Lots of folks are hammering Obama for not going to Paris for the march this past weekend. I think he is getting a bum rap. There was no excuse for the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. But the event turned into a Parade of Political Hypocrites with a vanload of repressive politicians hijacking the event to burnish their own image. It was a farce to see so many enemies of the media parading like devotees of freedom of speech. Here is an excellent cartoon by Guido Fawkes that captures the sordid records of some of the lead participants.
Here’s a Democracy Now episode with Jeremy Scahill discussing the hypocrisy.
Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com had a hard-hitting column that also nailed this issue very effectively.
Here is an excellent piece by Robert Fisk in the Independent on how the roots of last week’s terrorist attack stretch back to the brutal civil war in Algeria that began in 1954.
I don’t recall any big hullabaloo in France after the French government killed boatloads of civilians in its unprovoked bombing campaign against Libya, joined by Britain and later by the U.S. And few people are holding the French government culpable for the civil war that they helped unleash in Syria.
When the State kills people, it’s for their own good. So it doesn’t count. What most murderers are guilty of is not actually “murder,” it’s “impersonating a State without a license.”
For a value of “State” that includes “approval by other States who will kill me if they disapprove.” So long as the good ol’ boys club approves you, you’re good to go. West Virginia? A State, despite Constitutional Rules to the contrary. Crimea? Not a State. Kosovo? A State. Libya(s)? A State. Algeria and Syria? Not really. Well, Algeria not then, but yes now. Kurdistan? A sorta-State. Abkhazia? Not a State. Catalonia and East Ukraine? Not a chance of being States.
Ya, and I figure “western Maryland” doesn’t have much chance of seceding, either.
The “impersonating a State without a license” is a great line!
The license is obviously granted by the US and depends in no small part on how many dead GIs you are willing to stack up to see the licensing process through. Further examples at North Korea and Only Vietnam. Oh, and Colombia? All Your Panama Are Belong To Us.