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Few 'terrorists' but hundreds of Pakistani civilians killed by US drones and nothing but silence
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Is it possible for an American acting in "official" federal government capacity to commit the crime of murder against a foreigner? Can the US federal government kill any foreigner it wants at any time as long as they just label them a "terrorist" without so much as ever offering even one scintilla of evidence that such a label is applied justly or correctly?
I ask this because a Pakistani newspaper is reporting that only 10 of the 60 US military drone attacks in Pakistan over the past 3 years managed to hit any "Al Qaeda linked" target killing some 14 suspected "terrorists" while 687 civilians have also been killed in these attacks.
And not that it should matter since even "Al Qaeda suspects" should not be simply murdered but there is also another article from a Pakistani paper that says there is no credible evidence that "Al Qaeda" is even in Pakistan. No credible evidence? None has ever been needed for our federal government because "Al Qaeda" is just short hand for any swarthy Moooslim who doesn't like US policy in the ME. What evidence is needed to establish the presence of this organization in any country when "Al Qaeda" is quite literally whatever an "anonymous source" from the US government says it is at any given point in time?
Keep in mind, the US is not at war with Pakistan. What is the legal authority to simply launch drone bombs into a sovereign country and murder hundreds of civilians based upon nebulous "intelligence"? Never mind that -- what is the legal authority to murder "terrorist suspects"? They are, after all, just "suspects". Does the US federal government simply reserve a right to kill anyone it classifies as "suspects"?
What would you call it if a group of individuals launched an urban bombing campaign against those it simply declared to be not even "terrorists" but just "terrorist suspects" and in the process of killing these "suspects" also killed 10 times the number of civilians? Wouldn't we be just in calling such a bombing campaign one of terror?
Now, we know that low ranking American foot soldiers with -- at best -- high school educations, are, on rare occasion, tried for murdering civilians and they get stiff sentences -- sometimes even as much as 10 whole years for killing a "Hajji" and his family. But what about a US politician or bureaucrat who are behind decisions that kill dozens of civilians in the blink of an eye? What, short of sending a drone to kill a cheating foreign-born spouse in their Beltway suburban bedroom community home, would it take for them to be considered as having committed murder against a foreigner?
More generally, I ask, what does it take for a federal politician or bureaucrat to get prosecuted for any crime against a foreigner? Dick Cheney all but admitted to approving blatantly illegally acts of torture on dozens of foreigners- and did so publicly and brazenly. Nothing. Silence on all fronts.
George Bush actually admitted to murdering foreign "suspects" in a State of the Union address before Congress. As described by Chris Floyd:
This was vividly demonstrated in one of the most revolting scenes in recent U.S. history: Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, delivered to Congress and televised nationwide during the final frenzy of war-drum beating before the assault on Iraq. Trumpeting his successes in the war on terror, Bush claimed that "more than 3,000 suspected terrorists" had been arrested worldwide -- "and many others have met a different fate." His face then took on the characteristic leer, the strange, sickly half-smile it acquires whenever he speaks of killing people: "Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem."
In other words, the suspects -- and even Bush acknowledged they were only suspects -- had been murdered. Lynched. Killed by agents operating unsupervised in that shadow world where intelligence, terrorism, politics, finance and organized crime meld together in one amorphous mass. Killed on the word of a dubious informer, perhaps: a tortured captive willing to say anything, a business rival, a personal foe, a bureaucrat looking to impress his superiors, a paid snitch in need of cash, a zealous crank pursuing ethnic, tribal or religious hatreds -- or any other purveyor of the garbage data that is coin of the realm in the shadow world.
Bush proudly held up this hideous system as an example of what he called "the meaning of American justice." And the assembled legislators applauded. Oh, how they applauded! They roared with glee at the leering little man's bloodthirsty, B-movie machismo. They shared his contempt for law -- our only shield, however imperfect, against the blind, ignorant, ape-like force of raw power. Not a single voice among them was raised in protest against this tyrannical machtpolitik: not that night, not the next day, not ever.
As Floyd described -- not only silence -- but robust applause from our Congress and media for Bush admitting he ordered what amounted to the lynchings of hundreds of foreigners.
Also in the news this week was the conviction of the former President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, for a couple of kidnappings and for a massacre of civilians committed by a secret unit he was involved in creating. Now mind you, Fujimori wasn't linked directly to ordering the massacre but only as having been involved in the creation of this secret unit that amounted to a death squad and that was enough for him to be held accountable for the massacres it committed.
Dick Cheney admits to being intimately involved in ordering and approving specific illegal acts of torture and credible accusations of him running a death squad emerge and what happens? Nothing. It is almost as if he is a daring anyone to come after him.
What country is the more healthy republic? Peru? Or the US? What country would you say has a political elite that is truly subject to the rule of law? Which one would you call the "banana republic"?
What this sickening but wholly unsurprising silence in our culture reveals is the total corruption of our political/media elite. They are all dirty and they all know it. And, short of a complete turnover of elites, nothing will ever happen.
And if you are a fellow American reading this, I am aware that the subject of foreign lives more than likely doesn't interest you that much so I will make this about you and also mention that the evil habits of empire always come home eventually -- and they have. So as boring as this topic of our DC politicians just murdering any foreigner they like is to us Americans, just remember that it isn't a big leap for them to start doing the same things here, in the "Homeland," against the only people who matter to us, ourselves.
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