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The attacks on Arab/muslim communities in the US are a mirror of the attacks on Arab/muslim nations from Morocco to Indonesia. In pursuit of resources to fuel its imperial ambitions the US has consistently interfered with nations in the region since FDR had a little ‘talk’ with King Abdulaziz ibn Saud in early 1945. FDR surprised and undoubtedly terrified Churchill when he calmly told him that that he was going to have meetings with Saud, King Farouk of Egypt and Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia on his the way home from Yalta. Churchill must have known that his empire was dying and its successor was moving to establish a new global imperial hegemony.
Since then, using direct military intervention or spy agencies like the CIA, the US attacked Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Pakistan and subverted every nation in the region. Their goal, of course, is to control oil and other resources and bases to make the world safe for US big business. For that the US government and military murdered well over a million Iraqis, half of them children murdered in cold blood by Bill Clinton and another half a million or more murdered by George Bush.
The infanticide (1) and genocide in Iraq exacerbated a trend that began with the war in Vietnam – namely that the governments spy and police agencies began to duplicate the work they did overseas in a domestic context aimed at civilian opponents of the war. The FBI played a role in the murder of the Panthers (2) and in covering up racist murders of civil rights activists and supporters in the South. The CIA (aided by the NYPD) assisted in the murder of Malcolm X in New York and James Shabazz in Newark.(3) National Guard units and cops murdered 2 students and wounded 12 more at Jackson State (4) and murdered four students at Kent State (5) and wounded nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
Since Obama’s inaugural he’s used the FBI to conduct raids on the homes of activists, and as a FISA supporter has no doubt initiated massive internet and telephonic spying. And as the story indicates, the response of the FBI and other federal secret police agencies and local cops has been to crack down on Arab/muslim communities and activists in the US, using bogus unconstitutional laws like the Paytriot Act and FISA.
Like LBJ and Nixon, Obama is murdering American citizens, something he claims he has a right to do.(6) Obama ordered the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki (or al-Aulaqi) and his 16 year old son. “The teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver in 1995, and his 17-year-old Yemeni cousin were killed in a U.S. military strike that left nine people dead in southeastern Yemen.” (7)
With each new war and genocide the repressive apparatus of the government of the .01% becomes bolder and more murderous. The only thing that can stop them is the formation of massive workers parties with a revolutionary perspective aimed at the creation of a workers state. A workers state can criminalize those who act to build an empire to serve big business and who tread on the Bill of Rights. Democrats and Republicans will never do that, not in a million years.
(1) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/cortright
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/763824.stm
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0807-01.htm
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673600022893/abstract
http://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/index_29697.html
(3) The Assassination of Malcolm X by George Breitman, Herman Porter and Baxter Smith, Pathfinder Press
(4) http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/14/40_years_ago_police_kill_two
(5) www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html
11 Comments
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Of course, murdering Americans is not morally worse than murdering anyone else.
More ironic, perhaps, in that Americans murdered by the American government are hiring and funding the government to protect their constitutional rights. but it murders them instead.
It would be something like Lucca Brasi murdering Don Corleone, Sr. Of course, Lucca would never have done that. The vast majority of mafiosi were far more loyal to their own than that.
I suppose not including Kennedy is OK. But the first pull on the loose thread that continues to unravel the American conscience began then. Rec’d
“Of course, murdering Americans is not morally worse than murdering anyone else.” Correct, but the distinctin here is that Obama says he has the right to murder on a whim.
Are you referring to not including Kennedy as a murderer in places like Vietnam or at the Bay of Pigs?
That’s a question for Hermit.
…X 2
“Since then, using direct military intervention or spy agencies like the CIA, the US attacked Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Pakistan”
And Somalia. And, mostly likely, the Philippines, although a drone bombing there has been claimed by Philippine government, not the US. But it is likely the US that did it.
And probably a few more we don’t know about yet.
But, to be fair, it isn’t just Muslims we are killing. The USG has done a lot of dirty deeds in Central and South America (lately, Honduras), and we have 3,000 “advisers” in central Africa right now.
The US government routinely uses extra-legal methods to murder people all over the Americas, Eurasia, Africa and as you say there are probably a few more we don’t know about yet.
Oh, no, no, no. The Obama did NOT murder 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki; the poor, deluded kid was just “collateral damage” from a Predator strike on an al-Qaeda “media chief”, don’t you know?
It’s the kid’s own damn fault for going to a picnic with such dangerous, dangerous people! A media chief! Think of all the damage he could do! No wonder The Obama had to blow up him (and a dozen or so others) with a White Missile of Exploding (Metaphorical) Sperm. Kids, stay away from media chiefs! Or The Obama will get you!
Now, the world is so much safer. Because with the media chief dead, I’m sure al-Qaeda won’t be able to maintain the website for [i]Inspire[/i] magazine, because there are no other Arabs skilled in communications, nope, none at all. And with [i]Inspire[/i] magazine crippled, freedom-loving Americans can rejoice! We got the media chief, and now babies are sleeping so much more safely all across Our Beloved Country.
And if The Obama has to accidentally snuff some punk kid, who cares? Presidents have to man up and do the tough work, y’know?
Hail, The Obama! Hail, Victory!
Exactly.