The Sickening Arrogance and Condescension of Empire

Thus speaks the new Imperial Master:

President Barack Obama said Sunday that the United States is in a position to place more responsibility in the hands of the Iraqis following provincial elections and a reduction in violence there.

"In conversations that I've had with the joint chiefs, with people, the commanders on the ground, I think that we have a sense now that the Iraqis just had a very significant election, with no significant violence there, that we are in a position to start putting more responsibility on the Iraqis," Obama told NBC television.

At the time of the initial invasion, Iraq posed no threat of any significance whatsoever to the United States. This blindingly obvious conclusion was clear to millions of people throughout the world -- "ordinary" people who examined the publicly available evidence, and who did not rely on "secret" knowledge, which goes by the viciously misnamed designation "intelligence," which "intelligence" is almost always wrong and which is never the basis for major policy decisions in any event.

The U.S. ruling class also knew that Iraq represented no threat of any consequence. They didn't care. They had entirely different objectives and concerns: the expansion and consolidation of American global hegemony. The world is the U.S. ruling class's oyster, and they will devour it. And you, and over a million innocent Iraqis, and whoever else proves troublesome. As a general rule, it is advisable not to place yourself in the path of a dangerously delusional homicidal maniac.

Thus, the United States government and almost all members of the ruling class -- with only two or three honorable exceptions -- embarked on a lengthy series of brutal, horrifying, profoundly immoral war crimes, and on a world historical genocide. Thus, all those members of the ruling class who have voted to continue and fund these crimes are war criminals. Barack Obama is a war criminal. Don't bother to argue with me: argue with the Nuremberg Principles.

How, then, in the name of all that is decent, humane and minimally civilized, does the President of the United States dare to say that "we are in a position to start putting more responsibility on the Iraqis"? "We" -- that is to say, the U.S. government and the ruling class -- are "in a position" to beg for forgiveness, which no decent human being should ever grant. There is nothing these criminals can ever do to earn it. "We are in a position" to make all those reparations possible, in whatever forms and whenever they can be offered. From an essay written two and a half years ago:

Given the immense, incalculable destruction we have caused, we are obligated to provide significant financial aid to Iraq for the foreseeable future. In light of the damage this catastrophe has already caused to our economy, that is a formidable prospect -- but it is markedly superior to continuing to pour billions of dollars down the drain of this murderous occupation. And we must be responsible for our actions, and especially for our gravely mistaken and immoral ones. To the extent amends are possible, we must offer them. No amount of money will ever make up for the lives that have been lost and those that have been irrevocably damaged, but we must do whatever is possible. That will still not merit forgiveness for our actions, but at least we will have acted with a minimal sense of honor.

Beyond this, "we" should do nothing but get out.

Get out. Every single goddamned American. Out, within months. To hell with the disgusting lie about "combat troops." All Americans, out.

Period, the fucking hell. Everyone out.

As I have noted in many essays, the arrogance and condescension of the U.S. government and our ruling class is overwhelming and unassailable. It is so deeply embedded in the world view of most Americans, who unthinkingly absorb it from almost all politicians and all major media voices, that we barely even notice it. Because Obama is the perfect embodiment of the corporatist-authoritarian-militarist system that is destroying us along with other parts of the world, he believes in the "unique" Goodness and Nobility of America as much as any leader could, or ever has. He sounds the theme of "American exceptionalism" with nauseating regularity. On the subject of Iraq, Obama said this some months ago:

It's not change when [McCain] promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians..."

Since Obama chooses to continually repeat these murderous lies of empire, I will repeat what I said on the earlier occasion:

Listen up, Obama, you cheap, lying fraud: the United States government launched a criminal war of aggression against a nation that never threatened us. It continues a bloody, murdering occupation which does nothing but worsen the agony of the Iraqi people. We have no right to be in Iraq at all. We never did. The actions of the United States government have led to a genocide of world historical proportions.

Genocidal murderers and those who support and enable them -- as you do, Obama, since you vote to fund this continuing crime -- do not get to "ask" one single goddamned fucking thing of their victims. Not. One. Single. Goddamned. Fucking. Thing.

Get it, you pathetic little asshole?

I'll keep repeating it, until he shuts the hell up.