Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" versus President Obama's "I Have a Drone"

[The 4th Media Editor’s note: The following two articles originated from the Washington’s Blog. We believed if we combine them together as one article since the essence of both of these articles talk about the very much same thing in substance. Hope it can help our global audiences.]

‘All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper’: Dr. King’s last message to you

Martin King’s last speech is our message today:

99% of Americans stand for unalienable rights as expressed on our Declaration of Independence, with equal protection under just laws.
“All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper” means US law enforcement arresting 1% criminals for obvious crimes in war and money.
The loving hearts and minds of the 99% plus the removal from power of the 1% ends our “emperor has no clothes” obvious unlawful wars and opens economic solutions that immediately saves millions of lives, helps billions of people, and reclaims trillions of our looted dollars.

Martin knew the criminal 1% that would assassinate him within 24 hours (as found by theKing Family’s civil trial verdict) were addicted to war and neo-slavery that the 99% oppose:

“…the world is all messed up. The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around… The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: “We want to be free.”

… Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.”

Martin knew the path forward, the path our 99% take today:

“We mean business now and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world. And that’s all this whole thing is about. We aren’t engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying, we are saying that we are God’s children. And if we are God’s children, we don’t have to live like we are forced to live.

Now what does all this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula of doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh’s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery.”

You have opportunity today for your unique, beautiful, and powerful self-expression for your heart and mind’s highest calling.

The future we all want is possible.

All we have to do is stand, speak, and act for its realization.

Do you care enough to do so?

NOW

I Have a Drone: Obama’s Drone Policy Is Backfiring

John Glaser notes:

Michael Boyle, who was on Obama’s counter-terrorism advisory group in the run-up to the 2008 election, writes in a study for the Chatham House journal International Affairs that Obama abandoned his pledge to restore respect for the rule of law following the Bush administration.

Obama “has been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor [maybe worse] … while President Bush issued a call to arms to defend ‘civilisation’ against the threat of terrorism, President Obama has waged his war on terror in the shadows, using drone strikes, special operations and sophisticated surveillance to fight a brutal covert war against al-Qaida and other Islamist networks,” Boyle writes.

The study concludes that the Obama administration has been “successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties” downward by counting all military-age males they kill as combatants. Civilian casualties are likely to be far higher than so far acknowledged, Boyle said, and government claims to the contrary are ”based on a highly selective and partial reading of the evidence.”

“The result of the ‘guilt by association’ approach has been a gradual loosening of the standards by which the US selects targets for drone strikes,” the study says.

“The consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions thatkill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur. No one really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands.”

Stanley McChrystal, the former military general that Obama fired after he made disparaging remarks about the President to a reporter, is also speaking out against the drone war now.

“What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world,” McChrystal said in an interview. “The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes…is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects of one.”

McChrystal added that drones exacerbate a “perception of American arrogance.”

The retired general has a history of bluntness in this respect. McChrystal has also explained matter-of-factly to the New York Times how the US military “have shot an amazing number of people [in Afghanistan], but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” He also, rather adroitly, explained the logic of what he called “insurgent math.” That is, “for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”

Boyle says there is an urgent need for greater transparency because most Americans remained “unaware of the scale of the drone programme…and the destruction it has caused in their name”.

He added that drones are having “adverse strategic effects” by causing hatred among the local populations where US bombs fall and also by ”encouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent.”

A report by researchers at the Stanford and NYU schools of law found in September that the drone program is “terrorizing” the people of Pakistan and that it is having“counterproductive” effects.

The US drone war in Pakistan not only kills and injures civilians, the report finds, but it traumatizes the population and has led people to keep their children home from school and to avoid any large grouping of people, however innocent. It also says the drone war has helped recruitment efforts of extremist groups like al-Qaeda.