Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Stone In Obama's Shoe



White House Wants Assange Dead



Latest news from the the other side of the pond, via the Irish Online Magazine PressTV is that the Obama Administration has contacted its European Allies trying to smooth talk them into hunting down Wikileaks founder and director, Julian Assange. For anyone who's missed the brouhaha, the online website Wikileaks, published some ten thousand highly classified papers many of which were extremely embarrassing to the United States military and, indeed, the Department of Defense.

Adding insult to injury, the Irish news blog polled its readers asking 3 questions which garnered these results:

The release of sensitive US military documents by the Wikileaks website is…‎

  • necessary because the public should be informed (16%)

  • an unwise move that will endanger Afghan lives (5%)

  • just the tip of an iceberg of US crimes in Afghanistan‎ (79%)

Looks like the administration's fears are justified. You can only fool all of the people some of the time.

Given the crushing disappointment with the Obama Administration, the cynicism and anger at the USA, due to Obama turning out to be a continuation of Bush/Cheney, only more so, chances are good that it will be a cold day in Hell before most of the European allies will put this request at the top of their to do lists.

Julian Assange has become a folk hero! Just when we needed one. Like Cindy Sheehan, who disobeyed everyone and ended up not only a hero, but shaming the Bush Administration in a way they never recovered from, Julian Assange has earned his applause from a grateful world.

And the military, the Republicans, the conservatives, and the White House are ready to spit bullets. They've arrested one young soldier, who, though nobody can prove it, is apparently the connection who was in a position to put his hands on the most sensitive material and found his way to Julian Assange. In particular, he smuggled out a film documenting the murder of 8 civilians, including an American journalist, by American soldiers in Iraq. The assault was especially chilling as it showed the cavalier way American soldiers kill, gratuitously, for the sheer sport of the thing.

I don't know about y'all, but I remember when during WWII, the GI's were famous for giving kids candy bars.

But we are much changed as a nation in this Third Millennium, on the way to the Age of Aquarius. Not only have we become mindless consumers, programmed by the giant multinational corporations, but the transformation from human being to Robot, seems to have numbed our hearts and our ethics. In an earlier age, when Americans had some sense of decency, Bush and Cheney would have been tarred and feathered for their violations of the US Constitution, not to mention the War Crimes and the Crimes Against Humanity. Now, the same people who once were decent, law abiding folk, shout Hallelujah! at the TV screen while watching the insanity that is Glenn Beck, and swallow whole the verbal swill of a Rush Limbaugh.

This war of aggression has killed, so far, more than 1,341,350 civilians.

And make no mistake, the Blackwater contractors are even worse than the soldiers. And Dick Cheney arranged with Blackwater that the mercenaries would not and could not be prosecuted for their crimes. These are the guys who think nothing of murdering entire families on the whisper that one of them might have known a terrorist at some point.

No wonder the Army people don't want to let go of DADT, (Don't Ask Don't Tell). Hell, who wants a bunch of gays hanging around while we're killing children.

Obama's only words on the subject of torture suspects, war criminals, the mercenary criminals, are, he wants to move on. Attorney General, Eric Holder, was ready to go. He wanted to bring these Bush Administration criminals to justice. But Obama, quite mysteriously said, "No."

What it really looked like, and still does, for that matter, is that Obama wants to hang on to the illegitimately expanded presidential powers which Bush claimed for himself.

Everything about this war, and these last ten years in Washington, has been so corrupt, the rest of the world is grateful for the small bit of clarity brought by the publication of these classified documents.


The Obama administration has continued to attack and harrass the left. Hostile statements from Chief of Staff, Rahm Immanuel, and most recently, Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs' tirade against the very lefties who put Obama in the White House. I have little doubt their remarks reflect the real purview of the President and his entire White House. This is frustrating; I did vote for Obama, though he was not my first choice. And I, along with other liberals, have been defending him from the bigotry of the right. All the unjust barbs and obstructionism from Republicans--- and now it appears they were right all along.

We were wrong!

As far as I am concerned, now, unless the Republicans really do put up Sara Palin for president and some Frankenstein monster as her running mate, Obama is a one term president.