Stephen Lendman

Under Obama, America more than ever is a global menace.

Oxford Dictionaries call rogue states "nation(s) or state(s) regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations." They're authoritarian or despotic and ruthless. They stop at nothing to achieve aims. They spurn human and civil rights. They possess weapons of mass destruction. They sponsor state terrorism.

William Blum's done some of the best research. His books include "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower." He documented how from 1945 through 2005, America tried or succeeded in toppling over 40 governments. It crushed dozens of popular movements. It slaughtered millions of people doing so. It condemned countless others to immiseration, agony and despair. According to Blum, US policies are "worse than you imagine." "If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy (throughout) the past century, this is what crawls out:"

"invasions, bombings, (subversion), overthrowing governments, suppressing (popular) movements for social change, assassinating political leaders, perverting elections, manipulating labor unions, manufacturing 'news,' death squads, torture, (chemical), biological (and nuclear) warfare, (radiological contamination), drug trafficking, mercenaries," police state repression, and war on humanity writ large. "It’s not a pretty picture," said Blum. "It is enough to give imperialism a bad name."

Bullies make more enemies than friends. America's the unchallenged world champion. It intimidates, threatens, and otherwise pressures other nations to comply with its will. Obey or else... is policy. It's waging longstanding war on humanity. It risks mass annihilation. It doesn't matter. Unchallenged global dominance alone counts. Rogue states operate that way. America's by far the worst. It targets independent governments. It wants pro-Western puppet regimes replacing them. It wants control of the world's resources. It wants ordinary people exploited as serfs. It mocks democratic values. It spurns rule of law principles. It enforces its will through the barrel of a gun.

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John W. Whitehead

Here’s a recipe for disaster: Take a young man (or woman), raise him on a diet of violence, hype him up on the power of the gun in his holster and the superiority of his uniform, render him woefully ignorant of how to handle a situation without resorting to violence, train him well in military tactics but allow him to be illiterate about the Constitution, and never stress to him that he is to be a peacemaker and a peacekeeper, respectful of and subservient to the taxpayers, who are in fact his masters and employers.

Once you have fully indoctrinated this young man (or woman) on the idea that the police belong to a brotherhood of sorts, with its own honor code and rule of law, then place this person in situations where he will encounter individuals who knowingly or unknowingly challenge his authority, where he may, justifiably or not, feel threatened, and where he will have to decide between firing a weapon or, the more difficult option, adequately investigating a situation in order to better assess the danger and risk posed to himself and others, and then act on it by defusing the tension or de-escalating the violence.

I’m not talking about a situation so obviously fraught with risk that there is no other option but to shoot, although I am hard pressed to consider what that might be outside of the sensationalized Hollywood hostage crisis scenario. I’m talking about the run-of-the mill encounters between police and citizens that occur daily. In an age when police are increasingly militarized, weaponized and protected by the courts, these once-routine encounters are now inherently dangerous for any civilian unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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