Florida residents from the eastern part of Panama City Beach to Apalachicola now know what a war zone is like. Seven hundred fifty thousand people are without power and without water. Thousands of homes and commercial structures no longer exist. Mexico Beach has been more or less wiped off the face of the earth. Many areas are still inaccessible. Many people are still trapped in place because of debris and downed trees across roads.
Families searching for missing family members are at times obstructed by police trying to keep looters and gawkers out of the area and trying to save what little traffic capacity there is for emergency and repair crews. It is difficult to image people so lacking in humanity that they go to loot what little remains of the property of such damaged people.
But perhaps it is not difficult to image such people. Perhaps such people have been running US foreign policy since the Clinton regime. If you look at these photos of the damage, you will have an idea of the damage “our” government, acting in “our” name, has inflicted on eight countries since the Clinton regime: Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and the ongoing atrocity in Yemen. Anyone looking at the devastation of the Florida panhandle from Panama City to Apalachicola could think they are looking at the work of Dick Cheney and his Zionist neocon warmongers that devastated the Middle East and North Africa.
Americans are a curious people. They sent large sums of money to parents whose children were allegedly killed in school shootings, the reality of which many challenge, and they sent large sums of money to support Christine Blasey Ford for accusing Kavanagh of attempted rape. Will the compassion and empathy that responds to ideological crimes such as those ascribed to “white heterosexual victimizers,” gun owners, and illegal immigration opponents also respond to the victims of Hurricane Michael and US foreign policy?
Why is it that the liberal-progressive-left can get so upset about an alleged attempted rape 30 or 40 years ago but accept without protest Washington’s destruction of the lives, prospects, and infrastructure of millions of peoples in eight countries? Most of the immigrants about which Trump complains are people fleeing from America’s wars on their countries. If America and Europe do not want refugees, why do they engage in wars that produce refugees?
Is this simple question beyond the intelligence of Western politicians?
Are Americans aware that the latest national defense posture statement reaffirms the neoconservative priority that America prevail over the world? Do Americans understand that Washington considers Russia and China to be threats simply because they have independent foreign and economic policies? Do Americans understand that American hegemony means that no country is permitted to be sovereign?
No, of course, they don’t. The presstitute media doesn’t tell them.
Between the flag-wavers and the Democratic Party’s Identity Politics there is massive ignorance. A war with Russia and China is national suicide. A war with Iran is regional suicide. We need a government that understands this.
Copyright © 2018 Paul Craig Roberts
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
Thanks to Intrepid Report and to Paul Craig Roberts for this great article. Certain political figures selectively manufacture public outrage They whip up public anger against foreign leaders in order to gain support for war, and they stir up outrage to drive given political agendas at home. It doesn’t speak well of the American people’s capacity for caring about other human beings, since it seems the caring doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t seem to come from the grassroots up, but only happens from the top down. The “caring” is manufactured and egged on by government propaganda. As usual, the general public today is asleep when it comes to recognizing things like this. It would help if the public learned to notice when government officials are manipulating them into a frenzy of outrage to suit a political purpose, as corporate Democrats did with the Kavanaugh hearing and continue to do with a variety of other issues.