'The politics of bollocks' Pilger

Why Obama is more dangerous than Bush - torture is business as usual despite Obama's public deceptions - he's just farmed it out. And it looks like the Israelis intend to strike Iran's nuclear facilities next.

Quote :

Far from “shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network”, Obama’s executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, “current and former US intelligence officials said that the rendition programme might be poised to play an expanded role”. A semantic sleight of hand is that “long-term prisons” are changed to “short-term prisons”; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America’s numerous “covert actions” will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

...

Quote :

Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush's assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush's "right" to imprison anyone, without trial or charge. No "ghost prisoners" are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush's totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookshop records. The man of "change" is changing little. That ought to be front-page news from Washington.

http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2009/02/obama-pilger-israel-gaza

Thanks be to Christ for that, we can hate America again.

What else would be expected of a demagogue? He was put up because he was to the right of Clinton, who is no shrinking violet herself.

tonys wrote:

Thanks be to Christ for that, we can hate America again.

Is there nothing you understand?

This is not about 'hating America'. It is about exposing the massively powerful elite coprorate sector there - who run the country via the tweedledum and tweedledee political parties. US foreign/economic policy doesnt reflect the views of most US people or the principles on which the country is supposed to run.

America and Americans outside this elite - the real America - are another story altogether.

Sorry for being stupid, my mistake.
I thought Obama was just elected.....democratically.....by the American people.

I didn't know he was put there by the various "elites" and probably the military industrial somethingorother.

Sack cloth & ashes for me then.

Aragon wrote:

America and Americans outside this elite - the real America - are another story altogether.

I'm sorry but the real America is not the liberal coastlines with their distinctly European feel. America is equally the bit in the middle, the bit which hangs on to guns as a way of life and would be fairly happy to nuke Dublin if they thought there were some Ay-rabs to be got. You are quite correct that not all Americans support this kind of carry on, but I would suggest that 'in the national interest', many more than you suspect probably do, they just don't want to see it on the television.

johnfás wrote:

Aragon wrote:

America and Americans outside this elite - the real America - are another story altogether.

I'm sorry but the real America is not the liberal coastlines with their distinctly European feel. America is equally the bit in the middle, the bit which hangs on to guns as a way of life and would be fairly happy to nuke Dublin if they thought there were some Ay-rabs to be got. You are quite correct that not all Americans support this kind of carry on, but I would suggest that 'in the national interest', many more than you suspect probably do, they just don't want to see it on the television.

That's true too J, but even among the A-rab hating minority, there are a fair few who are anti-statist and see both Republicans and the Democrats as usurpers of real democracy. One of the troubles the US government will have in the event of major civil unrest is, ironically, that so many of their citizens are armed to the teeth and will not hesitate to use this arsenal against them what's more.

Either way, the whole Obama bollocks thing is the biggest lie to date - bigger than the war on terror which he supports.