How To Continue a War

The propaganda plan is falling into place very nicely.

Obama has easily scored the congressional public relations fig leaf and blank check necessary to use military force in Iraq, simply by herding a few leaders into the coveted pen and informing them he doesn't need their damn approval for anything. That is because the congressional approval granted to his predecessor is still in effect. And that means, for all intents and purposes, that the Iraq War has never really ended. From "the most trusted name in news":

While the White House statement emphasized Obama would continue to consult with Congress, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the President "basically just briefed us on the situation in Iraq and indicated he didn't feel he had any need for authority from us for the steps that he might take."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California agreed with McConnell's assessment, adding she believed congressional authorization for military force in Iraq back in 2001 and 2003 still applied.

 Obama "did not give us an array of actions he was planning to take," Pelosi said. "He just talked about his perspective on what was happening there."

Tell me again about the mean old Republicans not letting Obama get anything done. It's the Imperial Presidency, people, and it's got the full bipartisan and plutocratic approval of our rulers. But they still have to pretend to be at odds, in order to maintain the grand illusion that we still have a functioning democracy instead of governance under a corporate-military coup.

So, to deflect attention from this grim reality, and to whip up a whole new froth of pseudo-liberal outrage, enter Dick Cheney and his lovely daughter Liz. They penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed obnoxious enough to guarantee that anything Obama does in the way of violent imperialism will have him coming out smelling like a peace-loving Nobel Peace Prize. A sample of the latest Bad Cop, incestuous neo-con style:

Despite clear evidence of the dire need for American leadership around the world, the desperation of our allies and the glee of our enemies, President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch. Indeed, the speed of the terrorists' takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch.

The president explained his view in his Sept. 23, 2009, speech before the United Nations General Assembly. "Any world order," he said, "that elevates one nation above others cannot long survive." Tragically, he is quickly proving the opposite—through one dangerous policy after another—that without American pre-eminence, there can be no world order.

It is time the president and his allies faced some hard truths: America remains at war, and withdrawing troops from the field of battle while our enemies stay in the fight does not "end" wars. Weakness and retreat are provocative. U.S. withdrawal from the world is disastrous and puts our own security at risk.

Cheney is such a repellant character that, despite the obvious manipulation of the public psyche at work here, I couldn't resist joining the chorus of outrage complementing Charles Blow's own duly manipulated outrage at Cheney's blindness to the irony of it all. My own red meat comment adding to the frenzy:

Cheney is not only blind to irony. He's blind to all that is good, true and humane. Just because he has a new heart doesn't mean he has any heart. Were he to be given one of those psychopath tests, he'd likely score off the charts and end up in his own category, somewhere in the darkest spot of the last circle of hell.

Neocon extremists are being given free rein by the same bloodthirsty media hacks who gave them free rein more than a dozen years ago. The talking heads are even waxing nostalgic for the good old days of embeds. The retired generals fomenting fear are obviously hungry for more war profits and plunder.

They make Obama's possible "targeted" drone strikes look therapeutic in comparison. So far, the debate is do we bomb a little, or should we bomb a lot. Doing nothing is simply not part of the acceptable discourse on TV shows sponsored by the military industrial complex.

 You'd think that with a million barrels of fracked oil being produced every single day in North Dakota alone, Cheney and his crude cabal would finally be sated enough to shut up.

And what about the Iraqis still paying the price of American aggression? Iraq Body Count estimates that between 100,000 and 200,000 beneficiaries of our Freedoms have died as the direct result of Cheney & Co. being so wrong at the expense of so many.

Cheney's tacit definition of winning hearts and minds is crushing them into bloody pulps.

 He should have been a dud by now. But he keeps right on ticking.

As other commenters noted, Obama has given a free pass to Cheney by not prosecuting him for his war crimes. Additionally, as Martha Shelley of Portland, OR aptly pointed out in her response to me, the Clinton administration also has dirty hands: the economic embargo during his tenure caused the deaths of an estimated half a million Iraqi children by withholding food and medicines.

So Cheney is the useful Machiavellian idiot in the latest surge of American sabre-rattling. He serves the purpose of making complicit Democrats sound absolutely Christ-like in comparison. He serves to enable the continuing marginalization by her own party of Barbara Lee, stalwart Congressional opponent of unfettered presidential power. From The Hill:

We must recognize that there is no military solution in Iraq,” Lee wrote Wednesday in a “Dear Colleague” letter to her fellow Democrats. 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said the authority that Lee wants to repeal empowers Obama to launch attacks against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has taken over a broad swath of territory in both countries, without going to Congress first. 

“I do not believe the President needs any further legislative authority to pursue the particular options for increased security assistance discussed today,” Pelosi said in a statement. “I am pleased by the president’s efforts to secure strong Congressional support, and I look forward to additional consultation.”

Pelosi and two other Democratic leaders -- Steny Hoyer of Maryland and James Clyburn of South Carolina -- are fully in favor of any military action that does not include the meaningless hackneyed phrase "boots on the ground."(human bodies not members of Obama's private horde of secret elite forces and corporate-financed mercenaries.)

It's the Cheneys and their odious ilk who give Clyburn (who voted against the first Iraq War)  permission to mouth off and pretend that this sounds sane:

“I’m a great believer in drones, and I think that this situation cries out for it,” said Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a respected voice within the CBC.

It's the continuing normalization and respectability of the Lesser Evil, which is every bit as vicious and effective as the Greater Evil.

How To Sell a War

Starting a war without saying you're starting a war takes a lot of finesse and sleight of hand. The first order of business is to carefully disseminate the propaganda in order to make escalation of state-sponsored violence and bloodshed palatable to the American public.

Step One: pretend to be caught flat-footed by a brand new jihadist group called ISIS, which all the trillion-dollar intelligence agencies collecting all the emails and phone calls in the world never even saw coming.

Second: dust off the corpses of all the discredited neocons and war criminals of the Bush era, put them on TV, and allow them to scream for blood while striking fear of another 9/11 into the war-weary hearts of Americans and nostalgia into the war-hungry hearts of hacks who lust for more embeds.

Third: present a Buddha-like President of Peace as backed into a corner and huddling  in emergency meetings with national security advisers. Ignore the fact that he is actually rested and fresh from yet another luxury golf weekend. Once they all coordinate their scripts and talking points, the narrative is "leaked" to the New York Times. The propaganda paper of record obligingly presents the public with two choices: Obama either goes the traditional neocon war route, or he goes the kinder, gentler "surgical" drone strike route, in which a more socially acceptable number of civilians get therapeutically killed. Under no circumstances is the notion of simply doing nothing ever allowed to pollute the discourse.

Doing its stenographic part, the Times grants anonymity to its White House sources, and dutifully floats the trial balloon with the weasel-worded headline "Obama Is Said To Consider Selective Airstrikes on Sunni Militants."

War in the age of the Obama brand always begins slowly and incrementally, with much soul-searching on the part of the Zen master. We, the people, are made privy to the tortured private thoughts of the Commander in Chief, who in his humanitarian angst, will only kill a select few "militants" -- if, indeed, he decides to kill them at all. Right off the bat, we're informed that the president will cause the least possible death with the most possible reluctance. He is not, like the neocons, clamoring for a widespread ham-handed bombardment or invasion.  He is duly humanized and pre-emptively forgiven for any unfortunate bloodshed.

The article, written by Mark Landler and Eric Schmitt, continues:

Such a campaign, most likely using drones, could last for a prolonged period, the official said. But it is not likely to begin for days or longer, and would hinge on the United States’ gathering adequate intelligence about the location of the militants, who are intermingled with the civilian population in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities north of Baghdad.

Even if the president were to order strikes, they would be far more limited in scope than the air campaign conducted during the Iraq war, this official said, because of the relatively small number of militants involved, the degree to which they are dispersed throughout militant-controlled parts of Iraq and fears that using bigger bombs would kill Sunni civilians.

So, addicted as he is to drones, Obama will be a responsible drug-user. He will thoroughly research the properties of his pot brownie before taking his first teensy nibbles. No way in hell will he recklessly go straight to crack cocaine, like George Bush did. It's the Proportionality Principle at work again: moderation in all violent things.

At a meeting with his national security advisers at the White House on Monday evening, the official said, Mr. Obama was presented with a “sliding scale” of military options, which range from supplying the beleaguered Iraqi Army with additional advisers, intelligence and equipment to conducting strikes targeting members of the militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Much of the emphasis at the meeting, the official said, was on how to gather useful intelligence about the militants. They are not wearing uniforms or sleeping in barracks; and while there may be periodic convoys to strike, there are no columns of troops or vehicles.

O.K., that was the part that warns us that unfortunate collateral damage will definitely occur. If a Hellfire missile kills a wedding party, it will be their own fault for being in the vicinity of the bad guys. 

The article goes on to stress that Obama is still interested in a diplomatic solution, even willing to triangulate by working with Iran to defuse the situation. And, to show what a great bipartisan guy devoted to the Separation of Powers he is, he is inviting some carefully selected congress critters into his inner sanctum to provide the necessary fig leaf to his selective war-that-is-not-war.

American intelligence analysts and military planners sent by the Pentagon would work alongside their Iraqi counterparts to help identify vulnerabilities in the militants’ ranks, and disseminate that information to Iraqi ground troops. “Iraqi field reporting has never been very accurate,” said one former American general who fought in Iraq. “They pass information to each other by cellphone, but they really do not have a national structure where they can see everything that’s going on.”

American surveillance and reconnaissance would help provide that fuller picture, officials said. It would also lay the groundwork, should Mr. Obama order armed drones to attack specific militant targets, in much the same way the Central Intelligence Agency and the military have carried out drone strikes in Yemen.

This does not bode well, given the thousands of reported civilian deaths in Yemen (and Pakistan) from Predator drones that have "missed" their marks and rendered innocent people into unidentifiable bugsplat. Also, American officials claiming surprise at the ISIS invasion and bragging, in the same breath, that they can now monitor it better than the Iraquis smacks of either disingenuousness or something more sinister and orchestrated, with the usual subplots and players. 

 Oh, and since intelligence-gathering about the "militants" was allegedly so hard to come by before they began their invasion, now that they're blending in with the general population, American expertise suddenly trumps the locals? Restrained violence, even the mere possibility of violence, are just as effective as a full-scale military attack. Control of a population is the threat, the promise, and the endgame now matter the weaponry used.

Predator or Reaper drones have the advantage of being able to loiter for hours over an area and launch their Hellfire missiles when a target — such as a pickup truck armed with a .50-caliber gun and loaded fighters — emerges from a hiding place or a crowded urban area.

While the administration has not ruled out larger scale airstrikes from carrier-based aircraft in the Persian Gulf or land-based attack planes in the region, possibly from Turkey or Kuwait, those kinds of strikes, typically using much larger precision-guided bombs, increase the potential for civilian casualties, and agreeing on basing arrangements could be problematic.

Again, let the war-mongers reiterate that as horrific as drone deaths are, they're so much more humane and anonymous than airstrikes from carriers or human-piloted aircraft. Again, they set the stage for public acceptance of (and collaboration with) a drone war by comparing it with the greater evil.

Some current and former United States military officials said that without American troops on the ground — forward air controllers — to identify targets, airstrikes might have only a limited impact, especially as militant forces intersperse themselves in urban areas.

“Airstrikes will have only one good effect: to bolster morale of the Iraqi Army,” said the retired American general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize business relations in the Middle East. “That’s not to be taken lightly. If the Iraqi Army feels we’re there to support them, they’re probably willing to stand their ground.”

How refreshingly honest. We finally get to the cold heart of the matter, the unvarnished truth. An unnamed retired general is granted anonymity by the Times so as not to interfere with his war profiteering and plundering of a region already destroyed by war profiteers and plunderers. An American bombing campaign can only serve to make the armies protecting global capitalists feel better. Obama will make the world safe for corporations and the predatory rich by using the least possible violence.

The Times may as well have shortened its propaganda piece to one short headline: Let the bombs rain down while we pretend that only the deserving get hurt and the profits flow as thickly as the blood.

Or, better and simpler yet: Follow the Money.

The Best of All Possible Evils

So Paul Krugman was talking to some of his liberal friends recently, and was somewhat aghast when they expressed disappointment in President Obama. And thus, after delving deep into the Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman emerged in full Pangloss mode. He has written a column addressed to all those cynics, rubes and ingrates out there being unduly influenced by "the prevailing media narrative." (Warning -- before you read any further, make sure you have swallowed any food or drink still in your mouth:)

The truth is that these days much of the commentary you see on the Obama administration — and a lot of the reporting too — emphasizes the negative: the contrast between the extravagant hopes of 2008 and the prosaic realities of political trench warfare, the troubles at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the mess in Iraq, and so on. The accepted thing, it seems, is to portray Mr. Obama as floundering, his presidency as troubled if not failed.

But this is all wrong. You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. In fact, there’s a very good chance that 2014 will go down in the record books as one of those years when America took a major turn in the right direction.

Let's start with those "extravagant hopes," which Krugman forgets were foisted upon the electorate by the candidate himself. For a full tally of the president's early broken promises and outright lies, please refer to the "Obama Scandals List".  It's old, but I keep it on my Blog Roll because it's unrevised history, and therefore extremely valuable for those of us who are picky about such things. There is that little extravagant matter of the promise of a public option for health care, for instance.

And then Krugman brushes aside the "troubles" at the V.A. as though they were pesky Republican mosquitoes and not a humanitarian crisis, and the "mess" in Iraq as if thousands of innocent people haven't been killed..... and so on and so forth. Because, America, this promises to be not only a Sinatra-like very good year for America, but a seriously good year for Obama. Well, at least the good professor is honest when he says 2014 will be the year the country took a major turn in the right (as opposed to left) direction.

As I began in my uncharacteristicly bilious published NYT comment: "So, seriously, Candide, as long as Obama is having a seriously good year, who are you to complain? It's all for the best in the best of all possible worlds."

The Krugglossianism continues,

First, health reform is now a reality — and despite a shambolic start, it’s looking like a big success story. Remember how nobody was going to sign up? First-year enrollments came in above projections. Remember how people who signed up weren’t actually going to pay their premiums? The vast majority have.

Not half an hour before Krugman's column appeared, his newspaper's website published an article by Robert Pear, describing how hundreds of thousands of Obamacare subscribers have received notices informing them that their documented proof to qualify for government subsidies is lacking or faulty. And that they might owe the government money as a result. The clawbacks and the bait and switch surprises are coming even earlier than expected. Fully one quarter of the eight million newly-insured might be on the hook for an average of $4,000 come tax time next year if they can't prove their worthiness to the Market God. They may be joining the estimated 30 million Americans who will remain uninsured despite the Affordable Care Act. Krugman forgets about them, too. But his column forges on:

Then there’s climate policy. The Obama administration’s new rules on power plants won’t be enough in themselves to save the planet, but they’re a real start — and are by far the most important environmental initiative since the Clean Air Act. I’d add that this is an issue on which Mr. Obama is showing some real passion.

As long as there's vocal passion, then the coughing, the wheezing, the chest pains, the pollution will fade in comparison to Obama's soaring oratory. As I mentioned in my Times comment, while the carbon emissions rules are a good start, they're largely aspirational and rely over-much on the ephemeral good intentions of individual states. And, of course, it ultimately hinges on the Market God, whose dire rumblings cannot be ignored by politicians sensitive to them. And then there are the other major pollutants getting a free pass from the passionate Mr. Obama. You may remember the ozone rules he scrapped a few years ago to shore up his re-election chances in the heartland. so as not to rattle the "confidence" of polluters. Unhealthy, man-made  levels of ozone are still causing thousands of pragmatic asthma attacks in children while environmental groups are suing Obama in federal court.

Meanwhile, DeSmogBlog reports that Obama is "quietly coddling Big Oil on bomb train regulations." You know.... that highly flammable Bakken crude hurtling down a railroad track near you.

 

Oil Train Explosion, Lynchburg, VA (DeSmogBlog)

And then there's his embrace of the fracking industry and deepwater drilling. (Just days before he made his carbon emissions announcement, his administration awarded ExxonMobil a brand new Gulf of Mexico drilling lease.) No need, either, to disclose all those chemicals being injected into the earth, poisoning our drinking water. The passionate president is confident that Halliburton has the public health as its highest priority.

Sorry, Doctor Pangloss. That glass is not only not half-full -- it's toxic.

And last but not least, Krugman turns to financial deform:

 Oh, and financial reform, although it’s much weaker than it should have been, is real — just ask all those Wall Street types who, enraged by the new limits on their wheeling and dealing, have turned their backs on the Democrats.

Krugman is being far from candid here. Wall Street types may howl in public about criticism thrown their way by Democrats pretending to be for the little guy, but they continue throwing money at Democratic politicians only too happy to do their bidding and take their bribes. Even the toothless bill that is Dodd-Frank is being delayed and defanged (or should I say de-gummed?) For a more honest overview than Krugman is willing to give, there's the recent Bill Moyers interview with Stanford economist Anat Admati, author of "The Banker's New Clothes." I also recommend Ryan Grim's article on how even a good chunk of the "progressive" Congressional Black Caucus is now in the pocket of Wall Street.

Krugman concludes with some criticism of Bowles-Simpson centrists without even acknowledging that Obama himself is a centrist (aka "New Democrat") who appointed their pro-plutocracy cat food commission. 

So what the hell is in Krugman's pocket? I wouldn't be surprised if it was a souvenir from the "polish it yourself"  bowl of apples that Obama keeps in the Oval Office.

A Week of American Pathology

Nothing expresses the shallow narcissism and brutal arrogance of the American political/media complex so much as its reaction to the cataclysm that is Iraq. To wit:

"Over the past decade, American troops have made extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis an opportunity to claim their own future.... Obviously our troops and the American people and the American taxpayers made huge investments and sacrifices in order to give Iraqis the opportunity to chart a better course, a better destiny.”   -- Barack Obama. He delivered his Friday remarks with obvious impatience and haste, Marine One ostentatiously revving up in the background. It sent the cynical message that he has better things to do.... like head off for a luxury vacation weekend in California, while the country that the US invaded is now indistinguishable from the last circle of Hell.

No mention at all from Obama of the extraordinary sacrifices that Iraqi civilians have made over the past eleven years. Instead, the dead, the maimed, and the dispossessed are blamed for being ingrates. From the Iraq Body Count website, here are statistics from just this month so far:

Friday 13 June: 34 killed Mosul: 17 by gunfire. Baghdad: 2 by IEDs. Tarmiya: 3 by car bomb. Baiji: 7 policemen by government shelling. Tikrit: 3 policemen by government shelling. Falluja: 2 poisoned after shelling of water plant. JUNE CASUALTIES SO FAR: 758 CIVILIANS KILLED.

Thursday 12 June: 23 killed Baghdad: 4 by gunfire. Falluja: 3 by shelling. Diyala: 2 by gunfire. Muqdadiya: 2 by gunfire, IED. Kirkuk: 1 photographer in clashes. Riyadh: 1 by IED. Al Debes: 1 by IED. Baiji: 1 child by gunfire. Balad: 2 professors by gunfire. Latifiya: 1 policeman in clashes. Tikrit: 3 border guards, 2 bodies. JUNE CASUALTIES SO FAR: 724 CIVILIANS KILLED. The total Iraqi body count stemming from the US invasion in 2003 varies, with some estimates going as high as 200,000. This contrasts with 4,486 American deaths in the war. But hey -- it's all about US:

“Iraq’s unraveling should come as no surprise. We and others predicted that would happen as a result of the President’s decision to prematurely withdraw all American forces from Iraq. As early as 2011, we said this decision would be a strategic victory for our enemies, and that is what it has become. The President and his national security team in Washington are responsible for this catastrophe, and he should bring in a new team with a proven track record of success in Iraq – leaders like General David Petraeus, General Jack Keane, General James Mattis, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and others. --- Neocon Nincompoop John McCain, who never started a war he wanted to end, who forgot who started the war, who forgot that Petraeus is now diversifying his destruction by fracking up the millions for a shady private equity outfit. And, that it was George Bush who set the timetable for ending the war.

"Will the United States be destroyed?"-- Wolf Blitzer, fulfilling his destiny of drumming up mindless fear to prop up tanking CNN ratings and to contribute to the endless profit of his diverse destructive corporate sponsors.

"We now have two administrations in a row that committed their worst foreign policy blunders in Iraq. By withdrawing too quickly from Iraq, by failing to build on the surge, the Obama administration has made some similar mistakes made during the early administration of George W. Bush, except in reverse. The dangers of American underreach have been lavishly and horrifically displayed." -- David Brooks, one of the original New York Times armchair warriors, getting his perverted jollies by describing death and destruction in "Doctor Ruth" terms of sexual dysfunction.

And then there are the headlines of the major outlets, all framing the crisis around how it will affect the personal fortunes and legacies of self-seeking American politicians. Some examples:

Obama Finds He Can't Put Iraq Behind Him -- Peter Baker, NYT, twists logic on its ear in this piece:

He opposed the invasion as a state senator in Illinois, and many of his decisions as president have been measured against the lessons he took from Iraq. To him, the war proved that military intervention more often than not made things worse, not better.

When he agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan, he insisted on a timetable for pulling them out. When he decided to intervene in Libya, he used only air power and made sure that NATO allies took the lead. When the Syrian civil war broke out, he resisted calls to step in even with air power or, for a long time, arms for the rebels. The longer he has been in office, the more skeptical he seems to have grown about the utility of force as a means of changing the world for the better.

Wow, what a relief. When Obama invades countries, he makes up a timetable. (just like Bush.) When Obama bombs countries, he makes sure only foreigners get killed.  Baker conveniently forgets to mention that it was Obama who wanted to bomb the hell out of Syria, but was thwarted at the last minute by Putin's diplomatic intervention in getting Assad to remove his chemical weapon stockpile.

Moving on, how can we forget how badly Iraq has affected Hillary Clinton's grand roll-out of a book tour?  The Hill, purveyor of all things insider-Beltway, has the cataclysmic scoop: Iraq Casts Shadow Over Clinton: 

The growing crisis and threat of all-out civil war in Iraq has cast a cloud over Hillary Clinton’s book tour touting her accomplishments as secretary of State.

The release of “Hard Choices” was supposed to remind people of the foreign policy credentials she burnished in the Obama administration.

 On Tuesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest even said Clinton’s greatest accomplishments at the State Department included ending the war in Iraq and “decimating and destroying” al Qaeda.

Well, it was only the Eve of Destruction and his name is Josh Earnest.And then The Hill quotes something truly bizarre that Hill said in 2011:

“Are the Iraqis all going to get along with each other for the foreseeable future? Well, let’s find out. We know that there will be continuing stresses and threats as we see in many of the countries that we work,” she said then. (bold is mine.)

But let the narcissistic weirdness continue. As Iraq was exploding, Hillary was touring. And she is having the time of her life! From Buzzfeed's account of a staged Friday night interview with former aide and (current?) ghostwriter Lissa Muscatine:

“You’re traveling all over the place. You’re doing all these interviews. You’re keeping a pretty frenetic pace,” Muscatine said before an audience of 1,500. “I’m wondering, just as I’ve watched you, in these past four days — you’ve had some tough interviews — you seem like you’re having a really good time.”

“Well, Lissa, I am having a good time.”

“You’re really free to speak your mind these days,” Muscatine said.

“Maybe it’s just the wonderful wealth of experience that I now have,” Clinton went on. “Maybe it’s because I am truly done with, you know, being really careful about what to say because somebody might think this instead of that.”

“It just gets too exhausting and frustrating and it just seemed a whole lot easier to just put it out there and hope people get used to it. Whether you agree with it or not, you know exactly where I come from, what I think, what I feel.”

“It feels a little bit liberating, to be honest.”

“And it’s great to watch,” Muscatine said. “I have to say.”

Can't you just hardly wait for the next decade or so of this vicarious freedom and liberation as Hillary works the countries of the globe? Stay tuned for the corporate media-rehabbed George's next self-portrait of his feet. Then thrill to the awarding of the location of Obama's legacy-burnishing shrine to himself.

Update: Chelsea Manning has written an op-ed for the NYT on the disconnect between the reality of the Iraq War and the USG-controlled media reporting of it. Journalists who are cozy with the military and report favorably on its activities are given special access. Others are shut out. Journalists in Iraq were even forced to sign something that sounds suspiciously like a "loyalty oath."

Obama Bombs

By Alice Ross

Cross-posted from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Two drone strikes have hit North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal northwest, reportedly killing 16 people and ending the longest pause in drone strikes of Obama’s presidency.

Prior to these attacks there had not been a drone strike in Pakistan since Christmas Day. The Pakistani government had requested that the US stop carrying out strikes to allow peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) to take place, sources close to the negotiations told the Bureau in February.

But terrorist attacks and retaliatory air strikes by the Pakistani military continued throughout the peace talks, killing hundreds including civilians.

Any hope of the talks continuing ended on Sunday when the TTP launched an audacious ‘joint operation‘ attacking Karachi airport, with members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group with a strong presence in North Waziristan. The five-hour assault killed at least 39, according to the BBC.

On Wednesday evening, the drone strikes resumed.

Get the data: Obama 2014 Pakistan drone strikes

The first attack hit a vehicle and houses in a village to the west of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency in Pakistan’s tribal belt. A local told NBC News the attack targeted a moving vehicle but also damaged two houses. A security official told AFP the vehicle was parked outside a house and both were hit in the strike. Up to six were reportedly killed. Unnamed local officials told reporters the dead included Uzbek militants and either members of the Punjabi Taliban or the Haqqani Network.

An unnamed ‘senior intelligence official’ told AFP that following the strike, intercepted communications revealed: ‘One of the militants was asking others to reach the site and search for any one injured in the strike and also to dig out the dead bodies.’

Hours later drones attacked again, reportedly killing at least 10 alleged militants in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Reports disagreed over the details of this second strike, with AFP reporting that the drones targeted men who were digging out bodies at the site of the previous strike – a tactic previously exposed by the Bureau. ‘Three US drones fired six missiles on militants who had gathered to dig the debris of a compound,’ a security official told AFP. Two vehicles were also hit, he added. PTI also reported that the strike was at the site of the earlier attack, although it did not mention an attack on rescuers.

Related article - Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers

NBC News also reported that the attack took place in the same village as the previous strike, adding that it hit a house where explosives were being stored. ‘I never heard such a huge and deafening blast,’ Miranshah resident Javed Khan said. ‘It jolted the entire tribal region, and everybody thought [the] house was targeted.

But other reports, citing locals, said missiles hit four separate houses and a pick-up truck in Dande Darpakhel. Intelligence officials and locals described seeing five to ten drones overhead.

None of the dead were identified by name.

Unnamed intelligence officials told Associated Press the attack targeted the Haqqani Network, the militant group that held US soldier Bowe Bergdahl captive until his release in a controversial prisoner swap earlier this month. The LA Times and others suggested the release had eased the way to a resumption in strikes as US officials had previously feared drone strikes could ‘result in Bergdahl’s death’.

The strikes come shortly after the Pakistani defence minister called for a full-scale military operation against the TTP in North Waziristan, telling a TV interviewer: ‘The talks option has been pursued with sincerity by the government, but no result has come.’

The Pakistani foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the attacks as a ‘violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty’ – a step that has become routine in recent years. The statement added: ‘Additionally, these strikes have a negative impact on the Government’s efforts to bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region.’

But two unnamed ‘top government officials’ told Reuters the strikes were ‘launched with the express approval of the Pakistan government and army’. 

One told the agency: ‘It is now policy that the Americans will not use drones without permission from the security establishment here. There will be complete coordination and Pakistan will be in the loop. We understand that drones will be an important part of our fight against the Taliban now.’

UPDATE: The first line originally stated that this was the longest pause of the 10-year campaign. It wasn’t. This has been amended.

The Revolving Undead

If you're still suffering from your bad case of Hillary fatigue, you can look forward to a respite. For one more day, at least, the queen-in-waiting's grand tour is being pre-empted by the media/political complex's post-mortem of the "stunning"" defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

 It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about Eric Cantor's sleazy financial wheelings and dealings through his shadowy Young Guns Super Pac, which finagled its way into a glowing op-ed by David Brooks.

So, Cantor's defeat at the hands of a locally popular but nationally unknown  economics professor named David Brat (probably with the aid of his Hate, Inc. media enablers) could not have happened to a more deserving specimen. Suffering defeat at the hands of an impoverished guy named Brat is also sweet, giving lie to the Supreme Court canard that money is speech, all by itself. It turns out that you still occasionally need the hideous larynxes of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham to give dark money an actual voice.

Brat seems to be as surprised by (and unprepared for) his victory as anyone. Talking hacks, nostalgic for their Sarah Palin "gotchas," are already having a field day with him. Chuck Todd, for example, sabotaged him with a trick question on the minimum wage. (He asked Brat for his position on it. Brat admitted he hadn't given it a second thought.) Like I said.... they (and we) can take a brief break from those tiresome Hillary gotcha questions on Benghazi and her three houses and her million-dollar speaking gigs.

 Plus, let's give Eric the Dread a little credit where it's due. Were it not for him once toadying up to the cannibalistic Tea Party, that hideous Grand Bargain in which President Obama had offered up the New Deal on a platter to John Boehner would actually have come to pass. We would be gasping for toxic air in Austerity 1.0 instead of shallowly breathing in Austerity Lite. The eligibility age for Medicare would have risen to 67. Our Social Security benefits would have been cut through chained CPI. The Medicaid health insurance program for the poor would have been slashed. All kinds of programs for the public good would have been sacrificed on the Free Market altar, in the name of oligarch-enriching deficit reduction. The duopolists and the various crisis-creating "Gangs" of the political syndicate figured they could screw over the regular people by touting a token amount of revenue from the rich to balance our pain. Those closed tax loopholes could always be ripped open at a later date, snuck into a bill somewhere under cover of darkness. But cuts to Social Security would have been forever.

  And then the crazy Tea Party balked at even one more penny of token new revenue. Cantor took full credit as the spoiler of a deal made in plutocratic hell and serendipitously delayed the demise of what's still left of the New Deal and the Great Society.

We should also give him a tiny bit of credit for now forcing Obama's hand on immigration. Obama, you may recall, had again gone his weasely Bartleby the Scrivener route, stating he would "prefer not to" take unilateral action on the fraught issue without bipartisan cooperation. Cantor was part of that bipartisan cooperation. That he betrayed the Tea Party xenophobes in favor of the corporate interests who wanted their cheap imported IT labor and other servants was the death knell for him. On the surface, anyway.

 Stay tuned. Everybody loves a Nixonian political comeback. Maybe Eric Cantor will explore pretend-running for president or vice president as he helps wreak havoc for the rest of his official tenure, raking in the cash in preparation for his leadership position at a think tank or his own Super Pac. It's the magic of the revolving door. It's the magic of a whole panoply of mystery sugar daddy billionaires anxious to own a personal stake in our pseudo-democracy.

Eric the Dread is decidedly undead. He will always be a member in good standing of the entrenched ruling class. He's already sneering all the way to the bank.

Update: More theories on Eric's downfall: Thom Hartman (h/t Pearl) suspects that the allegedly penniless Brat had a mighty big wad of dark money secretly propping him up (via the professional hate-mongers of the Limbaughsphere as I referenced above), while Lee Fang says Cantor was defeated primarily because of voter disgust with political corruption.

Here is my response to Gail Collins' column on Putting a Cap on Cantor:

 The media characterizing Eric Cantor's loss as an earthquake reminds me how Cantor treated his own constituents after a real earthquake rocked his district in 2011.

As he sneeringly surveyed the damage, he told voters that disaster relief would have to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. But not for the banks (his wife's bank had gotten a TARP bailout). the war machine, or for his corporate cronies. If regular people didn't have the foresight to purchase earthquake insurance in a region that never gets earthquakes, he said, then tough cookies for them.

A nurse friend of mine was in a contingent of protesters who traveled by bus a month or so later seeking a meeting with Cantor. Was it the fact that all of them were wearing matching "Can'tor Won't" tee shirts that made him lock the door and call the cops on them? He was such a coward, he even staffed his town halls  with paid bouncers in order to eject people whose pointed questions he didn't like.

His "surprise" defeat was likely a serendipitous mixture of apathy, disgust with Wall Street, Democrats gleefully crashing a GOP primary, xenophobia fomented by Hate Media, Inc. and the fact that Cantor views non-rich people with blatant contempt. Who knows -- it could even have been David Brooks' primary day column praising the phony "New Right" manifesto put together by Cantor's odious dark money Young Guns SuperPac.

As "Delaware Dem" blogged:

" ‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah."
 

‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah - See more at: http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/06/cantors-defeat-wittiest-one-liners/#sthash.7iaDwqjA.dpuf

‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah - See more at: http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/06/cantors-defeat-wittiest-one-liners/#sthash.7iaDwqjA.dpuf

Tighty Whitie Righties

Since you're all probably suffering from a severe case of Hillary Clinton fatigue by now, I thought I'd give everybody a break and and discuss that equally dapper white centrist -- David Brooks of the New York Times.

With lesser-evil Democrats throwing out such tasty morsels as aspirational cap-and-trade (just in time for Doomsday), and bestowing student debt forgiveness upon a chosen few lucky duckies, the Republicans are desperately playing catch-up, in hopes of winning a seat (or fifty) on the pseudo-populist bandwagon. So they're doing what they always do -- they're plastering a shady new shade of lipstick on a pig. They've issued a manifesto called "Room to Grow," and the reliable Mr. Brooks has obligingly given it penthouse column space in which to luxuriously metastasize.

The fact that he labels the agenda "The New Right" is your first clue.The next clue is that when you click on the link he so thoughtfully provides, you discover that the propaganda e-book he's touting is a product of something called the YG Network. No, it isn't Why???? Gee!!!!  It stands for "Young Guns" -- now initialized, probably because they don't want readers to confuse them with those white supremacist mass murderers. Because, the Republicans are merely white supremacists who don't want to take the guns away from the mass murderers.

Brooks also forgets to mention that the manifesto is the production of one John Murray, former deputy chief of staff to original Young Gun Eric Cantor. Before heading to Congress, Murray had lobbied for both AHIP, the health insurance cartel, and Big Pharma. The manifesto that Brooks is shilling for is actually a front for a gigantic SuperPac that Murray started when he left government "service" to cash in. From Politico:

Murray, with the help of former Cantor aide Rob Collins, is launching the new PAC as a fundraising vehicle that will be able to accept unlimited contributions from corporations and individuals and spend money to elect “free-market, pro-business” candidates.

Alongside the super PAC, Murray is launching two nonprofits: a 501(c)(4) that will be able to run issue advertisements and a 501(c)(3) that will commission studies and run educational programs.

The common thread running through all three organizations: the Cantor-Ryan-McCarthy brand, which got so much attention in the 2010 elections and will try to capitalize on the new world of lightly regulated, unlimited corporate and individual money.

With the super PAC, Cantor’s former aides will be able to pour money into the election efforts of candidates who are in the Young Guns’ mold — conservative and ready to challenge the establishment.

So, I guess the "Room to Grow" (Pinocchio noses)  manifesto must fall into the category of tax-deductible educational program for ruling class fun and profit. Don't you just love it when studly young establishment types pretend to pack heat as they pretend to challenge the establishment and educate the masses?

But meanwhile, it is David Brooks's task to cover up such greed and dishonesty with his usual concern-trolling gobbledygook. He enthuses,

In the first essay of the book, Peter Wehner moves beyond the ruinous Republican view that the country is divided between hearty entrepreneurs and parasitic “takers.” Like most reform conservatives, he shifts attention sympathetically to the struggling working and middle classes. He grapples with the fact, uncomfortable for conservatives, that the odds of escaping poverty are about half as high in the United States as in more mobile countries like Denmark.

You may remember nouveau-compassionate conservative Wehner as the bloodthirsty Bush speechwriter/attack dog who beat the war drums for the Iraq invasion while spewing "Christian" values. You also may remember him (Brooks pretends not to) as an enthusiastic member of Mitt Romney's "makers vs. takers" campaign team!

Brooks, meanwhile, avoids giving a mention to the manifesto contributor writing about the unemployment crisis.

Since Congress recently condemned millions of long-term unemployed Americans to destitution by refusing to extend their jobless benefits, I was anxious to read the chapter on how the "New Right" plans to help them. Boy, was I ever in for a treat.

Michael Strain, of the American Enterprise Institute, thinks that kicking people when they're down is just the ticket.

For starters, he wants to give them a one-way ticket out of town.... to wherever those great mystery jobs are rumored to be there for the taking.

Then, Strain suggests that "the federal minimum wage requirement that forces employers to take a $7.25 risk on an unemployed worker" should be scrapped in favor of a sub-minimum wage for people out of work six months or longer.... until such unspecified time that they can prove themselves. Meanwhile they may qualify for a short-term loan, with interest, that they can pay back while they're raking in their pitiful wages. Feudalism, much?

Strain also thinks that work-related licensing requirements (enacted for the public's welfare) should be scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Of course, this blatant brutality makes the Dems' own measly $10.10 minimum wage proposal look like manna from heaven. Which, after all, is the whole point of the bait and switch political duopoly owned and operated by a de facto plutocracy. The proles are allowed to go to the polls and choose the best of all possible evils.

And as always -- follow the $$$, all the way to the pockets of the .01%