Obama does Oslo this week. There’s been a lot of commentary on this, including my own, so I won’t add much at this point. Suffice to say, he’s collecting the award the Norwegian Nobel committee gave the people of the United States for electing someone who isn’t totally bug-fuck nuts and for putting the enormous American imperial locomotive back onto its tracks. Yeah, it’s still belching toxic smoke and running people over, but it’s doing it along a predictable line, pulling a bunch of lesser cars behind it, and that makes people a lot more comfortable. Let’s face it – Dubya thought the train was a go-cart. He drove it on the grass, into the middle of the street, through people’s living rooms, etc., to the point where no one wanted to hitch-up their boxcar anymore (except our trusty coal-car Britain and, I don’t know, Palau). Now that choo-choo Charlie has chugged his scrawny ass back to Texas, everybody wants back onto the empire gravy train. So… give the guy a medal. Civilization is saved!
Such as it is, anyway. We’ve got an administration that’s committed to pouring more soldiers and resources into Afghanistan (while slowly drawing them out of Iraq), even though it seems clear that, in a variety of ways, we are funding the very forces we seek to defeat. We’ve got a justice department that is refusing to hold domestic war criminals (or “terrorists,” if you prefer) accountable for their actions, providing legal cover for the likes of John Yoo, one of the primary genius theorists behind the Bush administration’s decision to implement its systematic policy of detainee abuse and torture. We’ve got a state department that has apparently reconciled itself with the ratification of the Honduran coup regime, accepting the results of a coup-administered “election” and allowing the establishment of a dangerous precedent for Latin American military overthrows, 2010-style. And we have a military procurement and contracting system that continues to run amok, allocating billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars for questionable weapons systems, well-connected logistics firms, and gun-for-hire mercenary forces like Blackwater that set new standards for unaccountable criminality.
I think it was Jonathan Turley who pointed out the painful irony of Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel at this time, when his justice department has just filed an amicus curiae brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to drop charges against Yoo. They are supporting the Bush contention that providing good faith and frank advice to the President should not make someone liable to even civil litigation. This is pretty much the same defense used by Nazi jurists and advisors before the Nuremberg tribunal. You are, in effect, defending the logic of war criminals, Mr. President. Let’s talk about it when you get back from Oslo. (No, really… we should talk. Put the medal away first.)
What the hell is this, opposite week? C’mon, Barry. You know better… or you ought to, anyway.
luv u,
jp
