America’s Total War

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Published time: June 04, 2012 13:17
Edited time: June 04, 2012 17:17

President Obama promised change, but there’s little of it in his war policies, which are harsher than those of George W. Bush.US drone bombings often target not just “terrorists” but all “military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.”

“Unless there is explicit posthumous intelligence proving otherwise”, that is.

As an extensive recent report in The New York Times explains, for all practical purposes Obama is applying what can best be described as a Total War Doctrine, bringing government, military and media propaganda PsyWar under one strategy.

The concept of “Total War” – war involving not just the military but all civilians irrespective of age or sex, together with the entire infrastructure of a country – became a horrible reality during the 20th century, driven for the most part by steering scientific discoveries and technological progress towards unlimited use in warfare.Total War is very much alive today and is being spearheaded by the United States and its Allies.

This is being abetted on all fronts by US, European and global mainstream media that willingly oblige.In the case of Obama’s Total War Doctrine, the media go along with US official policy, and describe the murder of innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when American democracy-building drone bombs fall, as “militant combatants”.

You see, Total War requires intense and constant psychological warfare to convince public opinion – both at home and abroad – that “our boys” fighting “to spread peace and democracy”, always do the “the right thing” by killing “the right people” who threaten America, Europe, Israel and the rest of the West; in other words, by only killing “militant terrorist combatants”.

That’s the way Orwellian Newspeak has described US-led wars since 1945 – whether fought by the US alone, or together with allies like Britain, EU countries and Israel, or by puppet proxies.The list is very long: Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Dominican Republic, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Africa, South America, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, El Salvador, Falklands, Nicaragua, Grenada, Serbia…The death-toll runs into the tens of millions and has kept rising and rising.

Who’s next?Syria, Iran? Sudan? North Korea? Venezuela?After 9/11, things went from bad to worse.

The world today is confronted with a Super-Power hegemon increasingly out-of-control that harbors a small, compact and extremely powerful group of Global Power Masters embedded deep inside US/UK/EU public and private power structures, controlling unbeatable navies and air forces, super high-tech troop armies, unmanned drones, military satellites, napalm, cluster and bunker-buster bombs, electronic surveillance, and secret weaponry like the unexplained HAARP installations.

Add to this, the tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs pointed at target countries by the small Western nuclear club – the US, UK, France and Israel – and things start looking bleak indeed.

All of it is backed by unlimited funding – both official and clandestine – in the US and Allies.And when money falls short, well… there are always “other means and sources”…Which is when spook agencies launder and recycle trillions of drug, arms and organized crime monies to finance covert and illegal operations; or when top officials engineer Iran-Contra type deals…

It all adds up to “America’s Total War” policy.Not total war against any one specific country, but against ALL countries the US, UK, France and Israel believe support “terrorists”, or that have sovereign national governments they don’t like, or – more pragmatically – countries blessed with huge oil, gas, mining, water and food reserves that the Exxons, BPs, Monsantos, Chevrons and Barrick Golds want to lay their grubby hands on, only to then recycle trillion-dollar profits through JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs, CitiCorp, HSBC, Deutsche Bank…

America’s Total War Machine costs trillions of US, UK and European taxpayer dollars and euro, to which we must add further trillions created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve and European Central Banks’ printing presses, which further erode the dollar and the euro so that, in the end, the whole world ends up paying the bill for America’s Total War through currency debasement.

America’s Total War on Terror is fought everywhere, against everyone, and has no end in sight.

Those tens of millions of naïve Americans and Europeans who thought Obama could change things ushering in a “kinder, gentler world”, should look again: when it comes to US foreign policy, there never was and there never will be any real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

So, if you happen to be just walking down the streets of some town in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and by chance stroll by a US “terrorist target” and you’re killed by a drone bomb, you are no longer a “civilian casualty”; you’re not even “collateral damage” anymore!Because – Presto! – the Obama Total War Doctrine has just turned you into a “militant terrorist combatant”.

Naturally, when drone attacks kill 30, 40 or 100 civilians the US officially brand as “militant terrorists”, they know full well that they haven’t got a clue whom they’re murdering: it could be a local pizza delivery boy, or a milkman, or a high school student, or a newspaper vendor or… what the heck!!Simply brand him/her a “militant terrorist combatant” and close the US Military’s briefing report.The Western media will anyway obediently report that more “militant terrorists” were just killed in America’s Total War on Terror (or Britain’s, or the EU’s, or Israel’s…).

And don’t you dare say that the Obama Doctrine carries no US Stars-and-Stripes style Justice: because should it later be “posthumously proven” that you we not a militant terrorist but just some guy walking his dog, then America might re-label you as a “civilian casualty”, or even “collateral damage”.Gosh, I’m feeling better already!!

When the US went into Global Total War on Terrorism mode, these inhuman, hypocritical, criminal, deadly and lying tactics became an integral part of Western-style “democracy” unleashed on our troubled world.

Today, billions of people are wondering where all this is taking us; when will it stop?

The key question is: how can we stop a group of immensely powerful countries that are way out-of-control?If we are ever to achieve some partial peace, we must first put an end to today’s Total War.

Adrian Salbuchi for RT

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar

­Disclaimer: ­The views and opinions expressed in the story are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.