[Buddha-l] FW: Is the USA mentally ill? (Was, was the Buddha mentally ill?)

[JKirkpatrick]

Speaking of the casualties in the Afghan (and Iraq) "wars"
(imperial thuggery), check out this commentary. US bodhisattvas
are slacking on the job when it comes to major US mayhem. 
Best to hang out at the shrine and mumble mantras.
But (to borrow a familiar phrase), I digress:

http://www.truth-out.org/national-insecurity-afraid-truth61841

...what the release of these documents threaten is the huge
almost decade-long lie that both the last administration of
President George W. Bush, and the current administration of
Barack Obama have been putting out, that the US is engaged in a
“good war,” trying to defeat “terrorists” and establish a
democratic government in Afghanistan......

The WikiLeaks documents show the US to be engaged in a brutal war
in which the local civilians are of no consequence, or in which
they are even seen as the enemy. The only reason there is any
concern at all about their welfare is a recognition that when
they are killed, it strengthens support for the Taliban. There is
no objective concern for their welfare.

The danger of the WikiLeaks papers is that they expose America as
a classic imperialist or neo-colonialist oppressor, not some kind
of virtuous purveyor and defender of freedom and democratic
principles.

And this kind of exposé risks turning Americans against the war
even more than they already are (polls taken just before the
WikiLeaks release show that even with the biased, pro-war
coverage provided by the corporate media, a narrow majority of
Americans currently wants the US out of Afghanistan).

That is what has the White House and the Pentagon in a panic.

America’s foreign policy, and particularly its policy of war
without end, is critically dependent upon the government’s
ability to *lie with impunity*. Most of the time, it gets away
with this. The corporate media, for the most part, plays along,
only questioning things on the margin, if at all. The basis
premise, that the war is necessary, doesn’t get
challenged..............


JK
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On Jul 29, 2010, at 10:00 AM, Richard Hayes wrote:

(Every month more Mexicans die in the Arizona desert as they
cross into the US in search of work than the number of casualties
in America's other stupid and pointless wars. People who try to
help Mexicans by taking food and water and emergency medical
supplies to the desert are arrested and subjected to large fines,
even imprisonment. Being a bodhisattva is dangerous work in this
country.)