Today, as pious public honors are paid in the US and UK to those killed on behalf of whatever the ruling elites of their day decided was the "national interest," we can do no greater service than point you to Arthur Silber’s latest, and urge you to go there and read the whole thing (including the wealth of links).
Below is a brief excerpt, dealing with the fundamental evil at the basis of the administration of the most progressively progressive Peace Laureate to ever hold public office: Barack Obama’s jaw-dropping assertion, in open court, of his (and his minions’) right to murder any any person in the world, including American citizens, without any charge, any evidence, any due process at all — and without even having to give a reason for the murder (a nicety that not even Stalin’s purgers felt they could dispense with).
In the course of his examination, Silber makes a very important point that I have not seen elsewhere, one which cuts to the essence of the matter: Not a single person has resigned from the Administration — or the Democratic Party — in protest at this claim of murderous, universal tyranny. Of course, the Democrats never denounced the identical claims made by George W. Bush either; indeed, they nationally televised acknowledgment of the American murder program, as I’ve noted many times — such as in this piece published in the Moscow Times back in 2005:
It’s hard to believe that any genuine democracy would accept a claim by its leader that he could have anyone killed simply by labeling them an "enemy." It’s hard to believe that any adult with even the slightest knowledge of history or human nature could countenance such unlimited power, knowing the evil it is bound to produce. Yet this is what the great and good in America have done. Like the boyars of old, they not only countenance but celebrate their enslavement to the ruler.
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 … Not a single voice among them was raised in protest against this tyrannical machtpolitik: not that night, not the next day, not ever.
We live in astonishing times, whose vast, pervasive evil pollutes the very air we breathe — and yet still, as Silber notes so witheringly, the people refuse to see the truth … and just open their mouths wider to drink in the filth.
From Silber [see original for all the links]:
You know about this case, and you know the Obama Administration’s arguments. Most of you refuse to understand the meaning of what you know. Allow me to offer some assistance.
The highest levels of the United States Government have told you — repeatedly, at great length, always emphasizing the critical significance of their conviction on this point — that the lives of Americans are worth less than shit. Your life, the lives of all those you love and all those you know, the lives of everyone in your city and state, the lives of all Americans are worth absolutely nothing.
Some idiotic, vicious, drooling, evil piece of shit human being can declare you and any other American at all to be an "enemy of the state," a threat to "national security," a "terrorist," and he can order you to be murdered.
And then you will be murdered.
The United States Government also claims that it never needs to explain to anyone how it decides who to murder and what its reasons are, or whether it has any reasons.
There is no power greater than that of life and death. This is absolute power. This is the power claimed by every slaughtering monster in history. You know this. You refuse to understand what it means.
I wrote the following about the Obama Administration’s claim of absolute power some months ago, in "Murder with Malice Aforethought":
Obama and his administration claim the "right" to murder anyone in the world, wherever he or she may be, for whatever reason they choose — or for no reason at all. Obama and his administration recognize no upper limit to the number of people they can murder in this manner: they can murder as many people as they wish. And they claim there is nothing at all that may impede their exercise of this "right."
This is the game entire. Understand this: once Obama and his administration have claimed this, there is nothing left to argue about. They can murder you — and they can murder anyone else at all. What in the name of anything you hold holy remains to be "debated" once a vile, damnable "right" of this kind has been claimed?
This is a war crime [under the Nuremberg Principles]: "murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory…"
It is also a crime against humanity: "Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population…"
Under Principle VII, all those who are complicit in these crimes are also guilty.
Most people refuse to understand this. So you continue your arguments about the best course for the United States Government to follow in creating jobs, or preserving Social Security, or providing health care. You continue to act as if the United States Government is essentially civilized.
The United States Government can murder you if it chooses to, today, tomorrow, next week, next year. The United States Government can murder you because someone in government feels like it. He enjoys murdering people. He gets off on it.
And you’re going to chat with him about job creation or Social Security? And you’re the "realistic" one? You make me puke.
You should also note that not a single person has resigned in protest from the Obama Administration as the result of the administration’s claim of absolute power. Not one single person. At a minimum, this means that all those in the Obama Administration view this assertion of absolute power as of minor importance, certainly nothing to resign over, for heaven’s sake. That should tell you a great deal about the depth and breadth of corruption in our national government. Yet you will not understand what it means.
So what are we supposed to be thanking all those who serve in today’s military for, exactly? That they defend the United States, so that its government can murder all those it wishes, whenever it wishes, for any reason or for no reason at all?
As the man says, this is the game entire. If you accept the power of the president to murder you — and your children, your neighbor, your fellow human beings — with impunity, then what won’t you accept? And if you associate yourself with such evil, if you support it, encourage it, campaign to keep it in power — then what, in reality, are you standing for? Nothing but slavery. Nothing but murder. Nothing but the death and degradation of the human spirit.
P.S. And what is the most popular product in America on this great day of national honor — a commercial phenomenon whose opening day sales of $360 million has been hailed as "the biggest entertainment launch in history"? That’s right: Call of Duty: Black Ops, a "first-person shooter" game celebrating the U.S. government’s secret assassins.