While protesters around the Muslim world are burning the American flag as a demonstration of their anger against U.S. and Western imperialism, U.S. leaders in Washington are busy burning the American constitution behind closed doors. Source of Picture: AP.
"Even as voices of suspicion and mistrust seek to divide countries and cultures from one another, the United States of America will never retreat from the world. Even in our grief, we will be resolute." - President Barack Obama, "Obama vows to ‘never retreat’ from world after Libya deaths," (Yahoo! News, Sept. 14, 2012).In the wake of anti-American protests across the Middle East, there has been much finger-pointing but little analysis as to why Muslims are so angry at the United States. [Hint: it isn't about the film, which was made by a U.S. government informant according to the website The Smoking Gun]. The protests have more to do with the grievances of Muslims than with anything else.
"Today many Americans are asking, indeed I asked myself, 'How could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate? In a city we helped save from destruction?'" - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "Hillary Clinton: How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?" (Washington Examiner, Sept. 12, 2012).
The best analysts who are asking the hard questions about the effects of U.S. policy in the Middle East and trying to find solutions to end the violence against the U.S. are Tony Cartalucci, Glenn Greenwald, Webster Tarpley, Nile Bowie, and Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett. These are the voices of reason in a world that is submerged in craziness.
Flynt Leverett, a former member of the National Security Council, explained in an interview on Al Jazeera that U.S. policy is the source of Muslim anger at America, saying:
"If it hadn’t been this film, it would have been something else that triggered an outburst—a manifestation of very, very deep-seated, longstanding resentment in Arab and Muslim societies about many important aspects of American foreign policy toward the region. When Americans think about this, they will tend to want to say that this a cultural issue—that there is something about Islam or that Arabs are insufficiently modernized to be able to keep something like this film in proper perspective. I think that it’s Americans who are having a cultural problem here, and who aren’t really able to keep things like this film in proper perspective. The proper perspective, at least from the vantage of the Muslim world, is that the United States has been, for many years now, an aggressive and a repressive force in the region. That’s the way the United States is perceived; every serious public opinion poll in the region would show that. And until the United States is prepared to come to terms with that reality, its own strategic position in this region is going to continue to decline precipitously." [Source: Race for Iran, "Flynt Leverett on the Real Drivers of Anti-American Protests in the Arab and Muslim Worlds," Sept. 16, 2012. Also, Flynt Leverett makes the same argument in this video].For those of us who live in reality it is a no-brainer that the actions of the U.S. government in the Middle East are what make people hate the United States. It is rational (and long overdue) for Muslims to protest against the United States government in several cities. People who don't live in reality, such as President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are irrationally arguing that the protests against the U.S. has to do solely with an anti-Islam film. Are they serious?
For Clinton to say, "How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?" is outrageous. Imagine if President Bush had told the Iraqi people in April 2004, "Why do you hate us so much? We sacrificed American lives to liberate you from Saddam Hussein, where is the love? Where are the flowers we were promised?"
People who make those kind of statements are divorced from reality. It is unreasonable for an empire to expect to be loved by its subjects. Did Roman generals ever expect their victims to fall in love with them? No, because they were rational and honest about who they were. By contrast, American leaders are irrational and dishonest. They like to think that the U.S. empire is a force for good in the world, and they've convinced many Americans to believe this fallacy, to the detriment of their spiritual health and mental well-being.
President Obama also made a disturbing comment in response to the protests in the Middle East. He said, "the United States of America will never retreat from the world." What does this mean? Will America use military force against Iran to remain the lone superpower in the world?
No one is asking America to "retreat from the world." American technology and ingenuity is at the heart of the global economy, and the world would be worse off without America's economic brilliance. What people are saying is, "stop the drone attacks, stop the invasions, stop the bombings, stop the aggression, and stop the occupations." What is Obama's answer to this?
It is impossible for any country to retreat from the world. Not even North Korea is fully isolated, because at the end of the day they are humans like the rest of us. The U.S. empire wants to categorize certain nations as "rogue," but the biggest rogue entities in the world are the U.S. empire and Israel.
The greatest thing about America is the American idea, and that will never leave the world. American culture has shaped the world for the better, and America isn't about to leave the world. So what the hell does Obama mean? His rhetorical nonsense is evidence of the destruction of reason in the United States.
Many people have noted that since the false flag events on 9/11 the White House has clearly gone insane. There is a black hole at the center of U.S. foreign policy, and it is sucking down U.S. money and lives in a never ending cycle of destruction and war.
President Obama, like Bush and Clinton, is an empty shell of an American President. Obama is a ghost in a machine. Upon taking office, U.S. presidents leave their unique personalities at the door and transform into a role similar to an ancient priest, who deliver soothing words to calm anxieties in a collapsing society and reinforce dying myths.
President Obama thought words were enough to win the hearts and minds of humanity, but the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the latest protests in the Muslim world prove that policies matter. Obama's credibility as a reformist president is hard to defend when he is following President Bush's policies at home and abroad. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett describe the failure of President Obama to deliver on his promise of change in U.S. policy in the Middle East, writing:
"Flynt takes on these arguments, starting with the notion that “Obama really tried to put things on a better footing in the Muslim world.” There were, he reminds, “a couple of high-profile speeches in Obama’s first year in office. In terms of his policies in the region, he is basically pursuing George W. Bush’s policies in the region—except on some things like the use of drones to kill people in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan, he has doubled down on the Bush administration’s policies. And polls would show that, after a very brief bump in U.S. standing after Obama was elected, people saw what his administration actually did, and the popularity of the U.S. is, by some polls, even lower today than it was when Bush left office.”"For more about President Obama's much talked about "outreach" to the Muslim world, see this, and this.
II. What Is More Offensive -- The Burning of The American Flag, or The Destruction of The American Constitution?
While protesters around the Muslim world are burning the American flag as a demonstration of their anger against U.S. and Western imperialism, U.S. leaders in Washington are busy burning the American constitution behind closed doors.
Which act is more offensive?
It is a silly question, I know. Destroying the greatest constitution ever written is much more radical, offensive, and disgusting than Muslim protesters who burn the American flag because they don't have the strength to do anything else. Burning flags is a not a demonstration of power. It is a collective expression of a natural human sentiment, "Hey, look at us world, we're humans, too, so respect us."
American flag-burners do not pose a threat to the security of the American people. There is no reason to get mad over somebody burning your flag, especially when you live in the strongest country in the world. Only children are offended by such a thing. Americans only should get mad when another country burns down a U.S. city (just ask an Iraqi what that feels like).
Americans proved in WWII that America is the greatest fighting nation in the world. When called upon to fight, Americans respond. No country is stupid enough to repeat the mistakes of Japan and Germany and initiate aggression against the United States.
The problem is that in the post-Soviet Union world the U.S. empire has gone crazy. It has forgotten that there are limits to military power. In less than 25 years, the Wall Street-owned U.S. government has committed aggression against multiple innocent countries and angered the whole world as a result, with the exception of Israel whose desperate leaders want to use U.S. power to accomplish what they cannot alone.
An illegal and immoral attack against Iran would isolate America from the world, and force Obama to eat his words about never retreating from the world. America can restore its image in the Muslim world in a heartbeat simply by rebuilding ties with Iran in its current Islamic form.
