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Gaza: The Gates of Wrath and Sorrow Swing Open Once Again

(UPDATE 4 BELOW) (UPDATE 3 BELOW) (UPDATE 2 BELOW) (UPDATE 1 BELOW) How about this child, then? Is he dead enough for you? The gates of wrath and sorrow open wide again in Gaza, clanging on their rusty, bloodstained hinges. *** A report, via Facebook, from Gaza: From Dr. Mona Al-Farra in Gaza City, an urgent message on Facebook: Dear Friends, Gaza is under extensive Israeli military attack ,in less than 2 hours , 14 military attacks against different targets in different parts of Gaza Strip , 6 were killed including 2 young girls age 4 and 7, 11 were

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Dead Enough: The Reality of the “Lesser Evil”

To all those now hailing the re-election of Barack Obama as a triumph of decent, humane, liberal values over the oozing-postule perfidy of the Republicans, a simple question: Is this child dead enough for you? This little boy was named Naeemullah. He was in his house — maybe playing, maybe sleeping, maybe having a meal — when an American drone missile was fired into the residential area where he lived and blew up the house next door. As we all know, these drone missiles are, like the president who wields them, super-smart, a triumph of technology and technocratic expertise. We

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Napalm in the Morning (Drones in the Afternoon): The Smell of Victory Stirs Progressives to Action

Well, you got your lesser evil. Now all we can do is hope that he will do less evil than he did in his first term. Bitter experience, and a nodding acquaintance with history — and human nature — mitigate mightily against such a hope, but we are where we are, and that’s all we’ve got. In any case, I am eagerly looking forward to seeing how all our super-savvy lesser-evilist progressives “hold Obama’s feet to the fire” in the months to come, as they promised so solemnly to do. You remember, don’ t you? How they savagely condemned anyone

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You Got to Ride It: Journey Through a Post-Election Landscape

(UPDATED BELOW) There was an election. The winner was a man pledged to murder and plunder. His followers rejoiced that the murder and plunder would be flavored to their taste, done by one of their own. The losers lamented the fate of the nation because their man would not be in charge of the murder and plunder. Bitterness was everywhere. Poison, illusion.  The sun rose. The broken system, heaving and buckling under the weight of its foul excrescences, staggered on. No answers. No resolution. No mercy, not from the structures; only from ourselves, each to each, one to one, moment

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Welcome to the Age of Hell: Entrenching Murder as the American Way

(UPDATED BELOW) The Washington Post has just laid out, in horrifying, soul-slaughtering detail, the Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to expand, entrench and “codify” the practice of murder and terrorism by the United States government. The avowed, deliberate intent of these sinister machinations is to embed the use of death squads and drone terror attacks into the policy apparatus of future administrations, so that the killing of human beings outside all pretense of legal process will go on, year after year after year, even when the Nobel Peace Laureate has left office. They have even come up with a new euphemism

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Blood is Their Argument: The Real Campaign Trail

“…for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument?” — Shakespeare, Henry V Even as the presidential candidates meet in ersatz agon to spew their self-serving lies and scripted zingers in a “debate” on foreign policy, the real campaign — the campaign of blood and bone, of death and terror, being waged in Pakistan by the American government — goes on it all its horror. This week, the Mail on Sunday — one of Britain’s most conservative newspapers — published a story outlining, in horrific detail, the true nature of the drone killing campaign begun

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“After the Fire, the Fire Still Burns”: Horror Goes on for Victims of Iraq War Atrocities

Years ago, I wrote several pieces about the savage decimation of Fallujah by American forces in 2004. Some of those pieces [here and here, for example] pointed to the highly credible evidence that chemical weapons were used against the people of Fallujah — most of them non-combatants locked into the city by an American ring of steel. I pointed to testimony by Iraqi doctors — including doctors working for the American-imposed occupation government — and by American soldiers themselves involved in the fighting. These posts — and the sources they were based on — were roundly criticized by some high-profile

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Making a Killing: Obama-Backed Coupsters Shoot for Corporate Control

The 2009 military coup in Honduras was one of the earliest stains on the foreign policy record of Barack Obama. Coming just six months into his term — and a little more than four months before he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — the coup, and the American reaction to it, gave the clearest indication possible that there would be no change in the Standard Operating Procedure of the Potomac Empire under his watch. The coup has had a long, dismal and murderous aftermath, which we have often noted on these pages, such as here, here, here, here, and

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Broken Spirits, Burnt Grass: Brief Notes From an American Journey

Mile after mile, the Maine countryside floated by, on a bright Saturday morning in the dying summer. Town after town, closed-up storefronts and makeshift shops hawking “antiques” and used books, over and over, trailing like kudzu along the speeding highway. It was like everybody in the whole country was doing nothing but selling their junk back and forth to each other. It was beautiful land — magnificent land, green and fertile, seeded with abundance, easy on the eyes — now reduced to tawdry struggle against final desperation. Degradation had already been accepted, long ago, been surrendered to without a fight;

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