Engelhardt, A Hellfire World

By Tom Engelhardt

photo above: ‘THEY ARE ALL DEAD’: Harrowing leaked footage shows US drone strikes in Afghanistan as pilot admits killing two civilians & child by mistake; Imogen Braddick

WN: What can one say? God damn the monstrous capacity of the West (of course elsewhere too!) to cold-bloodedly commit mass murder via drone strike assassinations and other aircraft the world over–of all those wrong-coloured bodies: 22,000 civilians and counting across the Greater Middle East and Africa? And don’t forget the children . . .

If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.–Jesus, Matthew 18:6.

The children were not merely caused to stumble. They were simply summarily executed.¹

But the U.S. is not new at this game, has been doing this–murdering innocent children–for a few centuries now. See but one historical for instance: Was America Great When It Burned Native American Babies? (Audio and Transcript) – Truthdig. And Obama–and all Presidents previously–considers/demonstrates this to be a “strong suit” of his. As does, obviously, lovely Michelle.²

Amongst relatives and friends a while back, triggered by raving I heard from one of the gathered about Michelle’s autobiography (and too many times from too many people I know!), I got a little carried away (OK: my wife says, “Not a little . . .”), and pointed out some of the above about her beloved husband–A Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas–as indicated by (massive) biographer, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and law professor David J. Garrow.

Some of what I said then was along the lines of this:

The review below of the recent massive biography of Barack Obama is scathing with reference to Obama’s supreme narcissism (matching Trump’s one could argue, though not in constant bombast). Paul Street powerfully demonstrates how Obama, in a long line of Presidents, was in thrall to the brutal American Empire Project¹ of what increasingly is becoming the 1%, who spread their pitiless (and pitiful) tentacles around the globe in pursuit of endlessly amassing more wealth, voraciously ever arrogating to themselves more power over humanity and the Planet. The United States of America has since inception ruthlessly run a (now worldwide) crime syndicate that sucks wealth and vitality out of all peoples and the Good Earth; destroying or dominating everything that is in its path, human or material. And Obama was an obsequious pawn in thrall to this brutal Empire. Another scathing book tracking the supremely phony Obama is Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, of which one reviewer (Thomas H. Naylor) comments:

“Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank have skillfully smoked out the real Barack Obama . . . the technofascist military strategist disguised as a Nobel Peace Laureate, but owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Pentagon.”

It is hard to deny these two assertions:

1. The United States of America is the Ultimate Mob.
2. Failure to acknowledge this in the West – so tied into American Empire – means at least tangentially one is part of the problem.

So I give my head a shake, and realize again: I’m part of this monstrous Western “civilization” too! And I say anew: Woe is me . . . Lord, have mercy    . . .

And one wonders: are there enough millstones to go around?

excerpts:

What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not!

I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this country’s 20-year-long Afghan nightmare.

Where to begin (or end, for that matter) when considering that never-ending conflict, which seems — for Americans, anyway — finally to be over? After all these years, don’t ask me.

U.S. drones and other aircraft have reportedly knocked off at least 22,000 civilians across the Greater Middle East and Africa?

Hey, one thing seems clear to me, though: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley undoubtedly didn’t apologize for that last Hellfire missile attack — he, in fact, originally labeled it a “righteous strike” — or the endless civilian deaths caused by American air power, because he’s had so many other things on his mind in these years. As a start, he was far too preoccupied calling his Beijing opposite, General Li Zuocheng, to warn him that the president of the United States, one Donald Trump, might have the urge to start a war with China before leaving office.

Actually, had Milley called me instead, I would have assured him that I believed The Donald then incapable of doing anything other than watching Fox News, going bonkers over the election, and possibly launching an attack (nuclear or otherwise) on Joe Biden and the Democrats, no less Congress — remember January 6th! — or even his own vice president, Mike Pence, for certifying the vote. Maybe, in fact, Milley should have skipped the Chinese entirely and called Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Anthony Gonzalez to warn them that, sooner or later, the president might go nuclear on them.

Of course, in our increasingly mad, mad world, who really knows anymore?

I do know one thing, however, mostly because I wrote it so long ago and it stuck in my mind (even if in no one else’s): ever since the presidency of George W. Bush, who reportedly kept “his own personal scorecard” in a White House desk drawer of drone-killed or to-be-killed “terrorists,” every American president has been an assassin-in-chief. No question about it, Joe Biden is, too. I don’t know why the label never caught on. After all, assassination, once officially an illegal act for a president, is now, by definition, simply part of the job — and the end of the Afghan War will do nothing to stop that.

“Turns out I’m really good at killing people,” Obama said quietly, “Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”— Obama Told Aides He’s ‘Really Good At Killing People,’ New Book ‘Double Down’ Claims — The sheer cold-blooded nonchalance of the remark beggars all sense of human decency . . .

I first labeled our future presidents that way in 2012, after the New York Times reported that Barack Obama was attending “Terror Tuesday” meetings at the White House where names were regularly being added to a “kill list” of people to be droned off this planet. The first such Obama assassination, as Jo Becker and Scott Shane wrote at the time, would, prophetically enough, kill “not only its intended target, but also two neighboring families, and [leave] behind a trail of cluster bombs that subsequently killed more innocents.” Sound faintly familiar so many years later when U.S. drones and other aircraft have reportedly knocked off at least 22,000 civilians across the Greater Middle East and Africa?

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1. Here is an account by drone killers: ‘THEY ARE ALL DEAD ‘Harrowing leaked footage shows US drone strikes in Afghanistan as pilot admits killing two civilians & child by mistake[↩]
2. See too: An Open Letter to Joe Biden.[↩]