RECENT THOUGHTS ON OBAMA AND THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

OBAMA AND THE GRIM SHADOW OF AMERICA’S TORTURE PRISONS - AND THE BRUTAL FACT ONLY DREAMERS AND FOOLS BELIEVE IN CHANGE IN AMERICA

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JOHANN HARI IN THE INDEPENDENT

Yes, absolutely, the secret prisons in Afghanistan, and those in other places, cast a grim shadow across Obama’s smiling face.

I believe that decisions like keeping America’s torture gulag operating abroad are the greatest source of people’s disappointment with Obama.

But I’m afraid people were being unrealistic to expect much else.

America is an empire, not a dreamy "shining city on a hill," but a rather brutal society which feels entitled to run the affairs of others in all parts of the planet.

It does this through a combination of its immense economic and military might.

America’s own population lives under a version of Social Darwinism, as relatively few people abroad fully appreciate. There is relatively little sympathy or patience for the concerns of foreigners, a simple but brutal fact.

The American establishment – the intelligence industry, the Pentagon, the defense contractors, and the huge multi-national corporations – do quite literally form a government within a government.

That is not a left-wing fantasy or a slightly paranoid delusion – after all, it was a Republican president and former general, Eisenhower, who first sounded the warning. It is the ineluctable result of this stupendously wealthy and largely unaccountable set of institutions.

A great many dark and devious men hold high positions in this establishment, and they have billions at their disposal plus a general population which is passive in accepting their actions.

Think only of the pointless holocaust in Vietnam. Countless billions wasted, an estimated 3 million Vietnamese murdered in an orgy of killing, and a devaluation of the dollar afterwards to help pay the bill. All of it done for nothing more than the fears and prejudices of that establishment.

The last American President who truly challenged that establishment died on November 22, 1963.

Obama wants to be the elementary civics-class textbook version of a president, the kind of president which the establishment tolerates from either party, not end up being either driven from office in shame or worse.

To talk with genuine expectations about change of any real consequence today in America is utterly naïve. It’s just about as meaningful as talking about change in the France of the late eighteenth century with its dukes and cardinals and princes, whose carriages simply thumped over the bodies of peasants who happened to be in their way.

Yes, a revolution did happen then, but try that in an empire with a military establishment pushing two million, all armed with unbelievably powerful weapons and a set of at least fourteen intelligence services which spy on every phone call and e-mail and even check the books you read at the library.

The French Revolution will never be repeated, and the pathetic American libertarians who naively believe that holding on to their beloved rifles and pistols secures their freedom surely only bring a quiet chuckle from those who know better.

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THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND DELUSIONAL AMERICAN THINKING ABOUT ITS POWER UNDER OBAMA

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

"Republicans, who see themselves as his mortal enemies, with their only goal as that of destroying his presidency and putting what President Eisenhower presciently called the "military-industrial complex" fifty years ago back in total control of this country, as was the case under Bush."

A perfect example of delusional American thinking.

Under Obama, the evidence couldn’t be clearer that the military-industrial complex is still running things as it has for the last half century. Power that great and concentrated does not ever fade away, and the vast contracts being spewed out in America since 9/11 have fed the voracious beast.

Troops are still in Iraq.

A great many more troops are going to Afghanistan.

American missiles regularly kill villagers in Pakistan.

Far, far more civilians than "bad guys."

And the same is true in Afghanistan, families are regularly killed by American air attacks.

And now Yemen is threatened, and it has been bombed.

And just today we have the news from General Petraeus that America has contingency plans to bomb Iran.

Guantanamo is still not closed.

Even worse, dark holes like Bagram Air Base in Iraq and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean have who-knows-what going on, certainly involving large numbers of extra-legal prisoners.

Israel ignores Obama’s reasonable words. It continues with its relentless seige of a million and half refugees, and it continues to use cheap tricks daily to steal homes in Jerusalem.

All the silly "Detroit bomb" incident did was renew fears of people who do not think clearly and effectively instantly produce vast world-wide set of orders for an American company’s expensive body scanners, a business bonanza.

By the way, carefully conducted tests of the scanners in Canada shows them failing 70% of the time, but we will all be forced to buy them.

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ON OBAMA’S CALLING THE RECENT SQUIB OF A TERROR EVENT ON AN AIRLINER A "SYSTEMATIC FAILURE" OF INTELLIGENCE

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Obama has called the recent incident a “systematic failure” of intelligence.

What else was the original 9/11 attack but a "systemic failure"?

What else was the assassination of John Kennedy but a "systemic failure"?

During the Cold War, it is a legendary fact that CIA’s estimates of the Soviet Union were consistently failed.

The CIA didn’t even forecast the final collapse of the Soviet Union.

America’s bloated intelligence agencies have never been effective.

Big Intelligence simply does not work.

But they sure can eat resources and make things miserable for ordinary people.

And the good old CIA sure knows how to torture people.

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Readers may enjoy my piece of a few years ago, "Why The CIA Will Always Be A Costly Flop."

You’ll find it at:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

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"A senior taliban leader in Pakistan stated, very clearly, that islam and democracy are incompatible. Muslims do not need democracy, as the koran should be used as an example of how a muslim should live his life.

"Notice that it’s ’his’ life, as a woman has no standing in muslim society and is only a commodity"

This person should know the words to the music before getting up to sing.

What a complete load of uninformed nonsense he/she has written, contributing only to the huge pile of propaganda and ignorance we see about Muslims.

Those statements apply precisely to economically backward societies always and everywhere.

Women were commodities in Europe only a few centuries ago.

Wealthy men can today still buy a wife in India.

Indeed, the practice of “bride burning” is still common in India.

Twelve year old girls are often married off to wealthy old men making payments to the “bride’s” family. Then when she is a widow at a very young age, she is treated like a social outcast and must conform to many terrible rules of behavior. Her life is as good as over. Millions are affected this way.

Women in Africa, to the tune of 3 million a year, suffer the horrors of genital mutilation. And in many parts of Africa, young girls are routinely raped by older village men.

Women in Canada could not have bank accounts without their husband’s written permission well into the 20th century.

Democracy is incompatible with all old societies. It took the United States two hundred years AFTER its revolution to achieve something even vaguely close to democracy.

It is estimated that about 1% of the population of Virginia could vote. Even white males could not vote because of property requirements.

The Senate wasn’t even elected until 1913.

Women couldn’t vote until 1920.

Great masses of black people couldn’t vote until the 1960s.

And today, because of an outdated, anti-democratic provision of the Constitution, Americans still do not directly elect their president: this has produced a number of minority presidents plus a number of political farces like the 2000 election.

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AMERICAN HEATHCARE REFORM AND THE QUESTION WHETHER AMERICA CAN GOVERN ITSELF

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Govern themselves badly indeed – this is fundamental truth that comparatively few appreciate.

But Jeffrey Simpson may not appreciate how conditioned Americans are to accept poor government.

The widespread hatred of all government and taxation works towards this: as in, do what you like, but do not raise my taxes.

So does the artificial hyper-patriotism constantly drummed everywhere in the society play an important role of immense social pressure.

The drumming has several effects. First, there is a general propensity to see critics of any major policy as unpatriotic.

In the Vietnam era, critics were widely told "to love it or leave it," a disgusting thing to say to another citizen, but decades later, the same filthy, divisive words are heard concerning the fantasy-induced war on terror.

The Washington establishment - the Pentagon, the CIA plus about thirteen other intelligence agencies, the ancient, almost unchanging Senate, and the major military contractors - almost form a government within a government, Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, a genuine breathing presence in American society and not just a turn of phrase.

Obama - as humane and intelligent a man as America can produce - already has been captured in its tentacles. It is hard to distinguish what is going on abroad today from what went on under the ghastly Bush.

That is to say, national elections do not change much today in America.

And this complex eats money, leaving not a lot of room for programs like national heath.

And in such a society, the penetrating sense for so many is one of always living on the edge, just getting by, one step removed from financial chaos, and that sense of things works to the benefit of the Washington establishment’ s demand for resources.

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AFGHANISTAN OBAMA AND DITHERING - THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX ON THE BACK OF A DECENT MAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

I believe Obama is dithering, although their may be some truth to the idea of putting pressure on the Mayor of Kabul.

There is a basic conflict at work here: Obama’s decency and humanity versus an American establishment which never hesitates to kill people over pride.

Obama has the weight of the entire military-industrial complex on his back - the half trillion dollar a year industry of professional war-making in the Pentagon, the vast parade of defense contractors who’ve made countless billions from the war - plus the pressure of the Israel Lobby, always in favor of war against Muslims with talk about being soft on terror.

This mission is pointless. You cannot remake the institutions and customs of a nation of about 30 million in a few years.

Imagine invading seventeenth century Spain and telling people that the Holy Inquisition must end, nuns must give up the habit, Moors and Jews must be admitted as full members of society, and women must have equal rights?

Yet that is a close parallel to what the U.S. at least claims it is doing in Afghanistan.

Americans have failed in Iraq and they failed in Afghanistan, just as they failed in Vietnam and Somalia and a number of other places.

You can’t bomb people into democracy or into modernity, but you sure can kill lots of innocent people.

America’s only clear-cut victory goes back to WWII and that required sinking to complete barbarism, using the atomic bomb on civilians.

The basic problem is that ideologue Americans seek the wrong victories.

They are always fighting imagined devils, whether communists or Muslims, instead of dealing in practical terms with the world. And the truth is they don’t really want to fight if it means they suffer real losses. So they bomb. This is a formula for guaranteed failure.

Dropping dollar bills instead of bombs would have been a more sensible policy.

Just dumb.

Now America’s Captain Ahabs risk repeating their insane experience of the killing fields of Cambodia, a neutral country that was secretly bombed and invaded for the same lunatic reasons that Pakistan is now being bombed and driven to kill its own people. With the toppling of a neutral government, Cambodia dropped into the hands of true madmen, and America shares full responsibility for what happened.

But the lessons are never learned by America’s jingo set.

There’s always a new dawn for these ideologues when enough bombing and brutality will get the desired results, even if the poor country on the receiving end is reduced to rubble.

The great irony is, of course, the Taleban never had to America’s enemies. They were not international terrorists, and they attacked no one outside their land. They offered to extradite bin Laden and others if the U.S. just provided some evidence for its claims over 9/11, the normal procedure for extraditions everywhere.

But the U.S. just angrily refused, and it prepared to attack.

The assault on Afghanistan was about absolutely nothing but vengeance. The participation of the UN and NATO was just a diplomatic nicety arranged through the cajoling and threats behind the scenes.

What NATO countries really think of Afghanistan is clear from their response to repeated calls from the U.S. for more forces. The psychology of immediately post-9/11 had been right for governments not to refuse, something they did do a little later with the vast war crime of invading Iraq.

They simply do not regard Afghanistan as a serious threat, and it is not.

But the U.S. is stuck there after getting vengeance - at least 50,000 died just in Kabul from America’s invasion - with no idea of what to do next, and no idea of how to make a graceful exit, and the American establishment’s idea of a graceful exit is what was done to Japan.

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Some interesting statistics on Afghanistan were released the other day.

From one Afghanistan’s own ministries, it was announced that 12 million people, including 3 million children, out of a total population of 30 million, live in serious poverty. so much so that many of the children are malnourished.

My, what an achievement, America, after 8 years of invasion and occupation and tens and tens of billions spent on killing and destruction.

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THE MASSACHUSETTS SENATE CONTEST AND OBAMA’S SITUATION

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GIDEON RACHMAN IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

I think you make too much of this.

Yes, the loss of a Senate seat will hurt Obama, but that loss had little to do with Obama despite some glib generalities in the press.

The candidate, Ms Coakley, proved a disaster.

In a six week campaign, Ms Coakley started by taking a week off around Christmas. Simply politically stupid.

She also did not use television to any extent. Again politically stupid.

And she made several blunders during that short time.

Obama would have had to be miracle worker to save her.

Sadly the voters had no third choice, because the empty shirt who won is no prize.

"I didn’t mind when President Obama came here and criticized me - that happens in campaigns. But when he criticized my truck, that’s where I draw the line."

"I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours. Thank you very much."

Pure Sarah Palin. Pathetic pseudo-humility.

Well, you do get pretty much the government you deserve.

Of course, the main trouble when America elects bad government is the rest of the world is made to suffer.