[Peace-discuss] The Obama administration celebrates MLK holiday

[C. G. Estabrook]

from <http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/01/14/who-would-mlk-bomb/>:

Dr. Martin Luther King’s outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam put him 
neatly in the milieu of modern Christian non-violence that started with the 
religious writings of Leo Tolstoy, and which had impacts well beyond Christendom 
(Gandhi’s interest in non-violence, for instance, was heavily influenced by 
Tolstoy). The answer, then, to who would MLK bomb is pretty clearly “no one.”

But he’s been dead for quite awhile, and people may be a little vague on who 
exactly the fellow was and what he stood for. To that end, Pentagon officials 
are now making it clear, they’re pretty sure Dr. King was a hawk.

Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s general council, has informed the public that he is 
pretty sure, were Dr. King alive today he would be strongly in favor of the US 
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, because “he would recognize that we live in 
a complicated world.”

Johnson’s argument begins and ends with Dr. King’s fondness for the parable of 
the “Good Samaritan,” and his (Johnson’s) assumption that no one is a better 
Samaritan than US occupation forces.

In case you’re not thoroughly confused, Johnson closed by announcing “every day, 
our servicemen and women practice the dangerousness – the dangerous 
unselfishness Dr. King preached.” So there you have it, the Pentagon’s history 
has MLK as a danger junkie, and nobody rocks the danger like occupation forces.

***

[In spite of things like this, our charlatan of a president is praised by 
liberals. The Nation writes, "...for a few minutes on Wednesday night, we dared 
with our president to answer cynicism with idealism, to answer tragedy with 
hope, to answer division as one nation, indivisible.” Then our president ordered 
more missile strikes in Pakistan, and killed some more kids, just like Christina 
Green. --CGE]