[Peace-discuss] Obama is the current point-man

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

Longer and bloodier than any war since 1945, waged with demonic  
weapons and a gangsterism dressed as economic policy and sometimes  
known as globalisation, the war on democracy is unmentionable in  
western elite circles. As Pinter wrote, "it never happened even while  
it was happening". Last July, American historian William Blum  
published his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy".  
Since the Second World War, the US has:

1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them  
democratically-elected.

2. Attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20  
countries.

3. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

4. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.

5. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these  
actions in 69 countries ... The "enemy" changes in name – from  
communism to Islamism -- but mostly it is the rise of democracy  
independent of western power or a society occupying strategically  
useful territory, deemed expendable...

The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, is little known  
in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced  
communications, nominally freest journalism and most admired academy.  
That the most numerous victims of terrorism – western terrorism – are  
Muslims is unsayable, if it is known. That half a million Iraqi  
infants died in the 1990s as a result of the embargo imposed by  
Britain and America is of no interest. That extreme jihadism, which  
led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of western policy ("Operation  
Cyclone") is known to specialists but otherwise suppressed... [John  
Pilger]