As he gave vague outlines of developing US military strategy
while speaking at the West Point commencement
last week, President Obama affirmed that he believes “in American exceptionalism
with every fiber of my being.” The previous day, he had announced that
instead of all U.S. troops leaving in 2014, as had been the mantra, 9,800 would
stay at least until 2016. We don't know what they will be doing, but
securing the bases they've built from where secret operations — drones? missions
into Pakistan? — are launched from is one likely explanation.
“American
exceptionalism” is the doctrine on which horrors have been carried out for
generations. “Our” case is more just; “our” people understand the value of life,
while “they” don't. Obama went on, with a straight face, to proclaim that “what
makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the
rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” In
the next breath, he said the word “Guantanamo” as if that's not the
definitive example of the U.S. government's flouting of both.
The
next line should have provoked laughter: “That’s why we’re putting in place new
restrictions on how America collects and uses intelligence — because we will
have fewer partners and be less effective if a perception takes hold that we’re
conducting surveillance against ordinary citizens.” There he goes again: the
problem for Obama and the government is not that they are surveilling
whole and vast populations, but that there's a “perception” that has taken
hold among ordinary citizens across the globe that the U.S. views us as the
enemy.
Two young men, both of whom were deployed by Obama as part of
the exceptionally American occupation of Afghanistan, and the vast global NSA
surveillance, have been in the news this week. Their words speak more truth
about American exceptionalism than Obama ever will.
Rolling Stone: Six Memorable Quotes from Edward
Snowden's NBC Interview
Edward Snowden memorably told Brian Williams
of NBC last week: “So many of the things we're told by the government simply
aren't true.” In addition to explaining the scale of the NSA surveillance
of billions of people, and showing Williams how is cell phone is a tracking and
recording device, Snowden drew out the distinction between what is legal, and
what is moral.
John Kerry served as the administration's attack dog;
during a Wednesday morning interview on CBS News,
he got macho and challenged Snowden to “man-up and come back to the United
States” to face trial.
Snowden, who has been charged with three felonies,
including two under the Espionage Act of 1917, explained to Williams that he
will not be allowed a public and fair trial — because all the evidence the
government uses, by definition, will be secret and classified.
Cheers to Dan Ellsberg! Appearing after
Snowden's interview on MSNBC, he refuted Kerry's claims, saying, “He's a
fugitive, not as Secretary Kerry says from justice — he's a fugitive from
injustice. He has no chance of a fair, just trial in this country.”
Bowe
Bergdahl, the other young man in the news this week, went into the U.S. military
in 2008, and was in a unit sent to Afghanistan as part of Obama's “surge” in
2009. He was captured and held for 5 years by Taliban forces. His life was held
in the balance between the illegitimate American occupiers, and the illegitimate
Taliban forces. Over the weekend, Bowe Behdahl was released in exchange for
five men held in Guantanamo under no charge for more than a decade. They are
reported by the U.S. to have been Afghan Taliban leaders, and their release adds
to the trickle of prisoners leaving GTMO.
Berhdahl's story is potentially
very interesting. The late Michael Hastings did a profile of him in 2012, revealing how
disillusioned he was by the U.S. role in Afghanistan:
“I am sorry for everything here,” Bowe told his parents. “These people need
help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them
that they are nothing and that they are stupid…
“We don't even care when
we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets
with our armored trucks.... We make fun of them in front of their faces, and
laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them.”
So much for American exceptionalism.
Groups of
protesters gathered at the two main entrances of West Point May 28 to protest
U.S. wars, and to specifically call on graduating Army officers to refuse to
pilot and operate surveillance and weaponized drones. Photo: Don Emmert
Report:
Protesters Outside Obama's West Point Speech Call on Army to Refuse to Fly
Drones |
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Memorable moments from the World Can't Wait
panels this weekend at the Left Forum, attended by 240, and soon to be available
on video:
Vast Surveillance of Whole Populations: The NSA
Revelations One Year Out
Abi Hassen
of the National Lawyers Guild asking everyone in the room “how many federal laws
are there?” The answer, he said, was that no one really knows, but it's
reasonable to assume that every adult is likely to have broken at least one,
since there are so many. The intense surveillance provides a basis for arrest,
prosecution and prison of anyone, adding to the epidemic of mass incarceration.
And that's one one reason why the claimg that “If you've done nothing wrong, you
don't have to worry about being spied on” is so dangerously
wrong.
Bringing CUNY into the US War Machine – Students
and Faculty Rise Up
Rutgers
University student protesters and their families telling the story of
successfully preventing Condoleezza Rice from delivering the commencement
speech. They were almost disappointed that Rice conceded five days after their
sit-in, as they had much more protest planned.
Imperialist
Wars & Global Ecological Degradation
Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani describing the U.S.
military's 10 acre “burn pits” going for 7 years in Iraq, as part of how they
left Iraq a “total military wreck.” Larry Everest's contention that, as the U.S.
and capitalism has “savaged countries” and the planet, if people respond to the
moral challenge with the kind of urgency needed, through revolution, a whole new
system that would repair and take care of the earth is
possible.
US “Dirty” Drone Wars, Targeted Killing &
Secret Operations Supercede Military Occupations — But Are Still
Illegitimate
Syracuse University grad
student Ben Kuebrich describing class work with writing students who researched
U.S. use of drones. Through being exposed to the reality of secret programs,
civilian deaths, and the fouting of international law, 16 of his 19 students
came to oppose these programs, and wrote eloquently about why.
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