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U.S. Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat
from Michigan who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
is, we're told, a “liberal.” As with most U.S. politicians who
are so labeled, the designation is highly misleading. Many of the
worst crimes in U.S. history have been committed by alleged
“liberals.” [1]
Levin is the guy who brought us
“legalized” indefinite imprisonment (euphemized as “detention”)
for American citizens, in military gulags, without charges or trials,
so long as the government calls them “terrorists,” is at it
again. [2] Once again, using his authoritarian power
as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he has committed another
crime against human rights. This time he had rushed to rescue
military rapists. He removed an amendment from a pending bill, the
2014 “defense authorization” law that funds the military, an
amendment that was the work of a bipartisan group spearheaded by
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) designed to reform the way the
military handles sexual assault cases by taking the the power to
decide to investigate and prosecute cases out of the hands of
commanders- the people who notoriously protect the sex criminals-
just as in the Roman Catholic Church with pedophile priests- and
giving it to military prosecutors
The War Department itself admits to
26,000 sexual assaults against military members by others in the
military in the most recent year it tabulated. (Of course, as with
rape and other sexual assault in society generally, this is an
understatement of the actual frequency. Given the horrible history of
how sexual assault is dealt with in the military, which is that is
victims say anything, they are targeted for retaliation, if anything
the degree of underestimation is probably greater in the military.)
Just in the last few months we've had the spectacle of military
personnel given newly created roles to supposedly crack down on
sexual abuse themselves arrested for sex crimes. (Nothing like hiring
foxes to guard a hen house!)
The military has proven itself over the
past few years of growing scandal to be incapable of internal reform.
Reform must be imposed from without. Levin is trying to block that
reform. Like Obama, Levin's words were the opposite of his action.
Here's what this evil cynic had to say:
“We have a problem with the
underreporting of sexual assaults,” Levin said. “We have a
problem with the inadequate investigation of sexual assaults. We have
a problem with the lack of support for victims of sexual assaults. We
have a problem with retaliation, ostracism and peer pressure against
such victims. And we have a problem with a culture that has taken
inadequate steps to correct this situation.”
You'd think he was the one doing the
reforming, not blocking reform, just as the general staff and their
nominal civilian boss, War Secretary Chuck “Wagon” Hagel, wanted-
and said so publicly.
And Levin managed to top even his own
ludicrous reformer burlesque by claiming that the Gillibrand
reforms would “likely weaken” the response to sexual assaults
in the military!!
Might as well have Republicans running
the U.S. Senate. Having Democrats in some ways is worse in that it
fools people who would otherwise make a fuss.
Same as having Obama doing the dirty
work of repression keeps various liberals or whatever we should call
them, quiet.
1] For example, the “liberal”
Woodrow Wilson was a virulent racist who purged the Federal
Government of all black employees, brought us the “Espionage Act”
used to imprison dissidents then and now, took the U.S. into World
War I, and the infamous Palmer raids, a mass roundup and deportation
of thousands of leftists. Truman was a fanatical anti-Soviet crusader
who initiated the purges and repression of the misnamed “McCarthy
era.” Kennedy was the Godfather of U.S. death squad operations by
so-called “Special Forces” throughout the world, and hid a
torture training program in Latin America inside his so-called
“Alliance for Progress.” His bloody legacy lives on today. Lyndon
Johnson brought us the Vietnam War, the fascist military takeover of
Brazil, and invasion of the Dominican Republic, and vicious domestic
repression, including the use of the U.S. military for this purpose.
As best as I can tell, “liberal”
these days applies to anyone who isn't overtly racist, and/or who
isn't a social Darwinist who believes anyone who can't get rich
should be allowed to die rather than have retirement money or medical
insurance provided by the government, or who doesn't want to outlaw
women's right to control their own bodies and terminate pregnancies,
or who thinks the U.S. shouldn't be the Wild West with people packing
guns in schools, bars, churches, restaurants, everywhere, with the
right to shoot (black) people on sight in “self-defense.” Notice
that these are all “domestic” issues. There is no discernible
difference on “foreign policy” (U.S. Imperialism) except that
Republicans are always trying to raise the ante on U.S. violence and
aggression over what Democrats are bidding.
2] Levin (and the U.S.
Congress) abolished all rights for those called “terrorists,”
which he did by inserting a provision in the yearly military spending
law (officially the “National Defense Authorization Act,”- it
sounds so grand!) which President “Ignore What I Say Because I Lie,
Just Look At What I Do” Obama signed into law after pretending he
opposed it. He said not to worry, he wasn't going to use the law.
Why, he is so opposed to it that he is currently appealing a
decision by a Federal District Court judge that ruled the law
unconstitutional, in a suit brought by prospective victims including
Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges. During the trial, the government's
lawyers refused to say that the plaintiffs would not ever be thrown
into the military gulag. That is very telling, if hardly revelatory.
So there's one more example of cynical
con man Obama trying to fool people with obvious lies, delivered with
the smooth self-assurance of the practiced hustler.
Keep in mind that, contrary to the
impression the propaganda system and government strives to create, a
“terrorist” isn't necessarily a Muslim with a bomb. A terrorist
is whoever the secret police and military say is a terrorist.
The FBI says the Occupy Movement people are terrorists- and they so
(dis)informed the police departments tasked with the violent
repression of that movement. The FBI designates environmental
activists as “terrorists.” They designate certain animal rights
activists as terrorists. They just fulminated about the “terrorist
ideology” of Assata Shakur, an escaped political prison and
frame-up victim.
“Terrorists” aren't just jihadists.
Nor are they necessarily people who use force for their political
ends (as the government does). They're whoever the reactionaries who
control the repressive apparatus hate because of their political
beliefs and activities.
In fact, sometimes “terrorists” are
people with the power apparatus itself who run afoul of it for being
too conscientious, like Julia Davis, a former DHS employee [see "] or too punctilious about law and civil
rights, like William Binney, a four-decade NSA veteran.
They are quite indiscriminate about
targeting people, just as in past when the “communist” label was
used as the Mark of Cain on their victims. The number of names on
their various “terrorist” lists and the no-fly list is closing in
on one million. Well that's enough fodder to keep their “War on
Terrorism” going for decades.
They always have an excuse for
repression and Imperialism. Before “terrorism,” it was
“communism.” Before the Soviet Union existed, it was the Hun
threat to “our” hemisphere. Drugs, crimes, foreign bogeymen,
anything to create fear and loathing among the populace to march to
the establishment's martial music.
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