Spying and Drones: What the Hell Is Wrong With Us?

Spying and Drones: What the Hell Is Wrong With Us?:
No, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with us? Are we that crazed about our own precious safety that we simply don't give a shit anymore about what other nations think when it comes to us "protecting" ourselves from "terrorists"? At this point, the United States views the world as one giant conspiracy out to destroy truth, justice, and high school football. We're so bugfuck insane that Osama bin Laden must be laughing his crab-bitten ass off at the bottom of the ocean.

What it looks like is that, starting in 2006, under orders from George W. Bush, the National Security Agency began monitoring the calls of dozens of foreign leaders. How did the NSA start doing so? Because some "U.S. official" gave the spooks the personal or direct phone numbers of the leaders. Ain't that some shit right there? It's like showing all the guys at the bar pictures of your girlfriend's tits that you assured her were only for you.

The biggest allegation so far is that the NSA monitored the cell phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A question about it to Press Secretary Jay Carney led to one of the all-time great weasel answers: "The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel." Now, the Rude Pundit may not be a big city diplomat, but he is a professor, and he knows when the past tense is missing in a sentence. That shit's so weaselly that actual weasels stood on their hind legs and applauded.

So Germany's pissed at us. A good chunk of Europe is pissed at us. Or, to be more specific, pissed at President Obama because no matter who started it, Obama could have stopped it. One left-leaning newspaper in Germany editorialized, "It's hard to even imagine how Obama's intelligence services deal with hostile states when one sees how they behave toward their closest allies." Even the German interior minister, who had up to this point thought the NSA spying scandal was bullshit, demanded an apology.

And before anyone tries to say this is no big deal, much ado about nothing, metadata, or whatever self-deluding nonsense you wanna toss onto the shitpile, what's more important, huh? Hearing Angela Merkel order take-out bratwurst or whatever the fuck they do in Germany? Or assuring ongoing cooperation from our, you know, allies? 'Cause those alleged allies are already thinking of telling the United States to go fuck itself on sharing spy information.

Of course, a little phone and email eavesdropping would be preferable for the people of Pakistan and Yemen, where Obama's drone war is killing the shit out of civilians. Like, you know, the "18 laborers, including a 14-year-old boy, [who] were killed in multiple strikes on an impoverished village close to the border with Afghanistan as they were about to enjoy an evening meal at the end of a long day of work" in July 2012. The U.S. reported that as a successful terrorist murder operation, but Amnesty International discovered that it was, in fact, 18 laborers, including a 14-year old boy, who had fuck-all to do with terrorism. There's lots more like that in both countries where we rain fiery death on the people.

What's the game here? Is it that once Obama was shown the real threats to the United States, the shit we're all too stupid to be allowed to see, he lost his fuckin' mind and decided to go survivalist? Or is it that Obama is so concerned, like Democrats before him, to be seen as a tough motherfucker at home that he doesn't really care what people overseas think about the spying and the drones missiles?

The Rude Pundit has a problem with all of this. He can't just sweep it under the rug, say he trusts Obama, go about his daily life, and be glad that he's not getting attacked. Fuck that. He didn't sign up for this. He's not gonna pretend it's okay because it's not. And if it takes our European allies and the human rights organizations we have trusted for decades to smack us back into reality, then, please, slap away at our contorted faces.

(Note to Obama supporters who go nutzoid at any hint of negativity from the left: The Rude Pundit can, in the same week, support President Obama on health care reform and attack him for drone missile murder. It's like you can love your husband for being such a good father but hate him for being such a shitty lay.)