Tag: perpetual war

Bush-Era War Criminals Are Louder Than Ever Because They’ve Lost The Argument

After the US troop withdrawal established conclusively that the Afghan “government” they’d spent twenty years pretending to nation build with was essentially a work of fiction, thus proving to the world that they’ve been lying to us this entire time about the facts on the ground in Afghanistan, you might expect those who helped pave the way for that disastrous occupation to be very quiet at this point in history.

But, far from being silent and slithering under a rock to wait for the sweet embrace of death, these creatures have instead been loudly and shamelessly outspoken.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has posted a lengthy essay by the former Prime Minister who led the United Kingdom into two of the most unconscionable military interventions in living memory. Blair criticizes the withdrawal as having been done out of “obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars’,” bloviating about “Radical Islam,” and asking, “has the West lost its strategic will?”

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Abolish It: It’s Our Right

It’s obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that this current government doesn’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t buying influence in Washington. That’s why they’ll vote unanimously for giving the military hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain an imperial presence around the world, but they won’t pay for $85 billion to provide assistance to low-income families trying to heat their homes or keep early childhood education centers open. And when things have gotten this bad, revolution is a moral obligation, not a radical idea. The Declaration of Independence proves that.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence, 1776

The New Hampshire state constitution‘s “Right to Revolution” clause says it a little more plainly.

“Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.” — New Hampshire Constitution, 1784

This Congress is an illegitimate one by default, seeing as our founding documents clearly state that governments only derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Since Congress has had the lowest recorded approval ratings in history since 2011, it’s safe to say we no longer consent to this current government, and have the right to alter or abolish it.

However, our past attempts to merely alter this government through the vote have been ignored and undermined, thanks to unfair gerrymandering that keeps the unpopular members of Congress in power, like Paul Ryan in Wisconsin. These same redistricting schemes are also used to drive popular members of Congress with wide support out of power, like Dennis Kucinich in Ohio.

Aside from the vote, our attempts to alter this government through protest have also been rendered obsolete. Occupy Wall Street proved that there is a country full of people willing to protest not just on a designated day of action, but 24 hours a day, for months at a time, in any weather. And the nonviolent movement that used publicly-owned parks and first amendment rights to free speech and free assembly to get its message across was ignored by our elected officials, ridiculed by the media and violently crushed by police. When unarmed, seated college students can be viciously attacked without provocation and then accused by their attackers of violent behavior, protest alone will no longer accomplish our goals.

So when attempts to alter this government are brushed aside, the only logical option left to redress our grievances is to abolish the old order and create a new government that is once again representative of ordinary people rather than those who can purchase the most influence. They’ll be able to stop 10,000 of us, and they may even be able to stop 100,000 of us. But they can’t stop 2,000,000 of us. All they’ll be able to do is watch.

This Congress, which gets paid a hefty $174,000 starting salary with full health care and retirement benefits and only works 126 days a year, will go on a month-long, taxpayer-funded vacation on Aug. 3. So when they leave town, we should arrive at least 2,000,000 strong on the national mall. And when we arrive, we march forward to the U.S. Capitol and refuse to stop for anything until we’re inside the House and Senate chambers. From there, we’ll break off into people’s assemblies, and hold a new constitutional convention. We’ll livestream the proceedings and crowdsource our new constitution by hearing from the people on social media. We’ll decide as one people what our new government will look like, and do it nonviolently. If Iceland did it, we can too.

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Now Would Be A Great Time For George W Bush To Shut The Fuck Up

George W Bush has issued a statement on the situation in Afghanistan, and there are not enough shoes in the world to adequately respond to it.

“Laura and I have been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness,” the Hague fugitive writes. “Our hearts are heavy for both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much.”

Bush tells the US Armed Forces, diplomatic corps, and intelligence community how proud he and his wife are of their “sacrifice” and “courage” and that they “kept America safe” and “made America proud” with their decades-long occupation which accomplished literally nothing besides making horrible people very rich. And, it won’t surprise you to learn, the statement contains exactly zero apologies to anyone for anything.

Can you believe this person? Imagine being George W Bush in the middle of August 2021 and saying to yourself, “I know just what people need: a pep talk on Afghanistan from me, George W Bush!”

I mean, the gall. The absolute gall.

This is after all the same man who ordered the disastrous invasion in the first place under the justification of the plot hole-riddled 9/11 narrative after already having decided to oust the Taliban a month before the towers came down. The same man who rejected the Taliban’s offer to turn over Osama Bin Laden in October 2001 if the US would just show proof that he is guilty and end its bombing campaign. The same man who repeatedly rejected Taliban offers to surrender after the invasion began. The same man who initiated decades of lies about what was happening in Afghanistan in order to justify an occupation maintained for power and profit.

And after all that phony hand-wringing about “the oppressed people of Afghanistan“, the United States is after twenty years of occupation leaving the Afghan people the single most miserable population of any nation on earth. After all that phony hand-wringing about “the Taliban’s war on women“, Afghanistan has remained the worst place in the world to be a woman throughout the entirety of the occupation.

And it is entirely the fault of the US-centralized empire. The Taliban only came to power in the first place because the US backed their predecessors (whom they also actively radicalized) against the Soviet Union and its leftist Afghan allies in the eighties, then Bush invaded and rained explosives from the sky for twenty years, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

After four decades of interventionism and two decades of full-scale occupation following generations of shocking savagery and terrorism being inflicted upon the Afghan people by the British, it is perfectly fair to say that one hundred percent of Afghanistan’s problems today can be blamed entirely on the US and its allies.

So now, as the nation reverts back to Taliban control after a long and sadistic intermission and many Afghans are so fearful that some fell to their deaths desperately clinging to departing US military planes, it would be a fantastic time for George W Bush to shut the fuck up.

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