Memorial Day in the United States is a time for hot dogs, overcooked burgers, too much beer, and a massive dose of militaristic patriotism.
It is also a good time for Americans to begin thinking seriously of who should be elected president this November.
This year, President Obama kept his focus on his own reelection campaign and, at the same time, announced himself as the US warrior president. The president has apparently decided a warrior president is a better image to project for his re-election in a downward spiraling economy.
Don't take my word for it. Check out a story released on Memorial Day. It was orchestrated by the Obama White House for the New York Times. The story appeared in the Times' internet edition on Memorial Day, and in the print edition the next day.
With the help of White House operatives, past and present, the Times portrays the president as a man carrying the heavy moral burden of deciding when a US-desginated suspected terrorist will die in a drone attack.
Since many of these US-designated suspected terrorists are frequently killed in their homes in crowded communities, others die in the attack, including, at times, women and children. On one recent occasion, the targeted victim was an American male citizen.
The Times reports that the President is given a chart with the names of potential targets:
"He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be .
"Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding 'kill list,' poring over terrorist suspects' biographies on what one official calls the macabre 'baseball cards' of an unconventional war."
This is an "unconventional war," as the Times puts it. It is also an unprecedented war, which would not be considered a war at all, except for the steps taken by President George W. Bush after September 11, 2001. After the attacks, Bush essentially declared war on Islam.
The result of this strategy was to create a national fear of Islam, both foreign and domestic, feeding the Islamophobia that was already an American reality. It also led to two wars against Middle Eastern pre-dominantly Islamic nations, Iraq and Afganistan.
What should have been and still should be, a search for the criminal gang behind 9/11, became on George Bush's watch, a holy war, a Global War on Terror (GWOT).
This global war was carried out under the tight control of a neo-conservative cabal of politicians, many of whom were strong Zionists eager to direct US military might against Israel's neighbors.
A major weapon in the GWOT is the robot-controlled drone. After the Times' Memorial Day story appeared, the Guardian commented on Obama's role in the drone attacks:
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