Do We Care About Anything Meaningful, or Just Realty TV and Sports?

We don't care that the US government feels it can violate another nation's sovereignty and kill at will? I wonder the public would say if Russia or China used drones to kill innocent US citizens? Would we even care?

Courtesy: drkehres.com

(JAMESTOWN, RI) - Do we care at all that people pronounced innocent by the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA will die in jail? About 169 prisoners are still being held in Guantanamo of which 87 have been cleared for release by the CIA, FBI, and NSA. All three agencies have said these 87 should be released as there is, and was, no evidence that they ever did anything illegal, but they will not be released and probably will die as prisoners, even though they did absolutely nothing wrong. We know this, but we seem not to care. Why not?? Do we see nothing wrong with the US government holding innocents in gulags until they die?

We know the President maintains an assassination list, and people on this list have been killed. We are not told who is on the list, how many, or what they did wrong. We are told to trust the President and we blindly do. We know that one of those killed was a 16 year old US, killed while eating pizza along with several of his young friends. Who else is on the list? You? We don't care the President of the US maintains a secret hit list which includes US citizens?

We know the US government maintains the right to hold anyone indefinitely without a trial, or charges, which is contrary to everything we have ever been told about the Constitution, and we don't really care.

We know the government has intercepted about 1.7 billion e-mails without any kind of a warrant, which is contrary to the Constitution, but we don't seem to care about that either.

We know that the US government bailed out the large banks by giving them 12 trillion dollars without even asking your permission, while we gripe about the poor immigrant possibly getting food stamps illegally, nor can Congress find the money to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. But we don't seem bothered.

We know that the US Congress is trying it's best to cut social programs for needy Americans, claiming we do not have the money to fund these programs, while increasing aid to a foreign nation, but we don't seem to mind.

We know that drones kill innocent people in foreign nations, but we are not told how many are being killed, who is being killed, and why they are being killed. Since January 1st some 35 have been killed in 6 strikes. Who were they? Did they deserve to be killed? How many were innocent children? We are told this is secret and none of you business, and we don't seem to be bothered. It was General McCrystal who said every time someone dies by a drone we create 10 new terrorists, but we don't care.

We don't care that the US government feels it can violate another nation's sovereignty and kill at will? I wonder the public would say if Russia or China used drones to kill innocent US citizens? Would we even care?

We killed over one million people by invading Iraq in a war of choice, in a totally unnecessary war which was all based on lies. Not one person in the US government was held accountable for the lies which resulted in the slaughter of innocent human beings and the deaths of thousands American soldiers. Do we care that we were lied to and slaughtered innocents?

Even before the Iraq invasion, the most brutal sanctions in the history of the world resulted in the deaths of another million innocent lives in Iraq, including more than 600,000 young children.  We did not care.  Do we now care?

 A young American soldier witnessed a massacre, got the evidence, and made it public. (See Collateral Murder" video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbqmr5rtdOs  and watch mass murder take place, including an attack on those with children trying to give aid to the dying.)  What did we do? We declared the soldiers innocent of murder, arrested the alleged leaker, imprisoned him, tortured him, and will conduct a military trial behind closed doors with the goal of the death penalty or life in jail.  In a closed Russian like trial, a judge ruled that Manning had been illegally tortured while detained and took off 112 days of his possible sentence.  Naturally there was no punishment or mention of punishment for those who illegally tortured. Do we care that a young man did the honorable thing and faces a possible life sentence or death, while those potentially  guilty of war crimes go unpunished?

We all remember the pictures from Abu Ghraib (the worst were withheld from your view by the US government) where torture was the practice of the day. Did we really care about the horrifying pictures? Was anyone of significance held accountable??

As a nation, what do we really care about?  Anything at all?

Salem-News.com Writer Joe Clifford, lives in historic Jamestown, Rhode Island, and has contributed a number of articles relating to foreign policy to newspapers in the Rhode Island area for years.

He graduated from Providence College where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree. After a lengthy career as a high school teacher he turned to the study of US foreign policy, and then to writing, as a means of expressing an alternative perspective. His reading and research on foreign policy is broad and extensive, especially as the policy relates to the Middle East. His interest in foreign policy was inspired by the American misadventure in Vietnam. You can write to Joe at this address: jc21131@gmail.com