America's Hypocrisy in Condemning North Korea

By MARC McDONALD

Lately, the U.S. (and the U.N.) have been spending a lot of time attacking North Korea's human rights record. I'm no fan of North Korea. But something about all this just doesn't pass the smell test for me. After all, it seems like we've been down this road before---although America's persistent collective amnesia prevents us from grasping this truth.

In any case, in the aftermath of horrors like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Mahmudiyah, I'm not sure the U.S. has much moral authority left to lecture other nations about "human rights." (The fact that a lot of readers are likely scratching their heads and wondering what Mahmudiyah was all about is a good indicator of just how ill-informed Americans are when it comes to our own nation's crimes).

Say what you want about North Korea. But at least they're not going around the world invading other nations to steal their oil.

Yes, the ruling cabal of North Korea is brutalizing their own people. But the U.S. really needs to get its own house in order before we lecture other nations.

I want to make it clear: I don't support North Korea. But I'm always leery of these horror stories that we hear in the U.S. corporate media about what supposedly goes on in these tightly-closed nations on the other side of the world. I mean, who the f*ck in the U.S. really knows what's going on in North Korea these days?

To tell you the truth, I sometimes think I'd like to visit North Korea myself someday, just to check it out and see that nation for myself, first-hand. However, that's illegal for me, as a U.S. citizen, to do. Which raises a question: why? If America is really a "free" nation, then why does it set limits on where U.S. citizens can travel?

Travel to Cuba is also illegal for me to do. However, interesting enough, though, it was perfectly legal for me to visit South Africa during the dark days of apartheid.

Back in the 1980s, the U.S. government had zero regulations about U.S. citizens visiting (and U.S. corporations conducting commerce with) what was, at the time, one of the most evil regimes in history.

But oppressing black people is one thing. Tampering with the United Fruit Company's profits is quite another.

Maybe it's simply because I'm a contrarian bastard who has been lied to so many times that I simply no longer buy anything the U.S. government is peddling.

But something about America's outrage over North Korea's human rights record just doesn't pass the smell test, for me. And what's more, do we really think that America's corporate oligarchy really gives a sh*t about human rights in North Korea? (No, what they're really shedding tears over is potential lost soft drink sales).

I mean, have we already forgotten that a lot of the horror stories we were told about Saddam simply never happened?

How about Saddam Hussein's alleged shredder that we were assured was being used to horrifically kill his opponents? "See men shredded, then say you don't back war," went the headline in one U.K. newspaper. The trouble was, it turns out this notorious machine never even existed. However, it did serve a useful purpose in the corporate media's mandate to transform the Third World tinhorn dictator Saddam into the next Hitler.

Or how about the war-time propaganda/crock of sh*t that was the 1990 Nayirah testimony? The heart-rending stories of Saddam's troops taking babies out of incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and leaving them to die all turned out to be fabricated. But such horrific tales did help whip up support among the U.S. public for war in Iraq.

Or how about the WMDs that all our American leadership insisted posed a threat to our nation? Anyone who disputed the WMD allegations was treated as a kook, or a traitor.

And I always take what I hear from the exiles of such regimes with a grain of salt. Much of what the Iraqi exiles assured us about what was going on in Iraq was either exaggerated or fabricated.

I'd be the first to admit that North Korea is probably in reality a very bad place. But frankly, what goes on there is none of America's f*cking business. We really need to start paying reparations to the millions of families in Iraq and Vietnam that were the victims of our aggression before we continue to point the finger of blame at other nations and lecture them on "human rights."

And if it's human rights abuses and authoritarianism that really bothers you, then please take a look around your house. Odds are, a majority of your household possessions were made in China (which, despite a lot of wishful thinking by the U.S. corporate media, is still very much a Communist nation, with abysmal human rights that are probably on a par with North Korea).

Incidentally, while Americans are constantly making a fuss over North Korea's human rights, why aren't we similarly all worked up over a hell-hole like Saudi Arabia? The latter is ruled by a horrific leadership that brutalizes women, tortures and murders its opponents, and funds Islamic terror groups around the world.

And yet, little is ever mentioned about any of this in the U.S. corporate media. The Saudis are our friends and allies, we're told. More importantly, they hold a lot of U.S. assets and are valuable partners to corporate America and the U.S. military industrial complex. Indeed, the likes of George W. Bush had warm ties to the Saudi ruling class and even invited its members out to friendly barbecues at his Texas ranch.

It's hard for me to put my finger on specifically what bothers me about the U.S. corporate media's continuing outrage over North Korea. But something just doesn't pass the smell test for me. Once again, the corporate media is working overtime to build up an insignificant Third World tinhorn dictator into the next Adolf Hitler. To what end remains unclear.

America Finally Got Bin Laden, But Along The Way, We Lost Our Soul

By MARC McDONALD

I was unable to bring myself to join in the recent jubilant celebration over the death of Osama bin Laden. Nearly a decade after 9/11, I can't help but think that America is a nation that has lost its soul. Once, we were the good guys in the world. Now, we're not.

It's hard to fathom how much America has changed since 9/11. We've inflicted an enormous amount of senseless damage on other nations---far more damage than we ourselves suffered on that terrible day.

Yes, "we" finally got Bin Laden. We shot dead an unarmed man. A man who was never even charged with anything, much less tried or convicted. In fact, the FBI, in its "Most Wanted" list, never even mentioned the 9/11 attacks in its entry for Bin Laden.

Bin Laden was clearly no angel. But once upon a time in this country, we considered people innocent until proven guilty. And Bin Laden is hardly the only person America has killed in recent years, without any sort of charges or trial. It's now become routine for the U.S. to fire drone missile attacks in remote Pakistan, killing people we believe are "terrorists."

And just who says these people are terrorists? The CIA?

We all know what a stellar track record the CIA has for accurate information. After all, these are the incompetents who were completely blindsided by the 9/11 attacks, the most deadly terror attacks ever launched against any nation. The CIA also signed off on George W. Bush's case for war on Iraq.

It seems to me that, for all the hundreds of billions of dollars we've lavished on the likes of the CIA, this agency has been bumbling and incompetent for many years. I'm unclear what we've gotten back for all the billions we've spent on the CIA. Certainly not national security.

I can't help but think that the CIA has been symbolic in many ways of how much America has changed since 9/11.

Once, it was unthinkable that the U.S. would officially embrace torture as a means of policy. Now, it's routine. What's worse is that, an increasingly bloodthirsty public, fueled by HateWing radio and Fox News, now supports it.

Before 9/11, the Constitution was held with reverence. Maybe it wasn't always followed to the letter, but it was still regarded as the bedrock of our democracy.

Today, after eight years of Bush, the Constitution lies in shreds. Between blatantly illegal warrantless wiretaps, waterboarding, and the "Patriot" Act, it's clear that this nation simply no longer holds the Constitution in high regard. Of course, things are better under Obama, but the damage remains.

Yes, the U.S. finally took out Bin Laden. But how many innocent people did we murder along the way? Since 9/11, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghanistani civilian men, women and children have died violent deaths at America's hands for no good reason.

With the death of Bin Laden, Americans proclaim that "Justice Has Been Served."

But what about justice for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and Afghanistanis, slaughtered with American Predator drones, Tomahawks, and Hellfire missiles?

Watching the jubilant crowds celebrating Bin Laden's death frankly left me with a queasy feeling. Something, I thought, just didn't seem right. In fact, I've increasingly felt this way ever since 9/11. America is today a vastly changed place. It's no longer the America that I grew up with.

Once upon a time, the random execution of civilians without trial was something that other nations did----usually corrupt dictatorships. Torture was something that only occurred in places like Stalin's Gulags. Warrantless wiretaps only took place in totalitarian states, far away from America. Unprovoked warfare was something only other nations like Hitler's Germany engaged in.

But 9/11 changed all that.

We Americans could have responded to 9/11 like we've always done during crises in our nation's history. We could have shown the world that American democracy and respect for the rule of law is always stronger than any crisis.

But instead, America took a darker path after 9/11. In many ways, we became the bad guys.

So, yes, we did finally kill Bin Laden. But somewhere along the way, in the decade after 9/11, America lost its soul.

Update:In the piece above, I wrote: "America finally got Bin Laden, but along the way, we lost our soul."

Two days later, Michael Moore was being interviewed by CNN's Piers Morgan. Moore talked about the death of bin Laden and said, "We've lost something of our soul." In the interview, he made many of the same points I did in the article above.

Interesting. Clearly, Moore and I think alike.

Bush 'Subtly' Threatens To Take Al-Maliki To The Woodshed

By MANIFESTO JOE

George W. Bush had one of his infrequent news conferences Thursday before taking off the rest of August, as he always does. And the topics were wide-ranging. One thing that was almost buried in The Washington Post account didn't escape my notice. He seemed to inform Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that there's a woodshed, and that he might be taken to it.

Al-Maliki met with Iran's leadership, and the talks were reported to have been cordial. That couldn't have been good news for Bush. Here's an excerpt from The Post's account:

Foreign policy absorbed much of the conference, with Bush denouncing Iran as a "destabilizing influence" in the Middle East even as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Tehran meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bush brushed off reports of warm words and smiling pictures between the two, saying such cordiality was simply protocol. "You don't want the picture to be kind of, you know, duking it out," he said, putting up his fists.

But Bush said he would warn Maliki against trusting Ahmadinejad, much as the president did with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at Camp David earlier this week. "If the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend, the prime minister," Bush said of Maliki, "because I don't believe they are constructive. I don't think he, in his heart of heart, thinks they're constructive, either."

One doesn't need to read too deeply between the lines to see a veiled threat. I would love to be a fly on the wall at that little "heart-to-heart."

But the problem is, what does Bush really have, at this point, to threaten al-Maliki with? He warns that Iran is a "destabilizing influence." How much more destabilized can Iraq become? Iran may be exploiting obvious semi-anarchy there in extending its already-formidable influence among Iraqi Shiites. And it may well be contributing to the slow carnage being inflicted in the country, and on U.S. troops. Given our two countries' history, would we have expected them to do otherwise?

How much worse, at this juncture, can things become for al-Maliki and his allies? They're grabbing desperately for anything they can hang onto.

In another account of this news conference, I read that Bush assured reporters that, although much work remains to be done, there is evidence that the Iraqi government is learning how to function.

The evidence of this I've seen lately is that close to half the government, the Sunni element, recently quit and is boycotting the process.

Bush seems determined to remain clueless until the end of his rule -- or the end of something, anyway. In any case, I think al-Maliki has more serious things to worry about right now than any "heart-to-heart" talk that George W. Bush could confront him with.

Manifesto Joe is an underground writer living in Texas. Check out his blog at Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues.