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Russia's RIA Novosti said Obama's NSS "is not a radical departure" from his predecessor. The document "is intended mainly for foreign consumption," and to a lesser degree for Congress. However, it's "just a piece of paper," and will anyone "take him at his word." Why, when all politicians lie, and Obama matches the best of them.
While the document denies America targets Islam, policy clearly shows otherwise abroad and at home, Muslims remaining the enemy of choice, regularly vilified to hype fear to enlist support for imperial wars and homeland repression, the same as under Bush.
Added focus also stresses homegrown threats, John Brennan, Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, saying:
"We've seen an increasing number of individuals here in the United States become captivated by extremist activities or causes....The president's national security strategy explicitly recognizes the threat (from) radicalized....individuals, including US citizens, armed with their US passport, travel(ing) to terrorist safe havens....then return(ing) to America, their deadly plans disrupted by coordinated intelligence and law enforcement."
What's going on, in fact, is America's war on Islam to incite fear, targeting innocent Muslims as convenient scapegoats to gain popular support for police state policies - Obama doing Bush one better with indefinite detentions of uncharged persons "who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States." Despots couldn't say it better.
His NSS implies no letup in the counterterrorism fight, Brennan referring to a campaign "harness(ing) every tool of American power, military and civilian, kinetic and diplomatic," including war. "We will take the fight to Al Qaeda (read Muslims) and its extremist affiliates (read Taliban, US citizens, or anyone challenging America) wherever they plot and train - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond."
Nor will we "respond after the fact. Instead the United States will disrupt, dismantle and ensure a lasting defeat of Al Qaeda and violent extremist affiliates" - a clear declaration of war on the world with America's full military and homeland security might.
What critic Andrew Bacevich calls America's standard response to perceived threats, "a normal condition, one to which no plausible alternatives seem to exist. All of this Americans (and other nations) have come to take for granted: it's who we are and what we do," and why we're increasingly hated. Governing as roguishly as Bush, Obama will end up as much despised.
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