Omar’s Motive

Written on June 30th, 2016 in politics Comments Off

Published on Counterpunch, by JAMES BRADLEY, June 27, 2016.

America doesn’t understand Orlando shooter Omar Mateen’s motive … //

… Look what happened in the wake of the 9-11 attack upon the World Trade Center: thousands of American men and women were radicalized—moved by murder from the air—after viewing images of their homeland under attack. We Americans honor their reaction as “patriotism.”

Americans will always remember 9-11, but curiously, we don’t expect other people to react in a similar, visceral, patriotic way when their homelands are bombed. President Richard Nixon discovered how to make war more palatable to American voters. When he took office in the midst of the quagmire of the Vietnam War, Nixon did something unprecedented in the history of war: he upped the killing of Indochinese, but accomplished the feat with fewer U.S. casualties. As the president withdrew U.S. ground troops from Vietnam, he dramatically increased the ferocity of the air war. As Nixon slaughtered many more people than his predecessor President Lyndon Johnson, the removal of American boots shifted the Vietnam War from the front to the back of the American mind.

Maybe we Americans have difficulty understanding the immediate and extreme reactions that dropping U.S. bombs creates because our homeland has never been carpet-bombed … //

… Millions of Muslims become aware of fellow Muslims killed by U.S. bombs via the Internet. We Americans are not allowed to see these images, so we believe the explanation of our leaders when they explain that a shooter was “radicalized over the Internet.” Our eyes never see the body parts of Muslims we’ve blown apart. So we experience the effects—like the San Bernardino and Orlando reprisals—but we are blind to the causes. As blinkered citizens, we buy the U.S. government’s obfuscating narrative, while millions of others around the world see the ugly truth.

Officials have deftly shifted our attention to the fact that Omar pledged allegiance to ISIS. In his highly emotional last hours Omar did spout a lot of contradictory nonsense, like identifying with Muslim factions who actually oppose one another. So you can pick and choose your version of this story.

Many of my American friends believe that the U.S. bombing of Muslims has nothing to do with them attacking us. If they’re right, this would be history’s first example where a bombed populace didn’t fight back … //

… (full text).

Links:

Brexit Confirms: The Center Cannot Hold, on teleSUR english, by Jerome Roos, June 28, 2016: Brexit has less to do with Britain’s relationship to Europe than it has with neoliberal elites losing control over the monsters they have created;

You are not laughing now, are you?’ Nigel Farage at European Parliament (FULL SPEECH), 6.51 min, uploaded by RT, June 28, 2016 … UKIP MEP Nigel Farage slammed the European Parliament in the first session since ‘Brexit’ in Brussels, Tuesday;

Russian president seeks closer economic and strategic ties in Beijing, on World Socialist Web Site WSWS, by Peter Symonds, June 28, 2016;
Websites: People’s World.org/on pa; Political Affairs pa/Archive;

Dirk Müller im Tagesausblick, der Brexit kommt, 9.34 min, uploaded by Cashkurs.com, June 24, 2016;

Richard Wolff: Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens, 20.19 min, uploaded by David Pakman Show, June 1, 2016 … Richard Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, and currently a visiting professor at the New School University in New York City, joins David to discuss his new book Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown 2010-2014, the fantasy so-called pure capitalism, and more;

Building a progressive majority – Left strategy after the Brexit vote, on red pepper.org, by Joseph Todd, June 2016: as the recriminations start to fly and the dust continues to swirl, two competing Brexit narratives have begun to emerge;

AUDIO: End the EU, a CIA Covert Operation – Dr. Paul Craig Roberts 2016, 60.39 min, uploaded by The Mind Renewed, May 29, 2016;

… and this:

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