[Peace-discuss] Obama's notorious psychopath?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Is it still possible that we'll see a Dien Bien Phu-style battle for Kabul?  Or 
will the US willingness to destroy everything form the air prevent that? "The 
deteriorating position of the US is manifest in the tightening circle around all 
the roads leading in and out of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, as well as the 
expansion of Taliban control and influence throughout the Pakistan-Afghanistan 
border."]

	Obama's Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice
	By Prof James Petras
	Global Research, May 17, 2009

“The Deltas are psychos...You have to be a certified psychopath to join the 
Delta Force...”, a US Army colonel from Fort Bragg once told me back in the 
1980's.  Now President Obama has elevated the most notorious of the psychopaths, 
General Stanley McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command in 
Afghanistan.  McChrystal's rise to leadership is marked by his central role in 
directing special operations teams engaged in extrajudicial assassinations, 
systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy 
missions.  He is the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies 
military-driven empire building.  Between September 2003 and August 2008, 
McChrystal directed the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations (JSO) Command which 
operates special teams in overseas assassinations.

The point of the ‘Special Operations' teams (SOT) is that they do not 
distinguish between civilian and military oppositions, between activists and 
their sympathizers and the armed resistance.  The SOT specialize in establishing 
death squads and recruiting and training paramilitary forces to terrorize 
communities, neighborhoods and social movements opposing US client regimes.  The 
SOT's ‘counter-terrorism' is terrorism in reverse, focusing on socio-political 
groups between US proxies and the armed resistance.  McChrystal's SOT targeted 
local and national insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan through 
commando raids and air strikes.  During the last 5 years of the 
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld period the SOT were deeply implicated in the torture of 
political prisoners and suspects.  McChrystal was a special favorite of Rumsfeld 
and Cheney because he was in charge of the ‘direct action' forces of the 
‘Special Missions Units.  ‘Direct Action' operative are the death-squads and 
torturers and their only engagement with the local population is to terrorize, 
and not to propagandize.  They engage in ‘propaganda of the dead', assassinating 
local leaders to ‘teach' the locals to obey and submit to the occupation. 
Obama's appointment of McChrystal as head reflects a grave new military 
escalation of his Afghanistan war in the face of the advance of the resistance 
throughout the country.

The deteriorating position of the US is manifest in the tightening circle around 
all the roads leading in and out of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul as well as the 
expansion of Taliban control and influence throughout the Pakistan-Afghanistan 
border.  Obama's inability to recruit new NATO reinforcements means that the 
White House's only chance to advance its military driven empire is to escalate 
the number of US troops and to increase the kill ratio among any and all 
suspected civilians in territories controlled by the Afghan armed resistance.

The White House and the Pentagon claim that the appointment of McChrystal was 
due to the ‘complexities' of the situation on the ground and the need for a 
‘change in strategy'.  ‘Complexity' is a euphemism for the increased mass 
opposition to the US, complicating traditional carpet ‘bombing and military 
sweep' operations.  The new strategy practiced by McChrystal involves large 
scale, long term ‘special operations' to devastate and kill the local social 
networks and community leaders, which provide the support system for the armed 
resistance.

Obama's decision to prevent the release of scores of photographs documenting the 
torture of prisoners by US troops and ‘interrogators' (especially under command 
of the ‘Special Forces'), is directly related to his appointment of McChrystal 
whose ‘SOT' forces were highly implicated in widespread torture in Iraq. 
Equally important, under McChrystal's command the DELTA, SEAL and Special 
Operations Teams will have a bigger role in the new ‘counter-insurgency 
strategy'.  Obama's claim that the publication of these photographs will 
adversely affect the ‘troops'  has a particular meaning:  The graphic exposure 
of McChrystal's modus operendi for the past 5 years under President Bush will 
undermine his effectiveness in carrying out the same operations under Obama.

Obama's decision to re-start the secret ‘military tribunals' of foreign 
political prisoners, held at the Guantanamo prison camp, is not merely a replay 
of the Bush-Cheney policies, which Obama had condemned and vowed to eliminate 
during his presidential campaign, but part of his larger policy of 
militarization and coincides with his approval of the major secret police 
surveillance operations conducted against US citizens.

Putting McChrystal in charge of the expanded Afghanistan-Pakistan military 
operations means putting a notorious practitioner of military terrorism – the 
torture and assassination of opponents to US policy – at the center of US 
foreign policy.  Obama's quantitative and qualitative expansion of the US war in 
South Asia means massive numbers of refugees fleeing the destruction of their 
farms, homes and villages; tens of thousands of civilian deaths, and eradication 
of entire communities.  All of this will be committed by the Obama Administraton 
in the quest to ‘empty the lake (displace entire populations) to catch the fish 
(armed insurgents and activists)'.\

Obama's restoration of all of the most notorious Bush Era policies and the 
appointment of Bush's most brutal commander is based on his total embrace of the 
ideology of military-driven empire building.  Once one believes (as Obama does) 
that US power and expansion are based on military conquests and 
counter-insurgency, all other ideological, diplomatic, moral and economic 
considerations will be subordinated to militarism.  By focusing all resources on 
successful military conquest, scant attention is paid to the costs borne by the 
people targeted for conquest or to the US treasury and domestic American 
economy.   This has been clear from the start:  In the midst of a major 
recession/depression with millions of Americans losing their employment and 
homes, President Obama increased the military budget by 4% - taking it beyond 
$800 billion dollars.

Obama's embrace of militarism is obvious from his decision to expand the Afghan 
war despite NATO's refusal to commit any more combat troops.  It is obvious in 
his appointment of the most hard-line and notorious Special Forces General from 
the Bush-Cheney era to head the military command in subduing Afghanistan and the 
frontier areas of Pakistan.

It is just as George Orwell described in Animal Farm:  The Democratic Pigs are 
now pursuing the same brutal, military policies of their predecessors, the 
Republican Porkers, only now it is in the name of the people and peace.  Orwell 
might paraphrase the policy of President Barack Obama, as ‘Bigger and bloodier 
wars equal peace and justice'.

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13644

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