Johannes Stern

Recognize the moral sermons of Obama for what they are: propaganda in the pursuit of imperialism’s geostrategic interests.

Wednesday’s massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters by the US-backed Egyptian military junta shatters Washington’s hypocritical claims that its Middle East policy is based on democracy and human rights.

Obama faced a dilemma as he spoke on Egypt yesterday, from his vacation spot in the multi-million-dollar mansion of a corporate finance manager on Martha’s Vineyard. Washington would have preferred to arrange a compromise between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of deposed President Mohamed Mursi. However, amid rising mass protests in July, it ultimately gave its blessing to a military coup, removing Mursi in order to preempt renewed revolutionary struggles by the working class.

Washington apparently failed to fully foresee the implications of allowing the military and its supporters in the liberal bourgeoisie to settle accounts with the MB. It now fears that with the latest massacre, the army has overreached itself, irretrievably destabilizing Egypt and undermining US Middle East policy.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Americans will soon be locked into an unaccountable police state unless US Representatives and Senators find the courage to ask questions and to sanction the executive branch officials who break the law, violate the Constitution, withhold information from Congress, and give false information about their crimes against law, the Constitution, the American people and those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. Congress needs to use the impeachment power that the Constitution provides and cease being subservient to the lawless executive branch. The US faces no threat that justifies the lawlessness and abuse of police powers that characterize the executive branch in the 21st century.

Impeachment is the most important power of Congress. Impeachment is what protects the citizens, the Constitution, and the other branches of government from abuse by the executive branch. If the power to remove abusive executive branch officials is not used, the power ceases to exist. An unused power is like a dead letter law. Its authority disappears. By acquiescing to executive branch lawlessness, Congress has allowed the executive branch to place itself above law and to escape accountability for its violations of law and the Constitution.

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