Tag Archives: Salon

You know that 2006 incident when U.S. troops killed innocent Iraqi civilians?

You must have read about it. No, not that one, the other one. The one made public by U.S. soldier Bradley Manning, who stole state secrets and gave them to an Australian publisher? Yeah, that one.

Well, that was Obama’s fault.

And now it’s coming back to bite him in his immoral ass, because when you commit war crimes, the country that represents the victims of those war crimes won’t give your armies immunity anymore, and so you have to leave the country (not your own, just theirs). Hence President Obama’s recent announcement that the United States would complete a full withdrawal of the remaining 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of 2011.

Salon.com emoblogger Glenn Greenwald has more:

Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama adminstration was seeking. Indeed, it was widely reported at the time the cable was released that it made it much more difficult for Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain beyond the deadline under any conditions.

In other words, whoever leaked that cable cast light on a heinous American war crime and, by doing so, likely played some significant role in thwarting an agreement between the Obama and Maliki governments to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and thus helped end this stage of the Iraq war.

“In other words,” Greenwald says, “Moreover…And in general…indeed” and “In sum,” the guy who “leaked those cables” – “whoever” that may be – “is responsible for one of the most consequential, beneficial and noble acts of this generation.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to define criminal behavior as noble, nor would I give such kudos to a man who gave away classified documents to a foreigner, but let’s talk about this “noble act.”

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Americans are a proud people.

We are accustomed to being No. 1, the envy of the world, an international superpower, a bastion of light, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But in the last decade, and even in the last few years, we have watched our economy crumble, our social safety net unravel, our jobs go overseas, our income stagnate, our poverty rates rise and our assets become albatrosses.

In the wake of the Great Recession, America’s elected leaders have embraced the same austerity measures that the rest of the developed world has relied on as a solution to ballooning debts, bloated governments and stagnant economic growth.

Our future is uncertain, our middle class is shrinking, our schools and infrastructure are failing, and our hopes for a better tomorrow – our dreams of leaving our children a better life than we had – are dying.

The only remaining source of pride for the patriotic citizens of this once great, once prosperous nation, is her military might – her booming and still yet-to-be-defunded defense; the size and strength of her armies; the skill, bravery and selflessness of her service members, and the heroism of their actions.

And so we honor their successes, and we celebrate their greatness.

It is all that is left to remind us of our own greatness, as a society, as a nation, as Americans.

On May 1, when President Obama announced the capture and death of the mastermind behind 9/11 – the man who orchestrated the biggest breach of national sovereignty and who was responsible for the greatest mass murder on American soil since Pearl Harbor – America rejoiced.

“Let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11,” Obama said, “that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores. And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people. The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

While the citizens of this country danced in the street and gathered at the White House to celebrate justice and to honor the thousands of fellow Americans whose friends, co-workers, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters were killed on 9/11, there was one man, one citizen, who was busy writing a column for Salon.com about the travesty of bringing to justice a terrorist responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000 of his fellow citizens.

Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald was busy casting himself, somewhat prematurely, as a self-described “heretic” who didn’t buy into the “unadulterated ecstasy” and the “collective orgy of national pride” following Osama’s death, and who believed, conversely, that the masses were acting irrationally and unreasonably in a way Greenwald thought was appropriate to compare to “raucously cheering in a movie theater when the dastardly villain finally gets his due,” when in reality – or his understanding of reality – “the repercussions” of this moment were little more than political.

“(I)t’s going to be a huge boost to Obama’s re-election prospects and will be exploited for that end,” he wrote.

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