[Peace-discuss] Being and nothingness among American murderers

[C. G. Estabrook]

As the administration rapidly expands its illegal war in Pakistan, its 
propaganda cover slips like a bad toupee.

The US has to pretend we're killing "terrorists" in AfPak (there's no 
Congressional authorization for anything else) when in fact we're fighting the 
resistance to US control of the entire Middle East.

The word this week was "existential." Tangling her syntax in a way that might 
interest a psychoanalyst, SecState Clinton told a House committee, "I think that 
we can not underscore [underestimate?] the seriousness of the existential threat 
posed to the state of Pakistan." (Maybe she meant "underscore enough.")

"Existential threat" is a term of art from Israeli propaganda: the nuclear-armed 
Israeli government insists that its existence is constantly threatened by 
non-nuclear states and of course Gazan schoolchildren (and in a sense it is).

But the memo on "existential" has clearly gone around in the Obama 
administration: "US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned Pakistan that the 
Taleban poses an 'existential threat to the democratic government of the 
country'" [BBC]; "Gen. David Petraeus warned Congress Friday that the United 
States faces a 'tough road" ahead ... what has been missing still is “the kind 
of whole-of-government approach that would result from a complete commitment by 
the Pakistani senior leaders ... that will be necessary to face up what is again 
an existential threat to Pakistan” [Politico].

But perhaps the American officials simply mean that the sneaky Taliban are about 
to distribute the works of J.-P. Sartre to unsuspecting Pakistanis.  That would 
make more sense than what they're actually saying.  --CGE