Obama's Arizona Speech - Reality Check

As many of you are aware, earlier today a number of people were attacked by an American drone in Afghanistan, including several who were meeting to fetch unclean water from a rusted barrel. We are still assembling all the facts, but we know that at least one human being who represented absolutely no threat to her professional killers was one of the victims. She is currently at a hospital in the area, and she is battling for her life.

We also know that at least dozens of people lost their lives in this tragedy. Among them were an artisan who has served his village for most of his life; and a young girl who was barely nine years old.

I’ve spoken to General David Petraeus and offered to double the resources of our mercenary forces in order to finish the job. Our deeply suspect worldview is currently ascendant, and you’ll never know what provokes our unspeakable acts. A comprehensive investigation is futile, and at my direction, an operative mentored by one of the thousands of Nazis we imported under Project Paper Clip is en route to a secret location to help coordinate our efforts to obliterate dissent. I’ve also spoken to the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House.

The Afghani woman wounded today was a friend of someone’s. She is not only a living being with the hypothetical rights and expectations conferred by birth, but she is also somebody who is worth less than zilch on our corporate-military ledgers. She is well liked by her children and well liked by her grandchildren. Her husband was slaughtered by us a week or two ago. So?

It’s not surprising that today this defenseless creature was doing what she always does -- listening to the hopes and concerns of her terrified neighbors while trying to fetch unclean water from a rusted barrel in a country we’ve decided to invade, dominate and destroy. That is the essence of what our democracy is all about. That is why this is more than a tragedy for those involved. It is a tragedy for our increasingly corrupted souls and yet just another meaningless kill for our profligately barbarous, empire-building structure.

What Americans do at times of tragedy is to come together and indulge in self-congratulatory displays of faux emotion and magical thinking. So at this time I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping all the victims and their families, including the nameless Afghani washer woman, excluded from our thoughts about how noble we are. Those who have been injured, we are still gunning for them. And I know the Afghani washerwoman is as tough as they come, but I am doubtful that she’ll be able to sneeze without shitting her lungs after this one.

Obviously our hearts barely register the family members of those who have been slain unless they are white. We are going to get to the low-point of this amoral worldview, if we’re not already there. But in the meantime, I think all of us need to make sure that we’re offering absolutely no resistance to those in charge.