[Peace-discuss] Fw: Misplaced hopes…

[Jenifer Cartwright]

Nothin' new here, just restating the depressing truth... Yeah, I heard Obama say it, gave him the benefit of the doubt: the need to sound strong enuff to protect the homeland, etc, but once elected, he'd head for the negotiating table... Gibbs' (the WH's) response to Keith Obermann was shameful... --Jenifer 

--- On Wed, 8/11/10, Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net> wrote:

Most articles I cannot totally agree with, or they are too repetitive to be interesting. But Wm. Blum has a knack for telling the truth pithfully, and getting to the roots of a topic. Here's what he recently has been saying (from Z-Magazine):
Misplaced Hopes
	
		An interview with William Blum
		By Jon Hochschartner
		
	
	
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			July 2010
		
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William Blum, the author of Killing Hope and Rogue State,
 is one of the foremost chroniclers of U.S. imperialism. Currently, Blum
 writes a monthly e-newsletter "The Anti-Empire Report" (KillingHope.org).HOCHSCHARTNER: Shortly after taking office, Obama declared, "America does not torture." Is that true?BLUM:
 No, it's not. There is no evidence to support that statement. I have 
read several articles from good sources showing that the abuse at 
Guantanamo, for example, has continued unabated. In fact, in some ways, 
it's even worse. In Afghanistan, we've uncovered a secret prison where 
prisoner abuse is rampant. And we don't know what's happened to all the 
other secret prisons, like the one on the island of Diego Garcia. There 
were so many of these secret prisons. Where is the evidence showing 
things have changed in those places? I don't think anyone has a right to
 say Obama has ended torture. The burden of proof is on him.Earlier
 this year, Obama green lit the assassination of Anwar Al-Awaki, a U.S. 
citizen. What effect do you think this will have on due process?Due
 process was already a casualty of the "war on terror." There are all 
kinds of cases of people who have been arrested and imprisoned for years
 and years without a trial or even a charge. We already have done great 
harm to the concept and the practice of due process even before this 
case you mentioned. It's hanging by a thread, the idea that people have 
to be charged with something, indicted, tried, and convicted before 
they're put in prison. Or the idea a person is innocent until proven 
guilty. That certainly died years ago. How much worse can we make it 
now?The White House recently unveiled a "new" National Security Strategy. What's your interpretation of it?It's
 my opinion that one can never understand U.S. foreign policy unless one
 comes to terms with a basic premise of that policy, which is that the 
United States wants to dominate the world. If you don't accept that 
premise, then much of what we call U.S. foreign policy can be confusing.
 But if you understand that premise, much of those policies fall into 
line and make sense.So
 this National Security paper you're speaking about, which is an annual 
thing, has the unspoken premise that the U.S. wants to dominate the 
world. It says again and again that we have to exert world "leadership."
 Either it says it explicitly or it implies as much in some cases—and 
it's because of our exceptionalism. That's what it comes down to. It 
overuses the terms "values" and "human rights," and, of course, the old 
standbys "democracy" and "freedom."It
 begins by mentioning that the U.S. is threatened. It mentions 9/11. The
 U.S. uses 9/11 as the Israelis use the Holocaust. It doesn't say why 
we're threatened. It doesn't indicate that it's because of anything U.S.
 foreign policy has done that makes us so hated. It just implies that 
these people who hate us are irrational and we have no choice but to 
defend ourselves. That fits in very well with the need to dominate.So you don't see it as a significant departure from the Bush policy?If
 anything, it's worse. Obama has actually attacked, militarily, five 
countries since he's been in power. That's more than Bush did. I'm 
speaking of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia. In my 
"Anti-Empire Report," I ask the question: how many countries does Obama 
have to be at war with before he becomes unqualified for the Nobel Peace
 Prize? It's amazing.Many
 liberals who were outspoken critics of Bush's foreign policy seem to 
ignore the fact Obama continues the Bush legacy. Why do you think this 
is?It's
 painful for them to have to admit to themselves and to the world that 
their hopes were totally misplaced. It's very understandable, but they 
shouldn't have been fooled in the first place. In his campaign speeches 
he threatened, on several occasions, to invade Iran if they didn't 
behave the way he wanted. He said he was going to increase our armed 
forces in Afghanistan. He said it all. He wasn't hiding it.
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