Days after President Obama’s inauguration, the newly elected president wasted no time in making it clear that the ‘War on Terror,” far from ending, will only continue to escalate under his authority. Unmanned CIA aircrafts have been launching attacks in Pakistan, and one attack on Jan. 23 killed at least 15 people. Similar types of drone attacks have been taking place in Pakistan for over a year now as part of a covert program under President Bush and have apparently become a part of the Obama administration, as well.
The concept of preemptive strikes within sovereign countries seems a lot like neo-conservative policy. So where is the change? While Obama has signed executive orders to close down Guantanomo Bay, a major abuse in the war on terror, another executive order signed by the new President keeps intact the powers of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces to continue detaining prisoners, but ‘only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.”
Thanks to a combination of PR and legal maneuvering, the masses are convinced that the Left has come to save them from the Right, while the “war on terror’ agenda continues unabated. America’s complacency with the neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda, better known as the military-industrial complex or “New World Order,’ is largely built upon a Left-Right political paradigm. In essence, the two corporately-dominated political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, serve as a tag team to point the finger of blame at each other, while following the same overall agenda.
Yes, Democrats and Republicans do vary on a host of smaller issues, but the broad issues that dominate American life and politics are never debated by either party Debate ’08? Hah. Monetary policy? No, the Federal Reserve does a fine job. Bailouts? Funny how political opponents such as Bush and Obama were both major supporters of bailing out multi-billion dollar financial firms. Unconstitutional legislation in the ‘War on Terror?” As an Obama spokesperson said, ‘Obviously you need to preserve some tools you still have to go after the bad guys.” Foreign policy? No word from either party about scaling back on the trillions we spend overseas or the over 130 US military bases worldwide, even in the midst of financial collapse. Obama has pledged to take troops out of Iraq… to be relocated in Afghanistan.
Iran and Pakistan are also in the crosshairs. Robert Gates’ reappointment as Defense Secretary should have anti-war Obama fans realizing, as Gates himself said, that American troops will be in Iraq ‘for years to come.” The American Empire, financed by infinitely printed money and overseen by brutal military might, remains strong with the “Republicrats’ in the White House.
Carroll Quigley, former political science professor at Georgetown University, once wrote in his book, ‘Tragedy and Hope” ‘The argument that the two parties should represent opposing ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.” Professor Quigley, who taught and mentored Bill Clinton at Georgetown, perfectly outlined the elites’ stranglehold on American politics via the left-right paradigm.
Many accused Bush of dictatorial abuses of power and military-corporate dominance, and Obama campaigned for the opposite. However, an objective look at Obama reveals that these policies will continue. His chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, wrote a book called ‘The Plan” which outlined a system of mandatory service for all 18 to 25 year olds with the National Guard. While campaigning in Colorado, Obama called for a million-man civilian military that was ‘just as strong, just as powerful” as the military. As a Senator, Obama voted in favor of an all-out gun ban, depriving citizens of their inalienable right to protect themselves (Hitler, Mao and Stalin would approve).
Just in August, the Army Times reported that the Pentagon plans to have 20,000 troops stationed inside the United States in case of national emergency or financial collapse. This blatant violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from acting as a domestic police force, only furthers the police state forged under Bush and the Patriot Act.
On the heels of this unparalleled move toward a police state, the National Emegency Centers Act (HR 645) has been introduced in the House, which seeks to establish FEMA camps in the event of a national emergency, which requires relocating large urban populations.
Sukenik is a member of
the class of 2010.
