Blowback is a Bitch: Why We Need To Leave Afghanistan NOW!

Memorial to the 78 victims of the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 near Paradise Beach, Barbados. The bombing was done by Venezuelan terrorists at the instigation of the CIA. The primary architect, Luis Posada Carilles, was pardoned by Bush Sr.

In a September 13, 2001 interview with the magazine In These Times, Chalmers Johnson (the author of ‘Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire’,  2000) was said to “have seen the September 11 catastrophe coming”.  Johnson’s 2000 book argued that U.S. interventionist foreign policy and military overextension would lead to unintended and unpredictable consequences. A year later, his warning seemed eerily prescient.

One caller on C-SPAN (in the wake of the attack) observed that this terrorist hit would never be understood in its full context if people disconnected between what happened and the intervening years of U.S. sponsored global terrorism that preceded it. Creating an atmosphere within which ‘blowback’ – the CIA term for unintended negative consequences of national policy– could materialize.

Now we are getting new warnings, and one wonders how many Americans are processing them or simply retiring to their self-made social media cocoons.

The appearance of Farea Al-Mulsimi before congress and then on the 'All In With Chris Hayes' show last night, ought to be a wake up call. Al-Muslimi is a friendly, ordinary guy who lived in the U.S. for years then traveled back to Yemen to try and win goodwill for the U.S. of A. Sadly, it was a non-starter thanks to repeated deadly drone attacks. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Al-Muslimi cannot see any U.S. goodness in his drone-struck village in Yemen. Nor any difference between enemy combatant and non-enemy.

The difference is something that can be contained in a secret memo. This is apparently the case no matter whom a drone strike kills and no matter where it kills them. The world is the battlefield, and the enemies are Muslims. Young men in predominantly Muslim countries are posthumously declared enemies once a drone has killed them. They must be enemies. After all, they're dead.

One wonders how this sounds to a young Muslim man who's taken to heart the lesson that violence is righteous and that war is everywhere at all times.  Do people who blow up bombs at public sporting events think all together differently from people who blow up peaceful villages in Yemen? Is one case murder and the other "killing" and hence more justifiable? (As the biblical literalists seek to argue in trying to justify certain specific instances of butchery despite the 5th commandment's 'Thou shalt NOT Kill", period.)

Or is it something more sinister, abominable and damnable? That American lives are worth much more than any others?

Well, let me be blunt: Those who engage in murder believe that murder is justified, that's all there is to it. The reasons they have, whether secret or known, are irrelevant and unacceptable. Murder is not made into something else by declaring it to be part of a war, especially when such "war" has: a) never been paid for as other wars fought (WWII), and b) no limiting parameters have been defined, either what determines a "victory" or - in its absence-  a conclusion.

Blind paper patriots (like Mikey Marine) may not like to hear this, since they're deaf, dumb and blind anyway, but with America having killed thousands of Muslim civilians in its drone strikes and wars, the expedient (secret memo) rules of exceptional (and "righteous") American terror and murder are thankfully being challenged, and not by someone who is so easily smeared- say a hard core Leftist (Socialist)  like me. Oh no!

By none other than Tom Brokaw. So if anyone wants to piss on a critic's head, let them take on Brokaw. I merely report what HE said! During Brokaw’s appearance on “Meet the Press” last Sunday, discussing revelations that the bombing suspects may be connected to Muslim fundamentalism, he said:

“We have got to look at the roots of all of this because it exists across the whole (Asian) subcontinent and the Islamic world around the world. I think we also have to examine (America’s) use of drones (because) there are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And I can tell you having spent a lot of time over there, young people will come up to me on the streets and say, ‘We love America, but if you harm one hair on the head of my sister, I will fight you forever.’ And there is this enormous rage against what they see in that part of the world as a presumptuousness of the United States.”

Well, all I can say is 'WOW!' he told it like is, no bullshit, no coddling to pander to the  consumer eye and ear that's converted most of us into infants. He dealt with us as presumably mature CITIZENS. Even more potent since it's coming from one of the corporate establishment’s own.  I mean we're talking of a guy that still believes a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK! Nonetheles, he remains one of the most venerated voices, and not prone to radical statements.

But  here's the deal and the importance of what he said: In a nation that often avoids acknowledging its own role in intensifying cycles of violence, it is unfortunately considered radical to do what the NBC News veteran did and mention that our violent attacks abroad increase the chance of retributive attacks at home. But if we keep these hidden, how can we ever change and recognize that WE also are the enemy? WE also are terrorists! We just choose to do it high tech, disengaged fashion. As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy and we are it!"

Of course, Brokaw was merely stating the obvious: With America having killed thousands of civilians in its wars, we should be rightly appalled by acts of terrorism on our shores — but we shouldn’t be surprised by them. We should know that violence will inevitably come from those like the Boston bombing suspect who, according to the Washington Post, “told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack.”

Noting this is not to argue that such attacks are justified or that we deserved them, certainly not civilians just minding their beeswax. It is only to reiterate what Brokaw alluded to: Namely, that blowback should be expected in an age in which Permanent War  is waged incessantly and no moral limits are established. 

More importantly,  the one way to potentially avert such blowback in the future is to try to deescalate the cycle of violence. As long as we are killing, all these outraged across the world will make it their job to kill us. This is also what Chalmers Johnson warned about. You simply cannot continue to do "one way" kills and expect no reprisals, no blowback.

In his 2001 interview Johnson was asked: You implied that this type of terrorist warfare seems to be the warfare of the future. I assume that you would expect to see more?

He replied:

No nation can hope to beat the United States on American terms. Therefore you must devise a strategy that essentially makes our overwhelming military capability worthless. I think they have managed to do so.

People in Washington are continually talking about declaring war—but declaring war on whom? They don't know. If they are going to go out and attack Afghanistan, it will simply produce a further cycle of blowback and retaliation. In the meantime, it will also even further inflame the entire Middle East.


We need now to stop this escalation and insanity and do it now: Get our asses out of  Afghanistan (which cause is already lost and we haven't the $$$$ to keep our planes on schedule, far less nation build) and cease all the drone attacks across the region.

We aren't killing terrorists, we are creating ever more!

Questions for John Brennan (II): About Those DRONES

Should drones like this Predator even be allowed in U.S. skies, given a GAO report that expressed doubts  about their unreliable performance and sense-and-avoid technology that could avoid collisions? It’s also been found in tests that they can be electronically ‘hijacked’!

Rachel Maddow in her Tuesday night show came forward with pointed questions on the use of drones and targeted drone kills that “keep her up at night”. She observed that these questions were originally put to John Brennan by Dem Senator Ron Wyden. Basically the questions can be summarized, as Rachel put it, with: “Can the President order you dead? How do they determine who’s the bad guy?”

This is germane, irrespective of WHO is in the White House. As a nation ruled by laws (and Obama is a former Constitutional law professor), we cannot have the executive branch doing anything it wants, without parameters. Simply declaring an American an “enemy combatant” and hence invoking a license to kill is not good enough and one could argue it violates precepts inherent in the Constitution – including the right to trial by one’s peers before execution. Hence, Rachel’s questions weren’t spawned in vacuo.

Her questions are then as follows, based on Sen. Wyden’s written questions to Brennan:

1) How much evidence does the President need to determine that a particular American can be lawfully killed?

And the ones that "keep Rachel up at night":

2) Does the President have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender before killing them?

3) Does this obligation change if the President’s determination that a particular American is a valid target has not been publicly announced or publicly reported?

As Rachel put it:

"Think about that. If you’re an American citizen and the President is going to kill you, do you have the right to give yourself up instead so you don’t get killed?”


And: “How do you know you should do that if the President’s decision to kill you is a secret decision that nobody ever tells you?”

Brennan’s answers yesterday were not particularly awe- inspiring and basically could be summarized with the catchall: “I’ll get back to you on that.” Let us hope he does, since currently the U.S. government's position is that it declines on national security grounds to declassify the full legal justification for its covert drone attacks. This can mean only one of two things: 1) they have no genuine legal justification that can withstand hard scrutiny, or 2) there are inflammatory 'justifications' embedded that will have the entire American Left on their case, as well as the International Court of Law in The Hague. (Interestingly, btw, it is the Senate Democrats that pressed Brennan for more openness and clarity, while the Repukes chastised him for possibly giving away too much. Methinks the Reeps are ok with their future prez being able to kill "socialists, leftists, communists" at will like Hitler did with his own methods.)

More daunting a question – when configured with the previous ones, is:

4) Are there any geographic limitations on the intelligence’s community’s authority to use lethal force against Americans? (Do any intelligence agencies have the authority to carry out lethal operations inside the United States?)

Some background here:

Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick in their book ‘The Untold History of the United States’ note on p. 572 that:

“Pakistani press reports over three years (2006 to 2008) killed over 700 civilians to only 14 terrorists or 50 civilians to one terrorist”. The authors note the ratio was lowered somewhat (to 15:1) after Pakistani photographer Noor Behram held a graphic 2011 exhibition in London, of 27 drone air strikes.”

Such results helped explain the radicalization of Muslims in Pakistan given 97% viewed drones negatively according to the authors (p. 573) while the number who saw the U.S. as an enemy climbed from 64% in 2009 to 74% in 2012. (Ibid.) Hence, the evidence supports the notion that we are creating more terrorists rather than de-populating them

Adding fuel to the fire is the recent news report (ABC, Feb. 6th) that the U.S. has a drone base in Saudi Arabia from which drone strikes have been launched into 6 countries. This is unsettling. Recall the 9/11 blowback from al Qaeda was based on using Saudi Arabia as a base for U.S. operations in the Gulf War.. Thus, the 9/11 attacks were blowback (according to author Chalmers Johnson, in his book Blowback) for defiling the holiest Muslim nation - the ancestral home of the Wahabbi sect and the host nation for the holiest Muslim shrine of Mecca. Johnson basically attributed the 9/11 blowback to U.S. foreign policy, which antagonized too many groups over decades. Stone and Kuznick in their own book, essentially concur with this assessment.

Stone and Kuznick also note the near universal criticism that drones are “a cowardly form of warfare” even quoting the Thailand Nation newspaper (p. 576) that these aerial robots are merely used to "satisfy the lily –livered need to eavesdrop kill and destroy without the slightest chance of reciprocation”.


Morally this troubled Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair who: “tried to curb drone attacks and other CIA covert activities believing them a blot on America’s reputation” (p. 577)

He was replaced by retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper in 2010.

The latest issue of TIME (Feb. 11) in its drone cover story, notes (p. 30) that the UK Bureau Of Investigative Journalism estimates that up to 891 civilians were killed in Pakistan since 2004 by drone strikes. TIME goes on to note that Brennan has argued that drone attacks are lawful under a 2001 authorization that allows “use of force” for those responsible for the 9/11 attacks – but technically all those perps are dead and gone including Osama bin Laden. Hence, one can argue that the authorization for the use of the drones is now expired.

Beyond that the continued use of such attacks presents the dangerous element of unintended consequences and expanded use beyond that originally intended. This has been the argument made by Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU. Interestingly, on January 24 the UN announced a special investigation into civilian deaths arising from drone attacks.

But  the radicalizing nature of drone attacks goes far beyond the immediate killing to their unsettling and pathological effects on targeted populations’ psyches. (By ‘targeted population I mean all of those affected if a drone is covering x square miles and its ominous noise is being received as a kind of inflicted terror in its own right.) People quoted in the ABC News report, for example, reported the constant anxiety (as well as sleeplessness) in their own homes induced from the incessant whine of the drones circling outside. Imagine - if you will - the Chinese putting thousands of these fuckers in OUR skies and monitoring us every second then justifying kills based on their own judicial precepts. Would you not go ape shit? I believe most 'Muricans would reach for their Bushmasters or AKs.

We know there’ll likely be over 3.5 million drones in operation in U.S. skies by 2017, so what are they all going to be doing? Perhaps the Predator drones will be mandated to kill U.S. citizens for any number of reasons, and not necessarily by an Executive decision. A disturbng case cited in TIME (p. 32) is that of a North Dakota Sheriff who in June, 2011, called in a Predator drone from a local Air Force Base to hunt for three men believed associated with some missing cows. The drone spotted the men and could have killed them on the spot with a Hellfire missile, but ascertained they were unarmed, so they were just arrested. But who's to say this couldn't have suddenly gone south on another occasion? Three dead guys and they may not even know why they've been vaporized.

 Hell, maybe a hard core Tea Party repuke like Marco Rubio is in power and he mandates the CIA to off all JFK researchers plumbing into the assassination who are digging into why the files weren’t released as scheduled. Or maybe this guy of Cuban descent doesn’t want us mucking around into Luis Posada’s terror background and connections to the Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506. We don’t know unless the parameters for targeted kills are judicially spelled out. Maybe a hard core fundie like Paul (Moron) Broun is elected Prez and has commandeered all atheists and evolutionists be drone-killed for promoting ideas and “theories from the pit of Hell”. We don’t know! Not with the flimsy and vague criteria as given, or rather not given.

Oh, as a sideline, I had to laugh hard and long at a remark in the recent TIME article on drones (Feb. 11, p. 28), when the author noted he was pulled up by critics for using the word “drone”. As he put it (p. 29):

“I’ve been corrected and upbraided by drone users and manufacturers, military and civilian, for failing to use terms like ‘unmanned aerial vehicle’ or ‘unmanned aircraft system’ or ‘remotely piloted vehicle’. While technically accurate these terms have a clumsy, euphemistic feel"

Give me a break, already! Again, these sort of complaints about using direct language is part of why American brains are now so deformed and irrational, and incapable of coherent argument. Hell, they’ve been gutted by the substitution of collateral language (see the book by the same title).

But let's return to the core issue here: Killing people in other countries with which we are not at war. This again shows me that this nation - to regain its moral footing - needs to return to congressional declarations of war. If there is no such declaration, then NO ....you cannot launch ersatz wars, nor can we have any more "wars" such as VietNam and Iraq  based on idiotic "resolutions". I would go even further, and say unless taxes are mandated to pay for the declared war, it isn't on. Period! We cannot continue to exploit our own loose interpretation of international law and order to make ourselves policeman of the world with no consequences.

Rachel in her Thursday night show cited the main theme of the (1978) Church Committe Report and I quote from it:

“The evidence establishes that the United States was implicated in several assassination plots. The Committee believes that, short of war, assassination is incompatible with American principles, international order and morality. It should be rejected as a tool of foreign policy.”

This led Gerald Ford to issue an Executive Order banning assassinations.

Indeed, one can make the case, as I did earlier, that targeted assassinations in other nations is a counterproductive foreign policy in that it succeeds in creating more terrorists than it diminishes! It also erodes the moral basis of the nation and exposes it as an enclave of hypocrisy. For example, why haven’t right wing terrorists been targeted to the same extent? How the fuck is it that Luis Posada Carriles is still walking around alive and not dead from a Hellfire missile, while assorted accused other Americans (e.g. Anwar al-Alwaki) have been offed? Has there been the same degree of justification for the latter kills, as for the terrorist bone fides for Posada? I don’t believe so!

Add to that all the dead civilians as collateral damage and we’re really on shaky moral, legal grounds.


As Sen. Wyden noted last night on Rachel: Americans have a right to know if and when a President wants to kill them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Right wing Alpha 66 terrorist like Luis Posada Carriles, or a run of the mill al-Qaeda tool like al-Awaki.

Wyden’s other ancillary point is equally crucial: that laws need to be public, not kept secret or private. We are either a society and a nation of laws and accountability or we’re no different from the Nazis with their special “Reich laws”.

We better decide and soon if we're going to continue to take the easy, lazy (I'd add cowardly) and expeditious path that leads to perdition, or if we will adhere to the American principles of yesteryear, so well enunciated in Kennedy's American University ('Pax Americana') speech in June, 1963. It's our choice and we better damned sure make the right one!