, all linked to Venezuela through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) issued support statements denouncing Obama’s announcement and especially the sanctions, as did Argentina and the People’s Republic of China, a major rival of the United States in South American trade.

Pres. Morales: He and his nation have often been the object of Washington’s dirty tricks and disrespect.

Bolivian President Evo Morales expressed the views of the region when he said “We condemn, we repudiate, in the 21st Century we will not accept this kind of intervention by the United States….All of our solidarity, all of our support goes to President Maduro, and the revolutionary Bolivarian government and people of Venezuela.”

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador said, “It must be a bad joke, which reminds us of the darkest hours of our America, when we received [sic] invasions and dictatorships imposed by imperialism.”

UNASUR (The Union of South American Nations), which includes every independent country in South America, had already moved to help Venezuela by organizing trade support to remedy some of the food scarcities which, along with inflation and dropping oil prices, are currently a source of disquiet. Also, UNASUR had assigned its Secretary General, former Colombian President Ernesto Samper, to talk to the Venezuelan government and its opponents for purposes of tension reduction. After Obama’s action on Monday, UNASUR passed a resolution condemning any outside intervention in Venezuela’s internal affairs. UNASUR will have a special emergency meeting on Mar. 14.

Protests against Obama’s statement occurred in Venezuela and elsewhere, at a point at which the new U.S. approach to Cuba had created some goodwill for a change. The Venezuelan government asked for, and got, passage of an enabling law to allow it to deal with any new security threat. At least part of the opposition in Venezuela hurriedly distanced itself from Obama’s proclamation. On Apr. 10 -12, Obama will have to face the hostility that this incident has created at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

Some U.S. officials are now seeming to say that they did not really mean that Venezuela represents and extraordinary threat to the United States, that this was legalistic language to make possible the imposition of sanctions on the Venezuelan officials-leading to more head scratching and quizzical looks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

[box] Emile Schepers is a veteran civil and immigrant rights activist. Emile Schepers was born in South Africa and has a doctorate in cultural anthropology from Northwestern University. He has worked as a researcher and activist in urban, working-class communities in Chicago since 1966. He is active in the struggle for immigrant rights, in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and a number of other issues. He now writes from Northern Virginia. [/box]

Photo: Demonstrators in Canada demand that the U.S. respect Venezuela and their government. | FDPHC Twitter via TeleSUR

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As Hawks Urge Obama to Send Weaponry to Ukraine, EU Officials Push for Peace

Austrian minister declares: ‘Our goal must be a ceasefire, not an escalation’

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer | Crosspost with CommonDreams

A column of Ukrainian tanks moving to positions in Eastern Ukraine. (Photo: OSCE Special Monitoring Mission/flickr/cc)

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ven as some U.S. and European officials urged the Obama administration not to provide weaponry and further military assistance to Ukraine—among the options being weighed by the White House—the second-highest ranking U.S. diplomat warned on Friday that pressure to arm Kiev-backed government forces would increase if aggression from pro-Russian separatists persisted.

According to Reuters:

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told German radio (DLF) the United States was already working on supplying Kiev with non-lethal equipment, including $130 million worth of protective vests, night-vision goggles and other equipment.

“But if the aggression continues, I think there will be more and more pressure to give them other means to protect themselves,” he said in the interview with DLF.

Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner and a group of top Democrats and Republicans on Thursday “stepped up the pressure” on President Barack Obama to send arms to Ukraine, saying in a letter that the so-called Minsk 2 agreement, which led to last month’s cease-fire, have only consolidated Russian and separatists’ gains, the Associated Press reports.

“Instead of escalating the war and fueling nationalist extremism, western powers should be using their leverage to wind it down. If they don’t, the consequences could be disastrous—far beyond Ukraine.”—Seumas Milne, The Guardian

“We urge you to quickly approve additional efforts to support Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereign territory, including through the transfer of lethal defense weapons systems to the Ukrainian military,” the letter read in part.

However, ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers in the Latvian capital of Riga on Friday, E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogheri insisted that the implementation of the peace deal brokered in Minsk last month “is the way to go forward.”

Other officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz were also adamant in their opposition to sending further munitions.

“Our goal must be a ceasefire, not an escalation,” Kurz reportedly said, adding that arms deliveries “would only stoke the fire.”

But The Hill notes that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said last month he was “inclined” toward providing Ukraine with lethal weapons, and that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said Tuesday he would “absolutely consider providing lethal aid.”

Such assertions fly in the face of those claiming there is “no military solution” to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, whose ranks include Guardian columnist and associate editor Seumas Milne.

“In the west, Ukraine—along with ISIS—is being used to revive the doctrines of liberal interventionism and even neo-conservatism, discredited on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Milne wrote on Wednesday. “So far, Angela Merkel and François Hollande have resisted American pressure to arm Kiev. But when the latest Minsk ceasefire breaks down, as it surely will, there is a real risk that Ukraine’s proxy conflict could turn into full-scale international war.”

He continued: “The alternative is a negotiated settlement which guarantees Ukraine’s neutrality, pluralism and regional autonomy. It may well be too late for that. But there is certainly no military solution. Instead of escalating the war and fueling nationalist extremism, western powers should be using their leverage to wind it down. If they don’t, the consequences could be disastrous—far beyond Ukraine.”

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TV ad airing in Las Vegas asks drone pilots to refuse to fly

By David Swanson

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his advertisement does a number of things in 15 seconds that U.S. television has not done before. It presents a moral case against drone murders (the U.S. government’s terminology, and strictly accurate). It opposes drone murders as illegal. It shows victims. It provides the name and website of an organization opposing drone murders. And it directly asks drone “pilots” to refuse to continue. It also makes the Nuremberg argument that an illegal order need not (in fact must not) be obeyed.

This is, as far as I know, and as far as its producers know, the first anti-drone-war commercial on U.S. television, as well as — I believe — the first content of any sort on U.S. corporate television to do the things listed above.

This ad is airing from February 28 to March 6 on CNN, MSNBC and other networks in the Las Vegas area, just a few miles from Creech Air Force Base, a major drone operating and training facility where a major protest is underway. It will begin airing in other cities soon.

“We produced this spot to make the point as powerfully as possible that drone killing is horrifying, illegal and immoral,” said Nick Mottern, coordinator of KnowDrones.com which sponsored the ad.

In case the pilots viewing the ad fail to grasp the sincerety of its producers, they might consider reading this letter:

To: James Cluff, Commander, Creech AFB

Dear Commander Cluff,

It is our intention to reach out to you and appeal to your humanity to stop the drone killing. Your first responsibility is to uphold laws, regardless of your orders. Aerial bombardment of innocent civilians is in violation of the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions and the principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Drones are not making us any safer. More and more young men in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are joining groups that are retaliating against the US for the murder of their loved ones.

I’m sure you can see at the base that there is low morale among the drone pilots, because it is impossible to sustain any level of enthusiasm for intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance. Although the Airforce throws incentive dollars to your pilots they are still resigning in great numbers, and those that stay turn to drugs and alcohol to numb and detach emotionally to perform this dehumanizing work. While sitting in a cockpit, gazing at their screens, don’t your pilots see mothers and fathers with children, kids playing soccer? Consider the effect of drone strikes on these mothers and children. Children suffer intense trauma when they witness the death of their parents or are themselves victims of airstrikes. How can you justify fighting a telewar? Do the pilots really reap joy with their joysticks from killing unarmed civilians?

Do you really believe that you’re protecting Americans from terrorists? You can see that dropping missiles on suspected terrorists isn’t working, isn’t reducing the number of terrorist cells, instead it is taking precious resources and diverting them from the very programs that could truly keep Americans safe. Can’t you see that you are caught up in a system of domination that maintains that our survival depends on our threat and domination of others? And that it is this system that objectifies and separates you from people of other nations.

Commander Cluff, you have sadly forgotten who you are and are living in denial of your humanity. You can try but never succeed at legitimizing the violence of drone airstrikes. This job has dehumanized you and caused your indifference to the suffering of the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

It is still possible to stop the killing, to change and take the risk of another way of life.

STOP THE KILLING, END DRONE WARFARE!

Jackie Barshak
CODEPINK
Women for Peace

[box] David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

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The Great American Lying Machine

Stephen Lendman

“Media scoundrels regurgitate Big Lies like gospel. Obama lies. Joe Biden lies. Kerry lies. His assistant secretary, spokespersons, UN envoy and ambassadors lie…”

Kerry lying to drum up more support for attacks on Russia at the Munich Security Conference, 2015. (Via flickr / Click to expand to max. res.)

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]Wars without end persist. Millions die. Survivors suffer horrifically. Ukraine is in the eye of the storm.

It’s just a matter of time before full-scale conflict resumes. Perhaps with US combat troops involved and/or shock and awe terror-bombing. Maybe setting the entire continent ablaze.

Megalomania and delusions of grandeur define US ambitions. George Clemenceau once said “(w)ar is too important to be left to the generals.” He should have added rogue politicians like Obama and neocons infesting his administration.

In his State of the Union address, Obama shamelessly accused Russia of “aggression” in Ukraine. Earlier he said it’s “provable” that “Russian combat forces and tanks” moved into Ukraine.

“(T)hese are the facts. They are provable. They’re not subject to dispute.” No proof whatever was presented. Not earlier. Not now. None exists.

Kerry in his youth, as antiwar activist, with Jane Fonda. He had not yet sold out. (Via flickr)

No Russian forces operated in Ukraine at any time during months of conflict. Nor does Moscow supply rebels with weapons.

Massive ignorance, indifference, and imbecility is the fetid soil upon which this lying machine rests. All of it has been deliberately cultivated by the powers that be, but ordinary Americans have also done their part. ———Editors

“(S)how us” proof, Sergey Lavrov repeatedly says. “Present proof” or stop making baseless accusations. On numerous occasions, Lavrov said “no (Russian) military intervention” in Ukraine exists. His comments fall on deaf ears. Truth is conveniently buried.

Whenever she gets a chance during Security Council sessions, neocon US envoy Samantha Power rants about nonexistent “Russian aggression” in Ukraine. “Russian troops fight alongside” rebels, she claims. Invisible ones no one can see.

Scholars recently rated John Kerry America’s worst Secretary of State in the past 50 years – along with Hillary Clinton perhaps the worst two ever. Both reflect brazen imperial arrogance. They’re shameless demagogues, war criminals multiple times over, an embarrassment to legitimate governance, and indifferent to human suffering.

No just just society would tolerate their high crimes. America glorifies them. Kerry’s brazen lying is notorious. He bellows “Russian aggression” every chance he gets. He turns truth on its head accusing Putin of invading Ukraine, violating its sovereignty, and spurning international law.

“You just don’t…invad(e) another country on a completely trumped up pretext,” he said. The whole world knows Russia didn’t invade Ukraine. It knows since WW II alone, Washington directly or through proxies lawlessly invaded North Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, southeast Asia, Indonesia, Latin America, Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine.

It partners with Israel in all its wars of aggression. Post-9/11 alone, It’s responsible for millions of death, mass destruction and appalling human suffering. “Let there be no doubt about who is blocking the prospect of peace” in Ukraine,” Kerry blustered recently. “Russia with impunity…acted to cross (its) border at will with weapons, with personnel, with the instruments of death.”

Kerry: Now a Nuremberg-class war criminal. Along with the rest of the American political class in charge of foreign policy. (Via flickr)

“Russia’s continued aggression” is Ukraine’s greatest threat, he ranted. “(W)e cannot close our eyes to (its) tanks crossing the border…We cannot close our eyes to Russian fighters in unmarked uniforms…leading companies of so-called separatists in battle.”

“We cannot close our eyes” to Kerry’s Big Lies throughout months of conflict through current very shaky ceasefire conditions. Deputy NATO Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow runs the organization. Jens Stoltenberg is a convenient US stooge – a front man representing Washington.

No nation threatens world peace, security and stability more than America. None works harder to resolve Ukraine’s conflict diplomatically than Russia. Washington bears full responsibility for Ukrainian crisis conditions – including illegitimate fascist governance and naked aggression on its own citizens. Last month, Vershbow lied saying “Russia has torn up the international rule book. It has returned to a strategy of power politics.”

“It threatens not just Ukraine, but European and global security more generally…Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not an isolated incident, but a game-changer in European security.”

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges (left), one more American soldier at the service of corporate imperialism. Lying for the banksters is part of his duties, or so he thinks. Where is Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler when we need him? Now there was a man we could be proud of. (Via flickr)

“Russia has used force to alter legally recognized borders and to actively subvert the government of a neighboring state.” On March 3, US General Ben Hodges urged Washington supply Kiev with more heavy weapons than already. He ludicrously calls doing it “giv(ing) muscle to diplomacy.” He lied claiming “Russia has 12,000 (troops) in eastern Ukraine.”

He provided no evidence proving it. None exists. No Russian hordes operate anywhere in Ukraine. Hodges wants Kiev heavily armed for more war. He wrongfully accused Putin of “want(ing) to destroy (NATO), not by attacking it but by splintering it.” He ludicrously added “(i)f you don’t believe Russia is directly involved in Ukraine now, you’ll never believe it. You don’t want to believe it.”

Hodges heads US Army Europe (USAREUR). He ignored Kiev’s military chief Viktor Muzhenko saying Ukrainian forces “engaged in (no) combat operations against Russian regular units.” Assistant State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf was asked about Hodges’ claim. Instead of answering, she asked why the question was asked.

“I am not going to be more specific,” she said. She lied saying “(o)bviously (there’s) a huge (Russian) presence (in Ukraine), not just of people but of weapons and other things.”

“But I’m not going to give more detail on that.”

“And where did you get your numbers?” she was asked.

“I can check and see,” she responded. “I’d refer you to the Department of Defense on their numbers that their officials put out, but I can check and see with our team.” A previous article discussed Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s House Foreign Affairs Committee testimony. It was beginning-to-end Big Lies. She called year ago US responsibility for violence using well-trained Nazi thugs “peaceful protest(s) by ordinary Ukrainians.”

She turned truth on its head about nonexistent Russian involvement claiming “Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage. Hundreds of Russian heavy weapons and (thousands of) troops poured across the border, fueling the conflict,” she blustered. She ludicrously called Ukraine ” a manufactured conflict controlled by the Kremlin, fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers’ expense and costing the lives of young Russians…”

Media scoundrels regurgitate these Big Lies like gospel. Obama lies. Joe Biden lies. Kerry lies. His assistant secretary, spokespersons, UN envoy and ambassadors lie.

Congress lies. Virtually everyone connected to government in Washington lies.

The great American lying machine has many voices. Truth is their mortal enemy. It’s buried to suppress US high crimes – to conceal its ruthless imperial agenda.

People are willfully deceived. America’s maniacal drive for world hegemony risks WW III. Its determination to eliminate Russia and China as major rivals may make it unstoppable. Fascist extremism headquartered in Washington may end life on earth.

Its common thread is unchallenged dominance through mass slaughter, vast destruction, unspeakable human misery, and transforming people everywhere into exploited serfs getting poverty or sub-poverty wages.

The business of America is war – cold-blooded naked aggression against weak countries easy to roll over. Except when ordinary people rise up and resist – from North Vietnamese to Afghans to Syrians, to Donbass freedom fighters.

Anti-fascist patriots unite. Survival depends on confronting this monster and crushing it.

[box] Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. [/box]

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