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| What are all those little mini bumper stickers and bars about? |
Petraeus was in charge of the "surge" that the US claims pacified Iraq and also was their man in Afghanistan, before becoming head of the CIA. All these people are connected through a web of marriages, links, business connections and favor trading.
Obama said of Petraeus' resignations that he is, "Completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe,"
But the work of the CIA has nothing to do with keeping us safe, and everything to do with keeping US corporations' profits safe. It has been involved in assassinations and murders throughout the world helping to suppress any and all resistance to the plunder of a nations resources by US capitalism. It has protected the interests of oil companies in Iran by overthrowing the democratic government of Mosssadegh there in 1953 and the democratically elected leader of Guatemala in 1954.
The murder of Lumumba of The Congo, Rene Schneider and Allende in Chile, and other Latin American leaders unwilling to open their country's resources to US multinationals are all part of the CIA's handiwork. Walter Rodney, the Guyanese politician and Socialist who was assassinated in 1980 is undoubtedly another victim. The first operatives in Vietnam and other countries where the US needs to destabilize the state are CIA. It's not a nice organization and you have to be a trusted tool of the US bourgeois to head it.
California Senator, Dianne Feinstein heaped praise on Petraeus, "I very much regret the resignation of David Petraeus. This is an enormous loss for our nation's intelligence community and for our country." And so she should, Feinstein's billionaire husband Richard Blum, is an investment banker with his grubby little hands in numerous global pies. Feinstein is one of the richest women in the US, her net worth went from $26 million in 2003 to between $43 and $99 million in2005 according to Wikipedia. That's not bad for two years and as a lot of that comes from ripping off workers in the former colonial world the CIA is an important security blanket for them.
When I look at that picture of him above with all those ridiculous tributes stuck on him it reminds me of those birds that steal little trinkets and hide them in their nests. Revolutionists never look like that, adorn themselves with all that stuff. The American revolutionists, the Russian and Spanish and other revolutionists don't need it, the cause is enough. All that color and pomp comes with being a ruling elite, he reminds me of Brezhnev or Pinochet.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghani civilians have been killed by US capitalism's predatory wars against these people. Prior to that, more than 500,000 Iraqis died due to the US imposed sanctions against their old chum, Saddam Hussein. The US has yet to apologize for killing three million Vietnamese and pouring dioxin on them and their own troops, 67,000 of whom died in that war against a people who had never threatened or harmed the US.
The brunt of these post Vietnam excursions on behalf of US corporations is being borne buy a small section of American families. Not the Obama's, or Bush's or Cheney's or Rumsfeld's, but those families who have much fewer options than these people; don't have their money or connections. Yet when they are seen on TV or in public they hold their hands over their hearts and talk about the patriotism and bravery and courage of the fallen. What hypocrites they are, hypocrites and liars. These wars, the death and destruction that Petraeus and his buddies wreak on societies including young American lives is something they avoid but get colorful little pins stuck all over their clothes in recognition of their sacrifice.
Those few US families that are bearing the brunt of these excursions are losing more and more of their family members to suicide which is an epidemic in the military. We will not know the level of demoralization among the troops until it breaks out more in to the open. It was severe in Vietnam, it's not like Hollywood. Killing another human for most of us, even when we have to do so to save our own lives, has severe psychological consequences. A whole generation of human beings here and abroad are the sad victims of US capitalism's ruthless wars. Bus as long as the profits keep rolling in, it's worth it.
That what the medals are for.
