Please spare me the handwringing over the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. Like you, Ive heard our politicians say there's no place for political violence in America. Others have said such atrocities are the province of the right or alternatively of the left
All of that is false. It's complete B.S. Face it, America itself and its CIA (often in cooperation with organized crime) are assassination experts. Its not a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. Its not a question of left (as if there were a real left in America) or right.
No, its the American way. Its what we do in the world. And to stop domestic assassinations, that's what must change.
As Martin Luther King told us long ago, the U.S. (along with Israel, and NATO I would add) is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. (Vijay Prashad calls NATO the machine that destroys humanity.) Our government and those allies commit targeted and random assassinations all the time.
Think of the extrajudicial bombing of that Venezuelan fishing boat just last week. Without advancing any evidence whatsoever, those in the boat had their bodies blown to smithereens because of suspicions that they were drug dealers. No proof, no arrests, no trial. No handwringing or tears. Just killed remorselessly on suspicion. All the victims had (now severely traumatized) families.
Then think of Israeli threats to take out (decapitation, they call it) the elected leaders of Iran or of their attempts a week ago to kill Hamas leaders as they participated in peace talks in Qatar. Think of the way Israel recently killed Yemen's prime minister Ahmed al Rahawi and other Yemeni political leaders. And need we say the names Allende, Lumumba, Kaddafi, Guevara, or of a whole host of other political leaders routinely offed by the United States? Or all those attempts to murder Fidel Castro. Now they're talking about taking out Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela
But Kirk was different you might say. Though liberals don't agree with most of his positions, he was a journalist, a debater, an organizer. His assassination was an attack on free speech, on the first amendment. Killing him threatens the very concept of press freedom.
And the way he was killed was especially brutal. On "Breaking Points," Krystal Ball even urged her viewers not to watch the video. "It will haunt you for the rest of your life," she warned.
But all of that is B.S. too. Our assassins don't care about free speech, free press, the first amendment or the assassinations' brutality. For instance, we and Israel kill famous journalists virtually every day. And its all done in the most horrendous ways imaginable. More journalists (many of them award-winning) have been killed by U.S.-supported Zionists than all those killed in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined.
AND IT HAPPENS VIRTUALLY EVERY DAY!!
Those routine atrocities occur in Palestine, where many of the victims have their heads blown completely off. And it's not just the journalists and other public figures. In many cases it's their families too, wives, children, infants, parents, grandparents, and great grandparents -- who are killed along with them.
So, again, please spare me the crocodile tears! You can't routinely assassinate innocents, political leaders, and journalists across the planet and not expect it to come home.
So yes, with the political murder of Charlie Kirk, assassinations' homecoming is undeniable and horrific. The chickens have indeed come here to roost.
And it's not something that can be cured by stricter gun laws or by the left and right singing Kumbaya together.
What must change is U.S. policy. We and Israel and NATO must stop being the world's foremost political assassins and terrorists!
