There has been quite a bit of noise surrounding the U.S. Marines urinating-on-Taliban-corpses story. Most of the noise has been of the polite disapproval type. You know, 'I support our soldiers killing the terrorists over there, but those brave boys shouldn't be making videos of themselves desecrating dead bodies….that's just not right.'

The typical "condemnations" were issued by all the proper government folks. Kings of Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton both condemned the urinary actions by our fighting-for-freedom Marines and did what these proper government folks always do….announced that there would be an investigation.

Defense Secretary, Kings of Leon Panetta didn't just condemn the urination patrol….

“I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” Panetta has ordered an investigation into the matter.

"in the strongest possible terms." Well, that makes all the difference in the world then.

Nothing much will come of any "investigation" into this incident…..and that is the exact reason there will be an investigation….so that nothing much will be done about this embarrassing situation.

Or is it an embarrassing situation? At least one CNN contributor thought it was a situation to be very proud of….

Dana Loesch: OK, stop this right here. Stop this right here.

Can someone explain to me if there's supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a Taliban fighter? Someone who was — as part of an organization murdered over 3,000 Americans? I'd drop trou and do it, too. That's me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys. Is that harsh to say?

Come on, people. This is a war.

The one thing which has changed about the American people since 9-11 is our willingness to embrace the inhumane treatment of those we call our enemies. Our first offshore gulag, Guantanamo, is still proudly open for business, indefinite detention of whomever the president claims is an enemy combatant is now the law in the free country of the U.S., government's warrantless eavesdropping on all U.S. citizens electronic communications continues every single day, the numerous incidents of U.S. military personnel conducting criminal acts of savagery, and the bipartisan enthusiasm for launching hellfire missiles from robotic drones down onto Muslim "militants", including infant, child and mother "militants" in 7 different countries.

Anyone embarrassed by any or all of those realities? Any celebrity Leaders rushing to microphones to declare any or all of those realities "inconsistent with our values?" Of course not. Why not? Because those realities accurately reflect our post 9-11 values. And that explains why Leaders like the conservative darling, Allen West (R-FL) can say to those who might question the urination circle jerk on Taliban corpses…."unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell"……he is only patriotically giving voice to the new American reality.

That new reality claims that America, alone, is entitled to do anything we want, to anyone we want, in any country we want to do it in. Anyone who complains about this new reality, whether it's complaining about U.S. soldiers executing, at pointblank range, an entire family including an infant, mother and grandmother, and then calling in an airstrike to cover their savagery….or it's complaining about U.S. soldiers stalking, and then raping an underage Muslim girl and then killing her and her family…or it's moaning and bitching over funtime videos of fellow U.S. freedom fighters urinating on the corpses of Taliban members…..anyone who complains about any of it is automatically acting unpatriotic just by complaining.

Other Leaders, say, like Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, do what they do best in a post 9-11 American values period…..feign outrage at U.S. Marines circle-urinating on Taliban corpses….by reminding us that such circle-urination, or at least taking videos of said fun, is very much "inconsistent with our values". Which "values" is Hillary referring to, ya' think?. Would urinating on Taliban corpses be inconsistent with our Guantanamo "values?" How about the hundreds and hundreds of Muslim women and children we have blown or burnt up since 9-11? How is urinating on dead Taliban bodies inconsistent with the "values" represented in slaughtering Muslim women and children in multiple countries?

You might think that Endless War in Muslim countries, where Muslim women and children are routinely killed by U.S. actions….you might think that offshore gulags where detainees have been rotting without due process for almost a decade….would prevent people like Hillary Clinton from bringing up anything about American "values"….if only for the sake of self-embarrassment at the obvious dissonance. But you would be mistaken. In post 9-11 America we are also post-hypocrisy, post-shame.

America is a lesser nation post 9-11. We have accepted new values. In this, Bin Laden, though dead, has won out. An insignificant Muslim man has been responsible for changing America for the worse, perhaps permanently. That's how weak America really is. It's a weakness of character, leadership and integrity. We've become a narcissistic nation in love with our own perceived-values reflection. We have become so un-self aware that we refuse to even consider the fact that the rest of the world sees post 9-11 America as an imperialistic, aggressor nation which has lost it's sense of decency and justice, yet continues to sermonize them on the so-called superiority of "American values".

Our nation's new values are the values of savages and tyrants. They are the values of the cowardly and the weak. They are the values of a nation which has fully endorsed the doctrine of "might means right."

What's worse, even though I'm typing this on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a day that celebrates hope, I don't see anything changing for the better anytime soon.

Imagine members of Hezbollah, recognized by the U.S. and Israel as a "terrorist" group, covertly entering Israel and over time assassinating a half a dozen of Israel's most distinguished science professors, one by one. James Bond movie style assassinations. Assassinations where a "terrorist" rides a motorcycle alongside a car carrying the targeted Israeli science professor and places a bomb with a magnetized base on the side of the car, and then speeds off.

If members of Hezbollah carried out such spy movie activities against Israeli science professors, is there any doubt that Israel and their lone defender in the world, the United States, would be calling those assassinations "terrorist acts?" Further, if Hezbollah extremists did such a thing wouldn't Israel and the United States be calling for reprisal the moment it happened?

According to a story out yesterday, a fourth Iranian scientist involved in Iran's nuclear program was assassinated Wednesday. The fourth. A fifth assassination attempt against the current head of Iran's atomic agency failed in November 2010.

A sixth key figure in Iran’s military program, Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, an Iranian missile expert who was charged with “ensuring self-sufficiency” in armaments, was killed in November in a huge explosion at the Bid Ganeh base outside Tehran.

Liars for hire in both Israel and the United States vehemently denied any complicity in these assassinations.

However, consider these comments by Israeli officials concerning the assassinations….

“Whoever carried out this attack, there is no doubt that it is positive, and should be seen as such,” the official said.

“I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear.”

On Tuesday, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

“Many bad things have been happening to Iran in the recent period,” said Mickey Segal, a former director of the Israeli military’s Iranian intelligence department. “Iran is in a situation where pressure on it is mounting, and the latest assassination joins the pressure that the Iranian regime is facing.”

Keep in mind here that there is still no evidence that Iran is working towards building nuclear weapons. None. Iran still claims that their pursuit is for energy purposes.

Also keep in mind that Israel, the nation who is most likely responsible for all the Iranian scientist assassinations, has somewhere between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons stockpiled. Iran has none.

In spite of there being no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, rigid sanctions have been placed on the Iranian government and the Iranian people by "non-terrorist" nations. Iranian banks have been hardest hit by these sanctions. Before the U.S. attacked Iraq in 2003, Iraq had suffered under a decade of such harsh economic sanctions. Iraq didn't have nuclear bomb capabilities either….even though many, many bloodthirsty westerners made that claim.

What about the question of whether or not Israel should be considered a "sponsor of terror" or a "terrorist nation" for conducting targeted assassinations against select Iranian nuclear scientists? Is Israel in a declared war with Iran? If not, what should assassinating five important scientists inside Iran be called? Freedom fighting? Self-defense?

Ever since George W. Bush floated his "axis of evil" nonsense, including Iran in the trio of nations marked for invasion and/or regime change, it has only been a matter of when the U.S. and Israel, and any other weak European nations the U.S. can blackmail into helping them, will launch their attack into Tehran.

What seems odd to me is that all of this is considered part and parcel of some fictitious "war on terror."

So I ask….based on the five successful Israeli terrorist assassination attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists….carried out inside Iran……who is the "terrorist nation" or "nations?"

Who was the terrorist nation when Israeli commandos assassinated unarmed, humanitarian volunteers on Turkish flotillas? Who was the terrorist nation when Bebe ordered the slaughter of Gazans in late 2008?

And now, who is the terrorist nation…the state sponsor of terror…in the assassinations of five Iranian nuclear scientists?

Not a trick question.

Many times I've heard Village spokespeople rhetorically ask…why did we go into Iraq? Why the Iraq war? These Village talking heads know the answer to that question, but in typical Village fashion, cannot explain it to the unwashed masses because then people like Bill Kristol, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) gang….all respected Villagers themselves…would be embarrassed, put on the spot, perhaps even arrested. Village members simply can't be treated that way.

So Village media personnel act as if the reason the U.S. attacked the non-threatening nation of Iraq is still a mystery….something better left to future historians. Sure, Villagers will tell us that WMD were not found there, lots of people died, Saddam was killed and so forth….but corporate media, to this very day, still refuses to explain the real reason why we invaded Iraq.

Perhaps corporate media Villagers missed this from General Wesley Clark in 2007…..

After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark went on to relate a conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991….

Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

The answer to the question, why did we attack and occupy Iraq beginning in 2003?…is found in the long wishlist of a handful of hyper-hawks who make up the membership of PNAC, and apparently, much of the leadership of our military-industrial complex.

The following people signed on to PNAC's "statement of principles" in the 90's…..recognize any of the names?

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

After 9-11, with so many PNAC members working for the Bush administration, it doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out what happened. PNAC members took 9-11 as the opportunity they had been praying for….a "new Pearl Harbor event"….and the rest, as they say, is history.

The obvious problem with all of this is that no one bothered to explain to the American people why the PNAC'ers inside the Bush administration were leading us into what they were leading us into. Instead, the Bushies made stuff up to scare us with….WMD, al-Qaeda affiliation, etc. And the reason is obvious. The American people were rightfully exercised over 9-11…..but would the American people agree to accept a "long war" of middle east conquest and domination meant to pre-empt any future enemies from controlling the shipping lanes and valuable resources under the sands of the middle east?

The Bushies decided to make stuff up rather than explain what the PNAC Brotherhood was really up to. They calculated that they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted by tricking the American people and Congress using fear and lies…..and it worked.

This all helps in explaining recent comments by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman over President Obama's removal of U.S. military forces inside Iraq. To the neo-cons who understand and embrace the principles of U.S. Empire as outlined by PNAC….leaving Iraq is, like W. said, "the only reason we could lose Iraq is if we leave"

The purpose of invading Iraq was to initiate the PNAC middle east policy of endless war. It was to begin with Iraq and spread, as Wolfowitz clearly told Wesley Clark, to at least 7 countries there. According to the PNAC outline, the U.S. was to dismantle regimes, set up U.S. military bases and proceed to project U.S. power throughout the region.

Neo-conservatives still dominate our foreign policy and defense departments. And now they have set their sights on Iran.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered his White House thugs to go after Daniel Ellsberg for making public the Pentagon Papers. The Papers were quite an embarrassment to Nixon's White House. Nixon responded by beginning a campaign "against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally." Part of that campaign we know now as the Watergate burglary. Watergate eventually led to President Nixon's resignation.

Today, I feel sympathy for Nixon. Not because he wasn't a deeply disturbed and lawless Republican President…he was….but because, if he were president today, Nixon would have had the liberty to simply 'disappear' Daniel Ellsberg. Watergate would have never been necessary, and Nixon could have finished out his second term without having to resign in humiliation.

Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, President Obama threatened to veto the 2012 Defense Authorization Act if the bill constrained the presidency in any way from…"collecting intelligence, incapacitating dangerous terrorists, and protecting the American people"…..in whatever way the Commander in Chief determined.

Now, Obama has withdrawn his veto threat.

The counterterrorism section of the bill….

…states that the entire world, including American soil, is a battlefield in the war on terror. It expands the U.S. military’s authority to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, even citizens, suspected of aiding terrorists.

The Defense Authorization Bill will finally legalize the illegal practices we have been practicing as a nation for over 10 years now. Indefinite detention without due process, even for U.S. citizens…..a "world war" where no corner of the earth is immune from U.S. military attack or invasion, and an expansion of the totally bogus "war on terror" broadening it to include "supporters" of "terrorism"…..and allowing the president to decide what that all means.

For those who generally support President Obama's presidency, as I do, make no mistake……it was President Obama, himself, who fought to include U.S. citizens in his indefinite detention without due process powers. It is President Obama who wanted to include U.S. citizens as possible Gitmo permanent detainees. It is President Obama who fought to include suspected U.S. citizens as potential defendants in military trials.

Listen carefully to what Carl Levin (D-MI) said from the Senate floor….

It was the "White House" who demanded the removal of language in Section 1031 of the bill which would exclude U.S. citizens from indefinite detention without civilian trials. It was President Obama, the same man who repeatedly denounced Bush/Cheney lawlessness before being elected president, who is now responsible for "legalizing" and even expanding that same lawlessness.

Signing this Defense Authorization Bill will be Obama's lowest moment as president and will surely set the stage for a future president to become a full-fledged military dictator, untethered from the clear legal restrictions outlined in the Constitution. Yet another example of how America is giving up on it's 200+ year democracy.

And so today, The Reverend has a bit of sympathy for former President Richard Nixon. You see, if Nixon could have only claimed the powers that President Obama is claiming today, he could have simply declared Daniel Ellsberg and editors of the New York Times as "enemy combatants", or "terrorists". Nixon could have had whomever his political enemies of the 70's were….picked up by military police and sent to Guantanamo or indefinitely detained without trial in some foreign hellhole of a prison…maybe even assassinated.

Watergate would have never happened and Nixon would have never had to resign the presidency…..if only he had boldly demanded the presidential powers which Obama claims today. After all, wasn't the Soviet enemy much more of a threat to the Homeland than box-cutter-wielding, stateless, Islamic extremists?

To Republicans who rejoice in my criticisms of a Democratic president….I would point out the support you gave Bush/Cheney in defending their limitless claims of power in illegally waging their contrived and bogus "war on terror." To Democratic voters who support President Obama….I would challenge any excuses offered up in defense of what is very obviously an unconstitutional power grab by this president.

And finally…..I ask all readers to give some thought to a potential Newt Gingrich presidency. A Gingrich presidency with almost limitless unilateral power to round up, incarcerate without charge or trial, and detain indefinitely in Guantanamo prison…U.S. citizens who a President Gingrich, alone, would declare to be "enemies of the state."

Oddly, all this doesn't look like "liberty" and "freedom" to me…..but one thing is for sure….Nixon would have loved it.

Agreement between congressional Republicans and Democrats, authentic bipartisanship, is rarely witnessed today. But there is one part of U.S. policy where the D's and the R's completely agree. Endless war and indefinite detention…even of U.S citizens. Yesterday the Senate passed a $662 billion defense bill 93-7. Nothing passes the Senate by such a wide margin any more. The Senate action is a clear illustration of what our Leadership holds dear. Unquestioned bipartisan approval to fund America's Worldwide Empire…..and to continue, indefinitely, our worldwide "war" against a tactic.

American Leadership stands united on one thing and one thing only….waging endless war against radicalized Islam. "The Long War." A doubling of defense spending has not been enough to bring the unsophisticated and stateless extremists to justice. Ten years of killing, ten years of bombing, ten years of expanding the Empire into many middle eastern nations has not been enough for our Leaders. We must press on to finally destroy the tactic of killing one's self in order to kill and terrify others. An accomplishment that is entirely impossible to attain.

Inside the lengthy defense spending bill, in section 1031, Congress has laid out new detention of detainee guidelines which include indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens without the muss and fuss of constitutional guarantees against depriving U.S. citizens of due process. Guantanamo is not just for foreigners anymore…..

Sen.(Rand) Paul: “My question would be under the provisions would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely.”

Sen. McCain: “I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat.”

Here’s what Sen. (Lindsey) Graham said in the Senate on Nov. 17:

“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

For those who actually still believe that our government Leaders are prohibited from depriving citizens of their constitutional rights….as Ron Paul and I do….here's the Doc's take…

Rep. Ron Paul calls this bill “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.” He says it’s “destructive of our Constitution.”

And Ron's son…

His son Sen. Rand Paul says, “There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state – our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”

Well, Rand…the "terrorist have won". But really…hasn't that been clear for a long time now? Box cutter wielding international criminals have forced the U.S. to take once-guaranteed rights away from every American citizen. Our Leaders over the last 10 years have convinced us that sacrificing our rights is part and parcel of the way we'll "defeat the enemy."

The Pauls, especially Ron, have given the neo-cons in his party and in the Democratic Party a fit. He's a thorn in the side of Empire Expanding Neo-Cons because he keeps bringing up that "goddamn piece of paper" which used to be the American contract, the American charter. But as yesterday's vote proves, our Leaders no longer view the Constitution as binding.

If the Senate bill is reconciled in the House and signed by Obama (he has threatened a veto, probably won't)….any U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, who the President deems an enemy combatant, and only on his say so….can be taken into custody and transferred to Guantanamo prison and possibly never heard from again. And that's if the President at the time doesn't order that citizen's assassination first. No trial, no charges, no lawyers, no due process…..nothing. Indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen and without any thread of due process as guaranteed under the "goddamn piece of paper."

So while the Village continues to stoke the bogus argument every day that Obama and the Democrats are orchestrating a huge government takeover of all things involving economics…..Democrats and Republicans are working together to…well…orchestrate a huge government takeover of our Constitutional rights.

If TEA Party supporters were as diligent at protecting citizens from the threat of indefinite detention without due process…as they are about protecting citizens from the threat of taking responsibility for their own health insurance…..maybe the TEAs, the ACLU and OWS could have stood together to fend off yesterday's huge governmental power grab.

Recently, Israel did something America does not do….negotiated with people they consider to be "terrorists"…..

Gilad Shalit, the Israeli sergeant who was held captive for five years by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, was released early this morning and handed over to Egyptian officals, reports said.

While there was no immediate confirmation by Israeli officals, the move appeared to be the beginning of a stunning prisoner swap in which Israel agreed to free 1,027 violent Palestinian inmates in exchange for Shalit.

Often, I have been accused of siding with the "terrorists" in the decades-long dispute between nuclear-armed Israel and, basically, unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Simply pointing out that Israel's U.S. equipped military murdered unarmed protesters, including a U.S citizen, on the Turk humanitarian flotilla at pointblank range…or explaining that Israeli helicopter gunships massacred some 600 Palestinian women and children in December before Obama was inaugurated……draws cries of anti-semitism and Israel-bashing from most conservatives critics.

Since 9-11, Muslims have been described repeatedly by American conservatives as medieval savages intent on eliminating all Jews…and then taking over the world. In America today, the word "terrorist" now only applies to Muslims. If a non-Muslim plots or commits a horrendous act of violence, one which is as violent as anything a Muslim jihadist has done…..American corporate media never labels that person a "terrorist."

The reason? Muslims are the "terrorists." No one else.

From the national hysteria over opening an Islamic Center a few blocks from Ground Zero, to the constant drumbeat over the non-existent imposition of "sharia" law, to the totally embarrassing "Muslim radicalization" congressional hearings held by Peter King (R-NY), to the new unconstitutional power of an American president to order the assassination of a Muslim U.S. citizen without due process…..the U.S. messaging has been clear. Muslims are savages bent on taking over the whole world while killing as many westerners as possible in the process. Muslims hate all non-Muslims with a bottomless hate. And it is this unexplainable hatred that Muslims have for western "freedom" which makes them different from all other religions or nations.

I've said all that in order to show you something which is particularly vile. Upon the release of Israeli Sergeant Shalit, this was written….

He’s free and he’s home in the bosom of his family and his country.

Celebrate, Israel, with all the joyous gratitude that fills your hearts, as we all do along with you.

Then round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women—those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others—and their offspring—those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god—as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.

That is what genocidal hatred looks like. As Glenn Greenwald puts it,…

"I generally avoid as unproductive Nazi comparisons in politics — especially when it comes to the Middle East – but if this isn’t a pure expression of the Nazi mindset of hatred, bigotry, dehumanization, and yearnings for genocidal extermination, then nothing is."

The shocking, or not, part of this is who wrote those vile words. They were blogged by Rachel Abrams. Who is Rachel Abrams?

Rachel Abrams is the wife of Reagan and Bush 43 neocon official Elliot Abrams, the daughter of Midge Decter and step-daughter of Norman Podhoretz, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the “Emergency Committee for Israel,” the group founded by Bill Kristol and run by Noah Pollack to attack any American politician displaying less than absolute fealty toward Israel.

In other words…

This isn’t from some fringe Arab-hating figure but from the heart and soul of the American neocon movement.

Elliot Abrams, Bill Kristol and Norman Podhoretz are as neo-connish as neo-cons can be. Bill Kristol is the modern father-figure for neo-conservatism….a philosophy which brought us the criminal attack of Iraq….a philosophy which is leading the U.S. into attacking Iran….a philosophy which hinders any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute…a philosophy which sets forward the proposition that America in the 21st century should exploit the ending of the Cold War by controlling the middle east, through whatever unilateral military means we determine.

However, as you can see from Mrs. Abrams blog post…..savage, vile, genocidal hatred towards Muslims also motivates these neo-cons.

Naturally though, it is only the world's Muslims who hate so bitterly and fiendishly….because Muslims, you know, are the "terrorists."

President Obama's biggest disappointment, at least to progressives, has been his, I guess, "rebirth", as a neo-conservative.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency, he made political hay out of George and Dick's offshore gulags, torture of detainees, unprovoked military attacks and occupations of countries posing no threat to America, eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, secrecy, and much more. Rightfully so. The Bush years were marked by an expansion of presidential powers in violation of the Constitution….and the worst part is, the Bushies got away with all of it…thus setting a precedent.

But now Obama has made the Bushie doctrine, his doctrine. Now, the lawlessness of the neo-con Bush regime has been made into a bipartisan, and probably permanent, national doctrine.

Obama has continued the neo-conservative and lawless foreign policies of his predecessors. What's more, Obama has expanded those lawless powers….with his shiny new lawlessness theory that the President has the power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens on only his say so.

Indeed, all the ususal-suspect neo-cons,….Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, many others….have heaped high praise on Obama the Neo-con….especially because Obama ordered the assassination of the U.S. citizen, Awlaki. It's worthy of remark that the only policy with which neo-con renegades from the Bush administration agree with Obama is on Obama's embrace of neo-con lawlessness.

That said….and with the understanding that American neo-cons have long ago targeted Iran for takeover…..it's interesting to see the Obama administration, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, hellbent to make something huge out of the recent allegations of an assassination plot by two Iranians against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

(AG Eric) Holder called the bomb plot a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. And Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "We will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground."

Behold the double standard. Or is it simply a total lack of self-awareness?

Since 9-11-2001, the United States government has declared that the entire globe is a "battlefield" where U.S. military forces have the perfect right to wage war just about any way they see fit. In other words, at the same time that DOJ officials are claiming that "other countries" cannot be permitted to "use our soil as a battleground"….U.S. officials have claimed the unique right among all nations…to "use the soil" of any country as our "battlefield."

Chalk it up to "American exceptionalism"….or blindness….or whatever. The point becomes: do as we say, not as we do.

Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their enemies and kill them wherever they're found?

Other than simply chanting very loudly…U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A…..in order to drown out those objecting to such an obvious double standard….the U.S. really cannot argue convincingly that we, of all nations, are the only ones who are allowed to use the soil of foreign countries to conduct military adventures against our "enemies."

Why is it that the U.S., alone, should have the power to wage war against alleged enemies anywhere we choose to wage that war…..yet other nations shouldn't also have that power?

The L.A. Times editor finishes with a huge understatement…

The world is unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not.

Ya' think?

If you really want to find out what this alleged Iranian plot to off a Saudi ambassador is about….read Glenn Greenwald's excellent take. Here's a description by folks who knew the alleged plotter which describes him as hapless….just like many of the others whom U.S. officials have coaxed into staging a plot against the U.S., and then later, announced how safe those officials had kept us by breaking up a domestic plot they, themselves, nurtured into existence.

But the ass-kicker of the day on this story goes to President Obama,…

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” Obama said.

If the similarity between how N. Korea and Iran operate is….."a willingness…to break international rules, to flout international norms…"….then, the United States of America operates in a similar fashion to N. Korea and Iran.

What else could violating the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(s) be called? I mean other than operating similarly to Iran or N. Korea?

How about Guantonomo? Our offshore, secret, prisons? Isn't there a "great similarity" between the U.S. and N.Korea and Iran concerning gulags?

How about the American violation of international norms prohibiting attacking a sovereign nation (Iraq) which poses no threat to the U.S? Hell, Iran doesn't even do stuff like that….only the U.S.

Obama may think he is standing strong by talking all Cheney-like over this most recent ginned-up emergency. But the rest of the world's occupants who heard Obama's words yesterday recognize the gargantuan double standard and lack of self-awareness contained in his words.

There are three notable political events this week. Tonight is the first Republican presidential candidates' debate since the new Tea Party extremist, Texas Governor Rick Perry, entered the race. Look for Villagers in the media….no matter how poorly Praying Perry performs tonight….to gush uncontrollably over the gunslinging Texan.

Tomorrow night will be President Obama's address to Congress. Because Obama is in full campaign mode now, I actually expect him to say all the right things….Republicans are hopelessly obstructionistic, and GOP "ideas" to fix the nation's economic woes have already proven to be utter failures.

Let me rephrase, the GOP has no new ideas for the economy. Republicans have but one idea….tax cuts. And as we've seen in the last ten years….tax cuts, especially when given to our richest citizens…..do not generate jobs. The other idea that Republicans have is to cut government spending. But, cutting government spending is actually only a corollary of the GOP's only idea…tax cuts. The purpose of cutting spending, as far as Republicans are concerned, is to be able to provide deeper tax cuts for, primarily, our richest citizens.

An example of this would be Mitt Romney's recently released "jobs plan".

"America should be a job machine: jobs being created all the time, people looking for employees to join their enterprises," he said.

Sure, Mitt….we agree….and how do you propose to turn America into a job machine?

He would seek a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent, eliminate the estate tax and undo the 2010 health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama.

If that's a jobs plan….I'm Bill Gates.

Expect President Obama to address GOP "ideas", like Romney's, for the foolishness that those "ideas" truly are. I also expect the President to remind viewers of how Paul Ryan's Roadmap to Ruin and Governor Rick Perry's nullification mentality would scrap Medicare and replace it with a Wall Street directed, for-profit privatization plan which would give American seniors less for more.

No matter what Obama says, or sets forward as a reality-based plan to increase employment, Republicans are never going to agree to any of it. The top priority for Republicans, as their almost-three year campaign to obstruct everything demonstrates, is to limit the Democratic president's stay in the White House to four years.

The third event this week is the commemoration of 9-11. This being the 10 year "anniversary", I fully expect the Villagers, and all the usual suspects who are always wrong, to be in full peacock preening mode.

No matter the amount of rah-rahing done by the sickening Beltway Bullsh*tters…..there is no doubt in my mind that the United States is worse off 10 years removed from 9-11.

Let me explain.

We are worse off economically. The reason we are worse off financially is because of the hysterical overreaction of our leaders following 9-11.

The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade.

As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military spending has increased from 3.1% in 2001 to 4.8% last year.

Not only has our defense spending doubled since 9-11, but "defense industry profits have nearly quadrupled, approaching $25 billion last year."

Remember…..all of this spending…and profit-making…was because of a couple of thousand anarchist-extremists scattered throughout middle eastern nations.

In addition to the doubling of the defense budget since 9-11, the United States has also more than doubled its spending on the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security. From $22 billion for the same agencies in 2001 to $55 billion today.

Furthermore, civilian intelligence agencies are now spending $55 billion per year….almost double the $30 billion we spent in 2001.

What's odd about this explosion of, you know, big government spending,….is the fact that very little is ever heard from our self-appointed Tea Party national hall monitors about…well…this explosion in big government spending. $350 billion per year of additional spending on chasing less than two dozen radicals, $33 billion more on defending the Homeland, whateverthehell that is supposed to mean, and $25 billion more for domestic-spying and eavesdropping programs, both a clear and present violation of several Constitutional guarantees. That adds up to over $400 billion more being spent now on various and sundry "keeping us safe" programs than we spent before 2001.

All of that wasted money….all of those dead and wounded bodies….all of our military occupations and operations in middle eastern countries….have made us less safe from Muslim extremists. The very reason radicalized Muslims want to kill themselves in order to kill Americans is because 1) we side with Israel's apartheid program in Gaza and 2) America thinks it has the right to interfere, militarily, in primarily-Muslim nations.

So not only have we damaged our own country economically by our hysterical, and in some cases, cynical, overrreaction to 9-11…but we have also damaged ourselves security-wise by actually creating more Muslim extremists because of our even larger military footprint in Muslim nations.

What Americans should be told this weekend…but of course won't be….is that after 10 years of hysterical reactions by our "leaders" following 9-11….we are worse off as a country. Though Osama bin Laden is dead…his plan to bankrupt the United States and make us weaker is….how would Charlie Sheen put it?….winning.

Also worth reading.

I give credit to the Akron Beacon Journal for including this story in today's paper.

With an all volunteer military and a compromised and corrupt national media, Americans don't often hear the truth about our numerous military adventures in foreign lands. I guess it's just easier that way. If Americans were kept informed about our many wars, there probably wouldn't be enough time to cover Christine O'Donnell's and Sarah Palin's on again, off again, invitation to speak at yet another gathering of the extremely unpopular Tea Party nihilists.

Again, thanks to WikiLeaks, and no thanks to those seasoned corporate workers often called "journalists", there is additional information on how our military marauders have been conducting wars in our name. Not many will give a damn, one way or the other, of course…..hey, it's football season again….but I think the WikiLeaks information helps to explain why it is that those medieval tribalists and Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and whereverthehellelse……..you know, hate us and would want to hurt us.

Here is how you are being represented by the U.S. military…

US forces had committed a heinous war crime during a house raid in Iraq in 2006, wherein one man, four women, four children, and one infant were summarily executed, a State Department diplomatic cable released last week by WikiLeaks revealed.

The cable excerpts a letter written by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, addressed to then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

American troops had approached the home of Faiz Harrat Al-Majma’ee, a farmer living in central Iraq, to conduct a house raid in search of insurgents in March 2006.

“It would appear that when the MNF (Multinational Forces) approached the house,” Alston wrote, “shots were fired from it and a confrontation ensued.” Afterwards, “troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, (aged 28), his wife Sumay’ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther (aged 24), their three children Hawra’a (aged 5) Aisha ( aged 3) and Husam (5 months old), Faiz’s mother Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali (aged 74), Faiz’s sister (name unknown), Faiz’s nieces Asma’a Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 5 years), and Usama Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 3 years), and a visiting relative Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi (age 23) were killed during the raid.

Alston’s letter reveals that a US airstrike was launched on the house presumably to destroy the evidence, but that “autopsies carried out at the Tikrit Hospital’s morgue revealed that all corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed.”

Think about it. Shooting little children in the head at pointblank range…one of them 5 months old. Our military "representatives" coldbloodedly murdered tiny children and then called in airstrikes to coverup the evil that they had done. American exceptionalism? You decide.

And for those who might think that this incident was simply a one-off….

The details revealed in the cable offer a valuable insight into how many of these house raids turn out. The raids, often carried out in the middle of the night, have become one of the primary strategies of the US war in Afghanistan, with tens of thousands orchestrated just in the last year.

Is there any question why "they" hate us? Is there any question about why some youthful Afghanis, or Iraqis, or Pakistanis would want to do damage to the United States? What would you want to do to foreign occupiers who pointed guns at the heads of 5 year olds, 3 year olds, and 5 month olds….and calmly pulled the trigger?

Sick enough to your stomach yet?

Oh, but Reverend, that incident was way back in 2006….we don't do stuff like that anymore….

In one notable and comparable incident in February 2010, US Special Operations Forces surrounded a house in a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan. Two civilian men exited the home to ask why they had been surrounded and were shot and killed. US forces then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten children, a pregnant mother of six children, and a teenager).

Instead of calling in an airstrike to hide the evidence, US troops, realizing their mistake, lied and tampered with the evidence at the scene. The initial claim, which was corroborated by the Pentagon, was that the two men were insurgents who had “engaged” the troops, and the three murdered women were simply found by US soldiers, in what they described as an apparent honor killing. Investigations into the incident eventually forced the Pentagon to retract its initial story and issue an apology.

Coldbloodedly murdering 2 pregnant Afghani women and a teenager might be what American presidents consider keeping us safe. I consider them executions of the most horrific kind.

"They" hate us because we occupy their lands and execute their tiny children, pointblank. They hate us because we shoot rockets down on their bridal parties, incinerating all participants in what was to be a joyous occasion. They hate us because we insist on setting up permanent military bases in their countries in order to project more killing power throughout the middle eastern region.

We kill people. That's what America does. We don't spend 6 times more than China on "defense", and more than all other countries combined…..for nothing. And because, as we go about killing people, we execute pregnant women, incinerate entire bridal parties, and pointblank, blow off the heads of 5 month olds…..I'm here to tell you….THAT'S why they hate us.

We know now that the Oslo, Norway terrorist-murderer is a right wing, anti-Muslim, Christian nationalist.

In online debates marks Anders Behring Breivik as well read, and one with strong opinions about Norwegian politics. He promotes a very conservative opinions, which he also called nationalist. He expresses himself strongly opposed to multiculturalism – that cultural differences can live together in a community.

Breivik has had many posts on the site Document.no, an Islam-critical site that publishes news and commentary.

In one of the posts he states that politics today no longer revolves around socialism against capitalism, but that the fight is between nationalism and internationalism. He expressed clear support for the nationalist mindset.

Anders Breivik Behring has also commented on the Swedish news articles, where he makes it clear that he believes the media have failed by not being "NOK" Islam-critical.

Elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that the murderer had a keen affection for anti-Muslim American screedist, Pam Gellar….she of the "no mosque at Groud Zero" infamy.

Brievak's philosophy would fit in very nicely on several Fox news programs, both radio and teevee. The anti-Muslim conservatives in America and this mass murderer from Norway hold similar beliefs. That doesn't make anti-Muslim Americans murderers or terrorists….it just puts them in the same ideological camp.

So commonplace has American anti-Muslim rhetoric become…not anti-jihadist rhetoric but anti-Muslim rhetoric, that conservative "journalists" in mainstream American media immediately blamed the bombing and youth camp murders in Norway on al-Qaeda….

We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra. Prominent jihadists have already claimed online that the attack is payback for Norway’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

"in all likelihood"

Here is what kneejerk journalism, seasoned by never-ending Muslim bashing by Americans and American media, looks like….

Moreover, there is a specific jihadist connection here: “Just nine days ago, Norwegian authorities filed charges against Mullah Krekar, an infamous al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who, with help from Osama bin Laden, founded Ansar al Islam – a branch of al Qaeda in northern Iraq – in late 2001.”

The author, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, was ready to take the case to trial. She already had al-Qaeda Muslim fingerprints all over the terrible crime…and had even established motive.

Then comes the warning to any of us out here in America who still aren't taking Sharia and the Caliphate seriously enough….

This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.

That is followed by a quote from a representative of the American Enterprise Institute….an organization who can never support enough wars against Muslim nations….

“There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”

Glenn Greenwald succinctly describes America's kneejerk assumptions that all tragic events are carried out by Muslims…..

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama — “It’s a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring” and “we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks” — appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

David Dayen, the best blogger at FireDogLake.com further explains…

These assumptions, cultivated through the last 10 years, are all the more insidious when you consider that, even after the affirmative ID of the perpetrator as a Norwegian nationalist, the NYT still intimated that the attacker somehow “learned” from Al Qaeda. They even intimated that it was OK to consider that “terrorists” would be responsible, as if a Norwegian shooting up a youth camp is somehow not an act of terrorism. They were not alone: the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial, which made it into some early editions of the paper, reflected the assumption of Islamic terrorism.

This is a damaging side-effect of the 9-11 attacks. Ten years later, an entire religious group, representing 1 billion people worldwide, is for too many people synonymous with violence and terror, at total variance with the facts in many cases. And the rush to judgment followed by the rush to avoid judgment is depressingly familiar

The anti-Muslim hysteria in the United States, promoted primarily by American conservatives, has left a permanent mark. As the Professional media's response to the Norwegian tragedy demonstrates, we are an uglier nation because of it.