/oct

Joe Klein’s sociopathic defense of #drone killings of children, par l’excellent Glenn Greenwald
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

When it comes to justifying the killing of civilians, the only difference between the Joe Kleins of the world and Osama bin Laden is that they’re on different sides. To the extent one wanted to distinguish them, one could say that the violence and aggression brought by the US to the Muslim world vastly exceeds - vastly - the violence and aggression brought by the Muslim world to the US. That’s just a fact.

(2) Leaving aside the sociopathic, morally grotesque defense of killing 4-year-olds with a “joystick from California”, Klein’s claims are completely false on pragmatic grounds. Slaughtering Muslim children does not protect American children from terrorism. The opposite is true. That is precisely what causes the anti-American hatred that fuels and sustains terrorism aimed at Americans in the first place, as even a study commissioned by the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon recognized almost a decade ago.

Cet oped du Guardian reprend l’antienne israélienne selon laquelle il y aurait une très antisémite focalisation médiatique et populaire sur les petites erreurs israéliennes : pour ce faire, il lui faut évidemment affirmer que la Syrie est « rarement » en Une des journaux ou évoquée à la télé. Plus c’est gros… We condemn Israel. So why the silence on Syria ? – Jonathan Freedland
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/condemn-israel-why-silence-on-syria

There are no mass demonstrations outside the Syrian embassy in London. The story is rarely on the front page or on the TV bulletins.

Colonised and coloniser, empire’s poison infects us all | George Monbiot (The Guardian)
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/08/empire-torture-kenya-catastrophe-europe

Last week three elderly Kenyans established the right to sue the British government for the torture that they suffered – castration, beating and rape – in the Kikuyu detention camps it ran in the 1950s. Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won’t spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women’s breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died. (...) Source: The Guardian

Ces aspects positifs de la colonisation qui autorisent les occidentaux à brandir leur supériorité morale à tout bout de champ :
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/08/empire-torture-kenya-catastrophe-europe

Last week three elderly Kenyans established the right to sue the British government for the torture that they suffered – castration, beating and rape – in the Kikuyu detention camps it ran in the 1950s.

Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won’t spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women’s breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died.

The government’s secret archive, revealed this April, shows that the attorney general, the colonial governor and the colonial secretary knew what was happening. The governor ensured that the perpetrators had legal immunity: including the British officers reported to him for roasting prisoners to death. In public the colonial secretary lied and kept lying.

Iran sanctions now causing food insecurity, mass suffering | Glenn Greenwald (The Guardian)
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/07/iran-santions-suffering

Yet again, the US and its allies spread mass human misery though a policy that is as morally indefensible as it is counter-productive (...) Source: The Guardian

Passionnant: Iran sanctions now causing food insecurity, mass suffering | Glenn Greenwald
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/07/iran-santions-suffering

What’s most extraordinary about all of this is that the extreme human suffering caused by US-led sanctions is barely acknowledged in mainstream American political discourse. One reason that Americans were so baffled after the 9/11 attack (why do they hate us?) is the same reason they continue to be so baffled by anti-American protests in the Muslim world (what are they so angry about?): namely, most Americans literally have no idea, because nobody ever told them, that their government’s imposition of sanctions in Iraq led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, and they similarly have no idea that the suffering of ordinary Iranians is becoming increasingly substantial.

People in the Muslim world (who are relentlessly depicted as propagandized) are well aware of the human devastation US sanctions have caused, while Americans (who think of themselves as the beneficiaries of a free and vibrant press) have largely had those facts kept from them. That dynamic in part, is what often explains the irreconcilable worldviews among people in those two parts of the world.

As usual, don’t look for Democratic partisan to object to any of this.