Tuesday, July 1, 2014

And the Mission Keeps Creeping Along

Under the forever-War Powers Resolution invested in him as unitary executive, Barack Obama has in one fell swoop just doubled the number of troops being (re) deployed to Iraq. They are being sent to "protect American interests" ( aka the plunderers from Big Oil and their taxpayer-funded Embassy support staff) and as "advisers" (armed thugs to keep on eye on the corrupt and weakening Maliki protectorate whose function has always been to provide cover to the plunderers from Big Oil).

It is the very model of a modern major mission creep. Here an adviser, there a drone, everywhere is war.

Or, as Obama put it in his letter to Congress,
In light of the security situation in Baghdad, I have ordered up to approximately 200 additional U.S. Armed Forces personnel to Iraq to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy, its support facilities, and the Baghdad International Airport.
This force consists of additional security forces, rotary-wing aircraft, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support. This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property, if necessary, and is equipped for combat. This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed. This action has been directed consistent with my responsibility to protect U.S. citizens both at home and abroad, and in furtherance of U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.
Translation:  He's only ordering a threatening drizzle now, but just in case he changes his mind, (and he probably will, based on ever-changing weather conditions "on the ground") he is also issuing a severe storm watch, which will last until the end of time, or until the oil is depleted. For purposes of obfuscation,  he is defining Blackwater or whatever the hell they call themselves these days as "US citizens both home and abroad." He is defining Halliburton, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and their various and sundry offshoots as "national security and foreign policy interests."

The Baghdad Embassy, as a de facto American state-within-a-state (much like Vatican City)  is not being evacuated. As the largest "diplomatic mission" in the world, the 5 million square-foot fiefdom was built at a cost of $750 million (allegedly with the help of slave labor trafficked in by contractors) and employs/houses more than 5,000 people. It has its own power and sewer infrastructure, as well as an Olympic-size swimming pool, so that the plunderers and rentiers can cool off between their pillaging jaunts in that desert heat.

And while Obama and the stenographers of the corporate media are spreading their propaganda, the Embassy itself is heavy into its own propaganda, still striving the win the hearts and minds of Iraqis who have managed to survive the war and the ensuing occupation. This past February, before ISIS invaded the country, Iraqi students were being brainwashed instructed on great American presidents and the great American wealth trickling down upon them like so many Heavenfire missiles and American-installed puppet leaders. The Embassy Ministry of Truth explained it thusly:
In recognition of President's Day, Embassy officers spoke with Iraqi students about visionary leaders from U.S. history. Streamed live from the Baghdad American Corner to five other corners, this engagement was an opportunity for Iraqis to learn how American leaders such as George Washington helped set the United States on a path towards democracy and prosperity.
During the question and answer session, the students discussed how to identify transformational leaders among the candidates for the April parliamentary elections.
Maybe one way they're being taught to identify "transformational leaders" is to read White House/Pentagon-planted stories in the New York Times. If they read today's front page, for example, they would have learned that discredited CIA plant and WMD story-telling plutocrat Ahmad Chalabi is being passive-aggressively "talked about" to replace Maliki as the new potted plant:
 On the face of it, Mr. Chalabi as prime minister seems, at best, highly unlikely. His exile-based, C.I.A.-financed Iraqi National Congress never built much of a grass-roots following in Iraq, and he suffered from the Americans’ growing unpopularity as the war dragged on. His role in promoting what many now view as concocted evidence of weapons of mass destruction under Saddam Hussein badly tarnished him.
Hey, but there are plenty of tarnish-removers available on the Free Market! Just look at how the corporate media has so ably removed the tarnish from such war criminals as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and put them back on TV, all shiny and new, as though they were monarchs in exile.

The Times goes on to explain that Chalabi stalwartly stayed in Iraq throughout the war, by choice, and just narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in which six (!) of his security guards suffered unfortunate fatal collateral damage. Just like George Washington at Valley Forge! Oh, and he's also a centrist technocrat all of a sudden. Very Obama-like, as a matter of fact. Very able to co-opt the varying factions into the Big Oil veal pen.

And to prove his worthiness, he has even been invited back to the Embassy! 

Remember, citizens: Always look forward, never look backward. Why have memories when there are visions for sale?

3 comments:

Jay–Ottawa said...

That tarnish remover only works on DNA in the USA. Seems that French magistrates have arrested – not indicted, but arrested – for at least for 24 hours, which could be extended to two days, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France. After a long investigation he is being made to respond to a series of charges all related basically to corruption, like influence peddling, breach of faith, campaign money illegalities, etc. His lawyer and several cronies are also being shaken down for the facts. So what, you say. Well, I was just wondering: Could we do this in America some day?

4Runner said...

Though the players have changed, the game remains the same. Let's go back exactly 50 years, when LBJ was practising "escalatio" on Vietnam & the Dominican Republic. As best described in the Tom Lehrer song "Send the Marines" you can watch on YouTube:

"When someone makes a move/Of which we don't approve/Who is it that intervenes?/First, send the Marines!
We'll send them all we've got/John Wayne & Randolph Scott/Remember those exciting fighting scenes?/To the shores of Tripoli/But not to Mississippoli/What do we do? Send the Marines!
For right makes might/And till they've seen the light/They've got to be protected/All their rights respected/Till someone we like can be elected.
Members of the Corps/All hate the thought of war/Stop calling it aggression/We hate that expression/We only want the world to know/That we approve the status quo/They love us everywhere we go/So when in doubt, send the Marines!

Denis Neville said...

As the saying goes, when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

“We like war! We’re a war-like people! We like war because we’re good at it! You know why we’re good at it? Cause we get a lot of practice. This country’s only 200 years old and already, we’ve had 10 major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are; we’re not very good at anything else anymore! Huh? Can’t build a decent car, can’t make a TV set or a VCR worth a fuck, got no steel industry left, can’t educate our young people, can’t get health care to our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country all right! Huh? Especially if your country is full of brown people; oh we like that don’t we? That’s our hobby! That’s our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we’ll goddamn bomb them! Well when’s the last white people you can remember that we bombed? Can you remember the last white - can you remember ANY white people we’ve ever bombed? The Germans, those are the only ones and that’s only because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world! Bullshit! That's our fucking job!” - George Carlin

Obama’s lies (any excuse will serve a tyrant) about our national security have become so commonplace, so predictable, that the public no longer seems interested in the truth.

“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” - George Orwell

Very few Americans really know much about the American killing machine.

“The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, “Hey – don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride…” But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. Jesus – murdered; Martin Luther King – murdered; Malcolm X – murdered; Gandhi – murdered; John Lennon – murdered; Reagan… wounded. But it doesn’t matter because: It’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.” – Bill Hicks

We are what we pretend to be.

“Go back to bed, America…Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you!” - Bill Hicks

How many have been born into this chaos and will never know what peace feels like?