Obama: Putin-Baiter and Preventive Detainer

President Obama has thrown international law into history’s dustbin, torn up the U.S. Bill of Rights, and is mapping millions for possible future detention. “One court order + one suspect number + three hops = everybody remotely involved in anti-war activity.”

By BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“They have undoubtedly already mapped every potentially left-leaning or ethnically suspect (Black) U.S. human network.”

OBAMA_putin-still_more_hope

Barack Obama is one smooth operator, relentlessly expanding on the fascist domestic and international infrastructure bequeathed him by George W. Bush, the cartoon cowboy imperialist. As we described him in 2012, Obama is truly the “more effective evil [12]” – a president who routinely commits the most brazen aggressions under the lawless doctrine of “humanitarian” intervention, and who has utterly trashed due process and the rule of law on the domestic front. If you want to see fascism built right, get a Black Harvard man to do it – and watch the internal resistance crumble.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn a line against further NATO incursions and coups at his southern border – a move that most of Earth’s inhabitants undoubtedly applaud, given that polls have long confirmed that the U.S. is seen as the number one threat [13] to peace in the world – U.S. public opinion reverts effortlessly to Cold War mode. Obama will have no problem gaining near-unanimous congressional support [14] for the widest range of escalations against Moscow – from sanctions to natural gas wars to preparations for the shooting kind – while the ridiculous U.S. pseudo-Left, personified by Jon Stewart, of the Daily Show, snarks an historically-reversed narrative of post-1991 history in which Russia is constantly moving westward towards the English Channel.

“If you want to see fascism built right, get a Black Harvard man to do it.”

The president lowered himself to Stewart’s level (or was it the other way around?), baiting the Russians [15] as less than manly. “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness,” said the fracking PR-man-in-chief. Obama issued his juvenile insults against the world’s other paramount nuclear power at, of all places, a summit on nuclear security in The Hague, Netherlands. Tens of millions of eyes must have rolled among the U.S.’s southern neighbors when Obama said, “we generally don’t need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them.”

Tell that to Haiti (1994, 2004), Cuba (1961), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Dominican Republic (1965) – neighborly nations directly invaded by U.S. troops; and to the people of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Colombia, who lost tens or hundreds of thousands at the hands of U.S. surrogates; and to the citizens of Chile and the rest of South America, virtually every country of which was taken over by militaries backed by the United States. And, we are only talking about the post-World War Two era! As we write, Obama pursues George Bush’s policy of regime change in Venezuela, while the people still suffer under the heirs to the military coup he backed in Honduras, in 2009.

“U.S. non-recognition of international law has effectively achieved bipartisan acceptance.”

The list gets much, much longer if one includes the rest of the world as “neighbors” of the U.S. Certainly, the Americans behave as if everyone else’s internal affairs are subject to Washington’s approval – a negation of international law and the real meaning of Obama’s humanitarian military intervention doctrine, or R2P, Responsibility to Protect. Under the First Black President, U.S. non-recognition of international law has effectively achieved bipartisan acceptance. Indeed, much of what pretended to be an anti-war movement under Obama’s Republican predecessor is now in thrall of “humanitarian” warfare.

If it were really true that the fate of the world rests with anti-war constituencies and other resisters inside the Belly of the Beast, as many peace activists used to claim, then the world would likely be doomed. The American polity is not effectively defending its own liberties. President Obama has pulled off what George W. Bush did not even attempt: he has established, through the Congress and the courts, preventive detention without trial as the law of the land, effectively nullifying due process. Having stripped citizens of their legal protections, he now bargains with Congress on the uses of the NSA spy machinery that is already capable of monitoring literally every American – plus unknown proportions of the rest of the world.

Obama says he wants to limit telephone monitoring [16] to two “hops” removed from the phone number targeted as suspicious, in order to “minimize” the State’s intrusion on the people’s privacy. In fact, one court order allowing two “hops” would quite easily bring ten thousand telephone numbers under NSA surveillance, as U.S. District Judge Richard Leon figured out [17]before rendering a decision against the NSA. The judge postulated that each of the 100 phone numbers called by the suspect – or “seed” – phone (the first “hop”) had called or gotten calls from at least 100 other numbers over five years (the second “hop”), totaling 10,000. A third “hop” would ensnare a total of one million phones.

“A third hop would round up multiples of millions.”

Judge Leon’s assumptions are very conservative. If the national security state targets any effective political activist, they would reap far more than 100 numbers on both the first and second “hops” – probably enough to effectively map the bulk of the political activity among, say, peace groups. A third hop would round up multiples of millions, including the barely committed and folks with no interest in politics of any kind. One court order + one suspect number + three hops = everybody remotely involved in anti-war activity.

It turns out that the NSA has for years been allowed to search up to three hops [18] away from the suspect phone. They have undoubtedly already mapped every potentially left-leaning or ethnically suspect (Black) U.S. human network, having assembled millions of names and numbers.

If George Bush or any Republican were president, leftists of all stripes would realize the clock is ticking – that they must radically alter the direction of the U.S. state, or be interned by it. However, the smooth fascist, Barak Obama, is in charge, and there is little sense of urgency on the Left.

Which is another reason that we say Obama is the more effective evil [19].

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [20].

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama-putin-baiter-and-preventive-detainer

 



Obama’s North African War Face

By Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford | 03/30/2011

Whatever happens to Moammar Gaddafi, an independent Libya is not on the U.S. agenda. “Obama hopes to ‘stabilize’ Libya under indirect U.S. dominion through a kind of protectorate involving various ‘international’ entities, on the Haitian model.” The president’s doctrine of “humanitarian” warfare – like his rhetoric – is merely a sweetened derivative of George Bush’s more crudely presented policies. “In the final analysis, Euro-American hegemony means crushing the aspirations of all Arabs in the sand.”

“Imperialism’s refreshed Obama-face is looking more than ever like a grotesque Halloween mask, and he knows it.”

In Libya, Barack Obama now faces the central contradiction of his presidency: How to accomplish George Bush’s strategic objective, to wrest back America’s post-Soviet global supremacy – a goal Obama has always, and openly, shared – while avoiding becoming embroiled in another Bush-style “dumb war.” This was the trick that Obama promised he alone was equipped to pull off by adorning the U.S. empire with a new, engaging, articulate, colored “face.”

Obama strains to maintain that prefabricated face in the midst of an explosive and wholly unexpected political earthquake in the Arab world. The United States, as we wrote on March 23 [8], “wants desperately to position itself on the ‘right’ side” of the unfolding Arab Reawakening and, if possible, to “appropriate to itself a section of the ‘Arab revolt.’” Having found – and helped create – that opportunity in Libya, the Americans and their European co-conspirators rushed in with a reenactment of George Bush’s “Shock and Awe” – a “full spectrum dominance” assault involving hundreds of cruise missiles that reminded even Moammar Gaddafi’s worst enemies that, in the final analysis, Euro-American hegemony means crushing the aspirations of all Arabs in the sand.

As the U.S. discovered in 2003, “Shock and Awe” repels as much as it impresses. Like the Bush Middle East/Western Asia offensive that initially targeted over 30 governments for overthrow (including Libya) but got bogged down in Iraq, Obama and the French and British are in danger of having “reached too far.” Imperialism’s refreshed Obama-face is looking more than ever like a grotesque Halloween mask, and he knows it.

“The Americans and their European co-conspirators rushed in with a reenactment of George Bush’s ‘Shock and Awe.’”

The president’s Monday press conference was an effort to reposition the United States, and to readjust his own face to the Arab world. The lull that followed in “coalition” air strikes on Gaddafi forces, which allowed battered Libyan units to retake ground briefly held by the highly disorganized and foreign-dependent rebels, could serve as a means for the U.S. to squeeze the bravado out of the Benghazi-based fighters – a kind of discipline by denial. Despite the West’s boundless praise for these purportedly democratic “freedom fighters,” the imperial plan does not include allowing them – whoever they are – to form a regime with authority over the country. More cautious elements within the Obama administration may have arrived at an accommodation with NATO member Turkey, whose own interests in the region are incompatible with those of the British and French – and, ultimately, the United States.

Obama acknowledged that the all-out assault on Libya too overtly resembles Bush-style regime change: “To be blunt,” he said, “we went down that road in Iraq…. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.” Yet, regime change is a defining privilege of imperialism and, therefore, Obama reiterated that the American position is that Gaddafi must go.

The contradiction, which causes Obama grief in Manifest Destiny America, is exponentially more acute in the midst of the Arab Re-Awakening. The president’s carefully crafted language indicates that Obama hopes to “stabilize” Libya under indirect U.S. dominion through a kind of protectorate involving various “international” entities, on the Haitian model. The key paragraph is:

“Gaddafi has not yet stepped down from power, and until he does, Libya will remain dangerous. Moreover, even after Gaddafi does leave power, forty years of tyranny has left Libya fractured and without strong civil institutions. The transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task. And while the United States will do our part to help, it will be a task for the international community, and – more importantly – a task for the Libyan people themselves.”

“Obama hopes to draw an illusory line between his and Bush’s worldviews, that will be palatable to a new an emboldened Arab audience.”

This is not a formula for rule by the Benghazi crowd, whose Islamist elements are indigestible, if not anathema, to U.S. policymakers and image-spinners. It is a rationale for a long, Haiti-like occupation under a compliant United Nations or improvised multi-national façade. Arab nationalism cannot be allowed free rein anywhere, since imperial rule abhors all nationalisms but its own.

Since the campaign days, Obama has struggled to infuse his deceptive rhetoric – which is really all that separates him from Bush – with the language of “Responsibility to Protect,” or R2P [3]. Cloaked in the cynical camouflage of “humanitarian” objectives, Obama hopes to draw an illusory line between his and Bush’s worldviews, that will be palatable to a new an emboldened Arab audience. It is a doomed mission, not only because of the inherent contradictions between Arab aspirations and imperial dominance, but because American rulers are incapable of speaking to a warlike U.S. nationalism and addressing Arab aspirations at the same time. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the top U.S. diplomat, cannot even maintain the discipline of a consistent lie. She admitted that widespread bloodletting by Gaddafi’s forces was a fantasy and invention:

“I know that the nightly news cannot cover a humanitarian crisis that thankfully did not happen, but it is important to remember that many, many Libyans are safer today because the international community took action.”

There was no humanitarian crisis, and it will become increasingly impossible to frame the Euro-American assault in North Africa as anything other than an imperial offensive, designed to keep the Arab world in its place and to usurp African sovereignty over the continent’s resources.

Obama’s “face” is melting.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [9].

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Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama%E2%80%99s-north-african-war-face
Links:

[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/africom
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/oil-and-resource-wars
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/r2p
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/us-war-libya
[5] http://blackagendareport.com/category/africa/libya
[6] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/obamarama
[7] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/obama_war_face.jpg
[8] http://blackagendareport.com/content/update-american-dilemma-libya-bomb-invade-partition-or-all-above-0
[9] mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

Freedom Rider: Attack of the Cruise Missile Liberals

Liberals Love War

By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley | Created 03/30/2011

Americans are warlike – as long as they think they can be victorious. These nominal Democrats and Republicans “differ only on who they want to see doing the dominating.” Today, a Black Democrat is the head killer in charge, allowing the likes of Ed Schultz, Bill Maher and Juan Cole to endorse the criminal assault on Libya. When the chips are down, fraudulent anti-war liberals show their true racist, Manifest Destiny-loving colors. “The true anti-war movement must reawaken itself and hit the streets in the hundreds of thousands.”

“The desire for America to dominate the rest of the world is prevalent among most of its citizens, regardless of party affiliation.”

Peace loving Americans are few and far between. The vast majority of our citizens see nothing wrong with their government killing masses of people as long as the rationale sounds high minded and noble.

The love of bloodshed is generally connected with the right wing in this country, but nothing could be further from the truth. The desire for America to dominate the rest of the world is prevalent among most of its citizens, regardless of party affiliation. Those citizens differ only on who they want to see doing the dominating. Republicans are ecstatic when a Republican president drops bombs, sends drones on killing missions or occupies other nations. Democrats are equally enthusiastic when one of their own does the same.

Democratic party reaction to President Obama’s military intervention in Libya is but the latest example of the American propensity to exult over government sponsored violence. Obama, like George W. Bush before him, claims that his intervention, no-fly zone, peace mission (take your pick) is being conducted only for the most humanitarian of purposes. The dead bodies belie the claims of dogooderism but those words have a distinct power for people in this country and will always be used as a pretext for someone dying somewhere on the planet.

“The belief in white American superiority affects and infects every policy discussion in this nation.”

The legacy of Manifest Destiny and the belief in white American superiority affects and infects every policy discussion in this nation. The equation of goodness and rightness with white America holds sway very strongly and sadly not just for white people either. The willingness to see white behavior as normative means that foreign policy decisions get a pass precisely at the moment when resistance and skepticism are needed.

No, Barack Obama isn’t white, but he may as well be. He is president precisely because he assured voters that he would not change the complexion of their belief systems. If he didn’t fulfill the deeply ingrained belief that might makes right as long as America, a country thought of as white, is in charge of world affairs, he would never have become the president.

The United States attack on Libya has brought out the worst in this phenomenon. Liberals are gleeful that conservative icon Newt Gingrich backtracked on supporting intervention until the Democratic president actually intervened, but Gingrich is no different than they are.

We now have MSNBC television host Ed Schultz [10] proclaiming “Support for Obama’s Invasion of Libya.” Never mind that Obama has taken great pains to claim that the bombing will be of limited duration and that ground troops will not have a presence there. Schultz seems to be ahead of the president on this one, but his show of support is telling in revealing the true support for American motivations in its interventions abroad. Likewise Juan Cole [11] in an “Open Letter to the Left on Libya” dismisses criticism of the intervention thusly. “I would like to urge the Left to learn to chew gum and walk at the same time,” and adds, “We should avoid making ‘foreign intervention’ an absolute taboo . . .”

“Barack Obama isn’t white, but he may as well be.”

Foreign interventions conducted by the United States should be taboo. Our system is not designed to be in any way humanitarian. Its motives are to say the least suspect and no matter how evil its enemies are made out to be, the evidence of past history should make us suspicious of the arguments in favor of war.

The liberal hawks, like Obama, have no concern for Libyan civilians who are enduring bombing, and exposure to depleted uranium shells which create cancers and birth defects for years to come. This is not conjecture, but has been seen in Iraq and ought to be a reason for anyone who claims to be on the “left” to oppose the actions which bring it to pass.

The true anti-war activist, not just anti-Republican activist, has to raise its voice. The true anti-war movement must reawaken itself and hit the streets in the hundreds of thousands, just as they did in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. That moment can be recreated, and in a deeper, more honest way, now that a Democrat is the head killer in charge.

http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. [12] Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.

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Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-attack-cruise-missile-liberals

Links:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/cruise-missile-liberals
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/r2p
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/media-media-justice-and-media-reform/corporate-news-media
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/bill-maher
[5] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/democrats
[6] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/ed-schultz
[7] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/juan-cole
[8] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/new-democrats
[9] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/attack_of_the_cruise_missile_liberals.jpg
[10] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-schultz/why-i-support-president-o_b_839800.html
[11] http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/an-open-letter-to-the-left-on-libya.html
[12] http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/
[13] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Ffreedom-rider-attack-cruise-missile-liberals&linkname=Freedom%20Rider%3A%20Attack%20of%20the%20Cruise%20Missile%20Liberals