Empire war status

Op-ed by Bob Meola, Courage to Resist

A lot of people miss Barack Obama because he smiled nicely while he dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven nations, last year.  He was a much more pleasant personality than the guy currently occupying the White House.  He was seemingly, so nice, that most Americans looked the other way while he prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other Presidents, combined, ever, ran seven wars, and deported more than two million people, as the Deporter-in-Chief.  He also signed the 2012 NDAA and left that tool of fascism to all succeeding Presidents, including Donald Trump.  When neo-liberal Democrats, who bow to Wall Street, and support wars are in power, liberals get comfortable with wars and feel no need to protest them.  Hillary Clinton, the candidate of the CIA, pushed Obama to take out Gaddafi, in Libya, against the advice of the Pentagon.  The U.S. armed Isis in Syria to take out Assad.

Hillary Clinton told us she would declare a no-fly-zone in Syria, thus risking war with Russia, who was invited to aid the sovereign nation of Syria in its battle against terrorists.  She was planning to dangerously risk a nuclear World War lll, before there was ever the current Russia Russia Russia talk that the Democratic National Committee started to distract people from its own corrupt interference with the 2016 Presidential Primaries, when it rigged them against Bernie Sanders and asked the media to “elevate” Trump.

Now, the McResistance, of the Democratic Party and the corporate media have their propagandists reviving the cold war and dangerously flirting with hot war with Russia. Americans are eating Russia Did It propaganda on a daily basis. It is the United States that has interfered with foreign elections and foreign governments everywhere and overthrown approximately five dozen of them since World War ll.

Trump wants to expand the military.  He wants newer, bigger, and “better” nuclear weapons. He wants to raise the U.S. military budget by an amount that is as big as the entire Russian military budget…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Neo-con Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, toppled the government of Ukraine.  The U.S. and the EU paid protestors and rioters to help oust the government of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.  The new government in Ukraine is filled with Neo-Nazis, including in the police and in the courts. Crimea was illegally annexed to Ukraine in 1991. Most people in Crimea speak Russian and identify as Russian. Independent poll watchers declared that 83% of the people of Crimea legitimately voted to be annexed by Russia.  It is NATO, its weapons and forces, backed by the U.S. that has been the aggressor in backing Ukraine.  Russia was not the problem. Yet the Obama administration risked war with Russia with its foolish actions.

NATO has always been a force for western aggression.  After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was absolutely no reason for NATO to exist.  Promises were made to Russians that NATO would not advance toward Russia in Eastern Europe.  Yet NATO slaughtered Roma people, committed other ethnic cleansing and used cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and chemical weapons and one third of its bombing victims were children in Kosovo, and in Bosnia and U.S. mercenaries committed war crimes and backed Neo-Nazis in Croatia when Yugoslavia was destroyed.

NATO was used to support illegal aggression in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.  General Wesley Clark told the world that the Pentagon had a plan to take out seven countries in five years. The plan included Iraq,  Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.  The U.S. has always gone to war over natural resources. In Vietnam it was tin and tungsten. In recent years, it has been over oil and gas resources and potential pipelines.

Hillary Clinton was the candidate of the CIA.  She would have enabled any and all of its dangerous moves around the world.  Donald Trump did not want war with Russia or more war in Syria.  But that may be changing.  The Neo-cons of both the Democrat and Republican parties have wanted and created a cold war with Russia.  And they have wanted to complete their regime change in Syria by taking out Bashar Al Assad.   CIA propagandists have always fed the mainstream corporate media the fake news that has usually become gospel in the United States.   The Russia! lies are becoming a cyber-Gulf of Tonkin and the new WMD excuse for U.S. aggression against Russia.  Russians understandably fear a nuclear first strike by the United States.  The U.S. has moved its airbases ever closer to Russian borders.  The U.S. has surrounded Russia, China, and Korea with military bases and nuclear weapons.

Trump is being pressured into continuing the Bush/Obama legacy of murderous drone strikes.  He is continuing the illegal bombing of Yemen and support for the killer regime of Saudi Arabia.  The goal of getting rid of Assad in Syria may be changing into a goal of partitioning Syria.  But it will still mean continued killing and continued U.S. troops on the ground as recently witnessed in Syria as well as in Yemen.  Trump seems to be getting in line with the CIA, the deep state, and the Neo-cons he previously opposed.

Never forget that the U.S. murdered close to thirty percent of the population of North Korea in the 1950s. It used insane amounts of bomb tonnage, cluster-bombs, and fleas carrying bubonic plague, amongst other biological diseases.  Never forget that the U.S. bombed Laos into the stone-age as part of its killing three million people in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

The United States has been the biggest global terrorist in the world during my lifetime. So it is important to remember and reflect on all of the lies and all of the bombs and all of the wars started overtly and covertly by the government of the United States.  It is important to be vigilant as fake news is spread by CNN, MSNBC, FOX, AP, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the complicit corporate media deceivers enthusiastically mouthing the lies of the Deep State.

It is as important as ever for civilians to mobilize counter-recruitment campaigns in high schools and communities throughout the United States.  It is as important as ever for U.S. taxpayers to have the Courage to Resist paying for war with their war taxes.  It is as important as ever for young men and women to have the Courage to Resist the lies of military recruiters and it is as important as ever for enlisted military personnel, as well as officers, to question authority, and to have the Courage to Resist the perpetual illegal and immoral wars of the Unites States.  U.S. military personnel need to seriously think about deserting from all branches of the U.S. military.

When you hear people talking about joining The Resistance, these days, don’t be fooled.  Check them out. Who are they and what are they resisting?

As stated earlier, Barack Obama signed the 2012 NDAA, leaving to all succeeding Presidents, including Donald Trump, that dangerous tool of fascism.  It makes declaring martial law easy for any President.  That is another reason to desert that could face U.S. troops.

Trump wants to expand the military.  He wants newer, bigger, and “better” nuclear weapons. He wants to raise the U.S. military budget by an amount that is as big as the entire Russian military budget, so that the U.S. budget is as largely obscene as ever but with that new addition.

When you hear people talking about joining The Resistance, these days, don’t be fooled.  Check them out. Who are they and what are they resisting?   Are they just Neo-Liberal and Neo-con members of the Democratic Party trying to get rid of Donald Trump, but fine with the war-mongering, business as usual, war economy and war culture of the Empire of the United States?  The real Resistance has always been and must always be Resistance to war, war culture, war economy, and Empire.  The Courage to Resist must permeate our whole society and we must teach it to our children.   The peace movement must produce new resources and distribute them.  We can’t let our friends, family, neighbors, or strangers be fooled by the fake news of the merchants of death.  It is time for real mass resistance to the terrorism of the United States of America perpetrated by its military and by its repressive fascist measures at home.