"War is tough and difficult and mistakes are gonna be made."

Excuse me, Mr. President, this is an illegal invasion and occupation, not a war, just as in Iraq. You, and every one of your Empire cronies can call it a war but it isn't one. Those that are fighting against the forces of Empire are doing so in their own backyards, on their own soil within their own cities and towns. They watch as their families are routed out of their homes at all hours, killed by flying "predators" (an apt name for them), or crippled for life.

Those at the receiving end of US brutality are experiencing terrorism.

Here's a reminder of Obama's actual views on war and imperial ambitions. The excerpt below is an abridged bit from Paul Street written before the election of our Nobel Peace Prize war criminal:

"I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama

Obama’s handlers and supporters placed considerable emphasis on the claim that Obama voiced a “consistent position against the Iraq war” Serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given Obama's presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq.

At one point in Obama's famous CCGA oration, he had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”

This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.

It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate.

Obama repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”

He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”

His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.

Barack Obama reacts to the world's response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called "war on terror," to take "the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.

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"War is tough and difficult and mistakes are gonna be made"

- Barack Obama

Obama is now channeling John Wayne.

Blah, blah, blah. Americans and NATO forces do as they see fit. There is no accountability, just words, and oh here is a couple sheep. All better now, right. Wrong!!! Remember we are from the government and we are here to help you. What a joke! Either tell the American public the truth as to your real intentions or get the F#%K OUT!!! You lie to us, you lie to them. There is no honor any more. Look at the suicide rate among active service members. Get some integrity for God's sake!

Jeremy Scahill raises an extremely important point which should be addressed by the mainstream media. If a murder happens in any town or city in the United States the police attempt to apprehend the criminal while the district attorney presses charges against the defendant in order to hold him or her accountable for the crime that has been committed. Since there is no war crimes tribunal that has been set up which will prosecute war criminals Obama cannot claim with a straight face that he and General McChrystal are "ultimately accountable." Obama's statement is an outright lie and yet the corporate media will in all likelihood allow Obama's statement to pass by unchallenged.

Obama is "accountable" for all the civilian deaths (and we'll never have an accurate body count) in the same way Bush and Cheney are accountable for the wholesale destruction of Iraq and murder of over a million Iraqis, and in the way BP and Halliburton are accountable for their joint destruction of the Gulf and all its marine and wildlife, not to mention what their incompetence will do to shorelines and local economies. Yes, they're all accountable, and answerable to no one.

None of them will pay any price for their monstrous crimes against humanity and the earth. Obama will go on to joke about sending Predator Drones against anyone defying his authority, even while he actually sends them to kill more civilians, for which he's "accountable." And his Republican successor in the White House will protect him against cries for justice, exactly as he has protected Bush and Cheney and Rummy. The Liars and Killers Club will gain more members, and we'll be left to study what they do, as Rove told Ron Suskind in 2004. Powerless civilians in a military dictatorship don't have many other choices.

I belive Hitler would have said the same thing about his invasions. And Stalin's justification for the Ukranian Genocide was they were "wreckers," "saboteurs," which are terms synonymous with Terrorist and Terrorism today.

So the USA and NATO are NO DIFFERENT in their criminality than two of the 20th century's most noted War Criminals. And that's a truth few US citizens can swallow; so, like the "Good Germans," they cast their eyes elsewhere in order to not see the great evil being done in their names.

In his recent book, The Crimes of Empire: Rogue Superpower and World Domination, Carl Boggs contends that the U.S. has killed, directly or by proxy wars and other operations, about eight million people, mostly civilians, since 1945. As Noam Chomsky has said, "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

But no one will ever hold the world's most powerful militarist bully accountable for its innumerable war crimes and crimes against humanity. That is one reason the U.S. continues to waste a trillion dollars per year on its military, including thousands of nuclear weapons. Until the U.S. Empire finally collapses, U.S. war criminals will be free to demand, and get, tens of thousands of dollars in obscene speaking fees. When he leaves office, Obama will certainly join this despicable group.

Seymour Hersh has reported that "battlefield executions" are now taking place, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25424.htm

The same sort of thing happened in Vietnam and Korea. The war crimes just keep on going and going and going ....

As a soldier, if you know you're going to be killed if you're captured or surrender, then you will not allow either to occur. You will fight to the death with no quarter given. And you are quite likely to do the same to anyone you capture.

Unreported here on CD is that the whole Times-Square bomber manufactures hysteria is unravelling. It looks like he never went to any "training camp", his cartoon bomb could never have been the work of "Al Quieda" or "Taliban" (used interchangably), and he had no "connections" with said groups.

OK Mr. President, your responsible. Now do the honorable thing and resign! Or are these just more hollow words being spoken by an American politician? Show the American people a little of that change they can believe in, turn in your secret decoder ring and your blackberry and go back to Illinois. Prove to the Afghani's and the American people that you are a man of your word!...Right,...I didn't think so!

The POTUS is only Commander in Chief when the military is in "actual service".
This requires a declaration of war from Congress.

What Accountability, Mr. President?

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Accountability in D.C. speak means a tightly written public relations campaign stating the exact opposite of your intentions disseminated aggressively utilizing all your assets at the major media.

You didn't think he actually meant holding anyone responsible?

C'mon Scahill, you know that Obama is a liar. No news here.

Now, now, now, folks - you have to remember what "accountability" means in DC. It just means saying "I am accountable. There, I said it, now let's move on." The only venue we currently have for holding our pols "accountable" is the voting booth.

New elements to "1984" get added all the time by the various US presidential administrations. As War is Peace, to be Accountable is to be Immune from Prosecution or from any other type of penalty.

Maybe he means he will be accountable to his maker---he's Christian, right?

Section 2, Article 2 of the Constitution for the United States of America begins, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States". This does not say, and does not mean, that "The POTUS is only Commander in Chief when the military is in 'actual service'". The President is always "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy [and now of the Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard -- i.e., all federal armed services]of the United States"; he becomes Commander in Chief of the "Militia of the several states" when and only when those militia are "called into the actual Service of the United States" -- i.e., when the state militias become armed forces "of the United States".

We preach winning hearts and minds but we practice indiscriminate killing and torture. It really doesn't matter who is president, the killings go on. Get out Americans, and save your souls.

(BTW have you told your congressmen not to vote for more war money to Iraq and Afghanistan? They're about to. Something like 60 billion more, borrowed and added to our debt.) Not that any of this does much good--our politicians are in lock-step when it comes to defeating the one billion Muslims. At this rate it will be the Buddhists who will win the race--the Christians and the Muslims will kill each off.

I've had this argument with people who consider themselves versed in ethics. Many view "collateral damage" as equivalent to direct outright execution or deliberate bombing of civilian areas. There is plenty of history available for purposes of example.

I agree that there are subtle, somewhat academic ethical nuances at work here. Are drone attacks worse than the Blitz or the British and US air campaigns against civilian targets? Or the US air campaign in SE Asia? 100,000s of civilians were killed in the fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, and the US killed equally high numbers of civilians in Vietnam air raids, all intentionally and with varying degress of openly stated intention. The Italians, Germans and Japanese did the same by similar or more direct means, again with varying degrees of stated intention. What I doubt very much is whether the civilians on the receiving end cared or care very much about the ethical distinctions derived from statements of intention.

Two problems the "collateral damage" formulation:

1. Obama and those launching the drone attacks know with 100% certainty that civilians will be killed. This undeniable fact obviates the "mistakes" argument.
2. It implies a distinction between the killing of civilians in drone attacks and the more general category of mass murder. This is a difference in degree but not in kind.

Americans appear to have great difficulty parsing these distinctions, which is a great reason not to try to assert them.

This leaves out the very pertinent question of whether killing uniformed, armed "enemy" soldiers is also murder. Some famous general whose name I forget, got it right, I think, when he said, "war is organized murder".

In summary, the whole thing is an ethical wasteland. Only self-defense justifies military action and even then it debases and dehumanizes us. It costs us something we will never get back. Real "leaders" would publicly acknowledge this. Instead, we glorify war. We promote it as a righteous duty and source of spiritual, personal and national purification. Official violence is always in service of lofty, if conveniently vague ideas. Violence makes us "free". Thus "freedom" is not a right at all, it's a limited privilege, contingent upon constant war. This directly contradicts the literal meaning of the Declaration of Independence's language on "inalienable rights". In America, you have no "rights"; you have a temporary respite from slavery bought by war, never mind who you are fighting. It's pernicious myth and this kind of ethical excuse-making perpetuates it.

Perhaps it is important to put this article and Obama's statements about civilian deaths in perspective:

He is planning a major invasion of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, with around a million people.

That's a lot of sheep...

-30-

The US will never get out of Afghanistan or Iraq. We're going to be killing civilians in those two countries forever.

While Obama didn't start our wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, he now owns them, and the ball is now in HIS court!