If you thought that America's foreign policy outlook would improve with the election of Barack Obama, you thought wrong. Part of the problem, being residual blowback from previous American sins, is, admittedly, not Obama's fault. But a great deal of it is. When Establishment candidates are elected one right after the other, you should expect that U.S. foreign policy will continue to be inane. And you should expect that more and more of the world will have reason to hate us.
At exactly the time American troops are pulling back from the cities in Iraq, new revelations of old torture are giving Iraqis another perfectly good reason to hate everything that is American. As if their enmity were not enough, deaths of scores of civilians in Pakistan at the hands of remote-piloted U.S. airplanes are ensuring another bumper crop of American enemies.
With the advent of high technology, virtually every person in the world knows about yet additional episodes of American perfidy on President Barack Obama's watch.
Is someone choreographing this? We can't be this stupid.
Iraqi Crucifixion. At a press conference day before yesterday, it was noted in an off-hand sort of manner that at least one Iraqi prisoner in abu Ghraib prison was crucified. The one crucifixion that we know about, and just now coming to light, happened in November of 2003.
Among the more startling revelations during the press conference today was an article describing how a detainee in Iraq had been "essentially crucified" during CIA interrogation.What's even worse:
According to a June 22 article in The New Yorker magazine, cited during the press conference today, an Iraqi prisoner in US custody was crucified - dying from asphyxiation while hanging from his arms during a CIA interrogation.
"An Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad," the New Yorker's Jane Meyer wrote. "A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide."
No charges have been sought against the interrogators from the CIA who participated in the death of al-Jamadi or CIA officers involved in other cases.Pakistan Condemns U.S. Attacks. It is "conventional wisdom" that the American military is not operating in Pakistan. Oh, but it is. So far it's (allegedly) only from the sky, but Pakistanis are quite clear as to the concept of American air superiority. When an aerial bomb kills dozens of civilians at a Pakistani funeral, everyone knows whodunnit. Pakistanis are incensed.
Pakistan, on Thursday strongly condemned American drone attacks...America was never meant to be the world's ogre. Instead we should be the world's example.
The protest comes two a days after 80 people were killed and a large number of them sustained multiple injuries in the US drone attack in South Waziristan Agency.
What appeared to be the deadliest U.S. missile attack ever on Pakistani soil brought an unusual reaction since the fresh drone attack on Tuesday in a country that has previously denounced such strikes as an affront to its sovereignty.
The drone attacks have sparked anger among the masses and it took the people to streets in big cities like Lahore and Karachi where they condemned such attacks asking government to get stop such attacks that were proving to be lethal for innocent people of Pakistan.
Why don't we start electing people that understand that fundamental premise?
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