The Department of Murder

When did Obama become the head of Murder Incorporated?

Malcolm X got raked by the media when he commented, in reference to the Kennedy assassination, that “the chickens have come home to roost”. He was referring to the role of the U.S. in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and the history of violent racial oppression in the American South.

How exactly does the U.S. condemn murder and assassination when it has adopted– enthusiastically– the exact same policy when dealing with whomever it chooses to define as an enemy?

The U.S. will proclaim loudly to itself– when the chickens once again, inevitably, come home to roost– that it is outraged, outraged, I say, that so-called civilized nations would resort to murder and assassination as tools of foreign policy! How dare they!

And within it’s own borders, Americans will purr contentedly that all of the mayhem they sow in revenge if justified by the angels because we are such a good, virtuous nation….

And the rest of the world will see that for exactly what it is: the rankest hypocrisy. You did it too! You’ve been bombing and droning and murdering for years, and now you’re upset that other nations said, okay, we get the idea.

Does Obama mind? You can’t be a priss, after all. Americans will forgive many things in a leader– fecklessness, moral turpitude, inconsistency– but never that he failed to show a willingness to kill on our behalf, a facility with mayhem, a willingness to converse with unspeakable cruelty, always, always, oh always, with the illusion of moral rectitude.


The fervor with which Americans indulge in patriotic pageants and parades would lead one to believe … what? Not that there’s any courage in it. All it took to get America to give up its treasured civil liberties and the principle of rule by law was one attack in one city. Most of the country went into paranoid hysterics and hasn’t recovered since. George Bush said, if I provide you with the illusion of safety will let me listen in on your phone messages without a warrant, and America said yes, yes, please yes, anything to keep us safe.

Obama said, will you re-elect me if I take it upon myself to kill people who frighten our intelligence agencies, and America said yes! And Romney said, I will save you from the Russians. And so far, America says, what?

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