But let's face it, Code Pink isn't protesting the sadistic policies
of Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld. They're not reminiscing about Abu
Ghraib or Bagram. Fallujah or Baghdad. The kangaroo trial of Saddam
Hussein. The murder of his two sons. They're going after our guy and
his C.I.A. His Joint Chiefs. His Pentagon. It has been long enough.
The policy of American exceptionalism has to end now. It is not moral
to hold the world to one standard of justice and fair play and wholly
exempt ourselves from any responsibility to international laws and
treaties.
My friend, Che
Pasa has offered an affectionate criticism of Obama and the
policies of his administration entitled, "Documenting the Atrocities."
It's a good starting point. He always has something important to say.
He doesn't say it in a way calculated to hurt other people.
I'm not really gifted in the same way. I need your help. I
don't fucking get it. Obviously we have all been tolerating these
assassinations with their uncontrolled collateral damage as somehow
necessary or possibly even justified; the dark underbelly of the
insensate beast that is the C.I.A./Pentagon. Maybe you haven't been so
passive in your acceptance. I don't think I ever anticipated that we
would still be talking about this in a second term for Obama. I
understand that one man, not even the president, can really change the
trajectory of U.S. national security; the forces that are at play with
powerful government and military agencies. No more than the captain of a
large vessel can throw himself in the path of the rudder or challenge
the monarch that has commissioned him. But it is time for the American
people to weigh in. Make our voices heard. And it is time for the
United States of America to take part in international treaties that
insure justice and humane treatment for all peoples of the world.
It's not right. It's not acceptable. It's probably not legal. If it happened to us, we would massively retaliate.
Under
Bush, the U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto and claimed exception to the
International Court. That's because they were the bad guys, right? The
fucking war criminals. Obviously there would have been dozens, if not
hundreds of cases brought before the Hague. It's time for a new Geneva
Convention or some equivalent meeting of the United Nations.
If drone warfare is not something to be condoned, this needs to be
agreed upon by the nations of the world. Is it right to conduct
assassinations in countries that are not engaged in warfare, declared or
undeclared? If the rights of innocent civilians are already protected
in Geneva Convention Protocols, should not the U.S. be prosecuted for
indiscriminately violating these protections?
I hate this monster John Brennan. I hope he goes down
like a Viet Cong company engulfed by a flame-thrower. Like the little
girl hit by napalm. Like the innocent Iraqi young men rounded up and
shoved into prisons that practiced torture like it was all in good fun.
I hope the son-of-a-bitch never works again as long as he lives. Carl
Levin asked him quite simply if he believed that waterboarding was
torture. His response was a torture of slowness. He said something
like the word "torture" is politically inflammatory. What a dumb,
fucking monster.
In a related moment of American shame, whatever select Senate
committee that is privileged to the deepest, darkest secrets of the
American exceptionalism model was just subjected to some kind of
horrifying legalistic logic that somehow justified drone strikes.
Irregardless of all that has happened in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Yemen. I recall the tortured legalistic logic that John Sununu and
Alberto Gonzalez used to justify torture, extraordinary rendition and
illegal detention.
We can do better. American doesn't
have to be the dragon. Killing muslims and their families only creates
more terrorists that hate the United States and their allies. I thought that we learned that painful lesson ten years ago.
